I30 VETERINARY PRACTICE. 



With a constitution as strong as iron, the camel 

 is so accustomed to a dry atmosphere that it fears 

 damp. After ours had lain a few nights on the 

 moist ground in the Kan-su highlands, they caught 

 cold and began coughing ; their bodies too were 

 covered with nasty boils ; and if we had not gone on 

 to Koko-nor, in a few months they would all have 

 died, a misfortune that actually befell a lama who 

 arrived in Kan-su with his camels at the same time as 

 we did. The commonest form of illness to which 

 they are subject is the mange, ho7nu7i in Mongol. 

 The sick beast is gradually covered with festering 

 sores, loses its coat, and at length dies. Glanders is 

 another malady from which they occasionally suffer. 

 The treatment adopted by the Mongols in the former 

 case is to pour a soup made from goats' flesh down the 

 animal's throat, and to rub its sores with burnt vitriol, 

 snuff, or gunpowder. At Koko-nor rhubarb is the 

 universal remedy for camels as well as for all do- 

 mestic animals, but the Mongols like to make a 

 mystery of their medicines. In damp weather 

 camels are very liable to coughs : the best remedy 

 in such cases is to give them tamarisk bushes to eat, 

 which grow abundantly in the valley of the Hoang- 

 ho, and in other parts of Southern Mongolia. 



On long journeys, particularly in those parts of 

 the Gobi where there is a quantity of small shingle, 

 they often become footsore, and in a little while quite 

 unable to walk ; the Mongols then cast the lame 

 animal, and sew a piece of thick leather under the 

 worn sole ; a painful operation for the poor brute, 



