124 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PATHOLOGY AND 
colour and substance, however, were perfectly healthy. The nerves 
and spinal column were not examined. 
Remarks .—The four cases present, in their origin and general 
symptoms, many characters in common, not only in an outward 
aspect, but likewise in the morbid states of the great organs of 
life ; the principal outward symptoms common to the whole being 
great difficulty in breathing, blueness of the mucous membrane of 
the nose, cold breath, partial sweats, deathy coldness of the 
body and limbs, dilatation of the pupils, partial loss of vision, 
and excessive stupor. The chief state and symptom common to 
the first, second, and fourth, viz., the purging and the neighing, 
also deserve notice ; while in the second, third, and fourth, we 
have present the boring against the wall and manger with the 
neck; and in the first and fourth, the paddling with the hind feet 
are conspicuous symptoms. In the first case, the boring with the 
neck was not evinced at all. In the third we find the pulse 
beating at the rate of 30 per minute, and its action peculiar; in 
the other three, no pulse could be detected whatever, which, without 
doubt, arose from the disease in these cases being further advanced 
when 1 was called in. With regard to the cause of the various 
conditions in the cases enumerated, the disease in the first, second, 
and third, appears to have had its origin more as a secondary than 
a primary affection ; the purging in all of them had been excessive : 
this, in combination with the exertion they were impelled to un¬ 
dergo, and more particularly in the last case, associated as these 
were with wet and cold, so lowered the vital energies as to induce 
hyperaemia of the lungs ; which, when once established, proceeded 
to a fatal termination with a rapidity really surprising. In the 
third case, I regard the disease more as a primary one, or as 
having an immediate origin from over-exertion in a close thick 
atmosphere. Congestion of the lungs, no matter from what cause, 
would produce a twofold effect; the first special, and the other 
general in their nature. The special effect would consist in the 
blood being prevented from undergoing that change necessary to 
the maintenance of life ; and, secondly, this impure blood being 
forced into the system at large, with most, if not all, of its poisonous 
qualities within it, would give rise to a variety of effects, the most 
conspicuous, however, of which would be a change of animal tem¬ 
perature, and a depression or total obliteration of the cerebral func¬ 
tions ; hence the reason of the deathy coldness and excessive 
stupor of the animals, so decidedly manifest from the very onset of 
the affection. It will thus be observed, that I do not regard the 
brain as being primarily affected in any one of the above cases; 
the stupor was simply the effect of the brain not receiving its 
