THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 89 



who know the value of pure air, natural food, and exercise, to 

 conclude that the colt while enjoying these great luxuries by the 

 side of its mother, guided by her superior mind, (instinct, if you 

 please,) is not liable to be attacked with a disease which, as 

 already stated, we believe to result from depriving animals of 

 those blessings which nature has in store for them in their unre- 

 strained state. But it often happens that young colts, after 

 running a season with their mother, partaking of the invigorating 

 country air, grow up to be strong and robust ; and then the period 

 arrives for weaning them. How changed the scene ! Instead 

 of being permitted to gambol in their native element, they are 

 confined to a small space, not large enough to swing a cat round, 

 and perhaps as dark as the grave ; and the animal, after fretting 

 for a season, and making unsuccessful efforts to escape from its 

 prison house, tamely submits to the discipline, not, however, until 

 he has cut, and bruised, and otherwise injured himself. We were 

 called, a short time ago, to visit a young colt that had lacerated his 

 head, breast, and fore legs in a most shocking manner, in making 

 an attempt to escape through a window from the horrors of con- 

 finement. His companions were about a dozen cows, more calcu- 

 lated to alarm and render his position a perilous one than other- 

 wise ; and the impure atmosphere, rendered so by the emanations 

 from the excrements, and from the lungs of his companions, was 

 a source of great mischief. Then who can blame such a one for 

 attempting to escape and regain liberty? If strangles should 

 appear in such a subject, it would not be surprising. 



Then, again, take a colt from its mother, whose milk contains 

 all the elements for sustaining life and developing the organization 

 of the young subject, and place it upon a diet of hay or like innu- 

 tritious trash, a whole truss of which would not afford one half 

 the quantity of nutriment contained in a quart of its mother's milk 

 However profitable and well adapted hay may be for stock of 

 mature growth and powerful digestive organs, it is a sad mistake 

 to suppose that it will do for the young. A case of this kind 

 came under our observation last year. The subject, aged two 

 and a half years, died in a state of marasmus.* Post mortem 



• A gradual wasting of the system without any apparent disease. 

 8* 



