136 
$HE INFLUENZA IN HORSES. 
few months, I am able to express a decided opinion that it 
is practically impossible to distinguish such meat from the 
beef taken from an animal slaughtered in perfect health. 
INFLUENZA AMONG THE HORSES IN AMERICA.—HISTORY 
OF THE DISEASE, THE CAUSE, AND CURE. 
By Prof. James Law. 
For nearly two months the prevailing epizootic in horses 
has almost completely absorbed public attention, mainly, no 
doubt, because of its rapid progress over the hemisphere, its 
universal prevalence wherever it has appeared, and the great 
and unprecedented inconvenience caused to the community. 
So striking has been the phenomenon, that many naturally 
concluded that it must be something new in pathology, and 
that there must be some very unusual and easily appreciable 
causes to have brought about so remarkable a result. But 
there have been no extraordinary climatic nor atmospheric 
changes, no known electrical nor volcanic vicissitudes which 
have not occurred again and again without the intervention 
of influenza. And though often less impartial and universal 
in its choice of victims, this malady has been far from un¬ 
common in the past; its visits, indeed, in its less striking 
forms have been neither few nor far between. And so rarely 
have these visits been preceded or attended by any unusual 
phenomena among the forces of nature, that the coincidence 
must be looked upon rather as accidental than as indicating 
any relation of cause and effect. 
The varied phases which the malady has assumed in dif¬ 
ferent epizootics have procured for it a variety of names, yet, 
throughout the whole Christian era, we can trace its erratic 
course as it broke out at intervals and spread over nations 
and continents, temporarily paralysing agriculture, com¬ 
merce, or war, and substituting its own devastation for that 
of the sword. To trace its history would exceed the limits 
at our command; yet, out of fifty recorded outbreaks, one or 
two may be named. Laurentius Rusius reports of the 
epizootic of 1299, a.d., as it appeared in Seville: “The 
horse carried its head drooping, "would eat nothing, tears ran 
from the eyes, and there was hurried beating of the flanks. 
The malady was epidemic, and in that year 1000 horses 
died.” Sollysel describes that of 1648, as he observed it in 
the French Army operating in Germany: “It began by 
fever, great prostration, tears running from the eyes, and a 
profuse greenish mucous discharge from the nostrils. There 
