350 
.T. D. HOPKINS. 
our knowledge of this disease is very limited ; the primary cause 
or causes are as obscure as the peculiar form of the disease. 
Numberless hypothesis have been advanced by scientific men to 
account for the origin of maladie du coit, but as yet the problem 
is unsolved. Prof. Roll, observing that the malady is only wit¬ 
nessed among breeding animals, and is propagated by coition, 
states that it is not yet positively ascertained whether it is pri¬ 
marily developed in the mare or horse or in both, but that the lat¬ 
ter is the most likely, and it is possible that an abuse of the geni¬ 
tal functions of the male and the existence of a vaginal catarrh 
in the female are its occasional causes. It is true that in admit¬ 
ting this mode of production, we cannot explain the specific action 
of the secretion observed in this disease, and which, according to 
certain authors, ought to be considered as analagous to that pro¬ 
duced in human syphilis. . 
Strauss attributed its evolution to the crossing of breeds, and 
the artificial manner in which horses and mares were reared. 
Rodloff gives, as a general cause, an atmospherical epizootic 
constitution, which gradually modifies the animal economy until 
the evolution of disease is possible. He believed that a heredi¬ 
tary tendency, a catarrhal condition, cutaneous eruptions betray¬ 
ing a lymphatic dyscrasy, are all so many predisposing causes. 
The determining causes in the two sexes he imagined to be too 
frequent copulation, causing local superexcitation of the gener¬ 
ative organs. 
Lafosse, commenting on the influence of cross breeding, mix¬ 
ture of races, migration, change of climate and the mingling of 
eastern blood, concludes that all these, and particularly the latter, 
have changed the constitution of the horse, so far as its diseases 
are concerned, and have prepared it for the evolution of new and 
unknown maladies. 
Daumas mentions that the Arabs believed that the female ass 
contracts the disease through an abominable offence committed 
upon it by the Arabs suffering from syphilis, and who fancy that 
this odious practice will cure them. 
All these theories have been disproved by actual experience 
breeders of all classes of domestic animals, and experiments of 
