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HIPPO-PATHOLOGY. 
This membrane being so very subject to disorder, and being 
the seat of catarrh, of cough, of glanders, of roaring often, and 
sometimes of inflammation in the lungs, well deserves our especial 
attention and (to the extent that we are able to examine it) fre- 
quent inspection. On opening either nostril we discover its sur- 
face displaying a dotted, shining, humid aspect, of a more or less 
carnation hue, without any collected mucus upon it, that being one 
of the earliest indications of disorder in it. It is a part we should 
never fail to examine in passing a horse in regard to soundness : it 
is a part which calls for our especial examination in all the cases 
comprehended in the class of “ Diseases of the Air-Passages.” 
Catarrh. 
DERIVATION. — Catarrhus, from actrci^eu, defluo , I flow down. 
SYNONYMY. — A cold, a defluxion, a discharge from the nose. 
Definition. — A mucous defluxion from (commonly) both nos- 
trils, increased redness of the Schneiderian membrane, oozing of 
tears from the comers of the eyes, swellings underneath the jaws, 
snorting, cough, with or without febrile disorder. 
The vulgar and vague appellation of “cold” has, among 
professional men, very properly given place to the more definite 
and intelligible one of catarrh. Hardly any two persons attach the 
same meaning to the word cold: both surgeons and veterinary sur- 
geons are so often misled by it, that nothing short of actual inspec- 
tion of the case can or ought to satisfy the medical adviser. A 
groom will report to his master that his horse has “ only a cold,” 
when the animal is probably labouring under an attack of bronchitis 
or pneumonia ; and will declare a paroxysm of specific ophthalmia 
to be but “ a cold in his eye ;” and do this, not from any desire to 
conceal the truth, but from a confident sense of the rectitude of his 
judgment. Many a life, and still more eyes, have been lost from 
medical aid being deferred or kept aloof after this specious manner. 
Cause. — The appellation of “cold” for this disorder has evidently 
sprung from the circumstance of its production being commonly 
connected with exposure to diminished temperature : cold, how- 
ever, is but the predisposing cause, the immediate excitant appear- 
ing to be heat. It is not during the time that horses are turned out, 
exposed to every inclemency of weather, that they take catarrh ; 
but after, and commonly very soon after, they have been taken up 
and put into stables, and especially when the stables prove to be 
warm ones. It is the transition from cold to heat, and not that 
from heat to cold, that generates catarrh : in a general way, horses 
may be taken out of their warm stables and turned into cold situa- 
tions (provided they are not exposed to wet) without experiencing 
any harm from the change. The ordinary subjects of catarrh are 
