38 AGRICULTURE OF MAIXK. 



The horse goes all right for half a mile or a mile, seems to feel 

 first rate. But all at once he begins to stumble and go a little 

 stiff legged. Soon he breaks out into a sweat, and the man 

 realizes that he has a sick horse, that there is trouble. It is not 

 necessary to name the disease, it is a feeding disease. Now it 

 is a very important thing for the farmer to study what to do in 

 case of an emergency. When men do not know what to do, as 

 a rule they will do some things that are very irrational. They 

 are just as liable to do the wrong thing as the right thing. What 

 was the trouble? The animal at work, as a rule, is well fed. 

 W^hen he was working every day, what was taking place? The 

 food was being digested, assimilated, and carried into the blood, 

 for all food has to be carried into the blood in order to nourish 

 the parts of the body. The animal was eating and the food was 

 supplying the energy necessary to perform the work and all was 

 going well. There came an idle day, or two or three days. The 

 food was digested, it was carried into the blood, but there was 

 no breaking down of tissue to any extent. When the animal 

 was taking that exercise all was going well, but when he stopped 

 work and there was no breaking down of tissue, the blood became 

 overcharged with unappropriated food nutrients until it was 

 almost in a semi-coagulated condition. The horse felt well and 

 the man thought he was well. But when he started and the 

 exercise commenced, the increased action of the heart could not 

 pump the coagulated blood through the smaller blood vessels of 

 his system. He stumbled because he hadn't free use of his 

 muscles, because they were becoming cramped from improper 

 circulation, ^^'hy did he sweat? This was nature's effort to 

 relieve a cramping muscle. Just remember this, — no physician 

 in the world ever cured disease except as he aided nature, except 

 as he tried to find out what nature was endeavoring to do and 

 then lent the aid that was necessary. That being true, if nature 

 was trying to sweat the horse, and if exercise was bringing on 

 the cramping, what would commonsense say that the man should 

 do? Oftentimes the man will think that he must hurry home 

 and hurry to get the doctor, and so he strikes the horse with a 

 whip and the poor horse goes a little ways further and then falls, 

 sometimes to his death. At other times the cramping is 

 extended to the spinal cord and when he is down he cannot get 

 up again. How could all that have been avoided? Common- 



