521 



alone or with beaten eggs; frequently the horse will have to be 

 coaxed with the milk diluted with several parts of water at first, but 

 will soon learn to drink the pure mild. Apples and carrots out up 

 raw or boiled are useful, and fresh clover in small quantities will fre- 

 quently stimulate the appetite. Throughout the course of the disease 

 and during convalescence the greatest attention must be given to 

 cleaning the coat thoroughly so as to keep the glands of the skin in 

 working order, and light, Avarm covering must be used to protect the 

 animal from cold or draughts of air. 



HORSEPOX — EQUINE VARIOLA. 



Synonyms: Variola equina — Pustular Grease— Phhjdenoid Herpes. 



Definition. —The horseiwx is a specific infectious fever of the horse 

 attended by an eruption of pustules or pocks over any part of the skin 

 or on the mucous membranes lining the various cavities in the body. 

 When the eruption takes place on the mucous membrane of the respir- 

 atory tract it produces an irritation and discharge of matter which 

 greatly resembles that of strangles. This disease was for a long time 

 confounded with the latter disease, and there is no doubt that many 

 light cases in which the eruption is not well marked are still mistaken 

 for distemper. 



The horsepox was described by the early Roman agricultural writers 

 and by the veterinarians of the last century. It received its first 

 important notice from the great Jenner, who confounded it Avith grease 

 in horses, as animals with this disease are very apt to have the erup- 

 tion of variola appear on the inflamed fetlocks if they are affected 

 with grease at the same time. He saw these cases transmit the dis- 

 ease to cattle in the byres and to the stablemen and milkmaids who 

 attended them, and furnish the latter with immunity from smallpox, 

 which led to the discovery of vaccination. The horsepox is again 

 frequently mistaken for the exanthemata attending some forms of 

 venereal disease in horses. 



Variola in the horse, while it is identical in principle, general course, 

 complications, and lesions with variola in other animals, is a disease 

 of the horse itself, and is not transmissible in the form "of variola to 

 any other animal; nor is the variola of any other animal transmissible 

 to the horse. Cattle and men, if inoculated from a case of horsepox, 

 develop vaccinia, but vaccinia from the latter animals is not so readily 

 reinoculated into the horse with success. If it does develop, it pro- 

 duces the original disease. 



Etiology.— The direct cause of the horsepox is infection. A large 

 number of predisposing causes favor the development of the disease 

 as in the case of strangles, for this trouble, like almost all contagious 

 diseases, renders the animal which has had one attack immune from 

 future ones. The causes are, young age, for then the animal is still 

 5961— HOR 17* 



