Introduction* 



Many elaborato tronlisos have been written 

 on the diseases of tlie horse, siiilaljie for 

 students of veterinary medicine and surgery, 

 and many otiier excellent works, with less 

 scientific pretensions, have been written for 

 the use of the owner of horses; but they all 

 lack, especially the latter, one important 

 feature — a ready and quick method of 

 diagnosis. 



To the ordinary horseman, witliout any 

 special scientific training, the want of a 

 readv mctJKKl of determining a disease is a 

 great impediment. Wiien his animal is in 

 trouble, he wishes to do the best he can for 

 it at once; but he has no means, in any book 

 hitherto published, of finding readily what 

 he wants, unless he is expert enough to 

 recognise the disease respecting which he 

 wishes information. 



The acute diseases of the horse are rapid in 

 their course. Immediate action is very often 

 imperative, and there is no time to hunt 

 through many pages of a book, in order to 

 discover what should be done. 



The object of this work is to enable the 

 horseman to quickly ascertain the nature of 

 the disease his animal may be suffering from, 

 and to refer at once to the treatment required. 



It is hoped, however, that its possession 

 will not lead anyone to attempt too much. 

 The natural recuperative vitality of all 

 animals as well as man, will, under fav(~>urable 

 conditions, restore the equiiibriimi which 

 slight disturbances remove, without the aid of 

 drugs. Simple remedies will cure a large 

 number of graver derangements. The very 

 serious cases require a high order of ability 

 for proper treatment. The requisite skill is 

 not possessed by ill-trained or semi-educated 

 pretenders to a knowledge of veterinary 

 science. Yet any capable owner or superin- 

 tendent of horses, mav, with this work, be 



enabled to successfully manage all cases of 

 ordinary sickness on an emergency equally 

 as well as anyone save a scientifically 

 equipped pathologist. 



A horse shows distinctly by signs and 

 symptoms where the trouble lies, and while 

 diseases run their course with exceptional 

 rapidity in this animal, still it responds 

 quickly to remedial action. Therefore, it 

 sliould be remembered that while energetic 

 measures are sometimes urgently necessarv, 

 full allowance must be made for the oppor- 

 tunity of action, if due time be given. In 

 stoppage of the bowels (a very frequent disease 

 of the horse), so long as pain is held in check 

 with anodyne medicine, and one good purga- 

 tive dose has safely been administered, 

 reliance should be placed on its successful 

 effect, and the cathartic never repeated in less 

 than twenty-four hours, as is so frequently 

 done by nervous attendants. No ordinary * 

 aperient will art in the horse in a case of 

 stoppage of the bowels in less than sixteen 

 to twenty hours, and many a valuable horse 

 has been lost from superpurgation, by repeat- 

 ing the laxative once, and sometimes even 

 twice, before the first dose has had time to 

 do its work, 



A similar error is made in the re- 

 peated administration of medicines to act on 

 the kidneys. The ordinary quack seems to 

 have a habit of acting on these organs with 

 the most drastic drugs. 



As a matter of fact, disease of the kidneys 



is a comparatively rare malady in the horse, 



and the retention of urine in cases of colic is 



almost always the result of participation bv 



the neck of the bladder, in the prevailing 



cramp or spasm of the muscular coat of the 



• Intravenous injection of sulphate of physostigraine 

 acts powerfully and with great celerity ; but such drugs 

 as this and such methods can only be safely used by the 

 highly-trained surgeon. 



