516 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



Treatment. — Ordinary light cases require but little treatment be- 

 yond diet, warm washes, moistened hay, warm coverings, and pro- 

 tection from exposure to cold. The latter is urgently called for, as 

 lung complications, severe bronchitis, and laryngitis are often the 

 results of neglect of this precaution. If the fever is excessive, the 

 horse may receive small quantities of Glauber's salts (handful three 

 times a day), as a laxative, bicarbonate of soda or niter in 1-dram 

 doses every few hours, and small doses of antimony, iodide of potash, 

 aconite, or quinine. Steaming the head with the vapor of warm 

 Avater poured over a bucket of bran and hay, in which belladonna 

 leaves or tar have been placed, will allay the inflammation of the 

 mucous membranes and greatly ease the cough. 



The swelling of the glands should be promptly treated by bathing 

 with warm water and flaxseed poultices, and as soon as there is any 

 evidence of the formation of matter it should be opened. Prompt 

 action in this will often save serious complications. Blisters and irri- 

 tating liniments should not be applied to the throat. When lung 

 complications show themselves the horse should have mustard applied 

 to the belly and to the sides of the chest. When convalescence begins 

 great care must be taken not to expose the animal to cold, which may 

 bring on relapses, and while exercise is of great advantage it must not 

 be turned into work until the animal has entirely regained its 

 strength. 



SCALMA. 



The differentiation of the various diseases which have popularly 

 been included under the terms of distemper and influenza up to a 

 comparatively recent date has been so slow and so tardily accepted by 

 the majority of practitioners that we have been subjected to con- 

 stantly seeing announced and heralded as news in the daily papers the 

 appearance of some new disease. These new diseases of the populace 

 and of the empiric are to us but the epizootic outbreak or the more 

 severely manifested form of some ordinary contagious disease. 



There is, however, one of the contagious fevers of the horse which 

 has constantly been confounded with other diseases, and which has 

 not been separated from them in our English text-books. As this dis- 

 ease has received no proper name in English, I shall use for it the 

 name given by Professor Dieckerhoff, of Berlin, who first described it 

 in the Adams Wochenschrift, XXIX, in 1885. 



Etymology. — The term " scalma " is derived from the old German 

 word scalmo^ scelmo, schelm, which indicates roguishness, or knavish- 

 ness, as great nervous irritability, especially of the temper, is one of 

 the characteristic, almost diagnostic, symptoms of this disease. The 

 term '■^ 11 eimtuchische Kranhheit^'' signifying malicious, treacherous, 

 or mischievous, is also employed in German for the same trouble. I 



