THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC AMONG HORSES. 
155 
power the only mischief diarrhoea seems to do is that of withholding 
entirely or in part the use of the phleame ; nay, it may, indeed 
has under my observation, by derivation, proved critical, the disease 
expending itself, as it would seem, in discharge from the bowels. 
The Head has in some rare cases exhibited derangement. In 
one case I have had, the horse shook his head after the manner of 
one that was pinched or hurt by his headstall, and every now and 
then, as if from excess of pain, he would bow his head between 
his fore limbs, and in this posture twice or thrice he fell down, as 
though a pistol-ball had entered his brain, in a sort of apoplectic 
fit. The heaviness about the eyes and the drooping of the head 
makes it evident that in most cases there is more or less headache ; 
but in such a case as has just been described, the brain would 
seem to be suffering either from congestion or actual inflammation, 
to relieve which the immediate use of the phleame appears pe- 
remptorily demanded, and yet probably the system may not be able 
to bear the loss of blood. In a case of this kind, I believe that 
a good deal of relief is conferred by the continual application to 
the forehead, temples, and poll of the head, of linen cloths wetted 
with an evaporating lotion. Should there be any disposition to 
diarrhoea, which there sometimes is (apart from the operation of 
medicine) early in the attack, in such a case as this it ought by no 
means to be discouraged. 
The Skin and Subcutaneous Tissues in some cases, either 
at the commencement or in the course of the disease, become the 
especial seat of the inflammation. One or both hind limbs un- 
expectedly present isolated subcutaneous tumefactions, feeling solid 
and firm, hot, and tender to pressure, and at the same time, perhaps, 
there is a general swelling of the limb, and the animal walks stiffly 
or halts upon it. Now and then the fore limbs, particularly about 
the breast, and the body even, are attacked in the same manner : 
the under surface of the belly being the part that commonly shews 
the tumefaction. Should the horse happen to have had his leg or 
legs blistered within a period of the attack of the influenza in- 
sufficient for the part to have lost all effects of the change the 
blister produced in it, that (the blistered limb) is certain to suffer 
the most, and very likely to the exclusion of the others altogether. 
The tumefactions, though partial or isolated and solid at first, will, 
after a time, spread and grow soft and turn into common oedema, 
falling into the dependent parts of the limbs and body, and extend- 
ing over the under parts of the abdomen and thorax and into the 
sheath. Now and then, oedema or anasarca makes its appearance 
about the period that the fever has arrived at its height and is 
about the turn on the decline : in some few cases, however, it is 
found present in the early stages, during the accession of the fever, 
n the former instance, the setting-in of anasarca may commonly 
