PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY DURING THE QUARTER. G5 



his death. I have known cases where they were sufficiently numerous to cause a 

 blocking up of the passage from the stomach into t lie bowel. Recently I treated 

 unsuccessfully a pony which had an abscess in the loins, caused by bots which had 

 pierced the walls of the stomach. In other cases severe indigestion is caused. If 

 in the autumn or early spring your horse falls away in condition, cats earth or white- 

 wash, or likes to lick anything cool ; if he frequently straightens the head out and turns 

 the upper lip inside out, and is " foul" (to use a term well-known to horsemen), he 

 probably suffers from ''worms," not improbably bots. Now it is one thing to put medi- 

 cine down a horse's throat and into his stomach, but quite another thing to get the worm 

 to rake his share of the dose, so bots are often difficult to get rid of; however, it is 

 possible to make them very uncomfortable for a few days by giving the horse doses 

 •.if turps, salt, or green vitriol, and when this has made them thoroughly discon- 

 tented with their surroundings, clearing them out by a dose of aloes. Bots ara 

 representatives of what are termed ''partial parasites." Their residence in the 

 horse lasts very much longer than the other phases of their life. Whenever by 

 accident or in the course of their life's work, they pass from the body and fall to 

 the ground they wriggle into grass or loose soil, and become Chrysalides, and in 

 due course the gadfly escapes. It is a most pertinacious insect, which deposits its 

 eggs on the long hair of the legs of horses. The eggs adhere by a kind of glue 

 which seems somewhat acrid in its character, for the horse constantly bites and licks 

 the part on which the eggs are attached. His warm saliva loosens the gummy 

 substance, and the eggs (or larva?) are carried into the mouth and in due course 

 down to the stomach, where the young bot escapes as soon as convenient by lifting 

 np an operculum or lid at one end of the shell. A few bots give little if any trouble. 



2. 'ihe Spiroptera, <s great mouths " and " little mouths," are extremely frequent 

 in this country, but not often seen in England. They are Nematodes or round 

 worms, and of considerable importance to owners of horses. The " little mouths" 

 live free in the cavity of the stomach over the soft part of the mucous membrane, 

 which they cause to become thick and congested, and covered with a very thick 

 vcisicl mucus, worms and mucus together forming a wriggling, seething mass. A 

 harness horse which I owned some four years ago, was a victim to these small 

 tormenters. Feed him as we would, we could get no flesh on his bones, nay rather 

 he continued to fall away, although he used to eat voraciously and with depraved 

 appetite. He showed a peculiar crankiness of humour, so that at times no amount 

 of persuasion would cause him to go. Finally he was destroyed, and the soft part 

 of his stomach was found to be quite concealed by myriads of these small round 

 worms. 



The '•' large mouths" construct themselves residences in the stomach, which hare 

 been formed into " abodes" or " nfests"'; these are abscesses in the wall of the 

 stomach, practically between the mucous and muscular coats which become matted 

 together as a result of inflammation and form a single or divided cavity in which is 

 much pus, and which opens by one or more " mouths" into the cavity of the stomach. 

 The " large mouths" seen to live on pus, the small months on mucous and perhaps 

 stomach contents. In a considerable proportion of horses opened in India there are 

 found gastric abscesses, or the remains of the " cysts, " as caused by the great- 

 mouthed roundworm. Sometimes the cysts are of enormous size, and it may be 

 easily understood what an amount of pain must have been caused in the formation 

 of these abscesses, and that many an obscure case of colic or indigestion may be 

 traced to this cause. Proper care in cleansing the food of hor&es is an important 



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