IQ2 LIGHT HORSES : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



Strangles. 



This is an infectious disease to which young horses are 

 more especially predisposed, and somewhat resembles catarrh. 

 One attack generally protects horses against a second. There 

 is great probability that every case of strangles is due to 

 infection, and from this point of view, and also because of the 

 trouble and damage it only too often occasions, it should be 

 treated as a communicable disease, so as to prevent its 

 spreading. 



Symptoms. It generally commences with fever and dul- 

 ness, and disinclination to eat. The throat generally begins 

 to feel sore, and there is difficulty in swallowing, while the 

 glands between the jaws and below the ear are swollen and 

 painful to the touch. In nearly all cases there is inflammation 

 of the air-passages of the head, and this is manifested by 

 a discharge of yellowish matter from the nostrils ; there may 

 also be cough. The swelling between the jaws increases in 

 extent and painfulness, and not unfrequently this causes 

 obstruction to the breathing, which is marked by a noise 

 both in inspiration and expiration. In some cases this 

 obstruction is so great that suffocation is imminent, and to 

 prevent it the windpipe has to be opened lower down the 

 neck, and a tube inserted through which the horse can 

 breathe. In the usual course of the disease an abscess forms 

 in the middle of the swelling, and when this bursts the 

 animal is generally relieved ; the swelling subsides, fever 

 rapidly diminishes, swallowing becomes easier and the appe- 

 tite is increased. 



This is the ordinary course of the disease, but sometimes 

 it runs an irregular course. The fever persists, and the other 

 symptoms may increase in intensity ; swellings appear in 

 different parts, and may form abscesses, or disappear and 

 reappear elsewhere, and the disease may continue for a very 

 long time ; in the simple form it seldom lasts longer than a 

 fortnight or three weeks, whereas in this malignant or 

 irregular form it may run on for one or two months, or even 



