278 STRANGLES. 



inclination I feel to enlarge much more upon 

 so preposterous a position, and acknowledge, 

 as no one sound reason has ever been given 

 for the cause in question, I shall not pre^ 

 sume to introduce any thing dictatorially 

 decisive upon the subject, but submit to the 

 consideration of others, what appears to me 

 to contain every just reason that can be aSf 

 signed for the appearance of a distemper at- 

 tacking each subject to a certainty, at dif^ 

 ferent periods, without contagion, or any 

 cause hitherto estabhshed, but that it is so. 

 For my own part, after affording it every de- 

 gree of consideration, there is absolutely but 

 ONE rational cause* to be offered why horses, 

 at the periods before mentioned, become the?i 

 subject to this distemper in a greater or les- 

 ser degree^ according to circumstances; as 

 for instance. 



Those horses (or colts) that have been 

 constantly well fed without restraint for three, 

 four, or five years, must, with their food, 

 have imbibed an accumulation of impurities ; 

 these having never been once agitated by 

 evacuations, excited by art, or perspiration 

 promoted by exercise, must consequently 



