292 ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
opinion, particularly with regard to the contagiousness of 
the malady, its nature, and the immediate cause of death. 
Consequently, two veterinary professors, MM. Gerard and 
Derache, w T ere summoned by the Minister of the Interior to 
undertake the task of investigating the disease, and the cir- 
cumstances attending its advent and progress. From their 
inquiries and post-mortem examinations they came to the 
conclusion that the disease was abdominal typhus, and that, 
in principle, the cause was to be attributed to the bad food 
the animals had been receiving, and the facts related tended 
to prove that it was not contagious ; inoculation and injection 
into the veins was even resorted to without result. 
The symptoms may be fairly described by referring to one 
case which they observed. A mare, attacked by the malady, 
when these gentlemen visited her w r as stretched at full 
length on her right side ; her respiration v T as accelerated and 
plaintive, and the pulse full, but slow; the temperature was 
almost normal. Sensibility was less acute than usual in the 
posterior extremities, which scarcely contracted when their 
muscles w r ere pricked by a bistoury ; there had been an 
abundant defecation of hard, dry pellets of dung, covered 
with tenacious false membranes ; the right orbital arch was 
much swollen and contused by the blow r s received during the 
vertiginous period of the disease, when there w ? ere violent 
disordered movements and heavy falls ; the ocular mucous 
membrane w r as of a reddish-saffron colour, and was covered 
w T ith mucus ; the buccal membrane was a pale yellow, and the 
tongue, white at its borders and dry, hung out of the mouth; 
the jaws w ere incapable of movement, and could not masticate 
the food which the animal yet endeavoured to seize; the head, 
when raised and let go, fell heavily and helplessly, and the 
muscles of the neck, feeble, relaxed, and enervated, w T ere im- 
potent to move it in any direction. This w T as the malady in 
its last stage. Blood extracted from a vein was of a choco- 
late colour, or like that of lees of wine. The animal died 
next day, and the necroscopic appearances were the same as 
in the other cases : — discoloration of all the red tissues, arbori- 
form engorgement of the blood-vessels in the intestines, cel- 
lular proliferation, hypertrophy of the mucous follicles, the 
duodenal glands of Peyer, &c., eschars and ulcerations, and 
other lesions of typhus. The blood, when examined by the 
microscope, showed bacteria (or the bdtonnets of Brauell, as 
they have been sometimes named), and numerous crystals 
of cholesterine. 
