CATARRH, OR COLD. 251 



showing the half-subdued but still existing fever — the uniform colour, but 

 somewhat redder than natural, indicating a return to a healthy state of the 

 circulation — the paleness approaching to white, accompanying a state of debility, 

 and yet some radiations of crimson, showing that there is still considerable 

 irritability, and that mischief may be in the wind — the pale livid colour warn- 

 ing you that the disease is assuming a typhoid character— the darker livid 

 announcing that the typhus is established, and that the vital current is stag- 

 nating — and the browner, dirty painting, intermingling with and subduing the 

 lividness, and indicating that the game is up. These appearances will be guides 

 to our opinion and treatment, which we can never too highly appreciate. 



CATARRH, OR COLD. 



Catarrh, or Cold, is attended by a slight defluxion from the nose — now and 

 then, a slighter weeping from the eyes, and some increased labour of breathing, 

 on account of the uneasiness which the animal experiences from the passage of 

 the air over the naturally sensitive and now more than usually irritable surface, 

 and from the air- passage being diminished by a thickening of the membrane. 

 When this is a simply local inflammation, attended by no loss of appetite or 

 increased animal temperature, it may speedily pass over. 



In many cases, however, the inflammation of a membrane naturally so 

 sensitive, and rendered so morbidly irritable by our absurd treatment, rapidly 

 spreads, and involves the fauces, the lymphatic and some of the salivary glands, 

 the throat, the parotid gland, and the membrane of the larynx. We have then 

 increased discharge from the nose, greater redness of the membrane of the nose, 

 more defluxion from the eyes, and loss of appetite from a degree of fever asso- 

 ciating itself with the local affection, and there also being a greater or less degree 

 of pain in the act of swallowing, and which if the animal feels this he will never 

 eat. Congh now appears more or less frequent or painful ; but with no great 

 acceleration of the pulse, or heaving of the flanks. 



Catarrh may arise from a thousand causes. Membranes subjected to so many 

 sources of irritation soon become irritable. Exposure to cold or rain, change of 

 stable, change of weather, change of the slightest portion of clothing, neglect of 

 grooming, and a variety of circumstances apparently trifling, and which they 

 who are unaccustomed to horses would think could not possibly produce any 

 injurious effect, are the causes of catarrh. In the spring of the year, and while 

 moulting, a great many young horses have cough ; and in the dealers' stables, 

 where the process of making up the horse for sale is carrying on, there is 

 scarcely one of them that escapes this disease. 



In the majority of cases, a few warm mashes, warm clothing, and a warm 

 stable — a fever-ball or two, with a drachm of aloes in each, and a little antimony 

 in the evening, will set all right. Indeed, all would soon be right without any 

 medicine ; and much more speedily and perfectly than if the cordials, of which 

 grooms and farriers are so fond, had been given. Nineteen horses out of twenty 

 with common catarrh will do well ; but in the twentieth case, a neglected cough 

 may be the precursor of bronchitis, and pneumonia. These chest affections 

 often insidiously creep on, and inflammation is frequently established before any 

 one belonging to the horse is aware of its existence. If there is the least fever, 

 the horse should be bled. A common cold, attended by heat of the mouth or in- 

 disposition to feed, should never pass without the abstraction of blood. A physic- 

 ball, however, should not be given in catarrh without much consideration. It 

 can scarcely be known what sympathy may exist between the portion of mem- 

 brane already affected, and the mucous membranes generally. In severe tho- 

 racic affection, or in that which may soon become so, a dose of physic would be 

 little better than a dose of poison. If, however, careful investigation renders it 

 evident that there is no affection of the lungs, and that the disease has not pro- 



