82 STRANGLES. 



CHAPTER III. 



STRANGLES — FEBRIS PYOGENICA EQUI, COLT ILL, ETC. 



Definition. — A specific febrile disease of the horse, probably 

 under certain conditions contagious, in which the pyrexial 

 symptoms are not invariably well marked, and characterized 

 in those cases which take a regular course by the eruption of 

 one or more abscesses amongst the connective tissue associated 

 with the gland-structures between the branches of the lower 

 jaiv, whicJt on reaching maturity discharge pus. 



Pathology, a — Nature of the, Disease.— Pre-eminently an 

 equine disease ; it lias from the earliest periods been recog- 

 nised and described by the term now given it, ' Strangles.' 

 In some districts of oiir country probably as well known by 

 the name ' Colt 111.' 



Gervase Markham (1648) calls it ' a great and hard swelUng 

 between the horse's nether chaps upon the roots of his 

 tongue and about his throat, which swelling, if it be not 

 prevented, will stop the horse's windpipe, and so strangle or 

 choke him, from which effect, and none other, the name of this 

 disease took its derivation.' 



It is probably more truly a disease of youth, adolescence, 

 or colt-hood, although it is equally certain that horses of aU 

 ages, and, in our islands at least, of every breed and under 

 every condition of surroundings and of food-supply, are liable 

 to become affected with this fever. 



Although it has been under observation for such a 

 lengthened period, and the amount of facts and observation 

 collected with regard to strangles is very extensive and 

 wonderfully precise, we are not yet perfectly agreed as to 

 its nature or causes of production. 



Some veterinarians, British as well as foreign, prefer to con- 

 sider it as in no respect differing from ordinary catarrh cither 

 in its origin, development, or results. Others again seem 

 disposed to view it as akin to such malignant diseases as 

 ' Scrofula,' or 'Glanders.' By some it has been named Adenitis 

 Scrofulosa ^quorum ; while yet another class regard this 

 fever as merely the natural outcome, development, or matura- 



