240 Indian Racing Reminiscences. 



native state of Munipur, which is between Cachar and 

 Burmah, thousands of ponies have been reported to have 

 died of this malady during different seasons. When 

 I was in Cachar, the people there had no idea as to the 

 nature of this disease ; in fact they considered it peculiar 

 to Eastern Bengal and Munipur, although it is identical 

 with Loodianah fever, and, I believe, with the South 

 African horse plague. The disease is due to a micro- 

 scopic vegetable parasite which is found on the herbage 

 of certain pastures. By means of the infected grass, 

 these organisms gain entrance into the animals' blood, 

 and, multiplying there with great rapidity, they block up 

 the minute blood vessels of the lungs, and thus cause 

 death. The appropriate treatment is, of course, to give 

 some medicine, that, on becoming absorbed in the blood, 

 will be inimical to vegetable life. Carbolic acid admirably 

 fulfils this condition. It is given in doses of 2 or 3 

 drachms in half a pint of linseed oil. One attack of 

 this disease, like small-pox, generally confers immunity 

 to subsequent ones ; hence the tenfold value, in the 

 infected districts of the Cape Colony, of a " salted " 

 horse — as one which has had the disease and recovered 

 from it is termed. Taken in time and properly treated, 

 at least 50 per cent, of the cases ought to be saved. 



