144 DADD'S VETERlNAKi jiiBVi\.i!Si. AND SURGERY. 



regards horses, they form no exception to this peculiarity. We 

 BQight introduce evidence, convincing and positive, of their ability 

 to endure the privations of hunger, and, at the same time, ?now 

 that they suffer but little from its effects. A single case will serve 

 io illustrate this. We once treated a case of tetanus (lock-jaw). 

 Ihe subject never tasted food during a period of sixteen days; on 

 the seventeenth the masseters relaxed, and the faculty of swallow- 

 ing returned. At this period we might suppose him to be " hungry 

 as a bear," yet, on offering him a few oats, he did not appear to be 

 very ravenous, and partook of food subsequently offered him as if 

 nothing had hapi)ened. Thrse are extreme cases, yet they go to 

 show that there is no cause for alarm because a horse happens to 

 be " off his feed " once in awhile. Such condition may ultimately 

 prove salutary, affording the stomach and its associates time to rest 

 from their herculean labors. 



The fact that most of our adult horses get more food than they 

 need has been demonstrated by analysis of their excrement, which 

 has been found to contain a large amount of nutritious materia! 

 over and above what the animals actually need. We can develop 

 the gormandizing powers of veiy many horses, by placing before 

 tnem, from day to day, more than they require. Their appetites, 

 like some of ours, are not proof against temptation ; and the diges- 

 tive organs may be trained to dispose of twice the quantity of food 

 actually needed, and the habit, at first acquired, becomes perma- 

 ment, and the creature is known as a voracious feeder — a glutton 

 Hence, through indiscretions of this character, we can augment 

 both function and capacity of stomach. We remember examining 

 tlie stomach of a horse, the property of a baker, who was in the 

 habit of ffoding the former on brown bread. The animal died of 

 chronic indigeslion, and his stomach exceeded in capacity that of 

 two orainary Lorses. Great care, therefore, is requisite in regard 

 to the proper feeding of horses ; for, in their domesticated state^ 

 they have lost those natural instincts which serve to inform the 

 untamed animal of the necessary amount of food which his system 

 needs, and they are in the condition of a thoughtless child that 

 will eat all day, and, on retiring to bed, will crave and cry for 

 more. 



Our readers have probably heard of the gormandizing propensi- 

 ties of natives in the arctic regions. Some of them ih'mk nothing 

 cf l)olting down twenty pounds of meat and oil per day, ajiH 



