STRANGLES. 15 



The tumour is under the jaw, and about the centre of the channel. Ii -oon fills the 

 whole of the space, and is evidently one uniform body, and may thus be distinguished 

 from glanders, or the enlarged glands of catarrh. In a few days it becomes more 

 prominent and soft, and evidently contains a fluid. This lapidly increases ; the 

 tumour bursts, and a great quantity of pus is discharged. As soon as the tumour has 

 broken, the cough subsides, and the horse speedily mends, although some degree oi 

 weakness may hang about him for a considerable time. Few horses, possibly none, 

 escape its attack ; but, the disease having passed over, the animal is free from it foi 

 the remainder of his life. Catarrh may precede, or may predispose to, the attack, 

 and, undoubtedly, the state of the atmosphere has much to do with it, for both its 

 prevalence and its severity are connected with certain seasons of the year and changes 

 of the weather. There is no preventive for the disease, nor is there anything con- 

 tagious about it. Many strange stories are told with regard to this ; but the explana- 

 tion of the matter is, that when several horses in the same farm, or in the same 

 neighbourhood, have had strangles at the same time, they have been exposed to the 

 same powerful but unknown exciting cause. 



Messrs. Percivall and Castley have come the nearest to a satisfactory view of the 

 nature of strangles. Mr. Castley* says, that " the period of strangles is often a much 

 more trying and critical time for young horses than most people seem to be aware of, 

 that when colts get well over this complaint, they generally begin to thrive and 

 improve in a remarkable manner, or there is sometimes as great a change for the 

 worse : in fact, it seems to effect some decided constitutional change in the animal.' 1 



Mr. Percivall adds, " the explanation of the case appears to me to be, that the 

 animal is suffering more or less from what I would call strangle-fever, a fever the 

 disposition and tendency of which is to produce local tumour and abscess, and, most 

 commonly in that situation, underneath the jaws, in which it has obtained the name 

 of strangles." 



Professor Dick, of Edinburgh, adds that which is conclusive on the subject, that 

 " although the disease commonly terminates by an abscess under the jaw, yet it may, 

 and occasionally does, give rise to collections of matter on other parts of the surface." 



To this conclusion then we are warranted in coming, that strangles is a specific 

 affection to which horses are naturally subject at some period of their lives, and the 

 natural cure of which seems to be a suppurative process. From some cause, of the 

 nature of which we are ignorant, this suppurative process usually takes place in the 

 space between the branches of the maxillary bone, and occurring there it appears in 

 the mildest form, and little danger attends. When the disease is ushered in by con- 

 siderable febrile disturbance, and the suppuration takes place elsewhere, the horse too 

 frequently sinks under the attack. 



The treatment of strangles is very simple. As the essence of the disease consists 

 in the formation and suppuration of the specific tumour, the principal, or almost the 

 sole attention of the practitioner, should be directed to the hastening of these pro- 

 cesses : therefore, as soon as the tumour of strangles is decidedly apparent, the part 

 should be actively blistered. Old practitioners used to recommend poultices, which, 

 from the thickness of the horse's skin, must have very little effect, even if they could 

 be confined on the part ; and from the difficulty and almost impossibility of this, and 

 their getting cold and hard, they necessarily weakened the energies of nature, and 

 delayed the ripening of the tumour. Fomentations are little more effectual. A blister 

 will not only secure the completion of the process, but hasten it by many days, and 

 save the patient much pain and exhaustion. It will produce another good effect it 

 will, previously to the opening of the tumour, abate the internal inflammation and 

 soreness of the throat, and thus lessen the cough and wheezing. 



As soon as the swelling is soft on its summit, and evidently contains matter, it 

 should be freely and deeply lanced. It is a bad, although frequent practice, to suffei 

 the tumour to burst naturally, for a ragged ulcer is formed, very slow to heal, and 



upon the rootes of his tongue, and about his throat, which swelling, if it be not prevented, wit 

 top the horse's windpipe^ and so strangle or choke him- from which effect, and none athwr 

 the name of this disease tooke its derivation." 

 * Vet., iii., 406, and vi.. 607. 



