8 INTRODUCTION. 



The first is looked upon as the cause of the many dis- 

 eases which take on an epizootic form. The second, 

 rusty straw, and musty hay and corn fed to animals 

 with weak stomachs. Third, riding too far and too fast, 

 overloading, etc. Fourth, animals drinking out of leaden 

 troughs, where pieces of old iron may be lying in the 

 bottom. Inoculation by the virus from a glandered 

 horse, are illustrations of animal poisons, zumins, or fer- 

 ments. (See Glanders.) Fifth. A horse with point of 

 hock inclined forward, which is the originator of curb. 

 Sixth. An old horse or cow, with no teeth to chew its 

 feed. Seventh. Taking an animal from a warm and com- 

 fortable stable, and exposing it to a cold north-eastern 

 storm. Eighth. A flat forehead, transmitted from pa- 

 rentage, thus preventing a full development of the brain 

 where the optic nerve is given off from the brain, thus 

 insuring blindness about the seventh or eighth year, and 

 sometimes earlier. None need be told of the disposition 

 of the course-bred Canadian horse to become affected with 

 disease of the bones, mostly in the form of ring-bone, 

 (which see.) Ninth. Stone in the bladder, and calculi in 

 the bowels. Tenth. Besieged garrisons, fortresses, when 

 crops have failed, and famine. 



How to Observe Diseases. 



We are sometimes asked how it is that we know so ex- 

 actly what the disease is that this or that animal is affected 

 with, as it cannot speak and narrate its ills and its aches. 

 To this question we might repeat a common truism, "A 

 shut mouth tells no lies;" therefore, nobody is deceived. 

 Nature has but one set of weights and measures^ and these 

 only should be used. Thus, if a horse have a corn or 



