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MEMOIRS OF A VETERINARY SURGEON. 
demands from him no ordinary sagacity so as to enable him 
correctly and successfully to discharge those duties. The 
subject I have chosen is one that occasionally places the 
practitioner in an embarrassing position, and requires the 
exercise of much consideration and discretion in the opinion 
he may be called upon to give. 
NASAL GLEET EMANATING FROM NATURAL CAUSES. 
By far the greater number of these cases, in their incipient 
stage, are simply a continuation of catarrhal discharge in an 
unhealthy subject. This is evidently the predisposing cause. 
The membranes of the head and nostrils have lost their tone 
to such a degree that they are unable to reassume their former 
natural and healthy function, and the secretion now escapes 
passively from the surface of the mucous membrane, the 
villi, follicles, or secreting mouths of which have become so 
much weakened, relaxed, and elongated, as to have lost all 
sphincter power over the secretion, which at this early period 
is of a whitish mucous character, flaky or foamy, and free from 
smell. It is also very irregular in quantity ; but in course of 
time it becomes offensive. At times the discharge is so slight 
and scanty as to be scarcely worth notice; and at other times 
it pours forth all the abundance of the eruption of pent-up 
channels, bringing in its current matters solid as well as 
fluid. I think this is the plainest and most complete evidence 
that can possibly be given that the disease is in a cavity; 
and the inference is, that that cavity wants exploring, and 
the internal surfaces thereof healing. As the discharge 
continues to flow over the surface of the membrane, it, in its 
turn, adds to the irritation, and tends more and more to 
increase the virulence and inflammation, until, in process of 
time, softening and decay of the surface takes place, or, in 
other words, ulceration is the consequence, when the tymphatics 
partake of the irritation, and the glands become affected with 
the poison. This particular weak state of the membrane may 
be confined to only one nostril, and the part affected be some 
small space, consequent upon this part having been more 
severely inflamed during the period when the catarrh was at 
its height, or because it was possessed of a higher degree of 
susceptibility than the rest ; and as the catarrh subsided, and 
a more healthy tone returned to the membranes of the head 
generally, this particular portion could not rally, nature of 
herself not being able to recruit her energies and restrict the 
flow of the secretion. We sometimes find it manifests extreme 
resistance and obstinacy to treatment. It will for a time 
