$B LOW FEVER. SYMPTOMS. 



Mix ill pcwder, and add to a pint of warm gruel, to be given once or twice a 

 day. This is a good cool stomachic, and restores the appetite, at the same time 

 that the disposition to the return of fever is kept down : if found of marked 

 Bervice, the doses may be repeated to three or four times a day for a week. 



LOW FEVER. 



Together with typhus, or putrid fever, and rheumatic fever are diseases 

 .ncident to the horse, though attempts were long made to deny the appUca- 

 fion of these terms to any of his numerous afflictions, by those who dread, in- 

 ordinately, the falling into analogies with the human practice; a fear that may 

 be carried too far, notwithstanding all our care should be employed in separat- 

 ing this from the veterinary practice. 



Cause. — Of low fever, under the idea of debility, a few words fell on the 

 preceding pages: and truly, if "high fever" may be produced in a subject that 

 IS full of blood or condition, by over-exercise, and the other causes thereof set 

 down above (pages 59, 60, see also Book 1. at page 42, &c.), these same causes, 

 operating upon a horse out of condition, or which has not sufficient blood in 

 his frame to receive inflammation, necessarily occasion that languor which 

 attends debility of the ei. Jre system. The reader will, perhaps, oblige me by 

 turning to book I. at page 40, and reading over again what is there said as to 

 some causes of low fever. But the respective terms we give to the various 

 kinds of attack would signify much less than they deserve, were it not for 

 the danger we should otherwise fall into of treating one disorder for another, 

 when the symptoms (some of them) so much resemble each other. This dan- 

 ger is more likely to come upon us in cattle medicine than in the other, since 

 we are under the necessity of finding out what is the matter with our pa- 

 tients, whilst the human doctor receives the information at once, in words. 



As inflammatory fever is more prevalent in the spring and summer, owing 

 to the high condition of most horses when first attacked, so does low fever, or 

 irritation of the animal system of a horse in low condition, mostly prevail in 

 autumn and winter. We owe this latter in great measure to the debility or 

 weakness brought on by the shedding of his summer coat, when the autum- 

 nal equinox sets in. Being then much exhausted by the heat of the season 

 just gone by, he sweats profusely on the least exercise ; then his coat becomes 

 dry and husky when at rest, and his skin sticks tight to his ribs, slightly re- 

 sembling hidebound. The animal having lost much of his natural covering 

 and no care being taken to palliate this loss, he is more liable to catch cold if 

 exposed and still pushed in his work. If not relieved from its severity, coach- 

 horses in particular become unserviceable in great numbers, to an alarming 

 degree, resembling much the distemper of the spring season. Too often it 

 happens, such knocked-up horses are considered as done for, and the owner 

 sells oflf; whereas ex [^riencc tells us, that a nourishing regimen would re- 

 store them to their wonted vigour; for the serious or watery part of the blood 

 (chap. 2, sect. 20, 21 ) having been drained off by the violent perspiration they 

 were exposed to by their summer work, the muscular fibres become too rigid, 

 and the blood too thick for circulating in the finer vessels ; it therefore re- 

 mains rioting in the larger ones, distending their capacity and increasing the 

 irritation. Working horses are then usually deprived of their corn, because 

 they can not work ; this only adds to the irritation of the vascular system and 

 Bolids which constitutes the low fever we ure now considering. 



Si/mptoms. — Parallels, or distinctive characteristics, of such diseases as 

 somewhat resemble each other, are therefore very [iroper, inasmuch as they 

 prevent those dangerous mistakes in practice that hapiien oftener (even in thv 

 human practicel) than suits me even to hint at in this place. They are most 



