152 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



After considering carefully all the circumstances connected 

 with this disorder, I still feel at a loss to account for it. As the 



seen any mention of it in any other treatise before, though I have seen it rage 

 witli the most destructive violence in the neighbourhood of Swansea, in Gla- 

 morganshire, where it is called the distemper. For a long series of years it 

 has been the object of inquiry ; but it has never been investigated on the spot 

 by any one having a scientific knowledge of the diseases of horses, except 

 Mr. liickwood of Brighton, who was sent down some years ago, when the 

 disease raged most violently, by a gentleman who owned a very lai"ge number 

 of horses; but he was not successful. Permit me now to say, that I do not 

 think you have seen the disease raging with the violence, or to the extent, it 

 has frequently done near Swansea. Its commencement is dreaded like the 

 plague. The sj'mptonis you mention are exactly such as occur ; and the 

 distinction you point out between the brain staggers and stomach staggers is 

 correct ; for, though the yellowness of the eyes and mouth has generally 

 escaped observation, I have a memorandum particularly noticing that a man, 

 in giving a ball to a horse in this disorder, had his hand tinged quite yellow, 

 and I have no doubt it generally occurs. But besides the symptoms you 

 mention, the animal is subjected to a general convulsive affection ; frequently 

 attempts to stale, and discharges a little urine at a time, by shoots, as if con- 

 vulsed, and most commonly the animal's jaw is locked some time previous to 

 his death. 



" Having now stated the immediate symptoms, I will give a succinct history 

 of the disorder as it appeared, or rather raged, near Swansea. The earliest 

 account I have of any particulars begins about the year 1782, but I know it 

 has at times visited the neighbourhood ever since the year 1760. It generally 

 begins to rage between July and the end of September ; the cold weather in 

 winter has generally stopped it ; but the last visit it made us it continued 

 two entire years. In one year a neighbour of ours lost more than a hundred 

 horses by it, and the next year we lost about thirty. It attacks both sexes, 

 and every age indiscriminately ; but animals at grass, in high condition, and 

 at easy or no work, appear to be most subject to it, and to have it with more 

 violence. Till the time it visited us, animals kept in a stable were considered 

 as protected from it. Horses kept in the mines under ground had never had 

 it. I made a stable in one of our under-ground works, to remove all our 

 horses, but before I carried this plan into effect the disease began to decline. 

 At the height of the disorder horses seldom or never recover. When an 

 am'mal does recover it is considered as a fovourable prognostic, and we look 

 for a delivery from this plague. The animals at grass are most liable to it; 

 but such as are kept in a stable, under the best management, are also subject 

 to the disorder. In the year 1801, when it last raged with us, I lost a valu- 

 able horse that was perfectly well groomed ; but 1 shall have to make some 

 observations on his case when I mention the dissections, and the appre- 

 hensions I have of the disoi'der being contagious, which I shall now proceed 

 to do. The appearance and state of the stomach are, generally, such as you 

 have described ; but in the valuable horse before mentioned, and a few others 

 which died of this disorder, this was not the case. I beg here to observe, that 

 I had been very strict in my stable regimen, and particularly in the quantity, 

 quality, and time of giving food and water ; and I attribute the emptiness of 

 the stomach to this cause. Though I did not prevent the disease by this 

 precaution, it made all the symptoms milder. I am not a surgeon or a scien- 

 tific man ; but in examining the bodies of horses after death, I have been 

 assisted by a surgeon, and have generally found, with the exception of the 

 loaded stomach, and a slight inflammation for a small length, below the pylo- 

 rus, and sometimes a little repletion of the vessels of the brain, every part 

 free from disease. I could not, ibr a long time, believe that the disease was 



