412 DADDS VETERINARY MEDICINE AND oURGER - 



Strangles is supposed to be a disease to which all horses art 

 subject once in their lives, yet Mr. Percivall contends that 

 many horses escape the disease. Hence, if many escape, it is very 

 natural for those who know the value of pure air, natural food, 

 and exercise to conclude that the colt, while enjoying these great 

 luxuries in the open air, by the side of its mother, guided by hei 

 superior instinct, is not liable to be attacked with a disease which, 

 as already stated, we believe to result from depriving animals of 

 those blessings which Nature has in store for them in their unre- 

 strained state. But it often happens that young colts, after run- 

 ning a season with their mother, partaking of the invigorating 

 country air, grow up to be strong and robust, and then the period 

 arrives for weaning them. How changed the scene ! Instead of 

 being permitted to gambol in their native element, they are con- 

 fined to a small space, not large enough to swing a cat round, and 

 perhaps as dark as the grave ; and the animal, after fretting for a 

 season, and making unsuccessful efforts to escape from its prison- 

 house, tamely submits to the discipline, not, however, until he has 

 cut and bruised and otherwise injured himself. I was called, a 

 bhort time ago, to visit a young colt that had lacerated his head, 

 breast, and fore-legs in a most shocking manner, in making aE 

 attempt to escape through a window from the horrors of confine- 

 ment. His companions were about a dozen cows, more calculated 

 to alarm and render his position a perilous one than otherwise; 

 and the impure atmosphere, rendered so by the emanations from 

 the excrements and from the lungs of his companions, was a source 

 of great mischief. Then, who can blame such an one for attempt- 

 ing to escape and regain liberty ? If strangles should appear in 

 such a subject, it would not be surprising. 



Then, again, take a colt from its mother, whose milk coutains 

 all the elements for sustaining life and developing the organization 

 of the young subject, and place it upon a diet of hay or like innu- 

 tritious trash, a whole truss of which would not afford one-half 

 the quantity of nutriment contained in a quart of its mother's 

 milk. However profitable and well-adapted hay may be for stock 

 of mature growth and powerful digestive organs, it is a sad mis- 

 take to suppose that it will do for the young. A case of this kind 

 came under my observation last year. The subject, aged two and 

 a half years, died in a state of marasmus (a gradual wasting of the 

 eysten without any apparent disease) , A post mortem examine- 



