MANGE. 379 



soon becomes more or less folded or puckered. The mange generally first 

 appears on the neck, at the root of the mane, and its existence may be 

 pretty truly ascertained, even before the blotches appear, and when there 

 is only considerable itchiness of the part, by the ease with which the short 

 hair at the root of the mane is plucked out. From the neck it spreads 

 upward to the head, or downward to the withers and back, and occasionally 

 extends over the whole carcase of the horse. 



One cause of it, although an unfrequent one, has been stated to be neg- 

 lected or inveterate surfeit. The more common cause is contagion. Amid 

 the whole list of diseases to which the horse is exposed, there is not one 

 more highly contagious than mange. If it once gets into a stable, it spreads 

 through it, for the slightest contact seems to be sufficient for the communi- 

 cation of this noisome complaint. 



If the same brush or currycomb be used on all the horses, the propaga- 

 tion of mange is assured; and horses feeding in the same pasture with a 

 mangy one rarely escape, from the propensity they have to nibble one another. 

 Mange in cattle has been propagated to the horse, and from the horse to 

 cattle, but there is no authenticated instance of the same disease in the 

 dog being communicated to the horse. There is as much ditference in the 

 character and appearance of mange in the horse and dog, as between 

 either of them and the itch in the human subject ; and the itch has never 

 been communicated to the quadruped, nor the mange of the quadruped to 

 the human being. 



Mange has been said to originate in want of cleanliness in the manage- 

 ment of the stable. The comfort and health of the horse demand the 

 strictest cleanliness. The eyes and the lungs frequently suffer from the 

 noxious fumes of the putrefying dung and urine ; but, in defiance of com- 

 mon prejudice, there is no authentic instance of mange being the result. 

 It may, however, proceed from poverty. When the animal is half-starved, 

 and the functions of digestion and the powers of the constitution are 

 weakened, we have seen, in the cases of hide-bound and surfeit, that the 

 skin soon sympathizes, and we can imagine that mange may occasionally 

 be produced instead of surfeit and hide-bound. Every farmer has proof 

 enough of this being the case. If a horse is turned on a common, where 

 there is scarcely sufficient herbage to satisfy his appetite, or if he is placed 

 in one of those straw-yards, which under the management of mercenary 

 and unfeeling men, are the very abodes of misery, the animal comes up a 

 skeleton, and he comes up mangy too. Poverty and starvation are fruitful 

 sources of mange, but it does not appear that filth has much to do with it, 

 although poverty and filth generally go hand in hand. 



The propriety of bleeding in cases of mange must depend on the con- 

 dition of the patient. If mange be the result of poverty, and the animal 

 is much debilitated, bleeding will be adding power to the cause of the disease. 

 Physic, however, is indispensable. It is the first step in the progress towards 

 cure. A mercurial ball will be preferable to a common aloetic one, as 

 more certain and effectual in its operation, and the mercury having probably 

 some influence in mitigating the disease. In this, however, mange in the 

 horse resembles the itch in the human being — that medicine alone will 

 never effect a cure. There must be some local application. There is this 

 further similarity, that that which is most effectual in curing this disgrace- 

 ful complaint in man, must form the basis of every local application as it 

 regards the horse. Sulphur is indispensable in every unguent for mange; 

 it is the sheet-anchor of the veterinary surgeon. 



In an early, and not very acute state of mange, one ounce of the flowers 

 of sulphur, snould be well rubbed down with an equal quantity of tram 



