ON VETERINARY NOMENCLATURE. 
383 
une humeur glaireuse, quelquefois jaunatre, quelquefois san- 
guinolante,” &c. Courbature (the) is nearly the same malady 
as pleuritis : it is an inflammation of the lungs, caused by over- 
fatigue or hard work. The horse has a considerable degree of 
fever, holds his head low, loathes his food, respires with diffi- 
culty, coughs, and has a ropy discharge from the nose, some- 
times of a yellowish, at others of a bloody colour, &c., p. 398, 
vol. i. 
Mons. de la Geuriniere, in his School for Cavalry , gives the 
following description of the courbature : — “ L’on appelle courba- 
ture dans les animaux ce que les medecins appellent aux 
hommes la pleurisie, ou fluxion de pointrine effectivement meme 
parmis les hommes : les gens grossiers sont accoutumes de 
donner ce nom indifferement a l’une et l’autre de ces maladies, 
lorsqu’ils s’en trouvent atteints,” &c., p. 147. This is followed 
by a description of the causes and symptoms and treatment of 
disease of the chest, shewing that the old farriers perfectly un- 
derstood the meaning of the courbature, though there exists a 
slight difference between these two as to its being pneumonia 
or pleuritis. Lafosse’s Dictionary bears date 1776; and De la 
Geuriniere, 1756. But in Hurtrel d’Arboval’s Dictionary we 
read the following : — “ COURBATURE, expression vague, inexacte, 
vulgaire, et d’une acception indeterminee, qui ne presente a 
l’esprit l’idee d’aucune maladie speciale, et rappelle tout au plus 
celle d’une reunion d’un certain nombre de symptomes variables 
appertenant a divers maladies. Quelques auteurs on decrit la 
courbature comme une phlegmasie des organes du thorax ; 
d’autres, comme une phlegmasie des organes de l’abdomen ; ou 
l’a identifiee avec la phthisie tuberculeuse ; on l’a crue une 
maladie spasmodic ; ou l’a rapprochee de la fourbure, du tetanus, 
&c.” — Dictionnaire Veterinaire, par Hurtrel d’Arboval, tom. i, 
p. 612. This shews that, while the veterinary art progressed in 
France, the courbature was less accurately defined and under- 
stood. Now, we come to the new laws on soundness, and in 
the law of the 20th of May, 1838, we read as follows : — “ Pour le 
cheval, l’ane, et le mulet, les maladies anciennes de pointrin, 
ou vieilles courbatures,” for the horse, ass, and mule; chronic 
disease of the lung, or old courbatures, & c., clearly shewing that 
though this name is obsolete, its meaning is perfectly under- 
stood by the legislature, and by the common people, though 
veterinary writers might have described different diseases un- 
der the same name. 
One word on “ black quarter.” This disease, as described in 
the last Number of The Veterinarian, is neither more nor 
less than that dreadful malady of horses and cattle called by 
the French charbon. Anthrax would, perhaps, be the better 
