22 
M. L. TRASfiOf. 
Hence have been made : a benign, mild or serious gourme 
according to the severity of the general symptoms, when it seems 
to consist only in a simple larvngo-pharyngitis, with or without 
intermaxillary abscesses ; and by opposition, a malignant gourme, 
when the localization consisted in bronchitis, and specialty pneu¬ 
monia ; this last most commonly terminating by purulent and 
gangrenous formations in the pulmonary tissue. 
It is resting on this error, still much accredited, that notorious 
authors have affirmed that an animal could have the disease sev. 
eral times. 
Indeed, it is not rare to see inflammation taking hold of the 
same tissue more than once. Clinical observation has shown long 
ago that any inflammatory disease may leave behind itself, in 
many cases, and for a long time, a kind of irritability in the organ 
affected, which renders it more susceptible to disease. Angina, 
bronchitis, pneumonia, etc., then give, in fact, to a sick animal a 
true predisposition to contract those same diseases. In such a way 
that a disturbing cause given, as, for instance, exposure to cold, 
which ought to have produced only a slight effect on a robust 
animal, and previously free from a similar affection, might become 
sufficient, on the contrary, to develop it in another, which ordin¬ 
arily would have had one or several attacks. 
Can it be, then, surprising that some horses would present new 
attacks, more or less numerous, of catarrhal affections of the air 
passages. But it does not prove that they had gourme at so many 
times. Even if the first manifestation had been certainty a com¬ 
plication of gourme, it does not follow that the others must be of 
the same specific nature. 
Generally, that disease affects animals but once. Second at¬ 
tacks are exceptions, very rare, and in all cases as mild as those 
of human variola. 
Mr. Charles Martin, in his series of observations gathered 
dmh.g 15 years, says, “ I have never been able to observe a horse 
which had gourme twice; I am convinced of the ntm-recidivity of 
that disease.” 
This is an opinion expressed by a practitioner of large 
practice and extensive observation, and thus has considerable 
