THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 83 



MANGE. 



This is a cutaneous disease, the skin being covered 

 with a pimpled eruption, and accompanied with great 

 tenderness and an incessant itching. When once as- 

 sured that a horse is afflicted with it, too great care 

 cannot be taken that its contagious quaUties may not 

 extend to others. Not unfrequently has the disease 

 been contracted by transferring the hand from a mangy 

 horse to the healthy one ; and it should not be for- 

 gotten that it may be propagated by means of the har- 

 ness and trappings. Before the efficacy of chloride 

 of lime, in dispelling the danger of contagion, became 

 known, some careful farmers have thrown down their 

 stables to prevent the possibility of infection. The 

 mangy horse should have a brush and curry-comb dis- 

 tinct from the others, which ought to be burnt when 

 the animal is cured : the clothing ought likewise to 

 be well soaked in water, mixed with a fortieth part 

 of the saturated solution of chloride of lime, and un- 

 dergo a thorough washing with soap. 



Causes. — Poverty, and want of cleanliness, are fre- 

 quently the sources whence this disease springs. 

 Horses allowed to range the road-sides, where grass is 

 very scarce, and those which are allowed to eat much 

 straw instead of good and wholesome nourishing food, 

 become lean and thin ; the digestive organs are weak- 

 ened, and the constitution begins to fail, and the 

 Mange is the consequence : not unfrequently, a de- 

 fective perspiration produces it. 



Symptoms. — It generally shows itself first at the root 

 of the hair of the mane and tail, by a vast quantity of 



