104 THE HORSE. 



otliers, and horses that have been hardly worked, or that have been workea 

 for many hours without food. Let no farmer delude himself with the idea 

 that it is contagious. If his horses have occasionally slight fits of the 

 staggers, or if the disease carries off several of .them, he may be assured 

 that there is something wrong in his management. One horse may get at 

 the corn-bin, and cram himself to bursting ; but if several are attacked, 

 it is time for him to look about him. The cause will generally be found 

 to be, too voracious feeding ; too much food given at once, and perhaps 

 without water, after hard work and long fasting. Nothing is lost by tbe 

 habitual use of the nose-bag, and a more equal division of the hours of 

 labour and the times of feeding. • Some careless and thoughtless people 

 suffer their horses to go from morning to night without being fed, and then 

 they wonder if sometimes the horses hang their heads, and droop, and can- 

 not work. No horse should be worked more than four or five hours without 

 being baited. 



There is one consequence of this improper treatment, of which persons 

 do not appear to be aware, although they suffer severely from it. A horse 

 that has frequent half-attacks of the staggers very often goes blind. It is 

 not the common blindness from cataract, but a peculiarly glassy appearance 

 of the eye. If the history of these blind horses could be told, it would be 

 found that they had been subject to fits of drooping and dullness, and these 

 produced by absurd management respecting labour and food. 



Staggers have been known to occur when the animal was at grass ; but 

 this usually happens in poor, hard-worked, half-starved animals, and soon 

 after they have been turned out, either in rich pasture, or in a salt marsh, 

 and in hot weather. 



There are, however, few diseases of the horse that are not occasionally 

 epidemic, or produced by some influence of the atmosphere, of the nature 

 of which we are ignorant ; and stomach-staggers sometimes prevails in par- 

 ticular districts, where there is nothing remarkably wrong in the treatment 

 of the horse. There is at that time something in the atmosphere which 

 weakens the stomach, and disposes it to indigestion, and causes a little error 

 in feeding to be dangerous, or produces considerable disease under the com- 

 mon circumstances of feeding. When this is the case, the proprietors of 

 horses should be particularly on their guard, for in most horses which then 

 die, the distended stomach will be observed, and will be the actual cause 

 of death. It is very possible that, at certain seasons, some poisonous plants 

 may prevail, or that the hay may not be so nutritive or digestible, and thus 

 the stomach may be weakened. The farmer will weigh all these things in 

 his mind, and act accordingly. 



MAD-STAGGERS. 



Mad-Staggers (inflammation of the brain, brain fever) can, as we have 

 said, be at first with difficulty distinguished from the sleepy, or stomach- 

 staggers ; but, after a while, the horse suddenly begins to heave at the 

 flanks; — his nostrils expand; — his eyes unclose; — he has a wild and 

 vacant stare, and delirium comes rapidly on. He dashes himself furiously 

 about ; there is no disposition to do mischief, but his motions are sudden 

 and violent, and accompanied by perfect unconsciciusness ; and he becomes 

 a terrifying and dangerous animal. This continues either until his former 

 stupor returns, or he has literally worn himself out in frightful struggles. 



There are only two diseases with which it can be confounded, and from 

 both of them it is very readily distinguished, viz: colic and madness. In 

 colic the horse rises and falls, but not witli so much violence ; he sometimes 



