537 
ON SPECIFIC FEVER OF HORSES, OXEN, &c. 
disposing and exciting causes—that they are malignant in all 
animals, arising spontaneously from adventitious circumstances — 
though not infectious in all animals, yet in all animals conta¬ 
gious, and in some cases not confined to one genus, but easily 
transferred to another, as the vaccine disease, in which there is 
the curious coincidence of the fever observable on the third day 
and the local disease on the fifth day. I have also proved that 
lymph from animals labouring under this specific fever is capa¬ 
ble of producing it by inoculation as pus is. 
Whether in civilized or uncivilized life, all animals must be 
occasionally conoregated in greater or less numbers. We are 
well enough acquainted with the predisposing and exciting 
causes. Do we avoid these? No! We try to prevent some¬ 
times. Do we succeed ? No ! Read the descriptions of influenza 
—we have now one type, and then another, and again another. 
The truth \%^we have hadoneandthe same specific disease allalong. 
The large horse proprietor, who has had in his stables what he 
terms “ mild influenza,” w'ill generally find, to his cost, the 
secondary effects of it in some of his horses. The shepherd 
who observes a trifling catarrh in his flock, has had this fever 
among his sheep a few days previously, and the secondary 
symptoms will ultimately carry off more of them than he likes. 
I would rather give my lambs the fever by inoculation from a 
sheep with catarrh than have it happen to my flock sponta¬ 
neously, and carry off probably the whole of them by the rot. 
I would do the same with young animals of all kinds; that is, I 
would at once get rid of the predisposition to this fever. It is 
no matter to me whatever diseases it may be supposed to be pre¬ 
disposed to afterwards. I should get rid of the most malignant 
and insidious in its results that animals can be affected with. 
Consumption curable^'' may do very well for an advertisement; 
but the case is worth little when the symptoms are constantly 
liable to return. 
The predisposition here meant to be done away with by inocu¬ 
lation is that of newness of texture —to render the horse, neat 
cattle, sheep, dogs, &c. seasoned animals at an earlier period, 
and without loss, than is now done by different management at 
a later period and with serious loss: for, notwithstanding all that 
has been written regarding prevention, how little is it attended 
to! The London horse proprietor, whose old stables might be 
said to be in a cellar, builds for himself a new establishment; 
but his stables are in the cellar still. A troop of cavalry horses 
in India are under one roof; and at the Stud, the wiseacres who 
planned and built the stables intended two hundred and fifty 
colts to stand (one hundred and twenty-five on either side a 
