On the study of veterinary medicine : being an inaugural address at the opening of the Edinburgh New Veterinary School / by John Gamgee.

  • John Gamgee
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the study of veterinary medicine : being an inaugural address at the opening of the Edinburgh New Veterinary School / by John Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    2^ the armpit in man is manifested-als6 in the'horse, and the structure occurs in' a' somewhat modified condition. The same argument appHes'to the horn near the hock compared to the great thickness of scarf-skin on the heel of man. After this hriof inquiry respecting the anatomy, chemistry, and use of hair, we must show the hearing of such knowledge on the study of disease. 'ff ^i'*^' ' Nothing can strike the practitioner of Veterinary Medicine more than the relation hetweeii vigour of the constitution, great vital energy, and the condition of the skin of animals^ soft and supple, with spare, firm, and fine hairy coat, in an active and powerful well-bred horse; rough and woolly, imder oppo- site circumstances, especially when, fi-om depressing agencies, the naturally gross constitution is enfeebled, and when there is a manifest tendency to abnormal conditions of the skin and of the cutaneous products strikingly aflfecting tlie hairy .cover- ing. ' - ''•■'^ Undue irritation and excited fimction of internal organs iii- duces not only a diminution in the cutaneous exhalation, but an arrest of growth of hair, and a separation of the latter fi*om the skin. Any cause calculated to restore the balance 6f function is then apt to be attended with so much determina- tion of blood to the outer surface of the body,-^so much deter- mination of nervous energy, that miless exhalation from the skin is facilitated, the cutaneous structures, and especially those near the parts endowed with greatest vital activity, become congested and inflame. This is, in my opinion, the explanation of those mysterious attacks of inflammation of the skin, and of inflammation of the feet in horses immediately on the disappearance of acute internal derangement. In man, the suppressed secretion of the skin ■ is easily excited; but in the lower animals we find that the superfluous elements, in case of determined Adtal action, have to' be carried ofi in the shape of hair and hoof, a growth of which cannot be so sud-
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