EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
478 
To make, before we close this article, one observation more 
we would ask veterinary practitioners — taking it for granted that 
the older ones among them will not call in question the fact — 
how it happens that influenza has become more prevalent, 
occupying so much larger a portion of the year than it was 
wont to do : indeed, of late years, so much, as it seems to us, 
has the disease extended the duration of its visits, that hardly 
any season would appear to be exempt from it. There is to us 
as great a difficulty in drawing the line between the seasons 
and non-seasons of influenza, as there is in the demarcation of 
its pathological boundary lines. In conclusion, there is, we 
would beg to repeat, evidently a good deal of obscurity hanging 
over the disease or diseases we are in the habit of calling 
“influenza” among horses; and on this account it is that we 
would invite aid in our feeble essays, if not to succeed in un- 
ravelling, at least to set in a clear light, such points as to us 
appear at present to be veiled in mystery, and on that account 
to call loudly for further investigation. 
We anticipated and fully hoped that this month we should 
have had it in our power to have congratulated the profession 
on the success of their Exemption Bill. To our disappointment, 
however, it has been thrown out in the House of Commons. 
Report assigns divers reasons for the rejection. One ascribes it 
to the absence, from indisposition, of Mr. Hume ; another to an 
informality in the Bill, it being improperly lithographed instead 
of being written ; a third, to opposition to it set up on the part 
of Government. We suspect that some sinister influence has 
been privately at work. The following is all the information 
afforded us by the public prints on the subject: — 
From the Times , 22 July , 1851. 
The House went into Committee on the Veterinary Surgeons’ 
Exemption Bill ; but almost immediately, 
Mr. BOUVERIE moved, that the, Chairman should report 
progress. 
Mr. NEWDEGATE said a few words in favour of the Bill. 
Mr. Healey objected to the principle of exemptions in- 
cluded in the measure. 
