279 



HIDEBOUND. 



Take a fat horse out of a warm stable; turn him 

 during the cold and wet of winter into a strawyard, and 

 three months afterwards you will hardly recognize the 

 animal. You will find him with a shaggy, staring coat ; a 

 belly double the natural size, and a skin stickiug fast to his 

 ribs, which may be counted with the eye ; in a word, the 

 change has induced hidebound. Hidebound is not a disease ; 

 it is the symptom of disorder. The animal in consequence of 

 having passed from good keep to bad, from comfortable 

 warmth to exposure, has lost condition, lost the fat upon 

 the ribs, the digestion is deranged, and the result thereof is 

 hidebound. The poor man^s horse picking its hard fare 

 from the hedge-rows; and the ass that fares harder still, 

 furnish familiar illustrations of this disorder. 



Hidebound, however, may also be the indication of disease. 

 How often do we see^ among a group of young horses, one 

 that " looks ill V' The coat is rough ; the skin is tight ; the 

 flanks are tucked up ; the dung consists of hay imperfectly 

 digested ; in fact, the horse is hidebound. 



A horse has inflammation of the lungs, which runs into 

 the chronic stage, and hangs long about him. Under this 

 influence, the animal will gradually decline, lose condi- 

 tion, daily get thinner; while the skin, from absorption of 

 the adipose matter, may be daily felt getting tighter upon 

 the ribs. This horse also is hidebound. 



From the foregoing observations we may collect, that 

 hidebound is indicative of general disease. After this ex- 

 planation it is to be expected that no one will presume to 

 dress the skin as a cure for hidebound, but. that all practi- 

 tioners will at once attack the root of the disease, and attend 

 to the digestion. 



LOUSINESS. 



It is common for a horse that has been turned out for 

 the winter, and is taken up in the spring of the year, to 



