HORSE AILMENTS AND HOW TO DOCTOR THEM. 357 



BOTS. 



The bot is a small yellowish grub or worm which may be 

 found fastened to the inner coat of the upper part of the 

 horse's stomach, from the fall until the next summer, or for 

 a period of from ten to eleven months, — in such horses as run 

 to grass or are exposed to the bot-bee in the late summer and 

 early autumn. They are produced by the hatching of the eggs 

 laid and glued on the hair of the horse by the bee, and which 

 get into the mouth, and are hatched in the stomach; but, not- 

 withstanding all that has been said and written about the bot 

 worm, and notwithstanding the number of horses' lives sacrificed 

 by ignorant doctors in endeavoring to kill bots in cases of 

 colic and other severe internal diseases, I don't believe for a 

 moment tha^the horse ever yet lived that has been killed or 

 materially injured by bots. 



No matter what disease a horse dies of, the stomach often 

 congests quickly and then ruptures ; now some persons in open- 

 ing such cases and finding the stomach ruptured and bots in the 

 abdominal cavity, look no further for the cause of death, but 

 jump at the conclusion : " bots have eaten through the stomach 

 and killed the horse." 



The best books on the diseases of the horse say that bots do 

 little if any harm ; and the man of all others who made the 

 different kinds of bot flies and grubs a special study (Bracy 

 Clark, V. S.,) thinks they do rather good than harm. One 

 thing is certain, there is but one thing to be done, and that is, 

 to let them alone. There are probably more mistakes made in 

 the treatment of horses supposed to be suffering from bots than 

 for any other complaint whatever. 



In my thirty years' experience as a horse doctor, I have 

 been called to prescribe for quite a number of horses supposed 

 to be afflicted with bots, but never lost a horse by death from 

 this cause. The reason for this exemption from loss has arisen, 

 I firmly believe, from the fact that I never dosed them with 

 poisonous mixtures so much in favor with drivers and hostlers. 



