330 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



kind of glass eye which occasions permanent blindness ; but 

 upon this point our experience does not enable us to add 

 testimony of any sort. 



JAUNDICE, OR YELLOWS. 



^The liver of the horse is sometimes attacked by inflam- 

 mation, from one of whose symptoms the disease is known 

 by the names here given. "Yellows" is the word of the 

 common people. The best authorities of recent date discard 

 the term "jaundice " as being apt to mislead, the slightly yel- 

 lowish tinge of the eye and skin being no indications of such 

 a state as is understood when it is applied to the human 

 patient. 



Youatt's description of the disease, though under the old 

 designation, is very good. 



" Jaundice occasionally appears, either from an increased 

 flow or altered quality of the bile, or obstruction even in 

 this simple tube [the biliary, or hepatic duct]. The yellow- 

 ness of the eyes and mouth, and of the skin where it is not 

 covered with hair, mark it sufliciently plain. The dung is 

 small and hard ; the urine highly colored ; the horse languid, 

 and the appetite impaired. If he is not soon relieved, he 

 sometimes begins to express considerable uneasiness ; at other 

 times he is dull, heavy, and stupid. A characteristic symp- 

 tom is lameness of the right fore-leg, resembling the pain in 

 the right shoulder of the human being in hepatic afi:ections. 

 The principal causes are overfeeding or overexertion in 

 sultry weather, or too little work, generally speaking, or in- 

 flammation or other disease of the liver itself. 



" It is, at first, necessary to inquire whether this afi*ection 

 of the liver is not the consequence of the sympathy of that 

 organ with some other part; for, to a very considerable de- 

 gree, it frequently accompanies inflammation of the bowels 

 and the lungs. These diseases being subdued, jaundice will 

 disappear. If there is no other apparent disease to any great 

 extent, an endeavor to restore the natural passage of the bile 

 by purgatives may be tried, not consisting of large doses, lest 



