489 
THE “HORSE SICKNESS” OE THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 
By T. PatoNj V.S., C.M.B. 
To the Editor of the Fort Beaifort Advocate. 
Sir, —In again introducing the subject of Horse sick¬ 
ness,for the consideration of your readers, let me remind 
them that the malady ordinarily known by this meaningless 
term, is, after all, no new disease, but merely a form of 
pleurisy mixed up with bronchitis. The appearance of a 
foaming froth from the nostrils after death, seems to be the 
grand symptom which everybody recognises as an unfailing 
and distinctive criterion of the nature of the sickness. On a 
careful digest of the notes taken of a large number of those 
cases of which I have made pod-niortem examinations, there 
appears to me to be only one way of preventing the fre¬ 
quency of the cases, viz., by careful stabling and feeding, and 
a proper regulation of the work to be exacted. 
The nature of the disease has already been adverted to, 
but it may be as well to enter more fully into the matter. It 
is, at the outset, incipient pleurisy, with slight effusion into 
the chest; the pleura of the lungs becomes thickened, and 
seems to arrest the exit of serum in that direction, the in¬ 
flammatory action, unrelieved by bleeding (for I believe 
bleeding would be beneficial if carried out in time) goes on, 
and the serum, or lymphy exudation extends through the in¬ 
terlobular substance of the lungs, under the membrane lining 
the bronchial tubes and trachea, and finally through it into 
the air tubes, where a portion of it is mixed with the air 
taken in at each succeeding inspiration, giving rise to an 
accumulation of froth in them, until the air-passages are no 
longer capable of admitting the air necessary to the purifica¬ 
tion of the circulating blood. These facts, taken in conjunc¬ 
tion with the heart’s cavities being filled with dark and im¬ 
pure blood, prove death to have arisen from suffocation. 
These appearances are mostly seen without the least trace of 
structural change in the substance of the lungs. The causes 
are various, the most prominent of all being exposure to wet 
and cold succeeding upon long-continued dry weather; over 
exertion from protracted riding or driving; allowing the 
animal to cool rapidly after perspiring freely; sudden chill 
from drinking cold water, thus driving the blood from the 
surface of the body upon the internal organs; in addition to 
