In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 39 



their appetites were craving, because the matter, 

 mingled with their food, made it altogether dis- 

 agreeable, so that they lost flesh exceedingly. This loss 

 of flesh proved a benefit to them rather than a detri- 

 ment, and as soon as the running abated they ate 

 voraciously, and soon recovered their flesh. This dis- 

 temper, though in noways mortal, yet was so very 

 catching that when any horses were seized with 

 it, I observed that those which stood on each 

 side of it were generally infected as soon as it 

 began to run at the nose. In the same manner the 

 small -pox communicates the infection when it is upon 

 the turn. While this lasted, above 100 troop horses 

 under my care were seized with it. I always caused the 

 sick horses to be removed from the healthy, as soon as 

 they were taken ill, and put by themselves as in a 

 hospital. In one troop of Horse Grenadiers, we filled a 

 stable of thirty-six standings in three days, an infirmary 

 of five standings, and another of eighteen, in three or 

 four days more. Nevertheless all of them recovered in 

 a short time. In 1743 the influenza prevailed as an 

 epidemic in England, and a few doubtful words quoted 

 both by Fleming and by Dr. Thompson seem to indicate 

 an epizootic influenza among horses. In 1750 an 

 epizootic passed through Great Britain and Denmark 

 which resembled in all its features that of the epizootic 

 in 1873. Kutty says, " About the middle or end of 

 December the most epidemic and universally spreading 

 disease among horses that any one living remembered 

 made its appearance in Dublin, which seems to have 

 been nearly analogous to the influenza and catarrhal 



