480 



9 



twenty-four hours. For the first three days of the high temperature 

 there is a great tendency to constipation, which should be avoided if 

 possible, for, if it has been marked, it may be followed by a trouble- 

 some diarrhea. 



Terminations. — The termination of simple influenza may be death by 

 extreme fever, with failure of the heart's action; from excessive coma, 

 due generally to a rapid congestion of the brain; to the poisonous 

 effects of the debris of the disintegrated blood corpuscles ; to an as- 

 phyxia, following congestion of the lungs; or the disease terminates by 

 subsidence of the fever, return of the appetite and nutritive functions 

 of the organs, and rapid convalescence; or, in an unfortunately large 

 number of cases, the course of the disease is complicated by local in- 

 flammatory troubles, whose gravity is greater in influenza than it ia 

 when they occur as sporadic diseases. 



Complications. — The complications are congestions, followed by in- 

 flammatory phenomena in the various organs of the body, but they are 

 most commonly located in the lungs, intestines, brain, or vascular 1am- 

 iuie of the feet. Atmospheric influence or other surrounding influences 

 of unknown quality seem to be an important factor in the determina- 

 tion of the local lesions. At certain seasons of the year, and in certain 

 epizootics, we find 40 and 50 per cent, or even a greater i)ercentage of 

 the cases rendered more serious by complication of the intestines ; at 

 other seasons of the year, or in other epizootics, we find the same per 

 cent, of cases complicated by inflammation of the lungs, while at the 

 same time a small percentage of them are complicated by troubles of 

 the other organs ; inflammatory changes of the brain, of the laminae, 

 more rarely commence in epizootic form, but are to be found in a cer- 

 tain small i^ercentage of cases in all epizootics. 



Exciting causes are important factors in complicating individual cases 

 of influenza, or in localizing special lesions either during enzootics or 

 epizootics. These exciting or determining causes act much as they 

 would in sporadic inflammatory diseases, but in this case we find the 

 animal much more susceptible and predisposed to be acted upon than 

 ordinary healthy animals. With a temperature already elevated, with 

 the heart's action driving the blood in increased quantity into the dis- 

 tended blood-vessels, which become dilated and lose their contractility, 

 with a congestion of all of the vascular organs already established, it 

 takes but little additional irritation to carry the congestion one step 

 further and produce inflammation. 



Complication of the intestines. — When any cause acts as an irritant to 

 the intestinal tract during the course of this specific fever it may pro- 

 duce inflammation of the organs belonging to it. This cause maybe 

 constipation, which can only find relief in a congestion which offers to 

 increase the function of the glands and relieve the inertia caused by a 

 temporary cessation of activity; or irritant medicines, especially any 

 incieased use of antimony, turpentine, or the more active ri'medies; the 



