104 THE HORSE. 



others, and horses that have been hardly worked, or that have been worked 

 for many hours without food. Let no farmer delude himself with the idea 

 that it is contagious. If his horses have occasionally slight fits of the 

 staggers, or if the disease carries off several of them, he may be assured 

 that there is something wrong in his management. One horse may 

 get at the corn-bin, and cram himself to bursting ; but if several are at- 

 tacked, it is time for him to look about him. The cause will geneially be 

 found to be, too voracious feeding ; — too much food given at once, and 

 perhaps without water, after hard work and long fasting. Nothing is lost 

 by the habitual use of the nose-bag, and a more equal division of the 

 hours of labour and the times of feeding. Some careless and thoughtless 

 people suffer their horses to go from morning to night without being fed, 

 and then they wonder if sometimes the horses hang their heads, and droop, 

 and cannot work. No horse should be worked more than four or five hours 

 without being baited. 



There is one consequence of this improper treatment, of which persons 

 do not appear to be aware, although they suffer severely from it. A horse 

 that has frequent half- attacks of staggers very often goes blind. It is not 

 the common blindness from cataract, but a peculiarly glassy appearance of 

 the eye. If the history of these blind horses could be told, it would be 

 found that they had been subject to fits of drooping and dulness, and these 

 produced by absurd management respecting labour and food. 



Staggers have been known to occur when the animal is at grass ; but 

 this usually happens in poor, hard-worked, half-starved animals, and 

 soon after they have been turned out, either in rich pasture, or in a salt 

 marsh, and in hot weather. 



There are, however, few diseases of the horse that are not occasionally 

 epidemic, or produced by some influence of the atmosphere, of the nature 

 of which we are ignorant ; and stomach-staggers sometimes prevails in par- 

 ticular districts^ where there is nothing remarkably wrong in the treatment 

 of the horse. There is at that time something in the atmosphere which 

 weakens the stomach, and disposes it to indigestion, and causes a little 

 error in feeding to be dangerous, or produces considerable disease under 

 the common circumstances of feeding. When this is the case the pro- 

 prietors of horses should be particularly on their guard, for in most of 

 the horses which then die, the distended stomach will be observed, and will 

 be the actual cause of death. It is very possible that, at certain seasons, 

 some poisonous plants may prevail, or that the hay may not be so nutritive 

 or digestible, and thus the stomach may be weakened. The farmer will 

 weigh all these things in his mind, and act accordingly. 



MAD STAGGERS. 



Mad Staggers (inflammation of the brain, brain fever) can, as we 

 have said, be at first with difficulty distinguished from the sleepy, or sto- 

 mach-staggers, but, after a while, the horse suddenly begins to heave at 

 the flanks ; — his nostrils expand ; — his eyes unclose ; — he has a wild and 

 vacant stare, and delirium comes rapidly on. He dashes himself furiously 

 about ; there is no disposition to do mischief, but his motions are sudden 

 and violent, and accompanied by perfect unconsciousness ; and he becomes 

 a terrifying and dangerous animal. This continues either until his former 

 stupor returns, or he has literally worn himself out in frightful struggles. 



There are only two diseases with which it can be confounded, and from 

 both of them it is very readily distinguished, viz. colic and madness. In 

 colic the horse rises and falls, but not with so much violence ; he some- 



