LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 609 
but if any cause should intervene and prevent such union, then in 
too many instances phlebitis is the consequence. 
Commencement and progress of phlebitis. — Perhaps, in a day or 
two after bleeding, a slight tumefaction appears around the incision ; 
some sanious matter is seen to ooze from the orifice, and the hair 
about the edges is glued together. In a few days afterwards 
the swelling is enlarged ; the lips of the wound everted ; tenderness 
extends both above and below in the direction of the vein, and the 
horse begins to loathe his food, the constitution being sympatheti- 
cally affected. If this is not soon got rid of, pus begins to be 
secreted, and ulceration takes place in the vein at every two or 
three inches from the original wound, and small abscesses form 
under the skin, and soon ulcerate through it. Great thickening of 
all the coats and of the cellular tissue around now takes place, and 
becomes a further source of irritation to the neighbouring parts. If 
this morbid action continues to go on, the different branches of the 
vein above the bifurcation take on a similar ulceration and thick- 
ening, and abscesses form about the neck and head, and, in a few 
cases, the same process extends downwards into the chest, even as 
far as the heart, producing caries and exfoliation of the ribs. At 
other times immense effusion of serum and lymph takes] place on 
the breast, neck, head, brain, and spinal cord, followed by delirium, 
paralysis, and death. 
Occasionally secondary disease of the lungs and chest supervenes 
in consequence of the constitutional irritation, the lungs being 
predisposed to, or actually labouring under disease at the same 
time. 
Causes . — In some instances the cause may be unknown, and can 
only be guessed at, but in many cases it can too plainly be ac- 
counted for. Many horses have been bled in a slovenly way, and 
have had their necks sadly mangled with the fleam or lancet, yet 
the incised and injured parts have not taken on any morbid action ; 
while others, having received only a single blow or puncture, have 
afterwards experienced the severest attack of phlebitis. Mr. Per- 
civall states, in his very excellent work, that Mr. Cherry tried 
many times to produce the disease by using rusty lancets and 
escharotics of various kinds ; by passing packthread through the 
wound, and by ligatures and frequent separation and friction of 
the granulating edges, but in vain. Professor Spooner has also 
tried to produce the disease, but could not. M. Patna, a continental 
veterinary surgeon, says that, after injecting the veins of fourteen 
horses, he had only one case of inflamed vein, although in each the 
injection of a caustic fluid was repeated twenty times, and although 
he had, in the course of his experiments, many openings to make 
in the veins of each, and considerable difficulty in introducing the 
tube. 
I have occasionally struck with the fleam, and also punctured 
with the lancet three or four times in horses difficult to bleed, 
before I could effect my purpose, but in very few instances I do not 
recollect to have produced inflamed veins. I well remember bleeding 
