THE “ NASAL DISEASE” IN HORSES. 277 
That the nasal disease is somehow associated with diet 
and conditions of life appears most probable. One point in 
the history of all the animals hitherto affected is the highly arti¬ 
ficial method of dieting to the exclusion of adequate quantity 
of fresh natural grasses. This consideration leads at once 
to a review of the uses of salts in the blood. Without these, 
as Liebig in his f Letters on Chemistry' long ago clearly ex¬ 
plained, nutrition cannot proceed, in man or beast. These 
salts may not be decomposed within the body, but still their 
presence in the blood and tissues are all essential. Without 
alkaline phosphates in the blood, it is said the albuminous 
matters are not changed from the colloidal to the crystal- 
loidal states, in which alone they can dialyse, that is, 
transude through the membranous walls of the capillary blood¬ 
vessels, to form bodily substance, so that in the absence of 
that saline matter there might be abundance of rich nutri¬ 
ment in the blood, and yet be no means of transferring it 
to the solid structures. There would thus arise a surplus of 
albuminous matter in the blood, constantly tending to the 
change into fibrine, which is a diseased blood condition allied 
by its earliest symptoms to a form of rheumatism. It is 
doubtful if any fibrine circulates in normal blood. A writer 
in last Edinburgh Review says, there are about three ounces 
of fibrine at a time, any excess over that quantity being ab¬ 
normal. But there is no physiological proof that even this 
quantity exists, or any ; and the reviewer asserts dogmatically, 
and is popularly believed by his host of readers, that which 
is unproved and unprovable. It is more probable that the 
instant a particle of fibrine forms within the blood current, 
that instant shows disease. Hence the fibrinous clots found 
in the heart-strings and vessels in Knavesmire, which were 
by some said to be purely post mortem. 
Simultaneously with these, occurs a lactic-acid fermentation, 
and this free acid excites inflammatory action on the fibrous 
structures, on which it acts as a morbid irritant, as in rheu¬ 
matic and gouty constitutions; while in the young, where 
there is still the separations between the long bones and 
their loose cartilaginous extremities, the lactic and phosphoric 
acids dissolve away the bony matter, secreting it by the 
kidneys. This also explains the thin dark slate-coloured car¬ 
tilage of the joints; the dark colour not arising from any 
change in the colour of the cartilage, but from the dark con¬ 
gested bone shining through. 
Then, again, it is well known that salts of potash are quite 
necessary for the healthy structure and function of muscles; 
and any animal deprived of a due supply of that salt must 
