FOOD AND GENERAL TREATMENT. 429 



It is only when his blood has become unusually heated 

 by severe exercise, or when he is suddenly plunged from 

 one extreme of temperature into the other, or when he has 

 become enfeebled by disease, that the horse needs any extra 

 covering, unless the weather is extraordinarily cold. Protec- 

 tion to the horse is only needed to modify his condition, and 

 to counteract the unhealthy influences of great and sudden 

 changes. 



DISINFECTANTS. ',^ 



Disinfectants should be used in all stables, more or less. 

 The larger ones, in which many horses are crowded together, 

 are those which, most of all, need systematic and frequent 

 repetitions of the disinfecting process. The livery stable is 

 never properly kept unless an intelligent, liberal use of dis- 

 infectants forms one feature of its management. "No horse 

 is entirely safe in a stable filled with strange horses unless 

 this course is pursued. It is of quite as much importance to 

 the farmer coming to town with his produce, or the traveler 

 of an}^ sort away from home, to know that his horse is not 

 to be infected with some terrible contagion, as it is to be sure 

 that he has plenty of food and proper attention. 



Glanders, farcy, and distemper often take possession of a 

 stable covertly, weeks before the majority of hostlers can 

 detect the presence of any thing wrong. In stables where 

 strange horses are going and coming every hour, there is no 

 assurance that an infected animal has not been thrust in 

 among the rest. Perhaps a glandered horse, with the dis- 

 ease in its incipient stages, may come into a large stable full 

 of horses, and not more than two or three of the whole num- 

 ber take the dreadful malady from him. Yet whose horse 

 is safe in such company? If proper disinfectants have been 

 used, there will be little danger. 



There are but three articles commonly employed as disin- 

 fectants that possess much value in the stable. We mention 

 them in the order in which we esteem them, thus : tobacco, 

 sulphur, and lime. 



