DISEASES OF THE HEAET. 347 



SIGNS OF DISEASE OFFEKED BY THE CAPILLARY 



CIRCULATION. 



These are simple, connected with the appearance of vascular 

 parts uncovered by hair or a thick cuticle, and in which any 

 modifications of the vascular apparatus may be at once wit- 

 nessed. Kedness of the conjunctiva and nasal membrane is 

 frequently a sign of plethora, fever, or inflammatory disease. 

 The redness is ramified, or dependent on a gorged state of 

 the blood-vessels, but in some instances the blood becomes 

 diseased, and transudes through the capillaries, so that 

 instead of a uniform ramified redness, red spots produced by 

 extravasated blood are produced. These blood-spots 

 petechiae are very unfavourable signs of severe general 

 disorders. 



DISEASES OF THE HEAET. 



Treatises on veterinary medicine, British or foreign, are 

 singularly scanty in information on this important subject. 



Leblanc remarks, that after having denied the existence of 

 heart disease in animals, practitioners have admitted that 

 they are, after all, not rare, but have doubted the possibility 

 of diagnosing them. I think, with Leblanc, that though the 

 diagnosis cannot be declared easy, the diseases are neverthe- 

 less so characteristic as to leave little doubt as to their 

 nature, when observed by an intelligent practitioner. The 

 diagnosis of heart disease will always call for correct anato- 

 mical and physiological knowledge, and .careful observation. 

 There are forms which the veterinarian will not easily dis- 

 tinguish, especially as he can never hope to attain that pro- 

 ficiency in auscultating the diseased heart which the human 

 physician can acquire. Heart disease in man is not only 

 common, but the heart is so exposed, and the region it 



