437 
TYPHUS FEVER — INFLUENZA — CATARRH — 
SORE THROAT. 
By E. N. Gabriel, M.R.C.S. and V.S., London. 
How or in what manner, or from what cause, this disease has 
acquired the dangerous character which has for some time past 
been attributed to it, I am altogether at a loss to account. So far 
from participating in this feeling — in apprehension of its danger, 
in fear of its result, in dread of taking charge of it — I know of no 
set of cases with which I should so much like to be inundated as 
this — none of which I should pronounce a more decided diagnosis — 
none in which I should be so little apprehensive of any bad effect 
being left by its debris. Influenza, as far as I can understand it, 
is to the adult animal what strangles is to the colt, — a kindly effort 
of nature to relieve the constitution of some impurities noxious to 
it ; and as strangles may, and does occasionally, prove fatal to the 
one, so influenza may kill the other: but of this I am perfectly 
satisfied, that, with common care and attention, the rate of mor- 
tality in the latter will, in no given number of cases, exceed that 
of the former. It will, therefore, be perceived that I view the 
derangement of the system recognized as influenza scarcely as a 
disease, but as an effort of Nature to cleanse and renovate the 
constitution. I have never seen a case in which the condition of 
the animal did not improve after the attack, even where it was 
good before ; and in numerous cases I have known animals that 
had been unthrifty for years put on first-rate condition after it, and 
retain this for years. How, then, has the note of alarm, so often 
lately hinted at in The VETERINARIAN, been excited] I am to- 
tally at a loss to answer the question. Let us see if the symptoms 
developed in the average number of cases will account for it. 
A horse is found in the morning standing dull in his stall — hishead, 
perhaps, resting on or drooping under the manger — the eye is dull — 
the coat rather staring — he has not cleared his rack and manger 
during the night. An observant groom will possibly perceive that 
he has not been lying down, and he does not care to move in his 
stall. The medical attendant on examination finds, in addition to 
this, the pulse more or less quickened ; but, certainly, neither in- 
creased in strength or tone, neither hard nor jerking : the slightest 
pressure to the upper part of the throat induces, not a cough, but 
an effort, and a most unwilling one, to do so, the act itself causing 
too much pain for the animal to give way to it : the bowels are 
costive, the alvine excretions being small, nobby, and occasionally 
VOL. XXIII. 3 N 
