52 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SCHOOL AT ALFORT. 
hope, were destroyed, and the examination of them served to 
throw light on his researches. In comparing the observations 
which he made on the carcasses of the dead with the symptoms 
and character of disease observable in the living patients, he was 
assured that the primitive alteration, the essential malady, was in 
the blood, which, whether taken from the dead or the living ani¬ 
mal, covered his hands without reddening them, and either did not 
coagulate, or formed a mass of a dirty grey colour, and contained 
a very small proportion of fibrine, which was easily proved by 
analysis. These alterations were yet more perceptible in the horses 
that had been diseased for some time. There was so little cohesion 
between the organic elements of the blood, that, even during the 
life of the animal, the fibrous filaments separated from the 
liquid whenever it was agitated, although in the slightest degree. 
Agreeably to this, in many of the carcasses that were opened 
immediately after death, there were found little parcels of pure 
fibrine floating between the cords which retained the mitral 
valves, or resting on the fleshy columns which traverse the left 
ventricle of the heart. In one horse, that died after being ill 
fifteen days, M. Renault found an adhesion between the wall of 
the left ventricle and one of the mitral valves : the adhesion was 
formed by a little fibrinous mass, deposited doubtless for some 
days beneath this membranous fold. If we add to these 
characters, the paleness and flaccidity of all the organs which, 
like the red muscles, are essentially fibrous ; the absence of all 
traces of either acute or chronic inflammation in any organ ; and 
the rapidity with which the carcasses became putrified, it cannot 
be doubted that the disorder existed in the blood, characterized 
by the small proportion of fibrine and colouring matter in this 
fluid, as well as by the easy separation of its elements. 
What still further serves to support this opinion, is the know¬ 
ledge of the causes of the disease. In fact, for nearly six months 
the horses had been fed on fodder that had stood in the stack 
during the rains of the preceding year, and consequently had 
become mouldy, and acquired an insupportable smell. The oats, 
though good during the last month, had also formerly been of an 
inferior quality. Another powerfully debilitating cause was added 
to the former: several very laborious relays had been under¬ 
taken by the proprietor at the beginning of the year, and, 
notwithstanding this increase of work, the number of horses 
had not been augmented. Bad food and increased work— 
can more be required to engender disease ? Happily the un¬ 
dertaking of the relays had ceased for some weeks. M. Re¬ 
nault had only then to attend to the food. He made an en¬ 
tire change. He had the fodder moistened with salt water, and he 
