276 THE NASAL DISEASE"” IN HORSES. 
elastic to the touch, and so soft that it could with facility be 
cut with a knife. The surface of the section had a some¬ 
what fleshy appearance, but, to the nail, it conveyed rather 
the impression of cartilage.” Now, all who saw the dissection 
of Mr. Filgate’s horses will at once perceive the identity of 
the diseased state then seen with the one here pictured. 
At only one point is there a break in the parallel. Neither 
Varnell nor Harley make any mention of one of the most 
striking features of the post-mortem findings. Mr. Varnell 
describes correctly the facial enlargement, and cuts down to 
it, but there stops. He says nothing of the immediate cause 
of it, a large mass of fibrinous deposit within the nasal 
passages. It was there, doubtless, but, perhaps to retain the 
skull entire, he did not cut into the cavities. It is this mass 
of fibrine, resembling a fibroid tumour of the antrum on each 
side, that imparts the peculiar aspect to the horse’s visage, 
and suggests the most appropriate popular name for the 
disease. This mass of fibrine might be thought a true tumour 
of the antrum, and the starting-point of the train of morbid 
signs; but its simultaneous occurrence in both nares makes 
this doubtful. It can be more satisfactorily accounted for 
otherwise. The horse breathes solely through the nostrils, 
and hence during the rapid breathing of great exertion the 
inspired air acts as a local irritant, inducing a local manifes¬ 
tation of a general blood disease, tending to fibrinous exu¬ 
dation and structural organization of the exuded fibrine. 
The local irritant acting within the substance of the low 7 er 
jaw is the rapidly growing teeth; at least this seems to be a 
reasonable explanation, if not the true one. 
As for the cause of the disease, it has been ascribed in 
England and here to errors of diet chiefly. In England it 
w 7 as at first thought peculiar to the female, all the animals 
examined at the College being mares; but here both sexes 
have suffered equally. Food over-rich in phosphates w r as 
supposed to have occasioned it. Too much bran, for ex¬ 
ample. The excess of phosphates was supposed to have 
generated excess of phosphoric acid, v T hich dissolved the bony 
matter, and as it w r ere washed it away in the secretions. A 
deficiency of lime in the food or in the w 7 ater, it was also said, 
had something to do with it, just as a deficiency of lime is 
said to explain the early decay of teeth, with the rachitic 
tendency of much of the constitutional ailments of children 
in this country; or to the presence of alum. However even¬ 
tually explained, here for the present is an interesting point 
of contact between the human and comparative pathology; 
without full knowledge of both neither will be understood. 
