520 ON Till? RECENT EPIDEMIC AMONG HORSES. 
they can be procured ; allow also plenty of warm clothing, and 
bandage up the extremities. 
The post-mortem examinations of the cases that have proved 
fatal are as follow : — In the abdominal cavity nothing particular 
could be exhibited connected with the alimentary canal, except 
a few petechial spots on the external surface of the tube. The 
liver presented a morbid hue, being quite hepatized, and easily 
lacerated ; in some there was an effusion of serum within the 
cavity. The kidneys were large, and displayed the effects of 
inflammation. The bladder was perfectly healthy, and generally 
found empty : extensive patches of extravasated blood and serum 
were underneath the iliacus and psoae muscles ; and this effusion 
continued through the whole course of the crural and sciatic 
nerves, as they proceeded from that portion of the spinal marrow 
to their termination among the different muscles. 
In examining this cavity of the body, all the organs participated 
more or less in a morbid condition. The substance of the lungs 
in some cases was evidently abnormal ; the bronchial tubes suf- 
fered in proportion to the extent of the disease in them, being 
very much injected, and full of frothy mucus. Effusion of serum to 
a greater or less extent appeared, and adhesion betwixt the pleura 
pulmonalis and costalis. Connected with the heart and pericar- 
dium, there was effusion within the membrane, consisting of 
bloody serum. The external surface was of a purple colour, and 
very much thickened in its coats, arising from a deposition of 
coagulated lymph during the active stage of the inflammation. 
The heart, in one or two instances, was much enlarged, and 
its colour changed from its natural pink to a dark purple, with nu- 
merous spots of ecchymosis on its external and internal surface, 
and changed from its natural structure to a hepatized one; in fact, 
it had lost that firm dense muscular feeling which it previously 
possessed. 
If I have been correct in my description of the progress and 
termination of this disease, I conceive it as more or less a disease of 
the heart and its surrounding membrane, and also connected with 
the organs of respiration. 
There are still more convincing proofs to be adduced in corro- 
boration of my opinion. I may refer to many cases of this in- 
fluenza that occurred in the neighbourhood of Liverpool during 
the last year, and which came under the observation of Mr. 
George Kirkham, V.S., residing in that town ; who, in an essay 
read before the Veterinary Medical Association of Edinburgh in 
January last, described a few cases that passed under his 
notice, shewing that this affection of the heart and pericardium 
predominated in those cases to a greater or less extent. 
