ON FEVER IN TIIE HORSE, 
247 
Cullen describes Pyrexiae to be, after shivering, ora sense of cold¬ 
ness ; a quick pulse; increased heat; with interruption and de¬ 
rangement of functions, and diminution of strength. This class 
contains five orders, the first of which is divided into six genera, 
the fourth of which is synocha, or inflammatory fever, the cha¬ 
racter of which is— 
Heat much increased; pulse frequent, strong and hard; urine 
red; the animal functions little disturbed. 
I am here giving the outline of symptoms as they occur in 
the human subject; and, though I am told by my preceptor I 
must not, in veterinary practice, reason from analogy, I hope I 
shall stand excused for differing in opinion, feeling, as I do, it 
is the only sure source from which I can draw true and just 
inferences. 
As I have before stated, from the first study of medicine by 
our ancestors to the present period, the cause and nature of fever 
have been involved in obscurity;; physiologists and pathologists 
holding their particular and various opinions : nor have they 
always been able to discriminate the disease by any constant set 
of symptoms. The essence of the disease is supposed to con¬ 
sist in increased heat, in quickness of pulse, in horror or shiver¬ 
ing ; but this is not invariably the case, for one or the other may 
not be present, and yet the disease still exists, and which, I 
think, will at once do away with the arguments (if I may be al¬ 
lowed to reason from analogy) of those who are sceptical, or 
deny the existence of idiopathic fever in the horse, and say, that, 
to constitute fever, we must have a cold, a hot, and a sweating- 
stage. This is certainly discernible in intermittents; but in 
synocha I consider we may have the absence of either, or, though 
present, they may pass unobserved ; yet our patients labour 
under fever, which we may be able to discern by a combination 
of other symptoms. 
I must not enter into the various discussions on the nature and 
causes of fever, as that would lead me beyond the limits of a papev 
of this kind, and would more properly apply to varieties of fever; 
but as I am here only regarding fever in its simple state, it w 7 ould 
take me astray from my present object; I shall, therefore, only 
briefly allude to them. 
Dr. Sydenham defined fever to be a salutary operation of 
nature to free the constitution from something offensive to it. 
All fevers were produced by a contraction, and consequently an 
obstruction, in the capillaries on the surface of the body, the con¬ 
sequence of which was an impediment to the free motion of the 
heart. 
Dr. Boerhaave was a strong supporter of the doctrine of oh- 
