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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PATHOLOGY AND 
and consequently impervious to air. These facts, then, testify, 
beyond the possibility of dispute, the value of auscultation in 
cases like the present. Many and many a time, when called to 
such, when no outward symptoms evinced the dangerous state of 
the patient, have I discovered by it solely the instant necessity of 
putting into force all the powerful remedies necessary to combat 
successfully its destructive progress, and by so doing have un¬ 
questionably saved the life of many a valuable animal. I do not 
know of any disease more deceptive to the owners of horses than 
this, its commencement is so very insidious, and its progress so 
quiet; and most probably at the very time such owners are con¬ 
gratulating themselves how cleverly they are managing without 
the assistance of a veterinary surgeon, is the disease, hour by hour, 
slowly but surely insinuating death into every fibre; and it is 
only when it reaches that stage when “ he who runs may read,” 
do they discover the necessity for assistance. The causes which 
produce this disease are, in most instances, I consider, very ob¬ 
scure in their nature. Assuming that it arises from a peculiar 
atmospheric poison, how are we to account for its action, save by 
combining with the blood 1 Shall we assume that this poison, 
being inhaled with the atmosphere into the lungs, and thence 
uniting with the blood, and by thus uniting changing the che¬ 
mical relations of the whole—that thus vitiated, it circulates through 
the organism, producing changes in its solids and fluids of an 
asthenic nature, and giving rise to a train of phenomena which 
may be general or local, or both, according to constitutional 
predisposition in the system, or in particular organs of that sys¬ 
tem! Or shall we suppose that inflammation of an erysipelatous 
character, from some other cause, first commences in a portion of 
the mucous membrane of the air-passages; that this inflammation 
changing the secretions from an healthy to a morbid state, and 
that such morbid secretions, being imbibed into the blood current, 
vitiates in like manner to the former its entire mass; thence 
producing effects such as I have detailed! Or again, shall we 
assume that, under favourable circumstances, both these causes are 
occasionally, either singly or in combination, engaged in their 
production 1 Now, whether I have hit upon a true explanation 
of this intricate question or not, I do not pretend to be certain; to 
establish my assumptions as positive truths, would be a task of no 
little difficulty; and to dogmatise upon the matter would be absurd 
in the extreme. However, whether the primary cause or causes 
be local or general in it, or their action in the production of the 
disease, it is nevertheless certain that the morbid effects pro¬ 
duced admit of ready detection through the organism at large; 
this is clearly proved in the cases given, by the softened state of 
