26 HEALTH AND DISEASE 



three eggs whipped with a quart or less of new milk, and at shorter 

 intervals than would be allowed where a greater quantity of nutriment 

 is taken at one time. 



It is always more or less distressing to the patient to be coerced with 

 food either in liquid or solid form, and when this becomes necessary the 

 temperament of the individual should be considered. One horse will take 

 a fluid from a bottle more readily than in the form of a ball, while 

 another that has been carefully handled may be sustained with balls made 

 of oatmeal and treacle, or linseed, or capsules containing concentrated 

 foods, as bovril, Brand's essence, or hard-boiled eggs carefully minced. 



The Laxative Foods include green meat of all kinds, as grass, lucerne, 

 vetches, sainfoin, clover, carrot-tops, green maize, wheat, oats, barley and 

 rye, parsnips, beet, mangolds, turnips, kohlrabi, apples, linseed gruel, 

 oatmeal and linseed mashes, linseed oil, linseed tea, bran mashes, and 

 hay tea, sugar, molasses, and boiled grain. 



The Green Foods cut and carried to the sick-box should not be 

 cast down in a heap to ferment and become stale, but a small quantity 

 only should be given at a time; neither should such fodder be served 

 with a heavy dew upon it, but should be spread out for a little while 

 in the fresh air until the surface moisture has been for the most part 

 removed. 



If rye grass and clovers have been grown very fast and are of a 

 watery nature, they should be chaffed with a little hay, which serves 

 the double purpose of ensuring perfect mastication and correcting its 

 too laxative action. 



In the tropics, bamboo and sugar-cane are used as green fodder, and 

 boiled moong, urud, and kulthee. 



Bran Mash. — No one connected with horses could be found who 

 would admit his incapacity to make bran mash, yet how often do we 

 find it given scalding hot on the top, and dry and cold at the bottom, 

 sometimes causing an impatient horse to paw, and maybe strike his knees 

 against the manger. In this way an invalid "put off his fancy" for the 

 time often declines to eat when the food has sufficiently cooled. The 

 proper way to prepare a bran mash is to scald the vessel in which it is 

 to be mixed, pour into it three pints of boiling water, add three pounds 

 of bran and a dessert-spoonful of salt, stir well with a clean stick, cover 

 over for half an hour, and offer it to the animal when cool enough to 

 place one's naked elbow in it, 



A Bran and Linseed Mash should be prepared by boiling slowly 

 — simmerincr, as cooks describe it — for two or three hours. Half a pound 

 of linseed, one pound of bran, a dessert-spoonful of salt, and three quarts 



