THE FRESENT INFLUENZA AMONG HORSES. 
363 
may be rubbed with the liniment, ammon. et terebinth : a bol. 
aperiens given, and abstinence and low diet enjoined for a few 
days, and he will recover. My plan of dieting is, to order that 
his food shall consist of hot mashes only for the first day, which 
we all know by experience but few well-fed horses will eat; and 
thus I obtain a day of abstinence, being the one on which the 
aperient is given. The day following my patient is nauseated by 
the physic, and cares little about feeding. On the third day, 
supposing the aperient has mollified the dung, its action, if re- 
quired, being accelerated by a little walking exercise in the fine 
of the day, scalded oats and green meat will be eaten with avidity : 
the throat may be rubbed, if required, for the third time, without 
stirring the hair ; and three or four days more will in general 
complete the cure. 
Should the case turn to bronchitis, a blood-letting may b6 ne- 
cessary, and at this early period may be most safely and benefi- 
cially put into practice, and freely if deemed requisite ; the other 
part of the treatment being such as the case requires. Even 
another abstraction of blood, if needed, may be instituted ; but 
beyond this, particularly when the patient is neither strong nor in 
good condition, or when the disease has run to the sixth or seventh 
day, we can seldom dare to carry blood-letting farther. Our 
sheet-anchor now, supposing the pulmonic disease proceeding on 
its course, must be mercury. Thehydrarg. chlorid., administered 
in the manner I have recommended on a former occasion* ; or 
where from bowel disorder, or any other cause, calomel is not 
admissible, even in small doses, then the hydrarg. cum creta will be 
found, as an inadequate substitute, useful. While exhibiting 
mercury, we should take care to do all we can by counter-irrita- 
tion : the preferable part to attack is the breast ; that should be 
blistered, and may, besides, be made the seat of one or more rowels 
as well. 
When abdominal irritation has presented itself as the fore- 
runner of the attack, without diarrhoea, I have made the aperient 
into a drench, and combined with it either tinct. opii or sprts. 
aether, nitric., or both. Should diarrhoea be present, the bowels 
may still want clearing out ; but a good deal towards remedying 
it is also to be effected by substituting water-gruel, or linseed-tea, 
for water, and changing the hay ; abstracting the corn altogether. 
* See my account of the Influenza among* Horses in 1842, contained in 
T he Veterinarian for that year, pp. 336 et seq. 
