104 
THE EPIDEMICS OF 183(>. 
unaffected, and scarcely ever fastening upon an aged horse. 
I have kept several old horses in situations where they have 
been surrounded by others affected with influenza, and they 
have not caught the disorder : for these reasons I have pro- 
nounced the disease not contagious. Had I once entertained a 
different notion, I should have considered it my imperative duty 
to have used every precaution to prevent its spreading : I took 
none, and I have not had the slightest reason to repent of it. 
My treatment has been of but a simple kind. In all cases 
where the pulse, and mouth, and eyes, and speedy accession of 
tumid tender legs, have indicated a good deal of febrile action 
in the system, I have not hesitated to abstract blood : I have 
not in general found it necessary or expedient, however, to take 
away more than six pounds, and scarcely in one genuine case 
to recur to bloodletting a second time. Immediately after ab- 
stracting blood, I have given small doses of aloes in conjunction 
with tartar emetic and nitre. As I have in no case commenced 
medical treatment before the disorder has fully developed itself, 
I have found several that have not required loss of blood ; and 
some few that have restored themselves after being kept for a 
day or two on a cooling laxative diet. To remove the tumefac- 
tion of the legs, which sometimes has enormously augmented 
their volume, and proved very troublesome to subdue, I have kept 
my patients slowly walking about for three hours a day — an 
hour in the morning, a second at noon, and a third in the even- 
ing, in shady places in the open air ; and when practicable, graz- 
ing them and turning them loose. And nothing, I feel persuad- 
ed, has contributed more than this to their recovery. Should the 
laxative medicine given in the first instance fail to render the dung 
a soft mass, I have, after an interval of twenty-four hours, follow- 
ed it up by the exhibition of half a drachm of aloes in combina- 
tion with one drachm of tartarized antimony and two of nitre, 
conjoined with common turpentine. The subsidence of the ope- 
ration of the laxative has in a majority of cases been succeeded 
by the return of the appetite and spirits; and after some few 
days continuance of a diet, changed from bran mashes entirely 
to three feeds of corn a-day, and a mash at night, by the resto- 
ration of health and strength. In other cases the continuance 
of swelling in the legs and sheath has rendered diuretic medi- 
cine highly useful, and walking exercise in the open air of para- 
mount importance. In some few, an appearance of languor and 
debility has called for the administration of tonics and stimulants. 
Various medicines have been prescribed by different practitioners 
to answer these ends, — aether, ammonia, steel, bark, gentian, &c. 
I have given by way of a tonic-diuretic, with as much effect as 
