186 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF FEVER IN HORSES. 
By P-. . I 
Question. What is meant to be understood, in medicine, by 
the term Fever ? 
Answer . A disease characterized by increased heat, quick 
pulse, general disturbance of functions, prostration of strength. 
This (excepting that the horror or shivering fit, a common precursor 
of these symptoms, is omitted as unessential to the disorder) is Dr. Cullens 
definition of his class pyrexia , or febrile disease in general. Our word, fever, 
would seem, from the similarity of the two, to come from the French Jievre. 
Febris is the Latin for fever; derived from ferveo, signifying, I am hot. 
The Greek root is ; in English, I burn. 
Q. Has not fever (a very common disorder in man) been denied 
to the horse ? 
A. Yes, in its idiopathic form; and still is, both by Professor 
Coleman, in London, and by Professor Girard, in Paris. 
Q. Explain what you mean by its idiopathic form. 
A. The fever to which I believe the horse to be subject, is 
simple inflammatory fever; and of this fever there are two forms 
or kinds: —one is technically called idiopathic , because its exist¬ 
ence is not dependent on any other disorder; the other is named 
symptomatic , because it is either the product or inherent con¬ 
comitant of some other disease. 
(£§» Idiopathic, in Latin idiopathicus , is originally derived from two 
Greek words:— jS'joc, peculiar, and 7 ra0«j, an affection. In this medical 
sense, our word, independent, answers to it sufficiently veil. 
Q. Is there any other diflerence between idiopathic and symp¬ 
tomatic fevers ? . . 
A. None whatever: in other respects they are undistmguish- 
clIdIc 
Q. How is it, then, that the Professors admit one form and 
deny the other ? 
A. Because, they intend that such symptoms are always 
demonstrably dependent on, or connected with, some local dis 
ease. . 
Q. And what are your proofs, and on what do you base them; 
that they are not ? . pit- a 
A. I found my arguments on observations of the living, and 
on examinations of the dead subject. 
Many horses are brought to me ill, with symptoms of fever, to whicl 
symptoms 1 can assign no local source of disease : in some of these cases 
