786 THE VENEREAL DISEASE OF HORSES, AND ITS 
in desquamation of the skin ; in others, gradually disappearing. 
The continuance of the affection is from four to nine months, 
during the whole of which period the pulse continues slow and 
sluggish and almost without change to the end. 
The foregoing account refers to the disease as it occurs in the 
mare. In the stallion it differs, inasmuch as the constitutional 
symptoms appear before the local affection of the genitals — ema- 
ciation, weakness of the loins and hinder extremities, paralysis, &c. 
preceding the occurrence of swelling of the parts. The first symp- 
toms are swelling of the prepuce, and the appearance of small 
miliary vesicles on the organ itself, which give rise to excori- 
ations and the formation of crusts, &c., as before described in the 
mare. 
This peculiar disease would appear to be frequently of sponta- 
neous origin, both in the horse and in the mare, and at the same 
time appears to be communicable from the one to the other. 
This communication, however, seems to take place rather as a 
consequence of the local excitement depending on the gene- 
rative act, under a peculiar epidemic constitution, predisposing to 
the development of glandular disease, than as the result of the 
absorption of a specific poison. The appearances after death 
throw little light on the nature of the disease. The preceding 
details are sufficient to characterize this severe and dangerous 
malady, should it be found to exist in the country ; and the brief 
sketch may be of use in directing to the subject the attention 
of those having the care of studs. 
We are not aware of any British surgeon who has described 
this dreadful disease as generated, or communicated, or received 
by the quadruped ; nor have any of our veterinary writers or prac- 
titioners recorded a single instance of it. No one, however, has 
been long in practice without witnessing from the genital parts of 
the horse, the mare, and the dog, a purulent discharge, sometimes 
communicable by coition, particularly from the glands, or urethra, 
or labia pudendi. The mare has also been infected by the dis- 
charge from an ulcer on the penis of the horse. — [Ed.] 
M. Lautour has given a somewhat curious account of this*. 
“In April 1830 a mare was brought to me with a discharge of 
a yellow colour from the vulva. The mucous membrane of the 
vagina was of a deeper colour than natural — the right teat was 
the seat of a very tender phlegmonous enlargement, extending to 
* Rec. de Med. Vet , 1834, p. 113. 
