188 Inflammation of the Bowels, 



the Horse may be led out in good weather two or three times a daj 

 for a few minutes at a time, and where there is the opportunity of 

 so doing, he may be turned out to graze for an hour in the middle of 

 the day. By degrees he may be brought to his ordinary diet. 



Inflammation of the peritoneal coat of the Bowels of the Horse, is 

 generally brought on by the grand exciting cause of most other in- 

 flammatory affections of parts essential to life in this animal, namely, 

 by exposure to great vicissitudes of heat and cold, and especially if 

 those changes have taken place after great fatigue and inanition. 

 Hence, we find more instances of this fatal disease amongst such 

 Horses as are highly fed, carefully groomed, clothed and kept in 

 warm stables, than amongst such as are kept nearer to what is called 

 the state of nature. If, therefore, a Horse of the former description, 

 remain many hours without food, and be subjected in the mean time 

 to rapid motion, or severe labour, and if in this state of exhaustion, 

 he have his limbs and belly washed with cold water, or be permitted 

 to drink copiously with that fluid, or, if after severe fatigue and long 

 fasting, he be completely drenched with rain, and remain any length 

 of time without motion, exposed to a current of cold air, we are not 

 to wonder at his being attacked with Inflammation of the peritoneal 

 coat of the Bowels. For, as has been well observed by that ingenious 

 anatomist Mr. Blaine, it is indisputable from the smallness of the 

 Horse's stomach, compared with the siz« of this organ in the purely 

 graminivorous class, that the Author of Nature designed not only that 

 this animal's food should be highly nutritious, but that he should eat 

 often, in order to be enabled to support the great fatigue and prodi- 

 gious exertions which he is frequently called upon to endure. When 

 therefore the frame has been violently debilitated by inanition and 



