THOUGHTS ON INFLUENZA. 
137 
Little or no attention should be paid to the purging of the 
animal in the strict sense of the word ; for in all cases which 
by this treatment slip through our fingers, we shall find the 
contents of the bowels fluid. Oft repeated doses of strong 
stimulants, and linseed oil as a laxative, with small quantities 
of the extract of belladonna, form the basis of correct treat- 
ment, coupled with friction to the ears and legs, bandages, 
and plenty of warm clothing. It may be safely depended 
upon, that while the pulse rises so rapidly nothing but power- 
ful stimulants will bring it down, as the case, from beginning 
to end, is one of debility. 
In other cases, a painful cough presents itself; the throat 
is sore, and deglutition difficult; soreness is also evinced on 
pressing the intercostal spaces ; groans are emitted during the 
animal’s gyrations ; he seldom or never lies down ; the dung 
is fetid, slimy, and often voided in small hard quantities, or 
diarrhoea may be present ; the urine is high coloured ; there 
is great inequality of heat ; the appetite may or may not be 
absent, and in some cases it remains quite good. All these 
symptoms may exist in the foregoing case. The pulse is 
about the same, either full, soft, slow, and weak ; or quick, 
small, weak, and wiry ; the eyes are dull and bloodshot. 
In a third variety these symptoms are more aggravated. 
The appetite is very capricious, or quite absent ; the pulse 
smaller and weaker, in fact it has become a running down 
pulse;* the animal stands propping himself up, for weakness 
to an extreme degree is manifested; and partial or entire 
paralysis is present ; if the latter, he may have fallen during 
the night, and in his struggles rendered himself a mass of 
frightful bruises. (In the first stages paralysis has often come 
on in the night, after the animal’s being left, prior to which 
nothing was visible to the owner indicating indisposition.) 
The breath is fetid, respiration laboured ; the animal scrapes 
with his fore feet ; the legs, ears, and nose, are cold as ice ; 
the bowels quite inactive ; and the mucous membranes either 
blanched or yellow. If the spinal cord be unaffected, this 
state of affairs goes on for a week or more, according to 
circumstances, when the pulse becomes imperceptible at the 
jaw, the mouth dry, the tongue flabby and pendulous, the 
eyes closed, the head held low and near the ground, in fact 
coma more or less exists, and the animal is insensible to all 
surrounding objects and things, except the twitching pains 
of the abdomen ; he scrapes two or three times, crouches 
towards the ground, and then all subsides into perfect still- 
ness ; the breathing becomes stertorous, and liver-coloured 
* Spooner, on * Influenza,’ p. 88. 
XXIX. 
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