146 
ON BLOOD-LETTING. 
mare receiving sand with her boiled food, which has frequently 
occurred in this district ; and these are symptoms not very dis- 
similar, unless that in the disease caused by sand all the symptoms 
from its commencement are more severe. 
I imagine that, on the evening when the mare was first observed 
to be ill, it was common colic, caused by distention of the intestine 
from gas, and that during the struggle the animal had lacerated the 
intestine, removed the distention, and partially relieved the 
pain. The faeces from time to time had escaped, until the whole 
cavity of the abdomen was coated with them. The wounded in- 
testine had thrown out the foetid fluid found within the right 
flank, and by causing extensive irritation, aided by the physic, 
produced death. It has been frequently and very justly remarked, 
that efficient remedies should be adopted so soon as gripes make 
the slightest appearance, which, probably, may prevent such 
occurrences as these taking place. 
I am, Sir, 
Your most obedient servant. 
ON BLOOD-LETTING. 
By Mr. R. Foster, Gosberton. 
HAVING been a subscriber to and reader of your excellent 
periodical for a long time, and with much interest, I feel anxious 
to contribute a little to its pages. 
In reading some of the past Numbers of The VETERINARIAN, 
I find practitioners are not agreed as to the propriety, or the 
contrary, of the depletive system in influenza, and I have been quite 
surprised to find much wiser heads than mine still persisting in 
blood-letting; for it is my opinion, strengthened by a long and varied 
experience in different localities — in almost all the various forms 
and cases in which influenza has come under my observation 
for forty or fifty miles distant, in the years 1835-6, when it was 
very rife — that it will always be what it is at the present day, with 
but little variation. I have treated it when it has terminated 
in strangles — when it has been attended with enormous tumours 
about the parotid and other glands, ending in suppuration ; and I 
have attended cases when the breathing could be heard at a con- 
siderable distance, and threatening suffocation — and in none of 
those cases did I consider bleeding at all requisite, as, in my opinion, 
it would only have increased the debility in the already too much 
