MOULTING CONSIDERED EPIDEMIC. [BOOK II. 



consequence, however slight the cold may have 

 been at first. Sometimes access of all those symp- 

 toms we have already described, will be found in 

 the same animal, and he usually bends before the 

 complication of evils and dies, unless speedily re- 

 lieved by bleeding, &c. From its prevalence at 

 some seasons, we then agree to call it " epidemic," 

 though not a good term, and to recommend a treat- 

 ment corresponding with the prevailing symptoms, 

 if these be mild, as a simple cold ; which form the 

 epidemic fever or distemper always assumes in its 

 earliest stages. On the other hand, the cold or 

 catarrh which the moulting animal acquires in au- 

 tumn, finds his system reduced by the heat and la- 

 bour of summer ; his blood, in quality or quantity, 

 is scarcely capable of being excited to inflamma- 

 tion, and the first attacks are more easily subdued. 

 Neglect, however, increases the evil at all times, 

 especially with the more valuable well-conditioned 

 animals, some of which are so tenderly managed, 

 that they scarcely can stand the opening of a door 

 or shutter after dark, without catching cold. Neither 

 autumn or winter is the season for remedying this 

 defect in stable management, — if ever it can be got 

 over at all. 



Symptoms. — According to the precise part at- 

 tacked, these vary not only as to appearances, but 

 as to virulence or malignity, always increasing as 

 the complaint descends lower and lower down to- 

 wards the seat of vitality : the danger being also 

 greatly augmented when the animal is pre-disposed 



