MALADIE DU COIT-D0URINE. 
153 
Signol first observed it in Algeria in 1847, where it prevailed 
fatally in some tribes, and seemed then to have been known by 
the Arabs for a long time. They gave it the name of el dourine. 
In 1851 and 1852 the breeders of southern France suffered from 
it, and it was then studied by Delafond, Louchart, Ivart, Ranch 
and Lafosse. Its next appearance was in 1861, when it was im¬ 
ported by stallions bought in Syria. 
In these different outbreaks the disease has varied in severity, 
according to climate or season, and even the temperament and 
constitution of the patients; but it has always retained its typical 
character and symptomology. 
Symptoms. —The disease presents both local symptoms, affect¬ 
ing the generative organs, and those of a general character, which 
are principally nervous, always accompanied, however, by the in¬ 
fectious feature, and it is according to the predominance of one 
or the other of these characters that the disease has received the 
designation of either the benignant (or eruptive) form or the 
malignant , which latter is the more severe and serious of the 
two. The symptoms vary according to the sex of the patient. 
In the mare, where the disease often remains local, its exist¬ 
ence at the beginning is betrayed by the symptoms of ordinary 
catarrh. The vagina becomes tumefied, and its products of se¬ 
cretion are increased; and a discharge, serous at first, but later 
becoming cloudy, thick, white or reddish-yellow, escapes from the 
vulva, which soon becomes puffy or hard from oedematous infil¬ 
tration. The lips of the vulva are sometimes flabby, and at other 
times of a yellowish-red color, while again they may form hard 
and slightly unctuous ridges. The vaginal mucous membrane 
becomes infiltrated and discolored, varying from red to a purple 
hue, and the superficial capillary blood-vessels are often seen en¬ 
gorged and projecting, principally towards the vulvar opening, or 
the fossa navicularis, and about the clitoris. Small epithelial 
vegetations have also been observed. 
Vesicles, varying in size and containing a yellowish liquid, are 
found upon the vulvo-vaginal mucous membrane, which in burst¬ 
ing give rise to superficial ulcerations, sometimes covered with a 
yellowish exudate, and sometimes with scabs, which cicatrize 
