475 
THE VETERINARIAN, AUGUST 1, 1850. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. — C icero. 
We were cut short in some observations we were desirous of 
making on the subject of distemper or influenza last month by lack 
of space. We now resume our pen; and we feel the more pleasure 
in so doing, from having in the interim received a very interesting 
communication on it from our friend Mr. Gabriel; wherein we 
hail with delight some opinions which carry with them not only 
the aspect of novelty, but bear upon their face the impress of 
experience and truth. Mr. Gabriel regards influenza to be “ 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 # .” This theory puts us in mind of a conversation that lately 
took place between the writer of this and a gentleman conversant 
in horse rearing and training. “ It’s all very well,” he said, “ to 
turn your young horses into straw-yard or loose boxes or pad- 
docks until they arrive at an age fit for use, with a view of keep- 
ing them in health ; but, do what you will with them, after all 
they will contract some distemper or another ; if not before, at all 
events soon after, you come to stable them.” There was too much 
truth in this remark for us to pretend to meet it with a rebuff : we 
however parried, as we conceived, a good deal of the force of it by 
retorting that, although we could not deny the continuing liability 
of the young horse to the distemper, yet, by postponing the malady 
until the animal had become acclimate to his situation, or else 
had arrived at an age when his powers were better able to with- 
stand the disease — in the promising language of Mr. Gabriel, better 
able to cast off the “ impurities” — we placed him, relatively to 
this unavoidable disorder, in a more favourable position. 
Now, meditating on the fact of hardly any young horse escaping 
the disorder in question, and connecting this with the observa- 
tion so often made, that the animal “ is the better ” for having 
had such disorder ; and recollecting that strangles, in some one of 
* See his paper in our present Number, page 437. 
