82 
G ASTRO-ENTERITIS AND INFLUENZA. 
The small intestines were slightly inflamed, but the lining mem- 
brane of the large, and of the coecum in particular, was very 
much so, being, in some parts, quite black and ulcerated ; and 
lodged in the mucous membrane, or between it and the muscular 
coat, were innumerable small calcareous bodies about the size of 
a pea, but largest and in greatest numbers where the inflammation 
was most intense, and so hard that I can with difficulty divide 
them with a sharp knife. I would enter into the nature of their 
production with reference to the disease, but I find it would make 
this article too long. The liver was diseased, but neither the kid- 
neys, bladder, nor spleen, in this case, appeared to be so ; nor was 
the heart much affected, though the right cavities were filled with 
yellow fibrinous concretions, the left with black blood, and the 
tricuspid valve redder than natural. Right lung slightly diseased, 
the left sound. In every other horse that I examined after death 
I found the heart much more diseased than in this one. 
Treatment . — Were my theory an imaginary one, and not 
founded on facts, together with a due reference to nature, I would 
never bring this part of my reflections before the public ; for I am 
aware of the opposition which it will meet from the great body of 
veterinary surgeons, both in the British dominions and on the 
continent ; but, having weighed and sifted it thoroughly in the sick 
stable, I have attained a degree of confidence which my years in 
the profession would not, in any other respect, entitle me to. This 
being premised, I shall commence in the same place with the 
majority of authors, by reference to bloodletting, but with very 
different views on that subject. D’Arboval says — “Among the 
therapeutic combatants for it, the most useful is bloodletting, & c.” 
Now, to a person taking a confined view of this disease, or of the 
fever that produces it, this treatment appears very correct ; for he 
looks upon the debility which always accompanies it. in a greater 
or less degree, as also on the faeces, as being both effects of in- 
flammation of the mucous membrane : and such a person’s argu- 
ment is, “reduce the inflammation by bleeding, and you will 
prevent the fever from assuming that low typhoid character which 
usually carries the animal off.” 
This theory appeared to me, at one time, very plausible, until 
I met with a few cases of the disease ; and what led me to 
doubt its accuracy was, that I could never meet with a case in 
which there were not evident signs of debility present before the 
fever acquired its height, and before there was any inflammation 
of the mucous membrane : then, with such a fact as this before my 
eyes, and with the evidence of Broussais that both fever and con- 
vulsions are caused by bleeding, how could I any longer doubt 
