EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 261 



fore, must judge for himself. Is the disease in its earliest stage marked by 

 evident inflammatory action ? Is there much redness of the membrane of the- 

 nose— much acceleration of the pulse— much heaving of the flanks ? If so 

 blood must be abstracted. The orifice should be large that the blood may flow 

 quickly, and the circulation be sooner affected ; and the medical attendant 

 should be present at this first venesection that he may close the orifice as soon as 

 the pulse begins to falter. This attention to the first bleeding is indispensable. 

 It is the carelessness with winch it is performed— the ignorance of the object to 

 be accomplished, and the effect actually produced, that destroys half the 

 horses that are lost from this malady. The first falter of the pulse is the 

 signal to suspend the bleeding. Every drop lost afterwards may be wanted. 



If there is no appearance of febrile action, or only a very slight one 

 small doses of aloes may be given, combined with the fever medicines recom- 

 mended for catarrh. As soon as the fasces are pultaceous, or even before that the 

 aloes should be omitted and the fever medicine continued. It will rarely be 

 prudent to continue the aloes beyond the third drachm. 



A stricter attention must be paid to diet than the veterinarian usually 

 enforces, or the groom dreams of. No corn must be allowed, but mashes and 

 thin gruel. The water should be entirely taken away, and a bucket of gruel sus- 

 pended in the box. This is an excellent plan with regard to every sick horse 

 that we do not wish to reduce too much ; and when he finds that the morning 

 and evening pass over, and his water is not offered to him, he will readily take 

 to the gruel, and drink as much of it as is good for him. Green meat should be 

 early offered ; such as grass, tares (the latter especially), lucerne, and, above 

 all, carrots. If these cannot be procured, a little hay may be wetted, and 

 offered morsel after morsel by the hand. Should this be refused, the hay may 

 be damped with water slightly salted, and then the patient will generally seize it 

 with avidity. 



Should the horse refuse to eat during the two or three first days, there is no 

 occasion to be in a hurry to drench with gruel; it will make the mouth sore 

 and the throat sore, and tease and disgust : but if he should long continue obsti- 

 nately to refuse his food, nutriment must be forced upon him. Good thick gruel 

 must be horned down, or, what is better, given by means of Read's pump. 



The practitioner will often and anxiously have recourse to auscultation. He 

 will listen for the mucous rattle, creeping down the windpipe, and entering the 

 bronchial passages. If he cannot detect it below the larynx, he will apply a 

 strong blister, reaching from ear to ear, and extending to the second or third ring 

 of the trachea. If he can trace the rattle in the windpipe, he must follow it, — 

 he must blister as far as the disease has spread. This will often have an excel- 

 lent effect, not only as a counter-irritant, but as rousing the languid powers of 

 the constitution. A rowel of tolerable size between the fore legs cannot do harm. 

 It may act as a derivative, or it may take away a disposition to inflammation in 

 the contiguous portion of the chest. 



The inflammation which characterizes the early stage of this disease is at first 

 confined to the membrane of the mouth and the fauces. Can fomentations be 

 applied ? Yes, and to the very part, by means of a hot mash, not thrown into 

 the manger over which the head of the horse cannot be confined, but placed in 

 that too-much-undervalued and discarded article of stable-furniture, the nose- 

 bag. The vapour of the water will, at every inspiration, pass over the inflamed 

 surface. In the majority of cases relief will speedily be obtained, and that 

 suppuration from the part so necessary to the permanent removal of the inflam- 

 mation — a copious discharge of mucus or purulent matter from the nostrils — ■ 

 will be hastened. If the discharge does not appear so speedily as could be 

 wished, a stimulant should be applied to the part. The vapour impregnated with 



