458 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
plaintiff, and who would tell them that the horse had always been 
remarkably healthy—free from cough, and all other disease; and 
he would then call before them one of the most eminent professors 
of the veterinary art in the United Kingdom—Professor Dick, of 
Edinburgh—who would inform them that, from the appearance of 
the lungs as described by Mr. Kent, the horse could not have lived 
a fortnight from the commencement of the disease. 
Mr. William Dick , examined by Mr. Martin.—Is a Professor at 
the Veterinary College, Edinburgh; has been lecturer in that 
college for thirty-two years, and has followed the profession since 
1817; diseases of the lungs have frequently come under his notice, 
they are of very frequent occurrence; the causes of this disease 
are sudden changes of temperature, particularly from pure cold air 
to a close confined stable; more especially in the case of the pre¬ 
valence of particular winds; the disease is commonly ushered in 
by a cough; there is very commonly a slight shivering in the 
earlier stages; it always affects the coat; the coat stares and seems 
unthrifty: the breathing is always more or less affected ; there is 
no smell until the disease is far advanced, until a dav or two 
before death; the pulse is always more or less affected; the horse 
is feverish; it is quite the reverse of the fact that horses are fat 
and sleek when affected by inflammation of the lungs; collects 
from the evidence of the plaintiff’s witnesses that the lungs have 
become hepatised, and that there were tubercles and abscesses in 
them; the tubercle is the earlier, the abscess is the latter form : if 
the lungs are much diseased, there is an interruption of the cir¬ 
culation of the blood and a consequent inflammation of the liver; 
hepatisation may come on very rapidly and it may follow from 
inflammation of any other part; inflammation swells the blood¬ 
vessels beyond their natural size, and there is then an infiltration 
of serum and lymph, which clogs up the air-cells of the lungs and 
renders them solid and impervious to air; it takes place more 
rapidly in the lungs than anywhere else on account of their 
extreme vascularity; in some cases the operation of this disease is 
very speedy; has heard the description of the lungs in the present 
case; it seldom happens that both of the lungs are equally affected; 
when infiltration has taken place to the extent of hepatisation, 
there is an invariable tendency to produce tubercles and abscesses; 
and, according to all his experience, the disease commonly runs its 
course in from ten days to a fortnight; it depends very much upon 
the treatment; from the state of the mucous membrane of the 
bowels, believes the horse must have been purged, and death would 
then ensue more rapidly; in his judgment, the disease in the bay 
gelding must have originated in from ten days to a fortnight 
