ITO SERVICE, 



when the stables are first opened. If it be too cold, his coat 

 will be roughened, and become dim, and the horse will catch 

 cold, evidence of which will be given by a cough. 



The work of some horses exposes them much to the weather. 

 Those employed in street-coaches, in the carriages of medical 

 men, all those that have to stand in the weather, can never do 

 so with safety until they have been seasoned. In the cold rainy 

 season, many are destroyed, and many more endangered by in- 

 judicious exposure. Wet weather is the most pernicious ; yet 

 it is not the rain alone that does the mischief. If the horse is 

 kept in motion, and afterwards perfectly and quickly dried, or 

 is kept in motion till he is dry, he suffers no injury. His coat 

 may be bleached till it is like a dead fur ; but the horse does 

 not catch cold. If he is allowed to stand at rest with his coat 

 drenched in the rain, the surface of the body rapidly loses its 

 heat, there being no stimulus to the formation of it; the blood 

 circulates slowly, accumulates internally, and oppresses vital 

 organs, especially the lungs ; the legs become excessively cold 

 and benumbed ; the horse can hardly use them, and, wheu put 

 in motion, he strikes one against the other. Exposure, when it 

 deprives the body of heat in this way, is a fruitful source of in- 

 flamed lungs, of thoracic influenza, catarrh, and founder. When 

 the skin is wet, or the air very cold, the horse should, if possible, 

 be kept in motion, which will preserve him, however little he 

 may have been accustomed to exposure. 



Horses that have been kept in warm stables, and never out 

 but in fair weather, arp in most danger. If they cannot be kept 

 in constant motion, they must be prepared before they are ex- 

 posed. If they commence work in summer, or early in the 

 autumn, they will be fully inured to the weather before the worst 



