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DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



Causes of Disease. 



Scientific men give three names when they speak of the causes 

 of disease — exciting, predisposing, and proximate. The first may 

 justly be termed the originators of disease; by the second is 

 meant those more easily acted upon by causes that a more healthy 

 animal would resist altogether ; and the third is almost the disease 

 itself. Of the causes with which we are acquainted, not many 

 of them are alike, and their effects, that is, the disease, jusU.as 

 diverse. 



These causes are named in the following table: 



1. Electric, and other conditions of the atmosphere. 



2. Food and water. 



3. Overwork. 



4. Poisons — animal, vegetable, mineral and zumins,or ferments. 



5. ^Malformations, or badl}'- formed parts. 



6. Age and deca3^ 



7. Changes of temperature. 



8. Hereditary influence. 



9. Mechanical. 

 10. Starvation. 



That tlie writer may be more clearly understood in regard to 

 these causes, examples will be given in the order above stated. 



The first is looked upon as the cause of the many diseases which 

 take on an epizootic form. The second, rusty straw, and musty 

 hay and corn fed to animals with w^eak stomachs. Third, riding 

 too far and too fast, overloading, etc. Fourth, animals drinking 

 out of leaden troughs, where pieces of old iron may be lying in the 

 bottom, and inoculation by the virus from a glandered horse, are 

 illustrations of animal poisons, zumins, or ferments. (See Gland- 

 ers.) Fifth, a horse with point of hock inclined forward, which is 

 the originator of curb. Sixth, an old horse or cow, with no teeth 

 to chew its feed. Seventh, taking an animal from a warm and 

 comfortable stable and exposing it to a cold, north-eastern storm. 



