PIIRENITIS IN THE HORSE. 
123 
return of the exacerbation follow, and then, wearied out, he 
becomes quiet: but it is not the quietness of returning reason ; it 
is mere stupor. This continues for an uncertain period, when he 
begins to struggle again ; but he is now probably unable to rise; 
he pants, and foams, and, at length exhausted, he dies. 
How distinguished from Colic. — There are but two diseases 
with wdiich phrenitis can be confounded, and they are colic and 
rabies. In colic the horse rises and falls, he rolls about, and 
kicks at his belly; but his struggles are tame compared with 
these. There is no involuntary spasm of any of the limbs, and 
the horse is sensible, and, looking piteously at his flanks, seems 
to tell us the seat of his pain. The beautitully, fearfully excited 
countenance of the one, and the piteous anxious gaze of the 
other, are sufficiently distinct; and, if it could be got at, the 
bounding rapid pulse of the one, and that of the other scarcely 
losing its natural character in the early stage, could not possibly 
be mistaken. 
How distinguished from Hahies.—lw rabies, when it does 
assume the ferocious form, there is even more violence than in 
phrenitis; and there is method and treachery too in that mad¬ 
ness. There is the desire of mischief for its own sake; and 
there is frequently the artful stratagem to allure the victim 
within the reach of destruction. There is not a motion of which 
the rabid horse is not conscious, nor a person whom he does not 
recognize; but he labours under one all-absorbing feeling, the 
intense longing to devastate and to destroy. 
Post-mortem Appearances. —The study of these is a neglected 
but most valuable branch of veterinary education ; yet if there is 
any disease in which I should be inclined to doubt the dependence 
that could be placed upon them, it would be this. They are 
strangely, incomprehensibly, uncertain. I have seen the highest 
injection and inflammation of the membranes, and evident injec¬ 
tion and inflammation of the substance, or portions of the sub¬ 
stance of the brain ; I have seen them both combined : and I 
have seen other cases, in which the horse had been furious to an 
extreme, and yet scarcely any trace of inflammation, or even of 
increased vascularity, could be detected. There were circum¬ 
stances, however, about these cases which cast a faint light upon 
them, but into which it would be tedious to enter here. The 
lesson which you will learn from this uncertainty of morbid ap¬ 
pearance, is to be very cautious in your prognosis. Young men 
often do themselves incalculable injury by their foolish tattling 
about tlie anticipated ])rogress and result of disease, and of the 
appearances which they shall find to justify all their pretty 
speeches and absurd predictions. 
