76 



Veterinary Medicine. 



is most intense in close, unventilated stables, and manifestly 

 operates in both predisposing to and exciting those diseases of 

 the chest and other parts, so frequent in such places. Winds raise 

 and carry such germs, but also sooner rob them of virulence. 

 (See Zymotic Diseases). Susceptible, young animals, newly 

 housed, usually suffer the most severely from these injurious con- 

 ditions. Often in their case frequent, extreme and sudden 

 changes, and great atmospheric impurity, are combined with a 

 diet to which they have been hitherto altogether unaccustomed. 

 In young horses there are superadded the exertions — too often 

 extreme — connected with training or work. There are the heats 

 and chills, the soaking perspiration and the frigid winds and rain, 

 the general exhaustion, but particularly the overwork of the 

 respiratory organs, each of itself calculated to superinduce disease. 

 Percivall justly remarks that among young horses, newly stabled 

 and put to work, the prevailing diseases are "catarrh, sore 

 throat, strangles, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy." His 

 tables of the diseases attacking the horses of his own regiment 

 (ist Ivife Guards), are so instructive that I here reproduce them : 



A TABLE (COMPILED FROM EXTRACTS FROM A "REGISTER OF SICK HORSES" 

 LIMITED TO A GIVEN PERIOD) SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE AGES AT 

 WHICH HORSES APPEAR MOST DISPOSED TO CERTAIN ORGANIC DISEASES. 



No. of 

 Patients 

 Under 5 



Years. 



No. in 



Their 5th 



Year. 



5 Years v ears ana 



and Upwards 



Under 10. ^ut under 



No. 20 

 Years and; Total. 

 Upwards.' 



Disease of the lungs 

 Disease of the bowels. 

 Disease of the brain 

 Disease of the eyes . 



20 50 



40 j 70 



5 i 14 



70 I 35 



[Q 300 



20 1 J 60 



2 27 



5 ! 150 



It will be seen that nearly one-half of the sicknesses, occurring 

 among the horses of the regiment, were chest diseases, and that 

 nearly three-fourths of these were in animals under five j^ears 

 old, or in those newly purchased from the country. 



The subjoined table shows the relative prevalence of disease in 

 different months of the year, deduced from the Register above 

 referred to : 



