INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 5 



wearing a cloth^ one now will be requisite ; and if he has^ 

 an additional one^ unless tlie weather be warm, will be 

 advisable. Flannel bandages, likewise, in case his legs be 

 cold, may cover them. Farther than this must be the 

 veterinary surgeon^s affair. 



In a former volume of Hippopathology, it has been my 

 endeavour to show, that the natural or necessary con- 

 sequence of transporting a horse from a cold to a warm 

 atmosphere, and from poor to good living, is the generation 

 o^ plethora or fulness of blood, the tendency of which state of 

 body is to inflammation or eruption, called ^^ breaking out:'' 

 the seat or site of inflammation or eruption being the part 

 locally predisposed, or that happens to have blood attracted 

 to it by some cause or other of topical or specific irritation ; 

 which part, in horseman's phraseology, is said to '' fly.'' 

 The legs, as well on account of their remoteness from the 

 source of circulation as from their dependent position, are, 

 constitutionally, the first to fly : hence the proueness of 

 young horses recently stabled to swelled legs. Exposed 

 sensitive surfaces, such as the lining membrane of the nose, 

 of the windpipe, and of the lungs, and also the delicate 

 tissue of the eyes, are likewise mvich disposed to fly or take 

 on inflammatory action, not only on account of their exalted 

 degree of innate sensibility and susceptibility, but from the 

 excitement they are especially subjected to in the heated 

 and contaminated atmosphere of the stable. We have 

 only to extend the same train of reasoning to explain upon 

 general principles the production of catarrh, strangles, roar- 

 ing, glanders, pleuro-pneumonia, grease and farcy, and oph- 

 thalmia ; which, collectively, may be said to constitute the 

 catalogue of diseases proper to young fresh-stabled horses. 



The adult and working period of the horse's lifetime 

 is that in which, though seasoned and inured to his new 

 domicile, he is still the occasional subject of disease; but 

 his disorders have now become such as arise either from 

 want or irregularity of exercise, or from excess of work, 

 rather than from heat of stable or stimulating diet. Ple- 

 thora, it is true, is manifest in his system ; but the parts 



