STRANGLES. 207 



is likewise a considerable discharge of ropy fluid from the mouth, and greater 

 swelling than usual under the throat. This swelling increases with uncertain 

 rapidity, accompanied by some fever, and disinclination to eat, partly arising from 

 the fever, but more from the pain which the animal feels in the act of mastication. 

 There is considerable thirst, but after a gulp or two the horse ceases to drink, yet 

 is evidently desirous of continuing his draught. In the attempt to swallow, 

 and sometimes when not drinking, a convulsive cough comes on, which almost 

 threatens to suffocate the animal and thence, probably, the name of the 

 disease *. 



The tumour is under the jaw, and about the centre of the channel. It soon fills 

 the whole of the space, and is evidently one uniform body, and may thus be dis- 

 tinguished from glanders, or the enlarged glands of catarrh. In a few days it 

 becomes more prominent and soft, and evidently contains a fluid. This rapidly 

 increases ; the tumour bursts, and a great quantity of pus is discharged. As 

 soon as the tumour has broken, the cough subsides, and the horse speedily 

 mends, although some degree of weakness may hang about him for a consider- 

 able time. Few horses, possibly none, escape its attack ; but, the disease 

 having passed over, the animal is free from it for the remainder of his life. 

 Catarrh may precede, or may predispose to, the attack, and, undoubtedly, 

 the state of the atmosphere has much to do with it, for both its prevalence 

 and its severity are connected with certain seasons of the year and changes 

 of the weather. There is no preventive for the disease, nor is there any- 

 thing contagious about it. Many strange stories are told with regard to 

 this ; but the explanation of the matter is, that when several horses in the 

 same farm, or in the same neighbourhood, have had strangles at the same 

 time, they have been exposed to the same powerful but unknown exciting 

 cause. 



Messrs. Percivall and Castley have come the nearest to a satisfactory view of 

 the nature of strangles. Mr. Castley t says, that u the period of strangles is 

 often a much more trying and critical time for young horses than most people 

 seem to be aware of ; that when colts get well over this complaint, they gene- 

 rally begin to thrive and improve in a remarkable manner, or there is sometimes 

 as great a change for the worse : in fact, it seems to effect some decided consti- 

 tutional change in the animal." 



Mr. Percivall adds, " the explanation of the case appears to me to be, that the 

 animal is suffering more or less from what I would call sir angle-fever, a fever 

 the disposition and tendency of which is to produce local tumour and abscess, 

 and, most commonly in that situation, underneath the jaws, in which it has 

 obtained the name of strangles." 



Professor Dick, of Edinburgh, adds that which is conclusive on the subject, 

 that " although the disease commonly terminates by an abscess under the jaw, 

 yet it may, and occasionally does, give rise to collections of matter on other 

 parts of the surface." 



To this conclusion then we are warranted in coming, that strangles is a 

 specific affection to which horses are naturally subject at some period of their 

 lives, and the natural cure of which seems to be a suppurative process. From 

 some cause, of the nature of which we are ignorant, this suppurative process 



* Old Gervasc Markham gives the follow- not prevented, will stop the horse's windpipe, 



ing description of this disease, and of the and so strangle or choake him : from which 



origin of its name. " It is," says he, "a effect, and none other, the name of this disease 



great and hard swelling between a horse's tooke its derivation." 

 nether chaps, upon the rootes of his tongue, f Vet., iii., 406, and vi., 607- 

 and about his throat, which swelling, if it be 



