CHAPTER VI. 



The Horse in Sickness 



HORSES are very poor patients as a rule, 

 and frequently possess but feeble resistive 

 powers. Even the game and robust thoroughbred, 

 the most courageous and enduring of all, succumbs 

 to ailments apparently inconsequential, — the fact 

 seeming to be that not only have they a " faint " 

 heart, but often a really weak heart, sometimes fail- 

 ing totally in most inexplicable fashion. Perhaps 

 such untimely demises are due to the fact that treat- 

 ment has been faulty and nursing poor, and very 

 probably their disease had made more serious in- 

 roads upon vitality than was appreciated ; but the end 

 often comes when, to the inexperienced, all signs are 

 favourable, and it is a curious fact that the haggard 

 countenance and anxious eye which are symptomatic 

 of some trifling ailments, are in not a few extremely 



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