482 MANGE. 



with any disorder of the stomach. It has been known to follow the eating of 

 poisonous herbs or mow-burnt hay, but, much oftener, it is to be traced to 

 exposure to cold when the skin was previously irritable and the horse heated by 

 exercise. It has also been attributed to the immoderate drinking of cold water 

 when the animal was hot. It is obstruction of some of the pores of the skin 

 and swelling of the surrounding substance, either from primary affection of the 

 skin, or a plethoric state of the system, or sympathy with the digestive organs. 



The state of the patient will sufficiently guide the surgeon as to the course he 

 should pursue. If there is simple eruption, without any marked inflammatory 

 action, alteratives should be resorted to, and particularly those recommended 

 for hide-bound in page 476. They should be given on several successive nights. 

 The night is better than the morning, because the warmth of the stable will 

 cause the antimony and sulphur to act more powerfully on the skin. The 

 horse should be warmly clothed— half an hour's walking exercise should be 

 given, an additional rug being thrown over him — such green meat as can be pro- 

 cured should be used in moderate quantities, and the chill should be taken from 

 the water. 



Should the eruption continue or assume a more virulent character, bleeding 

 and aloetic physic must be had recourse to, but neither should be carried to any 

 extieme. The physic having set, the alteratives should again be had recourse 

 to, and attention should be paid to the comfort and diet of the horse. 



If the eruption, after several of these alternate appearances and disappear- 

 ances, should remain, and the cuticle and the hair begin extensively to peel off, 

 a worse affection is to be feared, for surfeit is too apt to precede, or degenerate 

 into, mange. This disorder, therefore, must next be considered. 



MANGE 



Is a pimpled or vesicular eruption. After a while the vesicles break, or the 

 cuticle and the hair fall off, and there is, as in obstinate surfeit, a bare spot 

 covered with scurf — some fluid oozing from the skin beneath, and this changing 

 to a scab, which likewise soon peels off, and leaves a wider spot. This process 

 is attended by considerable itching and tenderness, and thickening of the skin, 

 which soon becomes more or less folded, or puckered. The mange generally 

 first appears on the neck at the root of the mane, and its existence may be sus- 

 pected even before the blotches appear, and when there is only considerable itchi- 

 ness of the part, by the ease with which the short hair at the root of the mane 

 is plucked out. From the neck it spreads upward to the head, or downward 

 to the withers and back, and occasionally extends over the whole carcass of 

 the horse. 



One cause of it, although an unfrequent one, has been stated to be neglected 

 or inveterate surfeit. Several instances are on record in which poverty of con- 

 dition, and general neglect of cleanliness, preceded or produced the most violent 

 mange. A remark of Mr. Blaine is very important : — " Among the truly 

 healthy, so far as my experience goes, it never arises spontaneously, but it does 

 readily from a spontaneous origin among the unhealthy." The most common 

 cause is contagion. Amidst the whole list of diseases to which the horse is 

 exposed, there is not one more highly contagious than mange. If it once gets 

 into a stable, it spreads through it, for the slightest contact seems to be suffi- 

 cient for the communication of this noisome complaint. 



If the same brush or currycomb is used on all the horses, the propagation of 

 mange is assured ; and horses feeding in the same pasture with a mangy one 

 rarely escape, from the propensity they have to nibble one another. Mange in 

 cattle has been propagated to the horse, and from the horse to cattle. There 



