INFLUENZA IN HORSES. 
505 
victions. Your politeness forbad you to say my assertions were 
not well founded; but the case which you fairly stated led to such 
a conclusion. Ether was then at first, in your hands, of no marked 
benefit; and is there a drug which will at all times be equally suc¬ 
cessful in its operation 1 
It is something to rejoice over, however, when one who has on 
the onset been repulsed: nevertheless continues his inquiry; and 
because you have done this, I have to acknowledge my sense of 
obligation. It has been my desire that you of all men should put to 
the proof the truth of my evidence. I have in conversation en¬ 
deavoured to induce you to make further trial, and I am thankful 
for the testimony you now bear in favour of my veracity. 
Ether I have found to be the best and only medicine appropriate 
to those conditions which the groom means to indicate when he 
comes in haste to report “ The horse is blowing.” At the London 
College it is taught that, to meet such symptoms as congested mem¬ 
branes, sluggish pulse, and accelerated breathing, a stimulant should 
be administered to give tone to the circulation, and when the artery 
has acquired force that the vein should be opened. I never could 
comprehend this formula for lifting up simply to knock down. It 
becomes difficult to understand the principle on which a thing is to 
be accomplished merely to gain the opportunity of undoing it. It 
seems by such see-saw action impossible to make way, since at the 
end we are only brought to the point whence we originally started. 
Blood-letting, for its own sake, is not to be desired; but what else 
is gained when a stimulant is exhibited to heighten the pulsation, 
and a fleam is employed to lower it again 1 
All cases of blowing, however, do not display the same symp¬ 
toms. Very often the breathing is fast and even noisy, while the 
membranes are only brighter than usual, and the pulse taken at 
the jaw is frequently both quick and strong. Here, perhaps, many 
practitioners would say “ Bleed, and bleed largely without loss of 
time.” It is not my practice so to do. I never bleed when the 
pulse is accelerated by such a condition. I regard it as an injunc¬ 
tion not to take blood. The membranes, both Schneiderian and 
conjunctival, I have learned to regard as no absolute proofs of the 
condition of the arterial system. This remark, however, must be 
taken only in its general application; and to such an extent I am 
prepared to defend it. The greater number of the pulse I am con¬ 
vinced is evidence of weakness rather than of inflammation, and 
the animal in which it is detected requires support rather than 
depletion. Therefore, as a rule, I never bleed to a quickened 
pulse: that is, when the pulse is higher than ten or fifteen beats 
above its normal standard. This is with me a law, and hitherto 
I have had no reason to regret my observance of it. There is, 
VOL. XXII. 3 X 
