32 ON MURRAIN, OR THE VESICULAR EPIZOOTIC. 
congested, which may result from inflammation, but more fre- 
quently from the obstruction of some of the larger bronchii cutting 
off portions of the lungs from the ingress of air. (Edematous 
swellings hang from the legs and belly. The joints are some- 
times much swollen, the synovia is serous and bloody, and serous 
abscesses are found in various parts of the limbs. The serous 
membranes sometimes participate in the disease, but are in general 
less liable to suffer than the mucous membranes and skin. The 
affections of the joints and serous membranes are generally ob- 
served in cases where the eruption has not come well out, and 
where there has been constipation. 
Treatment . — Concerning the treatment of the vesicular epi- 
zootic, much variety of opinion seems to prevail ; and the most 
opposite modes of practice have their advocates and supporters. 
Some practitioners have endeavoured to hasten the appearance 
of the eruption and accelerate the progress of the malady by 
friction, by switching the animal with nettles, and by freely 
opening the vesicles with the lancet or scissors. Others attempt 
to remove the morbid virus, in which they believe the disease 
to consist, by the exhibition of purgatives, diuretics, and dia- 
phoretics ; or to arrest the eruption by local applications ; or by 
blistering, to cause counter-irritation, or metastasis, from the 
mucous membranes to the skin. 
Such measures are, however, exceedingly injurious ; and 
those who recommend or adopt them shew a total ignorance of 
the true pathology of the disease, which, if it terminate favour- 
ably, must run a fixed course; and any injudicious interference 
with that fixed course, or with the progress of the natural erup- 
tion, must ever be attended with more or less evil consequences. 
All endeavours either to hasten or retard the disease must 
therefore prove entirely fruitless. 
Some practitioners, supposing that the disease essentially con- 
sists in general inflammation, attempt to subdue it by aniphlo- 
gistic measures ; but in this disease the inflammation is of a 
specific nature, and neither requires nor admits of the measures 
used for subduing ordinary inflammation. The fever also, al- 
though it sometimes runs high, is not an invariable concomitant 
of the disease ; and when it is present, it speedily lapses into 
the typhoid form, when the adoption of antiphlogistic measures 
is worse than useless. Here, again, by trying to stop or cut 
short the progress of the malady, much harm may be done. Its 
duration is thereby lengthened, its malignity increased, and its 
evil consequences greatly aggravated. In a word, it is an 
exanthematous disease, and, as such, it ill bears “ the well- 
meant, but often mischievous interference of the doctor.” It 
shews an almost inconquerable tendency to spontaneous recovery. 
