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these must be attended to according to the directions laid down under 

 their several heads. lu all instances where such causes are not in 

 operation, even when the cause cannot be traced to the food, ,it will 

 be necessary to make some alteration in the diet and to examine the 

 various alimentary matters in order to detect the offending one if 

 possible. If the di irrhcei is not excessive and the animal thereby 

 much debilitated, it would be advisable to give a mild aperient or a 

 moderate cathartic. To the young animal a dose of castor oil or lin- 

 seed oil, to the older a moderate dose of aloes, combined with a veg- 

 etable bitter, ginger or gentian. In foals pepsin can be adminis- 

 tered, as in all probability the indigestion is due to imperfect secre- 

 tion of the gastric glands ; even in the older animal this is often pre- 

 sumably the case, and more especially when the disorder occurs with- 

 out apparent cause ; the same remedy will prove beneficial. The 

 diet of the animal is also to be carefully conducted, and that pure 

 air, moderate exercise and good grooming are essential to proper di- 

 gestion. Occurring in the winter, if the horse is thickly covered 

 with hair, clipping will have a beneficial result, restoring the diges- 

 tion and appetite, which may have been long impaired, notwithstand- 

 ing remedies, in the course of a few hours. 



Distension of the stomach may arise from repletion with solid 

 food, or from the evolution of gases arising" from solids or liquids 

 contained within it undergoing the process of fermentation, or dis- 

 engaged from the gastric w^alls when the stomach is empty, as occur- 

 ring in conditions of great prostration. The cause of impaction of 

 the stomach results from the indigestion of food too abundant in 

 quantity, or greedily swallowed and imperfectly masticated. In those 

 parts of the country where the cookmg of food for horses is a com- 

 mon custom, it is found that deaths from diseases and lesion of the 

 digestive apparatus are very common. From the reasons that it is 

 necessary for the food to undergo, not only the process of tritura- 

 tion by the teeth, but that it requires to be chemically altered by 

 combination with the saliva, it will be understood that food prepared 

 in any other way, as cooking by boiling and steaming, is unfitted to 

 be acted upon by the stomach, and is consequently retained within 

 it, the animal meanwhile continuing to eat until its walls become 

 distended, paralyzed or even ruptured. Some kinds of food, nutri- 

 tious in themselves and theoretically calculated to be proper for the 



