380 PHYSIOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO LAMINITIS. 
opposite states of electricity, coming in close proximity, create 
an instantaneous revulsion ? 
I am disposed to believe laminitis may coexist with any or all 
other diseases. We see it first looming in the distance, as it 
were, in the form of what is usually denominated fever ; but 
it is not ordinary fever, it simulates some of the character- 
istics of influenza or scarlatina, or it has many irregular 
features about it — some peculiar characteristics of its own. 
The secretions, generally, become involved in the mischievous 
effects going on ; the visible mucous membranes are of a 
livid hue, peculiar to this state of the system : sometimes the 
lining membrane of one eye, or one nostril, will exhibit, if 
closely examined, a marked difference in appearance to the 
other ; and if we happen to examine the pulse we shall always 
find it deficient in distinctness, as though the blood was in a 
viscid state, and it is sometimes intermittent. If the animal has 
had a chronic cough on him, that cough is mysteriously gone; 
or if he has had an irritable affection of the skin, or greasy 
heels, that also has disappeared ; if he has had any occult or 
rheumatic lameness, or indurated chronic swelling of the legs, 
all appear alike to yield to this disease a temporary supremacy, 
as if nature was maturing her purposes and preparing for an 
attack. But what is very remarkable, these peculiarities are 
seldom noticed until the attack has actually taken place. If 
physic be administered in this stage, it will not act satis- 
factorily; perhaps it will be three or four days before it purges, 
and then only partially. Even the food itself will remain in 
the bowels in an undigested state for an astonishing length 
of time : the wheat or oats are voided whole, and the faeces 
are whitish, and pasty. If we insert a seton in the frog, or 
a rowel in any other part of the body, we have as a con- 
sequence an unhealthy wound, much swelling, with little or 
no discharge, and what little there may be is of a most un- 
healthy character, and the odour very disagreeable. On our 
making particular inquiry, we have often found that lately 
the horse has exhibited slight lameness of one leg (perhaps a 
hind leg) for a day or two, it has then left that leg and affected 
another without the slightest apparent reason, and in a day 
or two it has disappeared altogether. At other times the 
bursae have been suddenly and intensely inflamed for a day 
or two, and then the swelling has subsided as suddenly. 
Again, the animal will sometimes experience slight attacks of 
spasm, which come and go without any assignable cause. 
There are, I doubt not, many observant practitioners who could 
bear me out in many of these statements respecting this 
disease, which, from its singularity, always excites an interest. 
