STOMACH- STAGGERS. 69 



stage. In this disorder, as may well be supposed, medicine 

 will have but little effect, from the gorged condition of the 

 stomach. Some veterinary surgeons recommend bleeding ; 

 but we have never found this attended with any beneficial 

 effects, as what must naturally debilitate the system can 

 hardly be expected to aid the action of the stomach. 

 Probably the safest plan is to allow nature to work its own 

 cure, by abstaining from giving food. But as we know 

 of no certain remedy for this disease, we should carefully 

 guard against promoting it. 



It is no uncommon occurrence for farmers and others 

 keeping a number of horses to lose several of them within 

 very short periods of each other v/ith this malady, from 

 which an opinion prevails with many that the staggers is 

 contagious. Nothing can- be more erroneous than this belief, 

 as it is quite certain that the complaint is induced by bad 

 stable management, or by feeding the horse with unwhole- 

 some food, or in the horse feeding too voraciously, as already 

 mentioned. This disease is more common with old horses 

 than others. We would strongly recommend the owners of 

 horses to give some attention to the following : — Too much 

 food given at one time after long fasting or hard work, and 

 neglecting to give the animal water, is almost certain to 

 produce the staggers. The hours of labour should be for 

 limited spaces of time, with proper intervals of rest allowed, 

 and the horse regularly fed during these intervals. Every 

 man must have felt the effects of being without dinner for 

 two or three hours beyond his accustomed time. Exhaus- 

 tion is almost certain to follow, v/hich is produced by the 

 gastric juice acting upon the coating of an empty stomach. 

 From five to six hours are the intervals between the meals 

 of a labouring man ; and with a horse that is worked no 

 longer time should be allowed to elapse without feeding and 



