THE HORSE IN SICKNESS AND DISEASE 273 



The patient's diet, also, must be improved in this stage ; he 

 should no longer feed on mashes, but have scalded oats, 

 carrots, turnips, linseed, etc. 



Should, then, the season of the year be favourable, pasture 

 may offer a resource, certainly pleasant to the animal, and 

 one that the medical attendant will, with satisfaction to 

 himself, if not with benefit to his patient, recommend. A 

 change of diet, from dried to green and relaxing food, living 

 in the open air, and the constant exposure of the farcinous 

 limb to a lower temperature than that of the stable, together 

 with the walking exercise the animal is from time to time 

 taking upon it, all have a tendency to do good, and have 

 sometimes proved of eminent service. In particular, salt 

 marshes have been regarded as beneficial, and apparently 

 not without reason. Whenever and wherever the patient 

 may be turned out to grass, he ought to have no companions 

 save such as might happen to have on them the same disease 

 as himself. It would be full of danger to suffer him to 

 run with healthy horses. In situations where, or seasons 

 when, pasture cannot be procured or resorted to, it is desir- 

 able to soil the patient in his box ; vetches or rye, or, in the 

 winter season, carrots or Swedish turnips become a desirable 

 change of diet. There arrives a period, in this protracted 

 and indolent stage of farcy, when the resources of medicine 

 seem to be exhausted ; this is a period when the disease is 

 judiciously " left to Nature" to take, uninterfered with by 

 art, her spontaneous course. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



THE HORSE IN SICKNESS AND DISEASE 



DISEASES OP THE BRAIN, SKULL, EYE, TEETH, 

 TONGUE, PALATE, AND PHARYNX. 



I.— Diseases of the Brain and Nerves. 



INJURIES OF THE BRAIN — CONCUSSION — FRACTURE OF THE 

 SKULL — STAGGERS — ABSCESS OF THE BRAIN — MEGRIMS — 

 PARALYSIS — LOCK-JAW — RABIES — STRINGHALT. 



When we observe the smallness of the brain of the horse, 

 we find physical causes for the animal's limited intellectual 



18 



