212 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



Such a condition is generally produced by there being too 

 much blood in the system, and that too thick. Nervous 

 power is largely concerned in carrying on the circulation, 

 and, when the blood is in this state, must be overtaxed at 

 times. Hence these phenomena, which appear so singular 

 to the horse's driver. 



TREATMENT. 



Do not be such an ignoramus as to beat your horse when 

 he is suffering from a nervous spasm. Kearly always it is 

 something that your own negligence or bad management 

 has brought on, and is really less chargeable to the horse than 

 to yourself or his keeper. Try the effects of habitual kind- 

 ness and gentleness, if your horse is subject to such attacks, 

 and, our word for it, you will see a marked and constantly 

 increasing change for the better in a very short time. 



If the spasm, of whatever kind, is a severe one, resort must 

 be had to bleeding. Many an excitable, fractious horse will 

 become perfectly quiet and tractable if a gallon of blood be 

 drawn from the overloaded vessels. It will seldom be neces- 

 sary, however, to take so much as this in a simple case of 

 spasm*. Relax the system by giving light, soft diet. This 

 does not mean, however, that you shall starve your horse into 

 weakness and languor. 



STRING-HALT, OR SPRING-HALT. 



Every member of the body has its appropriate nerve, with- 

 out whose prompting it could not move. The hips and hind 

 legs are given power and motion through the agency of the 

 sciatic nerve, a branch given off by the spinal cord in the 

 region of the lumbar vertebrae. It is this nerve which most 

 anatomists consider the seat of that singular derangement 

 which produces string-halt. 



The disease is a familiar one. Instead of a suspension of 

 the nervous and muscular energy, it is an overaction of both; 

 so that whenever the horse attempts to lift his hind legs, they 

 move by a sudden spasmodic jerk,. and are caught up much 

 higher than is natural. In extreme cases, they are sometimes 



