80 G ASTRO-ENTERITIS AND INFLUENZA. 
single agency : it may be caused by a sudden change in the 
weather, by moisture, by bad food or water, by a sudden chill, 
or by any or every agency which can disturb the functions of the 
brain and nervous system. But, however this fever has been 
produced, it is necessary for us to know that it exists, and that it 
is to it our attention must be principally directed ; and this leads 
me to its treatment. 
But, as all the readers of The Veterinarian may not have 
that best of all English veterinary works, Mr. Percivall’s Hippo- 
pathology, to refer to, I will first give the symptoms of gastro- 
enteritis, as I have observed them in the army and out of the 
army, in England and out of England ; as it is by no means a rare 
disease in other countries, or in America, where my first thirst for 
the investigation of veterinary science commenced. 
The Symptoms are — loss of appetite, dulness, shivering, and 
staring of the coat, cold extremities, pulse and respiration but 
slightly increased. 
This stage has usually passed off before the veterinarian sees 
the patient, so that when he arrives he finds the surface of the 
body much warmer than usual, the head drooping or resting on 
the manger, and to all appearance he is suffering from headache. 
The eyelids are nearly closed from serous infiltration, and very 
often we find this serous effusion in various external parts of the 
body, as the legs, sheath, chest, and belly, and, if it comes on 
early in the disorder, is a favourable indication. 
The appetite is completely lost, but thirst usually undiminished, 
although in some cases, and particularly when the throat is sore, 
he will neither eat nor drink. The pulse may be 50, or it may 
be 100, and in one case I remember it 120; but in the majority of 
cases it is small and characteristic of debility after the first 
paroxysm has subsided. 
If the mucous membrane lining the air-passages be the part 
principally affected, he retains the erect posture ; but if, on the con- 
trary, the same membrane lining the stomach and bowels bears the 
brunt of the disease, he generally stretches himself out at full 
length in the stable, and seems quite indifferent to every thing 
around him : however, if you now press on the abdomen, he 
evinces signs of pain by groaning, raising his head, and pointing 
with his nose to the part in which he suffers most ; and if you 
watch his eye when using this pressure, you can read in it the 
pain which you assuredly give him, and which is usually of a 
sub-acute nature, yet not invariably so, for I have, in some horses, 
witnessed a great uneasiness, such as pawing, lying down for a 
few minutes, and then again resuming the same desponding position 
