250 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



hellebore and digitalis ; abstinence, green food, cool drinks, 

 and cool air appear to be the essential parts of the 

 treatment. 



When bleeding is resolved on, take at least three quarts, 

 and give the horse a mash before any purgative, lest the 

 colon be impacted with hardened faeces. If not time for 

 this, give a warm clyster of simple gruel. Then, when the 

 bowels are moved, a fever ball (see Horse Medicines, (A) 

 Febrifuges), and all corn taken away ; the water should 

 have the chill taken off, warm clothing applied, the stable 

 kept cool, and an abundance of litter given. In severe 

 cold weather, the stable should be kept about 55° Fahr. 

 When the coat is staring, give — sweet nitre four ounces, 

 acetate of ammonia eight ounces, water one pint ; repeat at 

 a quarter of an hour's interval. 



Diseases, no doubt, are often cured by obviating their 

 remote causes ; and in this way strict attention to the state 

 of the stomach, from its close sympathy with the brain, is a 

 matter of great importance, and to be attended to here. 

 Though we may not be able so readily to apply this to 

 veterinary practice, still we majr do a great deal ; and con- 

 joining this with our practical knowledge of the pulse, it is 

 here our medical knowledge will assist us. 



Under every form of disease, simplicity of prescription 

 is desirable, more particularly while our resources and 

 powers are abridged by the limited pharmacopoeia of the 

 veterinarian. 



In the incipient treatment, one precaution is to be especi- 

 ally attended to, and that is, that active purges must not 

 be administered ; for, in the early stage, it is quite impos- 

 sible to say that the case may not be one of approaching 

 pneumonia ; and should this happen, and active purgation 

 have been established, we shall but too certainly have cause 

 to rue a practice which has induced so much irritation of 

 the mucous surfaces of the bowels in combination with 

 disorder in the lungs ; the two, when present together, 

 being found, invarialDly, highly prejudicial to the subject of 

 their attack. 



Malignant Epidemic, Putrid, or Typhus Fever com- 

 mences either as simple fever or as common catarrhal 

 fever ; but this soon goes on to produce great prostration of 

 strength, together with fetid breath, and discharge from the 

 nostrils, and entire loss of appetite. Its course is much 



