GIG REMARKS ON THE LATE EPIDEMIC, THE INFLUENZA. 
destructive malady, the influenza; but when you consider that I 
am only (as it were) commencing my professional career, you 
will, I doubt not, treat my imperfections with your wonted cour- 
tesy. Your kindness. Sir, during my stay at the Veterinary 
College during the last session, I shall never forget; and the free 
access you granted to your valuable library deserves a thousand 
thanks. 
On riding through the country, I am very often called to halt, 
and give my opinion on horses that have been attacked with the 
influenza, and have not done well since. In several instances I 
find confirmed cases of glanders ; others are confirmed roarers ; 
some have ophthalmia. There was one case of paralysis of the 
optic nerve, or gutta serena ; another of broken wind ; several 
horses had enlargements of the parotid and submaxillary glands, 
and others chronic cough ; some shew great weakness of the 
loins, and in not a few the hind legs continue cedematous. A 
staring coat and hide-bound are far from uncommon ; a general 
dulness of the eyes, and, when turned to grass, the irritation of 
the flies producing weeping from the eyes, and great inflamma- 
tion. I also met with two cases of phlebitis after bleeding for 
influenza. 
On inquiring into the treatment adopted by the attendant, 
the general information I obtained was, “ The farrier took about 
a pint of blood from the horse, and then gave him a ball that 
nearly scoured his guts out.” Others, however, were bled to a 
great extent, and hydrothorax was the consequence ; while some 
were treated more scientifically, and have done well since. 
The generality of these cases were among farmers’ horses, 
badly groomed, and subject to the action of an accumulation of 
the different gases, formed by the union of the animal secretions. 
On opening a stable door, the strong vapour of ammonia, formed 
by the union of hydrogen and nitrogen, would make the tears 
trickle down the cheeks. In such a miserable situation the 
horse labouring under influenza is tied fast up, and every orifice 
in the door and wall stopped with straw. Now, if nature can 
bear up against the influence of this deleterious confinement, and 
the preliminary symptoms pass away, is the animal not left in a 
state sadly predisposed to take on glanders, from the influence of 
the “animal poison” on the system, supposed by Mr. Coleman to 
be formed by the union of the gases of the stable, but how, or in 
what way, I know not. 
What must be its influence on that delicate organ, the eye? 
Is it not sufficient to produce ophthalmia, after the eye has suf- 
fered from that excessive inflammation frequently present in 
cases of influenza ? Will its influence not be equally fatal on 
