CONSTITUTIONAL GREASE OR HORSE-POX. 305 



ulcer, about the size of a large pea, discharging an ichorous fluid. 

 On the middle finger of the same hand there was another ulcer of a 

 similar kind. These sores were of a circular form, and he described 

 their fi^rst appearance as being somewhat like blisters arising from a 

 burn. He complained of excessive pain, which extended up his arm 

 into the axilla. On the 5th of April I again saw him, and found 

 him still complaining of pain in both his hands, nor were his febrile 

 symptoms at all relieved. The ulcers had now spread to the size of 

 a seven-shUhng gold coin, and another ulcer, whi6h I had not noticed 

 before, appeared on the first joint of the forefinger of the left hand, 

 equally painful with that on the right. I ordered him to bathe his 

 hands in warm bran and water, apply escharotics to the ulcers, and 

 wrapped his hands up in a soft cataplasm. The next day he was 

 much reUeved, and in something more than a fortnight got welL 

 He lost his nails from the thumb and fingers that were ulcerated." 



Mr. Tanner, a veterinary surgeon, was the first to succeed in 

 experimentally transmitting horse-pox to the teats of a cow by 

 inoculating some of the Uquid matter from the heel of a horse. From 

 handUng the cow's teats he became infected himself, and had two- 

 pustules on his hand, which brought on inflammation, and made 

 him unwell for several days. The matter from the cow and from his 

 own hand proved efficacious in infecting both human subjects and 

 cattle. 



In 1801 Dr. Loy published his experiments. A butcher had 

 painful sores from dressing a horse suffering from ' grease,' and Dr. 

 Loy succeeded in transmitting the disease to the udder of a cow. 

 Matter was taken from the cow and inserted into the arm of a child. 

 Dr. Loy also inoculated a child direct from a horse suffering from 

 ' grease,' and subsequently five other children from this child. 



From his experiments and observations Dr. Loy was led to 

 differentiate constitutional grease from the merely local affection 

 commonly known as the grease, and thus, he explained the failure 

 on the part of many experimenters to transmit this disease to- 

 the cow. 



" This fact induces me " — he says — " to suspect that two kinds 

 of grease exist, differing from each other in the power of giving 

 disease to the human or brute animal ; and there is another circum- 

 stance which renders this supposition probable. The horses that 

 communicated the infection to their dressers were affected with a 

 general as well as a topical disease. The animals at the commence- 

 ment of their disease were evidently in a feverish state, from which 

 they were relieved as soon as the complaint appeared at their heels,. 



20 



