ON THK RECENT EPIZOOTIC AMONG HORSES. 
705 
ing the vessels, distends the cellular membrane so suddenly that 
the animal evinces much pain, literally falling and rolling on the 
ground, and this being sometimes mistaken for cholic. The pal- 
pebrse close over the eye, and are tumid; the head resting on the 
manger, and the fore legs being placed apart from each other. There 
is also rambling in walking at the commencement of the disease, 
very often improperly treated for positive debility, when, in fact, it 
arises from a temporary suspension of volition, produced by cere¬ 
bral disturbance. Now and then serous diarrhoea spontaneously 
arises, and, while existing on the animal, no further progress is 
made in the external infiltration, but it returns as soon as the 
diarrhoea ceases. The respiration is generally more or less embar¬ 
rassed. Sore throat or defluxions from the nose have not been to 
any extent predominant. The appetite is precarious, and there is 
a vacillation of pulse in most cases. 
The proper treatment of influenza consists in early and moderate 
venesection, guided in some degree by the pulse and general con¬ 
dition of the animal. If he is comatose, although with a pulse 
scarcely perceptible, bleeding will be of service; but venesection, 
after the legs are fully distended and a sero-purulent discharge dis¬ 
tils from the eyes, is injurious. Warmth should be preserved on 
the surface of the body. Nitrous mther and liquor ammon. acetat. 
should be administered in doses of half an ounce of the former to two 
ounces of the latter, two or three times a-day. Cool mucilaginous 
drinks and a little good hay should be allowed; but preference is 
given by the animal to rough or dried withered grass, plucked from 
the hedges. Bran mashes, if too plentifully supplied, produce 
purgation, more especially if not freed from the wlieaten flour; and, 
above all things, purgation should be carefully avoided. 1 have seen 
one drachm of aloes act as strongly under this disease as seven 
drachms in a state of health. In short, purgation is a poison in 
tliis complaint, even in very minute doses. When the animal 
begins to rally, the bitter tonics, combined with tcrebinthinated 
diuretics, and a more liberal diet, are the best restoratives, with 
moderate exercise. Very few horses die under this disease, if 
only common caution has been used in assisting and not perverting 
the laws of nature. 
Although I have never lost a case of influenza out of hundreds 
that I have witnessed, many deaths have occurred through the im¬ 
proper treatment of grooms, smiths, and empirics : some have been 
bled and others purged to death. These all-knowing gentlemen 
sometimes confound it with phreiiitis or staggers, and then the 
active measures which they adopt in order to subdue it have caused 
death in a very short |)eri()(l. After profusii bleeding, llu; vis 
vityu has been so much depressed that Nature has made no attein[it 
