532 TAKING THE TEMPERATURE. 



eminent that is to be had be applied to ; if the case is a trivial one he will 

 not make it serious by ignorant treatment, and if serious of course all his 

 skill will be required." — Charles Brindley, "The Pocket and the Stud,'' 

 pp. i6i, 163. 



TAKING THE TEMPERATURE. 



The normal temperature varies between ninety-nine de- 

 grees and one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The tempera- 

 ture is taken by means of a cHnical thermometer which 

 should be inserted in the rectum, and retained there for five 

 or more minutes. Sir Fitzwygram states that " the cheap 

 articles usually sold as clinical thermometers are perfectly 

 unreliable." The temperature should be taken at the same 

 hour each day, and not immediately after the horse has been 

 fed or watered. A sickness which causes the temperature 

 to rise as high as one hundred and six degrees Fahrenheit 

 usually terminates fatally. 



FINDING THE PULSE, 



Without much practice it is difficult for the amateur to 

 determine much by the pulsation, other than to what extent 

 it varies in the number of beats from the normal, which is 

 from thirty-four to thirty-eight per minute. The middle and 

 fore finger should be placed exactly transversely on the ar- 

 tery at a point on the inside of the jaw near the jowl. The 

 horse should be quietly approached, and after taking the 

 pulse, the number of pulsations should be compared with 

 those of the same animal when in a normal condition. In 

 sickness the pulse, besides varying in the number of pulsa- 

 tions, between twenty and one hundred and twenty, may be 

 affected in one or more of the following ways: 



