482 THE HORSE. 



duced by a different cause. H» has been accustomed habitually 

 to overload his stomach, or he was, on the previous day, kept 

 too long without his food, and then he fell ravenously upon it, 

 and ate until his stomach was completely distended and unable 

 to propel forward its accumulated contents. Thus distended, its 

 blood-vessels are compressed, and the circulation through them 

 is impeded, or altogether suspended. The blood is still forced 

 on by the heart, and driven in accumulated quantity to the 

 other organs, and to the brain among the rest ; and there con- 

 gestion takes place, as just described, and the animal becomes 

 sleepy, unconscious, and, if he is not speedily relieved, he dies. 

 This, too, is apoplexy ; the horseman calls it stomach staggers. 

 Its cause is improper feeding. The division of the hours of 

 labor, and the introduction of the nose-bag, have much dimin- 

 ished the frequency of its occurrence. The remedies are plain ; 

 bleeding, physicking, and the removal of the contents of the 

 stomach by means of a pump contrived for that purpose. 



Congestions of other kinds occasionally present themselves. 

 It is no uncommon thing for the blood to loiter in the com- 

 plicated vessels of the liver, until the covering of that viscus has 

 burst, and an accumulation of coagulated black blood has pre- 

 sented itself. This congestion constitutes the swelled legs to 

 which so many horses are subject when they stand too long 

 idle in the stable ; and it is a source of many of the accumula- 

 tions of serous fluid in various parts of the body, and particu- 

 larly in the chest, the abdomen, and the brain. 



Inflammation is opposed to congestion, as consisting in an 

 active state of the capillary arterial vessels ; the blood rushes 

 through them with far greater rapidity than in health, from 

 the excited state of the nervous system, by which they are 

 supplied. 



Inflammation is either local or diffused. It may be confined 

 to one organ, or to a particular portion of that organ ; it may 

 involve many neighboring ones, or it may be spread over the 

 whole frame. In the latter case it assumes the name of fever. 

 Pever is general or constitutional inflammation, and it is said to 

 be sympathetic or symptomatic when it can be traced to some 

 local affection or cause, and idiopathic when we cannot so trace 

 it. The truth probably is, that every fever has its local cause ; 



