THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE. 
89 
when too freely exposed to the cold, generally lost a great weight 
of flesh, beside having the complaint under much worse circum- 
stances. 
The general symptoms that I have observed since the first ap- 
pearance of the epidemic, are, a staring coat — the eye a little 
sunken in the orbit of the head — large blisters arising on the base 
of the tongue, and containing a white kind of serous fluid and the 
blisters sometimes extending from the base to the tip of the 
tongue — the front teeth of some very loose — a great discharge of 
saliva from the mouth, and, in bad cases, a jelly-like fluid instead 
of saliva — tenderness on the skin and back when touched, so much 
so, that a common observer would say that some one had been 
beating them severely with a stick; and, if compelled to walk, they 
appeared as walking on stilts. They very much resembled a horse 
labouring under an attack of laminitis. The pulse from 60 to 
70, but weak — a pulse which indicates a great deal of irritation, 
but not of inflammation. 
I have never, as yet, seen a case that would warrant me in 
bleeding either fat or lean stock. It does not seem to me that 
one organ alone is attacked, but every organ, more or less. The 
mucous membranes appear to be particularly so. I have sometimes 
gone into a field among a number of stock, and have pointed out 
some as the next most likely to be invalided. They did not then 
either evince lameness or shew any discharge from the mouth, 
yet their apparently starved and chilly looks convinced me that 
they were infected, and the correctness of my judgment was not 
long in doubt, for all the other symptoms shortly afterwards rapidly 
developed themselves. 
Some would be quietly chewing the cud in an apparently good 
state of health, and yet,, scarcely half an hour afterwards would 
shew all the peculiar characteristic features of the complaint. 
I believe that lameness generally accompanies the rising of the 
blisters in the mouth; at least my experience hitherto has shewn so. 
The precise and exact cause of the disease seems to me wrapped 
in so much speculative doubt and mystery, that I scarcely dare 
venture to hazard an opinion; yet, after revolving the matter 
over and over again, and then unbiassedly canvassing the senti- 
ments of others, I am inclined to think that it is a constitutional 
derangement of the system, produced, under predisposing circum- 
stances, by an atmospheric influence of some (at present to me un- 
known) gaseous fluid, that seems to have a peculiar effect upon 
the animal system in general. 
A friend of mine gave me a long and elaborate account of 
its commencing in Spain, in 1838, and proceeding thence to 
Switzerland, Hungary, Bohemia, Prussia, Holland, Belgium, 
