684 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
respiratory rhythm was quickened, and the inspiration short 
and jerked; a mucous discharge from the nose; pulse accele¬ 
rated; secretion of milk nil. 
Influenza. —M. Lecouturier mentions it as having prevailed 
in a farm in the canton of Perwez, where it attacked twelve 
horses, the first five of which presented the thoracic form of the 
malady, the others were of the gastric form. In the former 
the antiphlogistic treatment w T as followed, but when this was 
fully applied the convalescence was long, and it was found 
necessary to have recourse to tonics. The gastric form was 
announced by fever, which the author combated by bleeding 
and the administration of stimulants as soon as the circula¬ 
tion had recovered its normal rhythm. ee This/ 5 M. Lecou¬ 
turier says, <f is empiricism, but it is the means of abbrevi¬ 
ating the malady.” M. Lecouturier particularly relates a case 
which terminated fatally, and which is certainly not without 
interest. The lungs, which were invaded, did not presage a 
fatal termination; on the sixth day, however, he found a 
serious complication of the heart, which led him to prognos¬ 
ticate death with certainty. There were tumultuous sounds 
concentrated about the heart, which he could not well define; 
pulse small, quick, soft, and almost imperceptible; he dia¬ 
gnosed the presence of fibrine in its cavities. Two horses 
presented these symptoms, and both died in twenty-four 
hours. At the autopsy, which was made an hour after death, 
the left lobe of the lungs was found gorged with blood; the 
heart voluminous and softened, containing in its cavities, 
particularly in the left, clots of fibrine very difficult to detach 
from the valves. These clots were white, with a layer of 
dark-coloured blood on the outside, and extended into the 
aorta; there can be no doubt of the formation and pre-exist¬ 
ence of these clots before death set in. If the polypi of the 
ancients were better studied in our time (especially that part 
relating to their formation), all doubts, whether any existed, 
■would vanish. It is true that during the agonies of death the 
development of coagula takes place, but the passage from life 
to death is not the only cause, or even the principal, which 
ought to be looked for in the great debility of the central 
organ of the circulation. In addition to the symptoms ob¬ 
served, M. Lecouturier takes care to inform us that an hour 
after death he found the heart softened. No one would 
attribute this to a cadaveric effect, no one would believe that 
a muscular organ affected with mollities contracts with the 
same force as the one which has undergone no change. On 
the other hand, the thrombus is no longer a mystery, or 
where do the embolic coagula in the arteries and veins come 
