HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
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will afford nature the only aid she requires to recover from an attack of this 
disease. I know an army veterinary surgeon of great experience, who, when 
influenza appears in his regiment, watches narrowly for cases as they occur, and 
at once places them under strict nursing. He also diets all the still-healthy 
horses, and attends carefully to ventilation of the stables. Under this plan, 
and almost without any medicine being given, his success is nearly uniform — he 
cannot, for years and years, remember a death. We are too apt to imagine that 
recovery from disease must be ensured by the aid of medicine, and the art of 
physic very frequently gains a credit which it does not deserve. In the earliest 
stage, — say the first day of illness, — we find the whole system depressed — the 
functions of the skin, and internal membranes, and secreting organs impaired, or 
even suspended, a small pulse of 60 or so, and the spirits desponding. Nothing, 
it is plain, is required to add to the prostration — no bleeding, no purging. The 
first and most important aid we can render is to place the patient where he can 
breathe a pure, mild, dry atmosphere. This will allow the heart and lungs to 
work to the greatest advantage with the least amount of labour. A sick horse 
often repays the luxury of a loose airy box, by recovering more speedily than 
when tied in a stall. The body must be warmly clothed, the legs bandaged, and 
a deep bed of good clean straw allowed. Injections of soap and water must be 
given twice daily to relieve the bowels, and as the patient probably will not eat, 
let him have gruel, or even water, to drink. The practice of forcing the horse 
with drenches at this stage is a bad one — it sickens and irritates him. Many 
horses will not drink tepid water; indeed, it is a sickly beverage, and, so 
far as I am aware, possesses no peculiar virtues above water that has been 
allowed to stand in the stable for a few hours. You may think all this treatment 
nothing; but do you call comfort in sickness nothing? Not one of us would 
be willing to discard comfort; and why should we deny it to the deserving 
horse ? Do you consider that promoting warmth and secretion in the skin, and, 
as it were, drawing the blood from within, nothing? Trifling as they may 
seem, we have known a horse’s pulse fall five and ten beats in a minute in 
less than an hour by the adoption of measures such as these. What medicine can 
equalize the temperature, and restore action to the skin, so well and so soon 
as warm clothing? No medicine in the world will constrain the heart and 
lungs to natural action and function so r long as we supply our patient with 
heated and impure air. If we give sedatives, so called, to lower the pulse, and 
meantime keep the horse in a close warm stable, we create new symptoms and 
aggravate those already existing. If the cough be severe, benefit is sometimes 
obtained by allowing the steam from hot water or bran to pass into the nostrils ; 
this moistens and relaxes the sore membrane, and solicits a secretion therein, 
which affords relief. A mustard embrocation, or other stimulant applied to 
the throat outside is often of use. If the bowels be merely torpid and not con- 
stipated, purgative medicine need hardly be given, for, owing to the state of 
general weaknees, relaxation of the mascular system, and the congested state of 
internal organs generally, many cases of influenza have been destroyed by 
purging. A much smaller quantity of medicine, as 3 drachms of aloes, will act far 
more severely here, than will a large dose on many other occasions. A little 
common salt or nitre may be dissolved in water occasionally if the animal will 
drink it. The clothiug and bandages should be removed, shaken and renewed 
again twice or thrice daily, the legs should be hand-rubbed if cold, and the 
nose should be sponged frequently with vinegar and water. If by the third 
day, the mouth should be cooler and more moist, the pulse lower in number 
and firmer in beat, the bowels, kidneys, and skin acting, the nose discharging a 
thickish slightly yellow fluid, the eyes well open, the head held higher, 
and the animal disposed to lie down, we may expect convalesence in a few 
days more. Cooked roots and small quantities of crushed corn, or best of all, 
green food, may by allowed sparingly as the appetite returns. In some, and 
occasionally in too many instances, appearances are worse rather than improved 
by the third day. Fluid is collecting in the chest and pericardium. Will you 
bleed ? No, I will not, because I never saw it do anything but harm in cases 
of this kind, and have observed that death has occurred sooner where cases 
were bled than in others let alone. Bleeding aggravates the disease by favouring 
