SOFTENING OF THE LIVER IN EGYPTIAN HORSES. 471 
of the spine is bent — the hind limbs stand apart from each other — 
the urine is clear, abundant, and but seldom discharged — the skin 
is cold — the excrement containing more indigested food. 
When glanders or farcy is complicated with this disease, its pro- 
gress is more rapid. Ordinarily for some hours before the death 
of the animal many of these symptoms disappear. The animal 
becomes unquiet — his uneasiness increases — the pulse becomes 
small and frequent, and often rises to 90 or 100 beats in a minute. 
At length the animal lies down — he struggles for a few instants, 
and dies. 
Post-mortem Examination . — Decomposition proceeds very ra- 
pidly. The liver is generally hypertrophied — of a clear yellow 
colour — its investing membrane is very easily detached — its sub- 
stance is soft or almost pultaceous, greasy to the touch, and congested 
with blood. This ramollissement is either partial, or extended 
through the whole of the viscus. Often it resembles bouillie enclosed 
in a serous sac — there are no traces of the bloodvessels — it is 
extravasated bile mingled with the parenchymatous mass. If the 
disorganization affects only one portion of the liver, there, never- 
theless, exists a complication of disease which is speedily fatal 
to life — the abdominal viscera are pale and humid — there is little 
blood even in the larger vessels, and this fluid has lost its colour 
and its plasticity. 
My inquiries into the nature and the causes of this disease were 
anxious and long continued. I consulted veterinary authors, but I 
found nothing satisfactory in the account which they gave. Few 
persons, before me, had studied the maladies of the Egyptian 
horse, and that which I found in the works of human physicians, 
who had accompanied our troops over the same districts, did not 
appear applicable to the case. At length I read in “ The Dictionary 
of Medical Science” the following sentence — “ In the colliquative 
softening which is the consequence of certain internal diseases, the 
tissue of the parts loses its natural density, it becomes soft, and 
then almost fluid. It has lost its component element — the mole- 
cules are deprived of their proper organic character, and even the 
bones and the cartilages lose their density in certain diseases.” 
Comparing this with what I had observed respecting the diseased 
livers of the horse, I thought that I could trace a very considerable 
analogy, and I began to recognize in the manner in which the 
Egyptian horses were fed and treated much that, in a great mea- 
sure, accounted for this ramollissement. The inhabitants of these 
countries are accustomed to leave their young, and adult, and old 
horses, indiscriminately to feed on green trefoil, in the fields, dur- 
ing four or five months, taking the absurd and injurious precau- 
tion of tying them up, so as to render almost the slightest motion 
