702 ON THE RECENT EPIZOOTIC AMONG HORSES. 
in the day, I have occasionally been compelled to warn the patient 
of his danger, I have had a belief, in which I placed implicit con¬ 
fidence, that the bitten part being EVEN THEN destroyed, there was 
an end to all danger. And then— the agent! The nitrate of silver, 
sometimes without the knife, and always following it. 
I have the honour to be, my dear Sir, 
Your very obedient servant, 
W. You ATT. 
Were any other persons bitten ] 
ON THE RECENT EPIZOOTIC AMONG HORSES. 
By Mr. Robert Read, Crediton, Devonshire. 
The pestiferous epizootic that has been making such destructive 
havoc among cattle, sheep, and swine in the upper counties of 
England, has not as yet visited the site of my neighbourhood; 
neither am I aware that it has done so in any part of the county of 
Devon : but within the last few weeks, the epizootic influenza has 
burst forth amidst our farm and hack horses, assuming a peculiar 
type or character, similar to that of the years 1836-7. There does 
not seem to be any dissimilitude in the premonitory or the recu- 
peratory signs, which were defined at that time. Solitary cases 
have occurred in the interim between that date and three or four 
weeks of the present, when it became more general, and it is in¬ 
creasing rather than diminishing. Our farm horses that are not 
yet taken in from grass suffer, but are not more obnoxious to the 
pest than the hack which is better fed and stabled : both alike are 
susceptible of its influence. ' 
I beg to offer a few remarks on its primary generative source. 
Whether it be an emanation, under certain laws, from the earth, or 
an active agency in the atmosphere itself, will be difficult to deter¬ 
mine. This has been a dry summer with us, for we have had but 
little rain since the latter end of February, until within the last three 
weeks or a month. It is singular that, as soon as the rain set in, 
the influenza with energy developed itself. 
There is no doubt that, for the healthy function of the soil, hu- 
mectation is wanted, and its absence is the cause of unhealthv ex- 
halations. Both extremes produce ill effects, equally visible on ve¬ 
getable and animal matter. Exhalations from the earth may consist 
of either a free or uncombined venom, floating with the constituents 
of the atmosphere, or a mere mechanical mixture, located according 
to circumstances, and its degree of malignancy dependent on the 
component parts of the superficial or the deeper seated soil, in 
