542 
CHANGES OF DISEASES IN HORSES. 
Coleman’s pupils left College persuaded that nothing but the 
phleam could save their pulmonic patients, and numbers of them 
persisted in their sanguinary practice, heedless of the influenza 
which was gathering around them, to the destruction of life to a 
large extent, ere their eyes became opened to their error. Others 
became convinced of this fault by the accounts of influenza and 
epidemics which, about the time, came pretty often to be published. 
At length a sort of paper war commenced, whether there ought to 
be bleeding or no bleeding in influenza ; and though the advo- 
cates for blood-letting, fresh from the Coleman school, mustered so 
strong at the outset that they overpowered their opponents, still 
has time and experience proved that the Colemanites were in 
error. 
In the class of the bleeders I must, as a disciple and follower 
of Coleman, and a great respecter of his opinions, rank myself. 
I pursued the practice for some years, and thought myself as 
successful as other veterinary surgeons. Seasons of influenza, 
however — when cases of distemper in horses , low fever , & c. (as 
they were called, though dying pulmonic) prevailed — at length 
discovered themselves to me at seasons when blood-letting was 
ill-borne, and during which, if persisted in, pulmonary disease sank 
under the use of the phleam. 
At what period this “ change came o’er the tenor of my dream” 
I cannot now precisely say. It was brought about by a conviction 
that remedies which once commanded success appeared no longer 
worthy of faith. It was true, I had got “ influenza” to treat ; but 
this influenza so often assumed the form of or ran into pneumonia, 
that I felt myself at a loss for marks of distinction, or rather for 
such signs as should warrant me in pursuing my old practice or in 
substituting another for it. I consulted old authors and writers on 
the subject. I read influenza under the name of “fever” and 
“ distemper” to have been, even in their time, the same disease. 
I then came to the conclusion that, instead of there being change 
in the nature or character of the disease, the alteration lay in its 
comparative prevalence; and that this must be owing either to 
certain atmospheric changes about which we know little or nothing, 
or else to some alteration in horses’ constitutions, of which, however, 
we possess no proof. Now-a-days, influenzae, instead of occurring 
“ spring and fall” as formerly, make visits at irregular and un- 
seasonable periods. — Nay ! hardly do we see now any pulmonic 
attack which we can treat with the same depletory measures as 
formerly, and which consequently we are apt to regard as partaking 
more or less of the nature of influenza. The inflammatory action 
we have to treat would appear to be of the asthenic in place of (as 
formerly) the sthenic character ; and this I believe to arise from 
