EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 4 7? 
membranes principally suffer : the eyelids swell and droop, or 
become quite closed, and there is a manifestation of dulness of 
countenance and hanging of head which would betoken head- 
ache and other feelings of cerebral derangement, as though the 
membranes of the brain even were partakers in the general 
disorder, while the “ weakness” so remarkable in the loins, 
warrants us in supposing that the membranes of the spine are 
likewise implicated. The conjunctiva has a sort of dull yellow- 
red aspect, and is commonly much infiltrated, suppurates on 
occasions, oedema in some patients manifesting itself — par- 
ticularly after a day or two’s illness — in the legs, the hind 
more especially, and sometimes in the sheath as well. But 
there is no sore throat, no cough, no pleuritic nor pulmonic dis- 
ease, nor any apprehension of any thing of the kind. Neither 
is its subject any longer the three and four and raw five-year- 
old horse in his immature and unconditioned state of body ; 
but the adult and even the aged horse, and he who is in hard- 
working condition, now becomes the patient. And, yet, the 
disease is said to be influenza still ! Can the two diseases be re- 
garded as of one nature, as produced by the same cause, and 
attacking the same subject] 
Another phenomenon worth notice is, the fact of almost any 
“ humour” already existing in the constitution of the horse at 
the time influenza is raging — any wound or contusion or irrita- 
tion — being sure, almost, to break out afresh, or to manifest re- 
doubled virulence under the influence of the epidemic, or, shall 
we say, of its causes. This has been noticed by us before ; 
nor do we mention it here as any thing new or unknown. There 
is no old practitioner who has not found out the necessity of 
caution in blistering, firing, &c. in the season of influenza, or 
during very hot weather. We have repeatedly made the re- 
mark ourselves, on having a horse with an enlarged hind leg, 
or a humoury heel, or a blistered or fired limb, submitted to us, 
which has with the distemper broken out afresh, or become 
suddenly worse, that “the influenza has run into it.” And so, 
in point of fact, does it turn out; since the local affection under 
such circumstances will commonly prove most troublesome and 
vexatious ; and, after all, in no manner yield until the influenza 
has taken, or is about to take, its departure. 
VOL. XXIV. ‘3 T 
