362 COMPENDIUM OF THE VETERINARY ART. 



or old age ; and not unfrequently all three of 

 these causes had concurred in exhausting; the 

 animal's strength. Most commonly the im- 

 inediate cause was found to he that whiclv 

 we have before alluded to in page 274; that 

 is, allowing a horse that has been kept a con- 

 siderable time without food, and just come 

 into the stable from a long and fatiguing jour- 

 ney, to eat an unlimited quantity of food, 

 without giving a sufficient quantit}- of water to 

 enable the stomach to digest it. This, how- 

 ever, could not have been the cause in the 

 horses attacked at grass ; yet upon inquiry it 

 was found, that such horses had been used ill 

 or worked hard, previous to their going to 

 grass, and were generally old horses. It is 

 probable therefore, that the disease was brought 

 on by the horse's eating voraciously of some 

 unwholesome grass, which might act as poison 

 on the stomach, depriving it of the digestive 

 power, the effect being more readily produced 

 in weak stonrachs or debilitated constitutions. 

 Whenever the stomach staggers happen, the 

 proprietor is greatly alarmed from an opinion 

 which generally prevails of its bemg conta- 

 gious. Tiiere are some circumstances which 

 seem to countenance this opinion; 1st. that 



