i62 THE HORSE 



amongst the horses at the home depots. It is closely 

 allied to foot and mouth disease in cattle, and like that 

 trouble extremely communicable from one horse to 

 another, and to mules and asses. It spread amongst the 

 horses with extraordinary rapidity, and very few escaped 

 having it. The principal lesions were in the mouth, 

 viz. on the lips, cheeks, tongue, and sometimes around the 

 mouth and around the coronet. Some horses had the 

 disease severely, others only shghtly. An early indication 

 of the disease is the appearance of foam about the Hps, 

 or else the dribbling of saliva from the mouth. When 

 the mouth is examined bhsters are observed, and after 

 these break they leave a raw patch of variable size. One 

 blister may fuse with another, and in this manner the 

 whole of the tongue may be stripped of its superficial 

 layer, giving it a bright scarlet appearance. The soreness 

 of the mouth is unquestionably severe, and the animal 

 feeds with difficulty, excepting in the milder cases, where 

 it apparently produces very little inconvenience. Most 

 of the affected animals recovered v/ithin three weeks. 

 If the coronet was implicated slight signs of separation 

 of the wall of the heel was sometimes observed, but the 

 author is not aware of any extensive sloughing having 

 occurred in the region last named. The situation of the 

 trouble, viz. inside the mouth, necessarily favours the 

 spread of this complaint. It is quite possible that it was 

 introduced into Great Britain when the Colonial horses 

 began to arrive. 



Tuberculosis 



As this disease occasionally occurs in a horse the author 

 considers that it is worthy of mention, even in a small 

 work of this description. In cattle it is an extremely 

 common complaint ; in fact, one of the commonest 

 diseases from which these animals suffer. Tuberculosis 

 has only one cause, and that is the bacillus tuberculosis 

 or tubercle bacilli, as they are sometimes called. These 



