tl3 KIND OF HORSE MOST LIABLE TO TUMOURS. 



the surface, or at least predispose the animal to acquire such, according as cif> 

 cumstances may cleteriniae one way or the other. Seeing that such gross sub- 

 stances as bits of straw, chalf, &x*., have issued from a vein on blood-letting, 

 it is too much to concede the ultimate point that the feculent humours, which 

 constitute tumours, farcy, &c. may not in like manner escape into the circula- 

 tion, and be detained at that particular part which is rendered by some acci- 

 dent less capable of continuing the harmful matter in a 6uid state? A blow, a 

 gall, a ligature, or bruise, are known to occasion this disability and bring on 

 disease in one of its varied shapes. So does " a cold" produce fever in some 

 animals sooner than in others; according as the circulation may be more lan- 

 guid, or more predisposed to inflammation, or otherwise unfitted for its pur- 

 poses; whilst some again acquire inflammation without any such accidents or 

 cold, the fever being lighted up occasionally by warm stabling alone, though 

 the air they breathe may be perfectly innoxious. 



How it is that those external diseases, enumerated at the head of this chap- 

 ter, are generated, 1 shall not here re[)eat : the reader may consult the {)rinci- 

 ples upon which my 0[)inions are founded in the twenty-ninth section of book 

 the first, page .30: to which 1 will here merely add, that the tumours we per- 

 ceive on the body that are not of a nature to break and discharge their con- 

 tents — as farcy, grease, &c. — are usually, if not always, accompanied by cor- 

 responding tumours on some vital organ, as the lungs, liver, &c. But single 

 tumours, containing matter, as the whole tribe of fistula, &c. are designed to 

 counteract and carry off obstructions and all baleful affections incident to the 

 organs just mentioned, and of all others: an owner ought therefore to deem 

 himself fortunate, when some inscrutable long illness of the inside terminates 

 in this manner. The appearance of these latter on the surface may be taken 

 as a good assurance that none then exist internally; nor, indeed, any other 

 disorder whatever, the natural stn-ngth of the animal system enabling it thus 

 to cleanse itself Again, we may remark in general, that as it is the better 

 bred animals that are most lialile to affe(;tions of these organs, so is it the 

 "country-bred cattle," without any breeding in them, that mostly suffer those 

 external attacks. To the reflection of every man of experience I refer this 

 material point of ilissonance between the two varieties of hi)rse, which serves 

 to prove that those having great lumps of nuiscle at the parts liable to such at- 

 tacks are most disposed to contract local inflammation, and that puffing up 

 of gland or lymphatic which we call tumour of various kinils. Local inflam- 

 nration alone, however, could not effect the evil, without some corresponding 

 a use ; else, how comes it to pass that none but aged horses, that are heavy 

 in the hand and low in blood, contract fistula or abscess; young and lively 

 horses, and those with some breeding in them, never? Once more, — if the 

 disorder reside not in the blood, how does it come to pass, that a horse having 

 contracted one species of tumour, he is never known to undergo an attack of 

 any other species — and there are a dozen at the least? For example, give a 

 horse the poll-evil, and see how little he will be disposed to contract the 

 glanders. 



Fleshy horses, those of the cart breed and of indolent habit of body, aro 

 lT>ost liable to contract poll-evil, fistula, &c.; indeed i might say, the ready dis- 



Kosition thereto is confined to that breed, though either could be inflicted upon 

 igher bred cattle, which might not be so |)redisposed by a bad habit of l)ody 

 <»r by the gross humours before noticed. When the animals arc young, and 

 feed ravenously, the strangles carry off those humours; when youth leaves 

 them and more doltish habits comes on, these humours appear in some other 

 varied shapes: besides those diseases just nanied, the farcy, grease, &c. all 

 come on from the same indolent habit of body. They are always ravenous 

 fatejts, gross feeders, and consequently lethargic in their movements, that ac- 



