94 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



which they must necessarily work and exist, and those diseases which are 

 incidental to the collection and movements of horses and mules in great num- 

 bers. And that brings me to the subject of those diseases which are responsible 

 for providing the Service with the bulk of their patients in hospital. 



It is well, in the narration of this important phase in the lives of our war 

 animals in France, that I should first convey to the reader some notion of 

 these diseases, their nature and their effects. A description of the hospitals 

 and veterinary methods of combating and curing can suitably follow. At 

 the outset, therefore, it is necessary to clear up the popular idea that a horse 

 is a robust animal. He is nothing of the sort. He is most susceptible to lapses 

 in health. Contagious diseases easily get a grip of him, his resistance being 

 astonishingly feeble. He readily feels changes of scene, environment and 

 feeding, and especially is this the case with heavy draught horses, their chief 

 trouble in this connection being respiratory. Thus fever and catarrh find 

 him an easy prey. I particularly noticed this during a fairly intimate con- 

 nection with Base Remount Depots. New arrivals off ships which were 

 fit when they embarked would frequently develop respiratory troubles, and 

 in France much of that class of sickness was confined to animals newly landed 

 from England. 



It is, indeed, most singular that coughs, fevers, catarrhs, pneumonia 

 and pleurisy are so comparatively slight among horses at the front. The 

 fact says a good deal for the better management about which I have written 

 and the improved shelters of to-day compared with the early days of the war. 

 But it also proves that direct exposure, when once animals have become 

 acclimatized and hardened, is not the predisposing cause. Rather is it some- 

 thing specific and assisted in its spread by the assembly of animals in large 

 numbers at bases, on ground, too, which has never had a chance of recovering 

 from horse sickness. The exigencies of war do not allow of horses when on 

 active service being maintained in anything but large assemblies, and so the 

 veterinary expert must fight against a cause which he knows must predispose 

 the horse to sickness. 



At the present time the two most serious troubles with our animals in 

 France are mange and other allied skin diseases, and ophthalmia. I saw many 

 examples of both, though the former is essentially a winter disease. When 

 you consider the conditions under which horses must five, admirable as they 

 are considering the circumstances, and when you think of the easy way disease 

 is carried and spread in spite of the most strenuous efforts to locahze it, the 

 small percentage of sick animals in France is really astonishing. Of that 

 percentage about 12 per cent, are horses and 6 per cent, are mules. Their 

 trouble may be one or other, and sometimes both or more, of catarrh, gunshot 

 wounds, lameness, ophthalmia, ulcerative cellulitis and skin disease. At the 

 moment skin disease may be in the largest proportion. At another time 

 it may be some other trouble. The fact is, as I have said, that mange is a 

 winter disease ; and furthermore, disease invariably comes and goes as a 

 wave. No sooner is one defeated than another gathers in force. To-day it 

 may be " skin " ; to-morrow it may be ophthalmia, and so on. 



There are three forms of mange, of which the genus sarcoptic is the worst 



