HYGIENE, UNSOUNDNESS, DISEASE. 243 



sense. Epizootic and infectious diseases will 

 invade stables despite all efforts to keep them 

 out and most colts have a siege of strangles, 

 which is the correct name for the malady gen- 

 erally known as distemper. It is indubitably 

 owing to the outdoor life he leads that the horse 

 is practically immune from tuberculosis. He is 

 forced in working to be outside and to breathe 

 deep the free air of heaven. The exercise he 

 is made to take in the harness also keeps his 

 digestive apparatus working nicely, so long as 

 he is not over or underfed, so long as his food 

 is wholesome and is not suddenly changed. 

 Highly organized, the horse resists the ravages 

 of disease in a remarkable manner, and the 

 characteristic action of drugs is readily ob- 

 tained upon him. At that he is a complicated 

 subject. It takes a long time to learn about his 

 structure and it is admitted that accurate diag- 

 nosis in diseases of the horse is harder to make 

 than it is in the human subject. 



As an all too frequent rule too much med- 

 icine is given to horses. Some veterinarians 

 seem to have nothing short of a mania for or- 

 dering large doses of various combinations of 

 drugs given often. Nature should be given a 

 chance. The drug of itself is worth nothing 

 except that it gives the system a chance to work 

 out its own salvation. Farmer-breeders also 

 have a craze, it seems, for feeding condition 

 powders, stock-foods and other compounds to 



