470 
ON SOFTENING (RAMOLLISSEMENT) OF THE LIVER 
IN THE EGYPTIAN HORSES. 
By M. HAMONT, Founder of the Egyptian Veterinary School. 
The horses in Egypt are subject to a peculiar softening of the 
parenchyma of the liver. It is frequently observed in cavalry 
horses, and also in the horse of the agriculturist. It often attacks 
a great number of individuals at the same time. It is of more fre- 
quent occurrence in summer than in winter. Its favourite subjects 
are fully grown and over-fed horses. It is very slow in its pro- 
gress — always dangerous — destroying a great proportion of those 
whom it attacks — sometimes connecting itself with other incurable 
diseases, as farcy and glanders, or appearing all at once, -without 
any appreciable cause, and in animals that, to the very moment of 
attack, had apparently enjoyed the most robust health. 
It may be detected by the following symptoms : — paleness, in- 
filtration, and often a yellow tint, with ecchymosis of the mucous 
membranes. The horse is fatigued by the slightest exercise — he 
draws his hind limbs slowly after him — he frequently breaks out 
into copious sweats — he carries his head low — is continually shift- 
ing his position — he feeds very slowly — is careless about water, 
and the pulse is from 30 to 40 in a minute. At a little later stage 
of the disease he is evidently losing flesh, and that more or less 
rapidly — his coat stares — the natural temperature of the body is 
diminished — the mouth is moist, cold, and frequently covered with 
foam - he begins to stagger as he walks — he almost seems as if he 
was intoxicated — if he lies down, it is with great difficulty that he 
rises again — the pulse is easily compressed — the pulsations of the 
heart are feeble, and not exceeding 30, or 25, or even 20 beats in 
a minute — the respiration is slow — the eyes gummy — the con- 
junctival membrane infiltrated, ecchymosed* — the excrement im- 
perfectly elaborated, and containing many grains of barley — the 
appetite continues, but the body is covered with flies, and the 
wasting is rapidly increased. 
This state of things may possibly last two or three months, and 
then the hind limbs are swelled from the belly to the foot — the 
pulse is always the same, feeble, and slow — the countenance is 
anxious — the patient is shifting his posture every instant, some- 
times leaning on one side, and sometimes on the other — the head 
still held low, and the appetite now gone. The food is seized with 
difficulty, and very slowly masticated — the dorso-lumbar portion 
* This peculiarity is observed in almost all the internal diseases of the 
Egyptian horse. 
