HYGIENICS APPLIED TO DISEASED ANIMALS 141 



celebrated physician that his great difficulty in serious cases was to induce 

 the friends of his patients to refrain from supplying them with anything in 

 the form of food until he gave instructions to that effect; and it is well 

 known to physicians in fever - hospitals what disastrous results have 

 happened from the friends of patients recovering from typhoid fever sur- 

 reptitiously bringing in a currant-bun, under the impression that it would 

 tempt the patient's appetite and be a pleasant change from the slops on 

 which he had been kept. Should the patient attempt to consume the 

 delicacy, the result to be apprehended, and one which has happened, as 

 proved by post-mortem examination, is the lodging of some of the currants 

 in healing ulcers in the intestines, and the setting up of a new ulcerating 

 process. 



Some horses are certainly exempt, as a rule, from this special risk, but 

 so extremely anxious are the attendants to support a sick animal's strength, 

 as they say, that they not only tempt the appetite of the subject of inflam- 

 mation of the lungs, or other acute disease, with carrots, green food, or some 

 other delicacies, but, if they are refused, as most probably they would be, 

 they insist on forcibly administering food in the form of gruel or thick 

 linseed tea, quite forgetting that the mere act of exciting the patient, by 

 the force which is necessarily employed, will do far more harm than the 

 food could do good, even if it were willingly taken. 



Attendants on sick horses have yet to learn that the want of appetite is 

 Nature's unmistakable way of hinting that the animal is much better with- 

 out food during the immediately acute stage of a fever attack. It is only 

 during the stage of convalescence that food is absolutely necessary, and the 

 ingenuity of the attendant may be wisely exercised in selecting articles of 

 diet which he thinks the horse would be likely to take, always on the 

 understanding that the food selected must be easy of digestion, and concen- 

 trated in its character. All kinds of bulky food are out of the question. A 

 complete change of food has been recommended even in the case of animals 

 that have no particular disease, but suffer from want of condition, and this 

 change is far more necessary with animals which are suffering from acute 

 disease. The most perfect change which can be devised is the substitution 

 of animal for vegetable diet. Good meat-soup mixed with bran, and placed 

 in small portions in the animal's mouth, as previously directed, will often 

 excite the animal's appetite, and when he once becomes accustomed to the 

 flavour of the new diet he will take it with avidity. 



In extreme cases the fibrine of the blood, separated and dried, and mixed 

 in the form of powder with bran mashes, has been found very effective as a 

 restorative. Milk mixed with eggs forms an acceptable diet for sick horses, 

 and is frequently taken by them without any difficulty, and it may be 



