DISEASES OF THE HORSE 57 



This is a very common malady in most places. I have 

 known several instances on particular farms where they 

 were unable to raise either foals or calves, but if the 

 mother were removed to another farm immediately after 

 or before foaling, the foal or calf lived and was reared 

 without difficulty, and although constitutional debility 

 plays an important part, the presence of specific germs 

 constituting an infected area is, I believe, the most im- 

 portant factor in producing this disease. 



According to my observation, about seventy-five per 

 cent of the cases die within the first three weeks after 

 birth. This high rate of mortality would be considerably 

 diminished if proper treatment was adopted. 



Symptoms: The attack usually comes on during the 

 second or third week after birth and almost always be- 

 fore the closure of the navel opening, which, in affected 

 animals, will be found to be in a wet and suppurating 

 condition. Occasionally foals two or three months old 

 which have the urachus closed and are in an apparently 

 healthy condition contract this disease in a form of pain- 

 ful swelling of the joints. The first symptoms are gen- 

 erally dullness; more or less fever; lameness which is 

 often attributed to rheumatism or to injury caused by 

 the mare treading on the foal ; the disinclination to move 

 or even to stand. Upon examination the patient w^ill be 

 found to have a soft, gelatinous swelling of one or more of 

 the joints of which the hock, elbow, fetlock, stifle and hip 

 usually manifest the enlargement most clearly. 



These swellings are hot and painful to the touch ; they 

 tend to suppurate and frequently cause intense lameness. 

 In very rare cases open urachus may exist without any 

 joint inflammation. In this disease, inflammation of the 

 joints and open urachus are almost always co-existent. 



Animals that recover from a bad attack are seldom 

 worth the trouble of rearing, because as a rule their con- 

 stitution becomes permanently impaired and one or more 

 of their joints becomes stiffened by the attack. 



