156 
ON ABSCESS. 
lion, depresses the already weakened nervous power still lower. 
The circulating current, charged with irritating matter, changes the 
state of the capillaries of the parenchymatous and some other struc- 
tures, so that without any sign of antecedent or accompanying in- 
flammation, they secrete purulent matter. 
Some pathologists have supposed the purulent matter to pass 
the vessels without mixing with the blood, and to be separated by 
the capillaries, and by them deposited in the several parts of the 
body, in which the structure and bloodvessels are most inclined to 
allow its elimination, and most calculated to admit of its deposi- 
tion. By which of these modes the actual formation of consecutive 
abscess is effected, it is by no means easy to determine. In both 
ways the effect may be produced. The subsequent formation of 
pus — produced, in the one instance by the diseased matter circu- 
lating in the blood, giving rise to irritation in other parts ; or a 
secretion or separation of the pus into the parenchyma of an organ, 
without preceding or accompanying irritation, — in both these ways 
the effect may be produced. 
The inflammatory action in an abscess may cease at any period 
of its existence, and absorption of the matter formed in it takes 
place; in w’hich case the morbid fluid is received into the circula* 
tion. Inflammation or pain may develope itself in some other organ, 
and exercise on the first centre of mischief a true revulsion ; or 
the original inflammation may gradually subside altogether in the 
abscess, and give rise to absorption of pus. In whichever of the 
modes the effect is produced, one thing is evident, — that the ab- 
sorption does not take place until the subsidence of the local signs 
of inflammation and congestion in the primary abscess. I am 
much in favour of the opinion, that newly-developed irritation, ex- 
ercising its influence upon the previous seat of local inflammation 
and congestion, is the true way in which the consecutive abscesses 
of strangles are formed. 
The animals subject to this kind of abscess are those possessing 
constitutions of weak vital resistance and defective restorative 
energy. In the course of my practice I have had cases which I con- 
sidered the true disease of strangles, occurring in young animals, 
in which there were no external abscesses, either in the maxillary 
channel or in any other part of the surface of the body, but evi- 
dent signs of purulent collection in the lumbar or iliac regions — 
such as tenderness about the loins, curvature upward, and inability 
to carry one or another of the hind extremities forward with the 
usual freedom. To these diagnoses the general symptoms of fever 
were united. 
In the case of a colt brought to me in October last, the property 
of a neighbouring agriculturist, named Stanley, the singular phe- 
