INFLAMMATION IN A COLT. 
801 
9/A, 10 A. M. — Better. The pulse is still quick, but the pulsa- 
tion at the plantar arteries is not so strong. The breathing is some- 
what quieter, and the bowels have been slightly acted upon. 
Continue the powder, with the exception of the aloes. 
3 P. M. — I visited my patient with the hope of finding still 
greater improvement, but to my surprise and regret I found him 
rolling in his stall — looking anxiously at his flanks — the breathing 
quickened — the pulse 80 — the feet cool, and the peculiar throbbing 
of the plantar artery no longer to be felt. The horse was com- 
pletely covered with cold perspiration. I anxiously inquired of 
the groom what had been given to the horse. He informed me 
that our patient had drank a pailful of warm water, and eaten a 
handful of vetches. It was a clear case of metastasis of inflamma- 
tion from the feet to the bowels. 
I immediately ordered some well-boiled gruel, and bled him to 
the amount of four pounds. The pulse then began to falter, and I 
pinned up the wound. I administered opiates, with plenty of 
clysters and fomentations. Stimulants were also applied externally 
to the abdomen, but all without effect. He died on the following 
morning, between five and six o’clock. 
Post-mortem examination . — The feet were as free from disease 
as if nothing had been the matter with them : but both the perito- 
neal and mucous coats of the intestines were in the highest state of 
inflammation. 
Were the vetches acting with the cold lotion the cause of this 
fatal metastasis 'l or would it have occurred if they had not been 
given! 
[The cold lotion could have had nothing to do with this fatal metasta- 
sis. It was applied to the immediate neighbourhood of the tissue 
originally inflamed, and it was doing its duty. The inflamma- 
tion was gradually subsiding. The vetches did all the mis- 
chief. There was, in consequence of the high state of inflam- 
mation in the system, general and excessive irritability, and the 
intestinal canal had more than its fair share of it. It had been kept 
under by the stimulus of several successive small doses of aloes. 
It was ready to rebel against every kind of improper treatment. 
There seems also to be a morbid principle not sufficiently re- 
garded in the horse, and in other animals, that, when an inflam- 
matory disease is beginning to decline, as it was here, in the 
part originally affected, it is, as it were, eagerly looking round 
for some other weak point on which to discharge its remaining, 
or, perhaps, redoubled fury. Here irritation from the physic, 
and very properly administered, was produced; and then comes 
