THE HORSE, ITS DISEASES. 509 



IX. Importance of Symptoms. 



The importance of understanding symptoms in disease, not only of th« 

 horse, but of all farm stock, is generally underrated by farmers and stock 

 men, and yet it is the key to all remedial means. Unfortunately, dumb 

 animals cannot tell how they feel, and thus the practitioner must judge 

 by outward signs, which, by the way, are pretty ample to the careful ob- 

 server. These are difficult to describe in print, yet they have been so 

 described as fully as possible in the list and treatment of diseases. ' 



Every horse owner, and especially every stock-raiser, should educate 

 himself to understand symptoms in such diseases as he must necessarily 

 have to deal with. This will not be found difficult, if the reader will use 

 the means we have presented in this work. The pulse is one of the most 

 important agents in this direction ; through this, we may get a pretty 

 accurate indication of the state of the system in relation to fever, ple- 

 thora of blood, or the reverse. It cannot well be described, and yet it is 

 goon learned by use and observation. In the horse, the mouth is hot and 

 dry in fever, and moist and cool in health. In health the nose of the ox 

 is especially cool and moist, and in fever hot and dry. The full or small 

 pulse, depends upon an excessive quantity of blood in the vessels indi- 

 cating a full or a weak nutrition. A thready or wirey pulse is indicative 

 of a small quantity of blood in the vessels, combined with an increased 

 or diminished contractibility of the heart. A sluggish or oppressed pulse 

 will indicate unusual fulness of the vessels, the vital powers of contract 

 ibility and sensibility not being increased, or, it may even be one or both 

 of them being diminished. Among the internal causes operating on the 

 pulse are irritability and nervousness. Outside causes are temperature, 

 other atmospheric causes, and manner of feeding. The stock man who 

 will habituate himself to feeling the pulse of his animals, will soon come 

 to understand how slight causes will sometimes affect this agent, and thus 

 will soon learn to detect disease, often by this indication alone. This and 

 attention to the outward symptoms we have given in diseases enumerated, 

 will soon enable him to dispense with the services of the practiced veter- 

 inarian, except in critical cases. 



XX. Dissection. 



If a farmer would, when an animal is sick, in addition to attending to 

 ■tudying the symptoms as they appear, take the trouble, in case it dies, 

 to open it, with a view of studying the altered structure, knowing as he 

 may, how they look in health, this would assist him greatly in under- 

 standing disease generally ; for by this means he may find just when and 

 how the parts affected are changed. He will thus, also, come to understand 

 the importance of good care and nursing in the prevention and elimination 

 «f disease, more fully than by any other one means. 



