DISEASES OF HORSES. 223 



quantity. When the distention of the intestines wholly prevents 

 their return, it would be prudent to puncture them with a very fino 

 instrument, and thus to suffer the air to escape, which, although 

 subjecting the horse to the risk of inflammation, is better than the 

 certainty of death by having the intestines protruded. 



57. Worms of horses are found, as bots, in the stomach, but 

 which as they attach themselves to the hard insensible part of that 

 organ seldom do harm. Clark fancifully supposes they do good, 

 and devises means for furnishing them when not in existence. The 

 bot is the larva of the oestrus equi, a fly which deposits its eggs on 

 parts of the horse himself, from whence they pas's into the stomach 

 by being licked off. Certain it is they get there, are hatched, and 

 there remain hanging to the coats of it by two tentaculae, receiving 

 the juices of the masticated food as nutriment. After a considerable 

 time they make their way out by the anus, drop on the ground, and 

 are first transformed into the chrysalids, and afterwards into parent 

 flies. When bots fix themselves on the sensible portion of the 

 stomach, they may do harm ; but no medicine that we know of will 

 destroy them. The teres or large round worm sometimes occasions 

 mischief, when it exists in great numbers, such as a starting coat, 

 binding of the hide, irregular appetite, and clammy mouth. The 

 best remedy is the spigelia marylandica or Indian pink, in daily 

 doses of half an ounce. TcBnia are not common in the horse ; now 

 and then they exist, and are best combatted by weekly doses of oil 

 of turpentine, three ounces at a time, mixed by means of the yelk 

 of an egg with half a pint of ale. The ascaris or thread worms, are 

 best removed by mercurial purgatives. The existence of worms 

 may be known by the appearance of a yellow matter under the tail, 

 and by the disposition the horse has to rub his fundament. Blaine 

 recommends the following vermifuge : powdered arsenic, eight 

 grains; pewter or tin finely scraped; Venice turpentine, half an 

 ounce ; make into a ball and give every morning. He also recom- 

 mends salt to be given daily with the food, which agrees with our 

 own experience as one of the best vermifuges known. It is a fact 

 acknowledged by the residents along the sea-coast, that horses 

 troubled with worms will often voluntarily drink largely of sea 

 water, and thus cure themselves. 



58. The diseases of the liver are acute inflammation or hepatitis, 

 and chronic inflammation or yellows. Hepatitis is the acute inflam- 

 mation of this organ, which like the lungs, stomach, and intestines, 

 may spontaneously take on the affection. The symptoms are not 

 unlike those which attend red colic, but with less violence. If it 



20* 



