224 
HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
extensively too, without any prominent catarrhal symptoms.- The affected 
animal is very weak, as shown by a staggering gait, dulness, heavy drooping of 
the head, and feeble pulse. The eyelids swell greatly, are nearly closed, and 
tears flow copiously from between them. The legs and all depending parts of 
the body, especially those most loosely covered with skin, are also swollen, but 
not from inflammatory exudation, as is shown by pressure causing indentations 
or “ pittings” with little or no pain. The bowels are torpid, but strangely 
sensitive to the action of medicine ; the urine is scanty ; and the appetite com- 
pletely gone. The exciting cause, or perhaps atmospheric poison producing this 
disease, appears to act directly on the blood, and promotes such disturbance and 
change therein as leads to effusion of its more fluid parts, lowering at the same 
time the activity of the circulatory, nervous, and respiratory systems. The medical 
treatment must be stimulating ; with this and good nursing almost every case 
recovers, the deaths not amounting to two per cent. Many fatal cases, however, 
have occurred where the copious bleeding and purging system has been adopted 
under a mistaken notion as to the existence of inflammation. It is a singular 
fact that this epizootic, so imperfectly noticed by modern veterinary writers, 
should be fully and graphically described by the oldest authors on diseases of 
horses. One Absyrtus, who appears to have lived about a.d. 330, notes it 
accurately. His account is found in a book on veterinary matters, collated from 
various ancient writers (mostly Greek) by order of the Byzantine Emperor 
Constantine VII. (Porphyrogenitus), who died a.d. 947. A Latin edition of 
this rare and valuable work, published in Paris in 1530, and a Greek edition 
of the same published a few years after, both of them by order of Francis I 
of France, are now in possession of Professor Dick. The Professor has also an 
Italian veterinary work published in Venice in 1618, by Carlo Ruini, a Bolognese 
senator, in which symptoms corresponding to the above are well described. 
Catarrhal Influenza, or Influenza Proper. — If I were asked to name 
one condition peculiar to this disease, and sufficient to distinguish it from dis- 
eases in other respects bearing some resemblance to it, I would say that condition 
is, unusual and peculiar weakuess. I believe that those who know influenza best — 
who are most careful not to confound it with other epizootics — will agree with 
me in saying that, let there be ten or twenty other symptoms, weakness is one of 
the first, most constant, and longest enduring of them all. This weakness, too, 
appears as the associated effect of a state of system to which we apply the term 
typhoid or sinking fever ; and influenza becomes difficult to manage in proportion 
as the typhoid weakness predominates over co-existing symptoms. Although by 
no means confined to the same seasons of the year at each succeeding visitation, 
influenza is most common in the later months of spring and autumn. It seems 
most prevalent amongst young horses, but affects animals of all ages. Mr. Percivall 
(see ‘ The Veterinarian,’ 1845) had forty cases of five-year-old horses, to 
twenty-four cases of other ages. I have not been able to confirm this, further 
than by observing during an influenza that strangles is common among young 
horses, and seems to exempt them from influenza for the time, and old or 
seasoned horses are always less liable to disease than others. On undertaking to 
prepare this paper, I wrote to some veterinarians in extensive practice in England 
for the results of their experience in influenza. Several of these gentlemen 
practising in large towns — Mr. Lawson of Manchester, Mr. Proctor of Liverpool, 
Mr. Graham of Birmingham — inform me that they find the disease most severe, 
and often most prevalent, among heavy draught horses. Our own experience 
confirms this. I do not know how to explain the circumstance, but may suggest 
that heavy horses are often less carefully stabled than others, and are exposed to 
special predisposing causes of disease. A well-bred horse will resist and sustain 
disease far better than one of coarser breed. Perhaps no animal can “ bear up” 
under disease so well as a thorough-bred horse ; this power seems to depend on 
his well-developed nervous temperament and great physical energy. 
Symptoms.— Diseases of a febrile character generally affect horses suddenly, 
and run a favorable or unfavorable course more rapidly than in man. Influenza 
is no exception to this rule. Horses are sometimes taken ill whilst out at work, 
more frequently they are found unwell soon after coming into the stable ; but 
