EPIDEMIC AMONG HOUSES. 
6()8 
or three horses of high mettle, although the loss of muscular 
power was very apparent, yet, until within a few hours of death, 
they retained their natural lively look. I never observed any 
disinclination to rise or lie down in this disease. 
In two cases, a few hours before death, the animal suddenly 
purged a black foetid fluid, so disagreeable that it was almost 
impossible to remain in the stable. 
This fatal disease lasted about three weeks, and then assumed 
a milder form, and gradually disappeared. At the expiration of 
this time, however, I had horses afflicted in a different manner, 
and great numbers of them. They were seized with violent 
shivering fits, which would sometimes last for hours, accompa- 
nied by great debility and a quickened oppressed pulse, varying 
from 50 to 70. In some instances, intense cholicky pains were 
observed. From symptoms so opposite to those of the foregoing 
disease, it might be inferred that it was of a different form and 
character : my reasons for considering it to be a milder form of 
the epidemic are these, — the great number of those cases at that 
particular time, the very debilitating nature of the disease, and the 
perfect analogy in the effect of the same kind of treatment. In 
a subsequent part of this paper I shall again refer to this. 
This epidemic disease, besides the usual termination in re- 
storation to health or death, in a few instances ended in a dif- 
ferent manner; producing, in one case, disease of the spinal 
canal with consequent paralysis of the hind extremities ; in 
others, disease of mesenteric glands, with dropsy of the abdomen. 
Ruptured liver has likewise been the consequence of it. 
I trust to be excused entering fully at present into the treat- 
ment of this malady, as I have stated that I intend in a future 
number to give extracts from my practice : my remarks, there- 
fore, must now be of a general character. From the very obscure 
character of the disease, with a pulse gradually rising in number, 
I considered it at first to be of an inflammatory nature; but of 
what kind, or to what organ principally determined, I could not 
find out. There was no increased or quickened respiration ; 
I therefore argued that it was not in the lungs. It was not similar 
to any of the varied forms of catarrhal disease : all that there was 
to guide me, was the torpidity and inertness of the bowels, the 
extreme debility, and the oppressed quickened pulse. I treated 
it as an inflammatory attack, and used depletive measures, en- 
deavouring by every means to open the bowels ; I also applied 
counter-irritants to the chest, in the shape of blisters. Almost 
every animal that lost any blood died, and very often in a few 
hours. In another part of this paper I have observed the black 
appearance of the blood, and the small wiry stream in which it 
