INFLAMMATORY AFFECTIONS 281 



up for the night. Next mornmg there was Httle improve- 

 ment ; respirations over 80, and temperature 103 "5°. Con- 

 tinue same treatment. Second morning, horse apparently- 

 easier ; temperature 102'5°, but very difficult respiration ; 

 laxative had operated during the night ; ordered diffusible 

 stimulants. About two hours and a half after my last 

 visit, the horse turned round in his stall and dropped down 

 dead ! 



* History oj the Horse. — He belonged to an extensive 

 horse-hiring establishment ; was purchased a short time 

 before for i*60 — a long price for a post-horse — had recently 

 suffered and been off work from some " severe cold"; was 

 taken out, and did forty-seven miles of a journey the day 

 before I saw him ; on forenoon of the day on which he was 

 attacked he did two or three short turns, and then twenty- 

 one miles of a journey in the afternoon, during which 

 he became so ill as scarcely to be able to conclude the 

 twenty-one miles; this was the last turn he was to do. 

 He was a grand stepper, and no doubt was pushed a little 

 during this final journey, as the driver intended, after 

 a short rest, to finish off with the twenty-six miles between 

 this and home. With the short turns on the second fore- 

 noon, this would have been over 100 miles in less than two 

 days, with a horse just out of a severe cold.'* 



2. * Whilst attending a patient on a farm on September 5 

 last my attention was called to a cart-horse, five years of 

 age, that had been castrated in the standing position by a 

 travelling castrator about ten days previously. 



* I found the animal presenting the following symptoms : 

 Head down, blowing hard, very dull, and disinclined to 

 move, temperature 105° F., hard, rapid, slightly irregular 

 pulse, membranes injected, appetite lost ; scrotum, sheath, 

 and penis tremendously swollen, castration wounds un- 

 healthy, and exuding a thin, reddish-brown discharge of a 

 most foetid odour. 



* The next day well-marked symptoms of laminitis were 

 present. I finally ceased attending him about the middle 



* Veterinary Jouimal, vol. xvii., p. 814 (A. E. Macgillivray). 



