234 Diseases of the Skin. 



Nettle-rash, or Urticaria, consists of a number 

 of elevations of variable size, accompanied with 

 heat and irritation. When the whole body suffers it 

 is known as "surfeit." Plethoric animals are attacked 

 in hot weather as a result of checked perspiration and 

 disordered digestion. Poor animals contract the malady 

 when too suddenly supplied ad libitum with rich food. 



Treatment. — Aperients and enemas ; febrifuges ; astrin- 

 gent lotion, No. i. 



Prurigo is a form of erythema, in which the inflam- 

 mation is succeeded by numerous pimples, giving rise to 

 intense irritation ; and in declining the cuticle peels off, 

 leaving the parts denuded of hair. It is common to 

 pampered and irregularly fed animals, and is liable to 

 recur. 



Treatment as for other forms described. Remove the 

 causes. 



Eczema is seen in two forms, simple and chronic. 

 Simple Eczema consists of inflammation of the skin, with 

 intolerable itching, rarely attended with febrile disturbance, 

 but always with the formation of successive and luxuriant 

 crops of vesicles, succeeding each other, moistening the 

 skin and hair with their contents, and creating fresh irri- 

 tation thereby, giving the animal no rest. He rubs and 

 even bites himself violently, and thus removes the hair 

 and the vesicles, exposing raw, red,, and irritable surfaces. 

 Drying and peeling of the cuticle takes place as the 

 disease declines. 



C/ironic Eczema succeeds the simple form when 

 neglected, forming ugly cracks or chasms, discharging an 

 ichorous fluid, and the ridges are surmounted by a mass 

 of enlarged scales of the epidermis standing in perpen- 

 dicular strata, from which the hairs grow, and being 

 glued together by the secretion, form long projections 

 vulgarly termed " rat-tails." The legs are the parts com- 

 monly affected. The disease sometimes succeeds firing 

 and blistering, when horses are little cared for. Some- 

 times the disease is confined to the back of the knee and 

 in front of the hock joint, when it receives the term 

 " mallanders " and " sallanders." 



