From a Ticatise in the " Store of Knowledge." 



THE DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



BY WILLIAM YOUATT. 



The principal diseases of the Horse are con- 

 nected with the circidatory system. From the 

 state of habitual excitement in which the animal 

 is kept, in order to enable him to execute his 

 task, the heart and the blood-ves.sels \vill often 

 act too impetuou.sly; the vital iluid will be hur- 

 ried along too rapidly, either through the frame 

 generally, or some particular part of it, and 

 there will be comrestion, accumulation of blood 

 in that part, or infinmmation, either local or 

 general, disturbing the functious of some organ, 

 or of the whole frame. 



Cl»/^fl't'.s<w?l.— Take a young Horse on his first 

 entrance into the stables ; feed Jiiin somewhat 

 highly, and ■w-hat is the consequence ? He has 

 swellings of the legs, or inflammation of the 

 joints, or perhaps of the lungs. Take a horse 

 that has lived somewhat above his work, and 

 gallop him to the top of his speed -his nervous 

 system becomes highly excited ; tile heart beats 

 \vitli fearful rapidity ; the blood is pumped into 

 the luugs faster than they can discharge it ; the 

 pulmonary vessels become gorged, fatigued, 

 and utterly po\verless— the blood, arrested in 

 its course, becomes viscid, and death speedily 

 ensues. We have but one chance of saving our 

 patient — the instantaneous and copious abstrac- 

 tion of blood ; and only one means of prevent- 

 ing the recurrence of this dangerous state, name- 

 ly, not sulfering too great an accumulation of the 

 sanguineous fluid by over-feeding, and by regu- 

 lar and systematic exercise, which will inure 

 the circulatory vessels to prompt and efficient 

 action when they are suddenly called upon to 

 exert themselves. The cause and the remedy 

 are sufficiently plain. 



Again, the brain has functions of the most im- 

 portant nature to discharge, and more blood 

 Hows through it than through any other portion 

 of the frame of equal bulk. In order to prevent 

 this organ from being oppressed by a too great 

 determination of blood to it, the vessels, although 

 numerous, are small, and pursue a very circu- 

 itous and winding course. If a horse highly 

 fed, and full of blood, is suddenly and sharply 

 exercised, the course of the blood is accelerated 

 in every direction, and to the brain among other 

 parts. The ves,sels that ramify on its surface or 

 penetrate its.snb.stance are completely distended 

 iuid gorged with it. Perhaps they are ruptured, 

 and the effused blood presses upon the brain ; it 

 presses upon the origins of the nerves on which 

 sensation and motion depend, and the animal 

 suddenly drops powerless. A prompt and co- 

 pious abstraction of blood, or, in other words, a 

 diminution of this pressure, can alone save the 

 patient. Here is the nature, the cause, and the 

 treatment of apoplt.ry. 



Sometimes this disease a.s.sumes a different 

 form. The horse has not been performing more 

 than his ordinary \york, or perhaps he may not 

 have been out of the stable. He is found with 

 his hi;ad drooping and his vision impaired. He 



is staggering about. He falls, and lies half un- 

 conscious, or he struggles violently and danger- 

 ously. There is the same congestion of blood 

 in the head, the same pressure on the nervous 

 origins, but produced by a different cause. He 

 has been accustomed habitually to overload his 

 stomach, or he was, on the previous day, kept 

 too long from his food, and then he fell raven- 

 ously upon it, and ate until his stomach was 

 completely distended and unable to propel for- 

 ward its accumulated contents. Thus distend- 

 ed, its blood-vessels are compressed, and the 

 circulation through them is impeded or alto- 

 gether suspended. The blood is still forced on 

 by the heart, and driven in accumulated quan- 

 tity to other organs, and to the brain among the 

 rest; and there congestion takes place, as just 

 described, and the animal becomes sleepy, un- 

 conscious, and, if he is not speedily relieved, he 

 dieS; This too is apoplexy ; the horseman calls 

 it stomach staggertt. Its cause is improper 

 feeding. The division of the hours of labor, and 

 the introduction of the nosebag, have much 

 diminished the frequency of its occurrence. 

 The remedies are plain, — bleeding, physicing, 

 and the removal of the contents of the stomach 

 bj- means of a pump contrived for that purpose. 



Congestions of other kinds occasionally pre- 

 .sent themselves. It is no uncommon thing 

 for the blood to loiter in the complicated 

 vessels of the livrr, until the covering of that 

 viscus has burst, and an accumulation of co- 

 agulated black blood has presented it.self. This 

 congestion constitutes the swelled legs to which 

 so many horses are subject when they stand 

 too long idle in the stable, and it is the source 

 of many of the accumulations of serous fluid in 

 various parts of the bodj', and particularly in 

 the chest, the abdomen, and the brain. 



Inflarnmation is opposed to congestion, as 

 consisting in an active state of the capillary ar- 

 terial vessels ; the blood rushes through them 

 with far greater rapidity than in health, from 

 the excited state of the nervous system by 

 which they are supplied. 



Inflammation is either local or diffused. It is 

 confined to one organ, or to a particular portion 

 of that organ ; or it involves many neighboring 

 ones, or it is spread over the whole frame. In 

 the latter case it assumes the name oi fever. 

 Fever is general or con.stitutional inflammation, 

 and is said to be sympathetic or symptomatic 

 when it can be traced to .some local affection or 

 cause, and idiopathic when we cannot so trace 

 it. The truth probably is, that every fever ha.'s 

 its local cause, but we have not a sufficient 

 knowledge of the animal economy to discover 

 that cause. 



Inflammation may be considered with refer- 

 ence to the membranes which it attacks. 



The mucous membranes line all the cavifies 

 that communicate with the external surface of 

 the body. There is frequent inflammation of 



