EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 175 



EPIDEMIC CATARRH, OR INFLUENZA. 



Various names are given to this disease — ^influenza, distempei, 

 batarrhal fever, and epidemic catarrh. Its usual history is as 

 follows : 



In the spring of the year — a cold, wet spring — and that suc- 

 ceeding to a mild winter, and especially among young norses, and 

 those in high condition, or made up for sale, or that have been 

 kept in hot stahles, or exposed to the usual causes of inflamma 

 tion, this disease principally, and sometimes almost exclusively, 

 prevails. Those that are in moderate work, and that are corre- 

 spondingly fed, generally escape ; or even when it appears in 

 most of the stables in a narrower or wider district, horses in bar- 

 racks, 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 acceleration of pulse, heat of mouth, 

 staring coat, tucked-up beUy, 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 aggra 

 vated form. 



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

 coldness of the extremities, no looldng at the flanks, no stiff im- 

 movable 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. I* 

 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 Uttle tu- 

 mefied, the submaxillary somewhat more so, but not at all equiv- 

 alent 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 fetid. The breathing is accelera- 

 ted and laborious at the beginning, but does not always increase 

 with the progress of the disease — nay, sometim'ps a deceitful calm 

 succeeds, and the pulse, quickened and lull at first, soon loses its 

 firmness, and although it usually maintains its unnatural quick- 

 ness, yet it occasionally deviates from this, and subsides to little 

 more than its natural standard. The extreirdties continue to be 



