THE LATE AMERICAN EPIZOOTIC AMONG HORSES. 201 
medical man who in the discharge of his duties contracted 
typhus fever, which passed into the most severe maculated 
form with complete nervous prostration. On the eighth day 
his condition was considered by his professional brethren to 
be perfectly hopeless, as he was sinking despite the free use 
of stimulants and nutriment. In the early morning of the 
ninth day, quinine in three-grain doses was resorted to, at 
Dr. Thompson’s suggestion, as an experimental measure. In 
consequence of some alarming excitement being produced, 
the attendant omitted the medicine after the second dose. 
On the morning of the next day it was resumed in five-grain 
doses every three hours. On the day following (the eleventh) 
decided improvement had taken place, and on the thirteenth 
he was out of danger. Dr. Thompson writes—“Thereso^ 
lution of the fever may be said to have been complete on the 
second day of the exhibition of the quinine, and on the 
thirteenth day of the disease, the change having commenced 
on the eleventh, which is not one of those periods commonly 
regarded as critical in the natural course of the disease 
Thus, in two distinct varieties of blood-poison quinine ap¬ 
pears to have successfully antagonised the destroying virus ; 
but whether it acts directly by catalysis, or throws a pro¬ 
tecting shield over the vital elements at the expense of which 
the morbid matter carries on its enormous self-multiplication, 
remains for further research.— -Medical Times and Gazette . 
THE LATE AMERICAN EPIZOOTIC AMONG HORSES. 
Dr. Albert Fricke, in a communication to the Phila¬ 
delphia Medical Times , records the results of his observations 
of horses attacked with the disease which lately caused such 
havoc among these animals in America, with some post¬ 
mortem examinations, and the results of several microscopic 
examinations by Professor Joseph Leidy and himself. One 
of the most remarkable features of the disease was the 
rapidity with which it spread over the continent, appearing 
first in the far East, and in less than eight weeks reaching 
the sea-borders of Louisiana and Georgia, and it is still tra¬ 
velling west and south. This rapid spread, together with 
the symptoms of the disease itself, were very suggestive of 
its being closely allied to, if not identical with, the well 
known influenza of the human family. But Dr. Fricke 
seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the diseases are 
not identical, and that the horse disease depends upon a 
