OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESENT INFLUENZA 
AMONG HORSES, WITH REMARKS ON A TRIAL 
OF TREATMENT BY MERCURY. 
By Mr. William Percivall. 
From the close of the past year, and the beginning of the 
present up to the time I am writing, the influenza among horses 
has continued to prevail in the metropolis and different parts of 
the country with more or less fatality. In London it has as- 
sumed the form of laryngitis, associated in some instances with 
bronchitis ; in others — in all, I believe, where it has proved fatal — 
with pleurisy. The parenchymatous structure of the lungs has 
not partaken of the disease, or but consecutively and slightly. 
The earliest and most characteristic symptom has been sore 
throat ; causing troublesome dry short cough, but rarely occa- 
sioning any difficulty of deglutition, and, in no instance that I 
have seen, severe or extensive enough to produce any thing like 
disgorgement or return of the masticated matters through the 
nose, and yet the slightest pressure on the larynx has excited an 
act of coughing. But seldom has any glandular enlargement 
appeared. The symptom secondarily remarkable after the sore 
throat and cough has been a dispiritedness or dulness, for 
which most epidemics of the kind are remarkable. The animal, 
at the time of sickening, has hung his head under the manger, 
with his eyes half shut, and his lower lip pendant, without evinc- 
ing any alarm or even much notice, though a person entered his 
abode or approached him ; and if in a box, his head is often 
found during his illness turned towards the door or window. 
Fever, without any disturbance of the respiration, has always 
been present : the pulse has been accelerated, though rather 
small and weak in its beat than indicative of strength ; the 
mouth has been hot, sometimes burning hot, afterwards moist, 
and perhaps saponaceous; the skin and extremities in general 
have been warm. Now and then, the prostration and appearance 
of debility have been such, and so rapid in their manifestation, 
that, shortly after being attacked, a horse has staggeringly walked 
twenty yards only — the distance from his stable into an infirmary- 
box. The appetite, though impaired much, has seldom been 
altogether lost. Generally, if a little fresh hay has been offered, 
it has been taken and eaten ; but to mashes there has been com- 
monly great aversion. During the long continuance of the wind 
in the east, the sore throat and cough have been unattended by 
any flux from the nose; but, since the wind has shifted within 
