262 EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 



turpentine arising from fresh yellow deal saw-dust, used instead of bran, will 

 have very considerable effect in quickening and increasing the suppuration. It 

 may even be resorted to almost from the beginning, if there is not evidently 

 much irritability of membrane. 



A hood is a useful article of clothing in these cases. It increases the perspi- 

 ration from the surface covering the inflamed part — a circumstance always of 

 considerable moment. 



An equable warmth should be preserved, if possible, over the whole body. 

 The hand-brush should be gently used every day, and harder and more effectual 

 rubbing applied to the legs. The patient should, if possible, be placed in a 

 loose box, in which he may toddle about, and take a little exercise, and out 01 

 which he should rarely, if at all, be taken. The exercise of which the groom 

 is so fond in these cases, and which must in the most peremptory terms be 

 forbidden, has destroyed thousands of horses. The air should be fresh and 

 uncontaminated, but never chilly ; for the object is to increase and not to 

 repress cutaneous perspiration ; to produce, if possible, a determination of blood 

 to the skin, and not to drive it to the part already too much overloaded. In 

 order to accomplish this, the clothing should be rather warmer than usual. 



The case may proceed somewhat slowly, and not quite satisfactorily to the 

 practitioner or his employer. There is not much fever — there is little or no 

 local inflammation; but there is.great emaciation and debility, and total loss of 

 appetite. The quantity of the sedative may then be lessened but not omitted alto- 

 gether ; for the fire may not be extinguished, although for a little while con- 

 cealed. There are no diseases so insidious and treacherous as these. Mild and 

 vegetable tonics, such as gentian and ginger, may be given. Two days after 

 tliis the sedative may be altogether omitted, and the tonic gradually increased. 



The feeding should now be sedulously attended to. Almost every kind of 

 green meat that can be obtained should be given, particularly carrots nicely 

 scraped and sliced. The food- should be changed as often as the capricious 

 appetite prompts ; and occasionally, if necessary, the patient should be forced with 

 gruel as thick as it will run from the horn, but the gradual return of health 

 should be well assured, before one morsel of corn is given*. 



A very few weeks ago, the author received from his friend, Mr. Percivall, the 

 following account of a new and destructive epidemic among horses : — 



" From the close of the past year and the beginning of the present, up to 

 the time I am writing, the influenza among horses has continued to prevail in 

 the metropolis and different parts of the country with more or less fatality. In 

 London it has assumed the form of laryngitis, associated in some instances with 

 bronchitis ; in others — in all I believe where it has proved fatal — with pleurisy. 

 The parenchymatous structure of the lungs has not partaken of the disease, or 

 but consecutively and slightly. The earliest and most characteristic symptom 

 has been sore throat ; causing troublesome dry short cough, but rarely occa- 

 sioning any difficulty of deglutition, and, in no instance that I have seen, 

 severe or extensive enough to produce anything like disgorgement or return of 

 the masticated matters through the nose, and yet the slightest pressure on the 

 larynx has excited an act of coughing. But seldom has any glandular enlarge- 

 ment appeared. The symptom secondarily remarkable after the sore throat 

 and cough has been a dispiritedness or dulness, for which most epidemics of the 

 kind are remarkable. The animal, at the time of sickening, has hung his 

 head under the manger, with his eyes half shut, and his lower lip pendent, 

 without evincing any alarm or even much notice, though a person entered his 



* An interesting account of epidemic A work, by the author of this volume, ia in 

 among horses will be found in tho Association preparation, on the epidemics that have pre. 

 Part of "The Veterinarian," Tols.xii.and xt. vailed among all our domesticated animals. 



