176 DADPS VETERINARY MEDICINE AND StJIuJEitl. 



some cause or other. A man or animal may oe diseased without 

 our expression of the manner in which either are affected, just aa 

 a flower may be said to be colored without designating its partic- 

 ular hue. In each case we receive definite, although negative, 

 ideas— -in the one, that the creature is not in health ; in the other, 

 ihat the flower is not colorless. And so the same reasoning may 

 apply when bots become the subject of our consideration. In a 

 given case, they may prove injurious (according to our ideas), and 

 in another they may remain, for a certain length of time, perfectly 

 harmless ; so tkat the animal infected or infested may or may not 

 suffer any infliction, but trot on through the journey of life just 

 as long as horse-life is worth wearing. 



As regards the several modes of death to horse flesh, in which 

 bots are said to play an active part, they may thus be stated: 

 Bots sometimes congregate, in large numbers, at the superior or 

 inferior inlet or outlet of the stomach, and thus produce mechan- 

 ical obstruction to the passage of both semi-fluids and solids ; and 

 the result is, equine death. The author once held an autopsy, 

 which revealed the presence of a cluster of bots, numbering about 

 one hundred, located in the cardiac region of the oesophagus. 

 They completely obstructed the passage of food into the stomach. 

 The horse died suddenly, as if suffocated, from distension of the 

 oesophagus and pressure on the trachea. 



The following case, furnished for the " Veterinarian " by Sur- 

 geon Mather, illustrates another mode of death from the pres- 

 ence of bots : 



" The inclosed tongue and larynx I took from a foal this even- 

 ing, which I shall feel obliged to you for examining, as at the base 

 of the tongue you will find about a score of what appear to me to 

 be perfeet specimens of a small bot. I have only made a partial 

 examination, as I was anxious to send the specimen off to you 

 before it became decomposed, as the weather is very hot. The 

 history of the case is as follows : Two days ago I was requested to 

 go to Lord Glasgow's breeding establishment, to see a foal that 

 was unwell. I inquired of the stud-groom how long the animal 

 had been ill, and he informed me that three days ago it appeared 

 to have a difficulty in swallowing, and that he noticed some saliva 

 issuing from its mouth ; and that, thinking it had a sore throat, 

 he had rubbed some embrocation upon the parts. On examining 

 the animal, I found it in a very debilitated state. Pulse, very 



