248 
ON FEVER IN THE HORSE. 
struction, and supposed every disease to proceed from lentor and 
viscidity of the fluids ; there was no real evidence, however, of 
any such change, for the discharges are the usual ones. Any 
changes in the quality of the blood are asserted without proof. It 
has been examined by every test, and all its properties are found 
with little alteration, the buffy coat being dependent on other 
causes. 
Dr. Hoffman, on the other hand, considered fever to be pro¬ 
duced by a constriction in the capillaries, not owing to viscidity 
or any fault in the blood or juice, but to an affection of the 
nervous system; and this, I conceive, will be found to come 
nearer to our present ideas. 
Blood drawn in inflammatory diseases, is at first streaked 
with purplish lines, and soon a yellow viscid coat covers the red 
globules, the sides of which rise around, giving the coagulumthe 
form of a cup : hence arises the term of the blood being cupped. 
The animal heat is between 98 and 100 of Fahrenheit, and the 
heat never increases, even under a state of what we term fever, 
in greater proportion than 15 degrees; and there is one fact 
worthy of observation, which is, that whatever temperature the 
atmosphere is of, yet the animal heat continues the same. 
A later opinion has been, that fever is only heat, and to be 
cured by its opposite, cold ; but we receive no information of the 
cause of this heat. When fevers were supposed to consist in 
increased action, the remote causes were sought in stimuli of 
every kind ; but if stimulus alone would produce fever, exercise 
and heat would be among its most frequent causes, which is not 
the case. 
Dr. Cullen considered the cold stage of fever, which is the 
primary one, to be the cause of all the subsequent phenomena ; 
and this he conceived to originate in debility. 
Dr. Clutterbuck, one of our best modern authors, refers all 
the symptoms of fever to an affection of the brain, and, as a con- 
quence, the nervous system; which theory, I believe, is now 
pretty generally relied on, and will account for all the variety of 
symptoms we find under the different heads of fever. Dr. Clut¬ 
terbuck says there is no foundation for the use of the term 
idiopathic fever, if it be intended to express a state of fever in¬ 
dependent of local inflammation ; for he maintains, the simplest 
case of fever, as well as the most complicated, in short, every 
case of what is termed idiopathic fever, is a mere effect of topical 
inflammation of the brain. I cannot follow the doctor through 
his intelligent work ; but his theory is one so full of plausibility, 
that it cannot fail to make considerable impression. 
With regard to the occasional or remote cause of fever, I 
