DANGERS. 27 i) 



any horse, but the great danger from watQv of any kind will 

 arise from keeping the horse long without it, and then allowing 

 him to drink too much at a time. If at any time the horse has 

 fasted long, give him water in very small quantities, and food 

 containing a large proportion of light woody fibre. 



G81. — All the diseases of the stomach, the bowels, or the 

 brain, may be prevented by attention to these building materials. 

 Stomach staggers, sleepy staggers, inflammation of the brain, 

 apoplexy, vertigo, or lethrage, as well as colic, inflammation of the 

 stomach, bowels, or peritoneum, are produced by faults of feeding 

 or watering, and very often by long fasting an animal that nature 

 never intended to fast long. Diseases of this class can be kept 

 away, and often cured, by a correct supply of the horse's common 

 daily wants, and strictly avoiding extreme and sadden changes of 

 diet. 



It may be quite right to feed your horse on turnips and 

 straw, it may be right to feed him entirely on grass, it may be 

 necessary to feed him principally on corn, but it is never right to 

 feed him on grass alone one day, and principally on corn the next 

 day, or vice versa. No horse's bowels can comfortably pass 

 unmixed corn of any kind, or at any time, and it should never be 

 given to him ; but the bowels are specially unfit to deal with pure 

 corn when they have adapted themselves to comfortably pass 

 on green bulky grass. Such extreme changes must be gradually 

 effected. 



The most common disease that is inflicted upon the horse 

 by bad feeding or watering, or by sudden changes, is 



COLIC. 



G82. — In this disease the pain is great but not constant. 

 The horse lifts his hind leg towards his body, paws, lies suddenly 

 down and roils more or less violently, then gets up quickly 

 without any indication of external tenderness or loss of power. 

 It may be flatulent or spasmodic colic, but as we do not attempt 

 to directly attack and overcome any particular disease, but only 

 to help nature to throw it off, to invigorate the circulation and 

 equalize the distribution of the vital fluids, no harm will happen 



