The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 45
nature of that cause is, our finest tests in science have
as yet failed to detect.
The conclusions that I have come to are as follows: firstly,
that the state of the system which we are in the habit of
designating " influenza " is not of itself a disease at all
it is simply a sequence or particular condition of the con-
stitution in which there is an absence of the requisite
quantity of nervous energy, deranging the vital principle
and inciting irritability ; secondly, that the system does
not become affected through the medium of respiration,
but through the medium of the skin. I cannot bring my
mind to believe that epizootics of this nature are de-
pendent upon some disproportion of oxygen in the air, or
to the presence of sulphuretted hydrogen of oxone, nor
yet to any organic or inorganic morbific matter in the air.
I should rather attribute it to some change or modification
in the magnetical or electrical state of the atmosphere,
altering its relations to the living body. I will give you
my reasons for these conclusions. If the epizootic was
propagated through the medium of respiration, the tissues
which had come first in contact with the poison or irritant
in its unspent or undiluted form would, as a matter of
course, suffer the most. If a horse or a man takes an
irritant poison, of which he dies, what do we find ? Why,
intense inflammation of the mucous membranes of the
stomach and bowels. If a horse or man is half-suffocated
in the fumes of dense smoke, so that in a few days he
dies, what do we find ? Why, intense inflammation of
the mucous membranes of the air passages, and con-
gestion of the lungs : in either case we find that the very
tissues which have come into direct actual contact with