260 DISEASES or THE STOMACH. 



The same disease has often made its appearance in brew- 

 eries where horses were in the habit of being kept out many 

 hours without food^ and on return to their stables too abun- 

 dantly supplied with corn and chaif, or roots, or other man- 

 ger-meat. Wagon and cart-horses are, unless well looked 

 after by their proprietors, apt to become, out of mistaken kind- 

 ness, stuffed, even to death, by their men. "Wagoners,^' 

 says Mr. Tombs, V.S., Stratford-on-Avon, "are so scep- 

 tical and profoundly ignorant, that they think, unless a 

 horse's bowels be filled out so as to be on a level with his 

 hip bones, tliey have a mean appearance, and are not capa- 

 ble of a hard day's work. No persuasion can root out the 

 strong prejudices of wagoners in regard to feeding horses." 

 [' Veterinarian,' vol. xxv, p. 437.] The conductors of such 

 establishments, however, are grown wiser in this respect. 

 Nowadays, it is seldom we see drays or wagons going out 

 without carrying with them feeds for their horses. Again, 

 such cases are of most rare occurrence in the army. Why 

 are they so ? Simply because the cavalry feed their horses 

 in stables, four times a day; and when in the field are 

 always furnished with nose-bags or small corn sacks ; which, 

 in fact, constitute part of a dragoon's kit. 



Mr, Kent, V.S., Bristol, remarks in regard to this dis- 

 ease — " From what I have seen, I am of opinion that, in 

 those districts where farm-horses are kept on vetches during 

 summer, more horses die during July and August from 

 stomach staggers and inflammation of the bowels than 

 during the other ten months of the year."^ 



Symptoms. — A stomach simply surcharged with food, 

 without any accompanying tympanitic distension, does not 

 appear to occasion local pain, but to operate rather that 

 kind of influence upon the brain which gives rise to symp- 

 toms, not stomachic, but cerebral : hence the analogy be- 

 tween this disease and staggers, and hence the appellation 

 for it of ''stomach staggers." The unnaturally filled sto- 

 mach produces, for the first time, a sense of satiety : the horse 

 grows heavy and drowsy, reposes his head upon the manger. 

 In a ' Case of Stomach Staggers/ in the * Veterinarian,' vol. xiv, p. 670. 



