180 GENERAL TREATMENT OF HORSES. 



thing approaching to condition, by hurrying him in 

 his work, under a load of flesh, and with his mus- 

 cles in a relaxed state, that has ruined thousands 

 of good horses, by the injury done to their legs 

 especially ; and will ruin thousands more, if per- 

 severed in. The change of food, again, has been 

 the cause of more broken-winded horses than any 

 thing else that can be named. " It must dispose," 

 says Mr. Percival, " from its being the chief cause 

 of plethora, to general diathesis of the system ; and 

 so far it contributes to the production of pneumo- 

 nia, or any other inflammatory afi'ection.'' To this 

 we may add blindness, the natural consequence of 

 the dependent posture of the head when feeding, in 

 an animal in the plethoric state, that a previously 

 highly-fed hunter must fall into, after being some 

 weeks at grass ; and likewise of constant irritation 

 from flies and sun. Neither should the following 

 remark of Mr. PercivaFs be forgotten by gentlemen 

 who turn out their hunters during a wet summer. 

 " Cold,"" says he, " abstractedly from wet, even 

 although it be alternated with heat, is not found 

 to be near so prejudicial as when moisture is pre- 

 sent too ; hence we are in the habit of viewing frosty 

 weather as a season of health among horses ; and 

 hence it is, that the spring and autumnal months 

 are the most unhealthy, the weather being then 

 moist and variable, and the wind generally in a 

 cold quarter." Again, " Two undomesticated 

 horses,"' says he, " out of three, under five years 

 old, that are taken from cold situations, and kept 

 in warm stables, will receive catarrh. But even 



