VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
417 
Mr. Mavor thought that it was decidedly so. Some horses 
went from his place into Herefordshire. One went a different road 
from the others, and contracted distemper. The others got safely 
home, and continued well until the other arrived, three weeks 
afterwards, not perfectly recovered from the disease. He was 
placed in the same stable with them, and every one became dis¬ 
tempered. 
Mr. Spooner remarked, that it was of consequence to determine 
what were the symptoms of pure fever, as distinct from local de¬ 
termination. He believed in its existence, but he would be glad 
of information on this point. He believed that it was often con¬ 
founded with inflammation of the feet and of the lungs. It was 
at first simple fever, but it soon degenerated into affections of 
these organs. . . 
Mr. Youatt recollected the time when it would have been 
deemed ignorance and presumption to affirm the existence of sim¬ 
ple fever in the horse; and now there did not seem to be an indi¬ 
vidual in the Society who had any doubt about its existence. 
This was a decisive and pleasing illustration of the progress of 
- veterinary science. The fact was, that the occasional accompa¬ 
niments of fever had been mistaken for its essentials. The chair¬ 
man had rightly defined fever to be increased action of the heart 
and arteries ; perfectly consistent with the theory of Dr. Clutter- 
buck, to which Mr. Green had alluded in his paper, that it was 
'primarily an affection of the brain; and a perfect definition of it, 
if the Doctor had said that it was increased or morbid energy of 
that system of nerves—the ganglionic—on which the heart and 
arteries, and all the vital organs, depend for their power of 
action. Inflammation was increased action of particular portions 
of the circulatory vessels—fever, general increased action. 
He did not see how Mr. Spooner's question could be answered 
.in a debate like the present; but to the person who had made 
himself acquainted with the various symptoms of local inflamma¬ 
tion, there would not often be difficulty in ascertaining when 
the general affection had yielded to in tenser local action; when 
the weakest parts of the frame, the lungs, in the horse, unable 
to support the general exeitement, had taken on a peculiar mor- 
• bid action. 
Mr. IF. Percivall imagined that the principal difference be¬ 
tween fever in the human being, and the horse was, that in our 
patient it was so apt to run into mere local affection, and that, 
in the majority of cases, an affection of the lungs. The main 
object of the practitioner, and the best proof of Ins skill, was the 
prevention of this local determination. 
Mr. Mavor asked what were the symptoms, or what the state 
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