258 EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 



BRONCHOCELE. 

 Mr. Percivall ia almost the only author who takes notice of enlargement of 

 the thyroid glands— two oval hodies below the larynx, and attached to the tra- 

 chea. The use of them has never been satisfactorily explained. They some- 

 times grow to the size of an egg, or larger, but are unattended by cough or fever, 

 and are nothing more than an eye- sore. The iodine ointment has occasionally 

 been applied with success. The blister or the seton may also be useful. 



EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 



Various names are given to this disease — influenza, distemper, catarrhal fever, 

 and epidemic catarrh. Its usual history is as follows. 



In the spring of the year — a cold wet spring — and that succeeding to a mild 

 winter, and especially among young horses, and those in high condition, or made 

 up for sale, or that have been kept in hot stables, or exposed to the usual causes 

 of inflammation, this disease principally, and sometimes almost exclusively, 

 prevails. Those that are in moderate work, and that are correspondingly fed, 

 generally escape ; or even when it appears in most of the stables in a narrower 

 or wider district, horses in barracks, regularly worked and moderately fed, 

 although not entirely exempt, are comparatively seldom diseased. 



If it has been observed from the beginning, it will be found that the attack 

 is usually sudden, ushered in by shivering, and that quickly succeeded by acce- 

 leration of pulse, heat of mouth, staring coat, tucked-up belly, diminution of 

 appetite, painful but not loud cough, heaving at the flanks, redness of the 

 membrane of the nose, swelled and weeping eye, dejected countenance — these 

 are the symptoms of catarrh, but under a somewhat aggravated form. 



It clearly is not inflammation of the lungs ; for there is no coldness of the 

 extremities, no looking at the flanks, no stiff immovable position, no obstinate 

 standing up. It is not simple catarrh ; for as early as the second day there is 

 evident debility. The horse staggers as he walks. 



It is inflammation of the respiratory passages generally. It commences in 

 the membrane of the nose, but it gradually involves the whole of the respiratory 

 apparatus. Before the disease has been established four-and-twenty hours, 

 there is frequently sore throat. The horse quids his hay, and gulps his water. 

 There is no great enlargement of the glands ; the parotids are a little tumefied, 

 the submaxillary somewhat more so, but not at all equivalent to the degree of 

 soreness. That soreness is excessive, and day after day the horse will obstinately 

 refuse to eat. Discharge from the nose soon follows in considerable quantity : 

 thick, very early purulent, and sometimes foetid. The breathing is accelerated 

 and laborious at the beginning, but does not always increase with the progress 

 of the disease — nay, sometimes, a deceitful calm succeeds, and the pulse, 

 quickened and full at first, soon loses its firmness, and although it usually 

 maintains its unnatural quickness, yet it occasionally deviates from this, and 

 subsides to little more than its natural standard. The extremities continue tc 

 be comfortably warm, or at least the temperature is variable, and there is not 

 in the manner of the animal, or in any one symptom, a decided reference to any 

 particular part or spot as the chief seat of disease. 



Thus the malady proceeds for an uncertain period : occasionally for several 

 days — in not a few instances through the whole of its course, and the animal 

 dies exhausted by extensive or general irritation: but in other cases the 

 inflammation assumes a local determination, and we have bronchitis or pneu- 

 monia, but of no very acute character, yet difficult to treat, from the general 

 debility with which it is connected. Sometimes there are considerable swellings 

 ia various parts, as the chest, the belly, the extremities, and particularly the. 



