STRANGLES 293 



719. — Is a disease to which the horse is most subject 

 between two and five years old, and to which he is Hable 

 only once in his life. Many horses do not take it at all. It 

 is a gathering at the throat, between the jaws, and interferes 

 much with eating and drinking. Hot bran poultices, containing 

 a little turpentine, are the best application, but require some 

 little contrivance to keep them in the right place. When the 

 swelling softens or points, the matter is better let out with a deep 

 straight cut, and a linseed poultice, without turpentine, applied. 

 There is a cough which comes on in fits, especially when the 

 horse tries to drink. After the gathering has opened, either 

 naturally or artificially, the cough will disappear. 



GLANDERS AND FARCY. 



720. — Glanders is an infectious, incurable disease, which the 

 horse may even communicate to man and other animals. In 

 England, it is less common than it once was, probably owing to 

 the better application of the laws that forbid the sale of a 

 glandered horse, and make his owner liable for damages 

 caused by his existance. In America no law seems to be tolerated 

 in this direction. There the individual liberty of the subject is 

 said to be so sacred, that every man must be allowed to harbour a 

 glandered horse and an Irish dynamiter. On the same principle 

 he should be allowed the privilege of keeping a mad dog, and 

 setting fire to his own city house. No honest man should own a 

 glandered horse knowingly for a single hour, and no laws should 

 allow him to do so. The disease might no doubt be stamped out 

 by legislation. 



721. -We know that all the " authorities" are against us on 

 this subject. Professor Coleman is said to have asserted that 

 " not one horse in a thousand receives the disease from contagion.'* 

 Dr. J . Eussell Manning, of America, says the disease " is 

 doubtless due far more frequently to predisposing cause than to 

 contagion." In this they are supported by such undoubted 

 authorities as Percival and Youatt, but in all such matters we 

 have learned to pay more respect to undoubted facts, than to 

 great names. "We remember how positively the same statement 



