HORSE— CARE AND MANAGEMENT. 



105 



is the true explanation of those cases 

 where no bite has been known to have 

 occurred, but as the mouth has in each 

 instance been shown to have been abrad- 

 ed, there is some reason for accepting it 

 as such. To proceed, however, to the 

 symptoms : Mr. Youatt, who has had 

 great opportunities for examining rabies, 

 both in the dog and horse, describes the 

 earliest as consisting in "a spasmodic 

 movement of the upper lip, particularly 

 of the angles of the lip. Close following 

 on this, or contemporaneous with it, are 

 the depressed and anxious countenance, 

 and inquiring gaze, suddenly, however, 

 lighted up, and becoming fierce and men- 

 acing from some unknown cause, or at 

 the approach of a stranger. From time 

 to time different parts of the frame, the 

 eyes, the jaws, particular limbs, will be 

 convulsed. The eye will occasionally 

 wander after some imaginary object, and 

 the horse will snap again and again at 

 that which has no real existence. Then 

 will come the irrepressible desire to bite 

 the attendants or the animals within 

 its reach. To this will succeed the de- 

 molition of the rack, the manger, and the 

 whole furniture of the stable, accompa- 

 nied by the peculiar dread of water, 

 which has already been described. To- 

 wards the close of the disease there is 

 generally paralysis, usually confined to 

 the loins and the hinder extremities, or 

 involving those organs which derive their 

 nervous influence from this portion of the 

 spinal cord; hence the distressing tenes- 

 mus which is occasionally seen." How 

 paralysis can produce tenesmus is not 

 very clear, but of the very general exist- 

 ence of this symptom there can be no 

 doubt. The dread of water, as well as of 

 draughts of cold air, is also clearly made 

 out to exist in this disease (as in human 

 rabies), and the term hydrophobia will 

 serve to distinguish it better than in the 

 dog, where it is as clearly absent. When- 

 ever, therefore, these symptoms follow 

 upon the bite of a dog, unless the latter 

 is unquestionably in good health, rabies 

 may be suspected, and the bare suspicion 

 ought always to lead to the use of the 

 bullet, which is the safest way of killing 

 a violent horse. There is only one dis- 

 ease (phre?iitis) with which it can be con- 

 founded, and in that the absence of all 

 consciousness and, in milder cases, of 



fear, so that no moral control whatever 

 can be exercised, marks its nature, and 

 clearly distinguishes it from rabies, the 

 victim to which is conscious to the last r 

 and though savage and violent in the ex- 

 treme, is aware of the power of man, and 

 to some extent under his influence. 



HORSE, Tetanus, Lock Jaw Tetanus, 



one form of which is known as lock jaw, 

 has its seat apparently in the nervous sys- 

 tem, but, like many other diseases of the 

 same class, the traces it leaves behind are 

 extremely uncertain, and are displayed 

 more on the secondary organs, through 

 which it is manifested, than on those 

 which we believe to be at the root of the 

 mischief. Thus the muscles, which have 

 been long kept in a state of spasm, show 

 the marks of this condition in their soft- 

 ened and apparently rotten condition. 

 They, in fact, have had no interval of rest, 

 during which nutrition could go on, and 

 have lost much of the peculiarity of 

 structure which enables them to contract. 

 The stomach often shows marks of in- 

 flammation, but as all sorts of violent 

 remedies are employed, this may be due 

 to them rather than to idiopathic disease. 

 The lungs also are generally congested, 

 but here, like the state of the muscles, it 

 may be a secondary effect of the long- 

 continued exertions of the latter, which 

 nothing but the absence of all important 

 lesions of the brain and spinal cord 

 would induce the pathologist to pay the 

 slightest attention to. 



Tetanus may be either idiopathic or 

 symptomatic, but the former condition is; 

 somewhat rare. It almost always follows', 

 some operation, or a severe injury hx 

 which a nerve has been implicated, the 

 most frequent causes being the piercing 

 of the sole by a nail, or a prick in shoe- 

 ing, or the operations of docking, nick- 

 ing, castration, etc. 



The symptoms are a permanent rigid- 

 ity of certain voluntary muscles, and 

 especially of the lower jaw (whence the 

 popular name, lock jaw). The mouth is 

 kept rigidly shut, the masseter muslces 

 feeling as hard as a deal board. One or 

 both sides of the neck are rigid, in the 

 former case the head being turned to one 

 side, and in the latter stretched out as if 

 carved in marble. The nostrils are di- 

 lated; the eyes retracted, with the haws 

 thrust forward over them ; the ears erect. 



