74 NAYIN OX THE HORSE. 



the skin, and which increase very fast, and spread over the 

 horse. These mites are too small to be seen by the naked eye. 

 Many millions of them may inhabit a few inches square on the 

 horse's skin. It is by these little insects getting from a horse 

 having mange to a healthy one that the disease is catching, 

 just as one person catches the itch from another. If the same 

 curry-comb, brush, blanket, saddle, bridle, or harness, which have 

 been used on a horse having mange, be used on another horse, 

 he will almost certainly take the disease. If a horse having it 

 is kept in the same stable or the same pasture with other 

 horses, they will all be likely to become infected ; so, if put in 

 the same stall where an infected animal has been kept, the dis- 

 ease will be taken. 



Mange occurs, also, in the cow and the dog, and may be com- 

 municated from either to the horse. On this there is difference 

 of opinion ; but the safe plan is to keep the mangy cow or dog 

 entirely away from horses, for in this course there is no risk. 



Other causes than contagion are assigned as producing mange, 

 and it is quite certain that they may. Starvation and exposure 

 are capable of producing the greatest derangement of the horse's 

 skin, and may give rise to mange, as they certainly do to hide- 

 bound and surfeit. Filthiness in stable management is put 

 down as a cause of this loathsome disease, but is not at all so 

 likely to produce it as some other affections. It may aggravate 

 the disease, when once started, or hasten its approach when the 

 horse is starved and poverty-stricken. The derangement of 

 the stomach and digestive organs, which results from starvation 

 and poverty, are peculiarly calculated to produce disease of the 

 skin from the natural sympathy between them. 



A neglected or badly-treated surfeit may degenerate or run 

 into mange. 



Mange may be known from surfeit by the loosening of the 

 short hair along the roots of the mane, or by a kernel, or hard 

 lump, which may be felt in the loose flesh in the flank, which is 

 not found in surfeit. 



