THE CARE OF HORSES. 157 



tacked. Theu it affects men. I have known cases of men 

 who have lost their sight by the fluid from the nostrils of a 

 diseased animal striking the eye. There must be contagion 

 there to produce such a result. 



Now I do not suppose that any one particular remedy is a 

 specific. There are a great many people with strong consti- 

 tutions who can take the various nostrums that are advertised 

 without being injured by them, and there are a great many 

 others who cannot use those medicines at all. We have found 

 one thing in our experience during this disease that may per- 

 haps be of value in our treatment of the human system : and 

 that is , the less medicine we take the better we are olf . The 

 Dr. Sangrado system of blood-letting did not answer Avith 

 horses. There were some three hundred killed in western 

 New York by bleeding them. When people found out that 

 the horses needed good nursing and very little medicine, and 

 were wise enough to get acquainted with some good veterin- 

 ary surgeon, or other physician who could be applied to in 

 cases of necessity, those people preserved their horses. We 

 have learned a good lesson from this disease in regard to our 

 method of treating our animals. We have heard a great deal 

 said about the best way to feed and take care of our cows, and 

 Mr. Bergh, of New York, and other gentlemen in Massachu- 

 setts, have been teaching some of us how to use and manage 

 our horses. I hope the result of the lessons of this disease 

 will be that, hereafter, those of us who are farmers, as well as 

 those who own horses for other purposes, will treat them in a 

 more humanitarian way than heretofore. 



There is another subject which I think Avorthy of notice. 

 The horses that have died have been those which have had 

 the gi"eatest care taken of them. They have been, in many 

 instances, very valuable horses, which have been kept in the 

 most pampered state ; such horses, for instance, as the "Green 

 Mountain Boy," and several others. Horses that have had 

 a great deal more care bestowed upon them than the owners 

 bestowed upon themselves, have died ; while those that have 

 had very little care have not died, and A^ery many have escaped 

 the disease entirely. But it wdl not do to argue from that 

 that we ought not to take good care of them, any more than 

 to say that gin and cider will cure them. 



