ON BLOOD-LETTING. 
147 
debilitated system. I, therefore, attacked the inflammation by 
counter-irritants, which I always found sufficient to abate the 
inflammation. 
For internal medicine I have used aperient and febrifuge appli- 
cations, and sometimes aperients and diuretics, varying my treatment 
according to the urgency of the symptoms, but generally commencing 
with a full dose of aperient medicine, and almost always finding a 
much smaller dose to act upon the bowels in that disease, parti- 
cularly if I were not called in at the commencement of the 
malady. 
For counter-irritants, in severe cases, I have applied a smart 
blister over a large surface ; in milder cases I have used the liq. 
ammon., ol. tereb., et ol. olivae ; and I have always found the most 
severe cases of influenza yield to that treatment, without having 
recourse to venesection. I have treated hundreds of cases of it. 
I have never bled one ; and I have never lost one of pure influenza; 
while, on the other hand, I have heard of the destruction of many 
in my own neighbourhood, particularly of a gentleman who had 
five valuable horses attacked with influenza, four of whom were 
bled, and their cases terminated in dissolution ; but the one that 
was not bled terminated well : and the animals that I have been 
called to in the advanced stage of the disease, and that had been 
previously bled, I found sinking more from debility than from 
any other morbid state of the system. One case of influenza 
exhibited symptoms different from any others that came under my 
observation : it was a black horse belonging to H. R. Smith, Esq. 
He had the usual symptoms of influenza; viz. loss of appetite, 
sore throat, cough, abscesses about the parotid glands, &c., together 
with swellings about the joints, particularly the tarsus, of a 
rheumatic character, which seemed to cause him considerable pain, 
and prevented him from lying down for some time. To these I 
applied the usual remedies, some mild stimulants, and the swellings 
and pain disappeared with the other symptoms. 
A writer in the November Number of The Veterinarian 
asks, whether those cases of influenza that have been of short 
duration were rendered so by phlebotomy, or whether they would 
have taken their departure without, this being a question which 
wiser heads than his have left unsettled. Now, in my practice, 
I have always found the disease yield to the other part of the anti- 
phlogistic treatment, sooner or iater ; and I shall always trust to 
it, unless I find the disease come with a different type to what I 
have ever yet seen; and as I have witnessed the loss of so many 
valuable horses — I have not the least doubt from blood-letting — I 
would advise every practitioner to abstain from bleeding in 
influenza, unless he wishes it to run into low fever, and end ulti- 
