BOOK II. 



THE CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF VARIOUS BODILY DISEASES INCIDENT TVi 

 THE HORSE ; WTIH THE MOST APPROVED REMEDIES IN EVERY CASE. 



CHAPTER I 

 Of Interrud Diseases. 



Inflammatory disorders, generally. — Fever. — From all the infor 

 mation the reader may have collected together in his mind, respecting the 

 " circulation of the blood," as described with instructive minuteness at pages 33 

 to 42, he will naturally conclude that the horse is ever most liable to contract 

 one or the other of those disorders we term inflammatory. The great heat 

 of his blood, combined with his bulk, and the amazing exertions he is compelled 

 to make, all together constantly predispose him to incur fever of the whole sys- 

 tem or inflammation of particular parts, according to concurring circumstances. 

 Nor is the matter changed one whit, when we reflect that fever sometimes 

 terminates in local inflammation, which we term "critical,'' ais being the crisis 

 and cure of the disorder; and that the inflammation of one part or organ (the 

 liver in particular) frequently devolves into fever of the whole animal system, 

 by means of the rapid circulation of the blood through the diseased organ. 



Let us proceed to discuss the subject generally at first, and to pursue each 

 in detail afterwards ; simply premising, that all the disorders incurred by the 

 horse are referable, more or less, to this over-heated or inflammatory state of 

 his blood, and its consequent unfitness for the purposes of promoting animal 

 life, health, and vigour. For, the more heat, the more viscidity or thickness 

 there will be in the blood, and less will it be found capable of circulating the 

 .onger such unnatural heat continues, up to a certain point of the disease : 

 when the animal is so far aflfected as to lose its appetite, and consequently no 

 fresh blood can be formed by the digestive powers, the blood then becomes 

 thinner every day, because its more solid particles are constantly being de- 

 posited in the c>elJular membrane, to supply the waste that is unceasingly go- 

 ing on there. The reader would do well to read over again what is said con- 

 cerning this process of the animal system at page 48, with the references there 

 made to page 37, to page 23, and, in fact, to the whole tenor of the second 

 chapter. But this supply soon fails, as necessarily it must, when it is not re- 

 plenished at the source, and wasting of the solids succeeds of course, unless 

 nature is assisted by our art judiciously ; — the right application of this art is 

 what we are now in search of. 



One of the immediate consequences of the horse being hard worked, or high 

 fed and physicked with stimulants, is the constant heating or feverish state 

 of the blood. Increased action of the heart and arteries accompany and keep 

 up this state of irritation, which may be further accelerated by the animars 

 being allowed to take cold whilst in that state, whereby the perspiration is 

 checked of a sudden, and the blood which may then fill the smaller vessels is 

 detained there< to the further ajiiioyance of the larger ones: he then contracU 



