CHAP. I.] SIMPLE FEVER I SYMPTOMS. 183 



symptom, with blear eyes, and a running at the nose, 

 which may devolve into glanders if the discharge 

 be from one nostril only, and that one the left. A 

 good vulgar criterion for judging when a stable is 

 thus over-heated — if common-sense and the number 

 of horses already in it be not sufficiently intelligible 

 — may be deduced from the behaviour of the horse 

 himself ; on being brought to the door, he will re- 

 fuse to enter it without compulsion, or at any rate, 

 if hunger impels him, he hesitates to comply for a 

 moment. 



The ancient vulgar name given to this alarming 

 disease conveys to the common observer a better 

 idea of its force and danger, than those which are 

 settled by consent of the faculty of horse medicine • 

 and the phrase " inflammation of the blood," may be 

 taken as more plainly indicative of the cause offerer 

 than aught the moderns have substituted in its place. 

 Had our plain-speaking ancestors termed it " in- 

 flammation of the Wood-vessels," they would have 

 been still more accurate, probably ; but no mistake 

 is more common in the avocations of life, than to 

 speak of the thing contained by the thing containing 

 it, and the contrary. When the symptoms come on 

 quick or acutely, the most prompt measures must 

 be taken : a mild attack may be easily reduced, if 

 taken in time, but, if neglected, it assumes the most 

 alarming symptoms. Evacuations and diluting 

 drinks are the proper means of reducing the patient ; 

 but before purgatives are administered, see what is 

 said a few pages onward respecting " Costiveness ;" 

 for it not unfrequently happens, that this is all that 



