Sir E. Thornton, the British Minister at Washington, has re-
ported to the Foreign Office on the recent epidemic among American horses. He says the disease was a sort of influenza, accompanied by fever, which weakens theanimal for about four weeks, but does not kill unless the horse is worked too soon, when it develops dropsy and dies. The treatment seems to be a reduction of diet, alteratives, gentle exercise every day, and sponging the nose with carbolic acid. The disease began in Toronto on September 80, and in two months had reached the Gulf of Mexico, having attacked about 90 per cent. of all horses on its route, which Sir Edward believes tole through the atmosphere. In Washington not one horse escaped, and the interruption to business everywhere was most annoying, and caused a great mortality-among the unaffected horses from overwork.
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