THE HORSE—GENERAL DISEASES AND INJURIES. 183 
TYPHOID FEVER. 
This form of fever is quite common among horses. It is indicated by 
offensive breath and evacuations, quick, small pulse, black tongue, and loss 
of strength from the first. Among its causes are atmospheric influences, 
as improper ventilation, with lack of regard to general hygiene. In cold 
weather it is usually traced to the closing of all inlets for fresh air, by which 
the blood is deprived of the requisite oxygen. Thus the organs which 
supply and purify the blood and conduct the circulation are deranged and 
their fluid has undergone those damaging changes which are familiarly 
known as “poisoning of the blood.” It seldom continues a great time 
without being complicated with other disorders connected with some part 
that is specially involved, as the throat or stomach. It may also arise from 
contagion in unhealthy stables, or even in apartments that are wholesome 
and well ventilated. 
Symptoms. shivering fit, followed by a coldness of the skin and ex- 
tremities; small and quick pulse; scanty and high-colored urine; the bowels, 
at first constipated and the discharges covered with slime, become relaxed, 
the discharges being offensive; the nasal membrane is of a dark-red color or 
leaden, and sometimes a red serum may be seen trickling from it; the tongue 
is red at the edges, but the middle is a dirty-white, with a brownish streak 
down the center; offensive breath. Should the disease prove fatal, cold 
clammy sweats will cover the body, violent diarrhoea or dysentery ensuc, 
and then death will soon take place. 
TREATMENT.—Ammonium causticum may be given every third hour 
if extreme debility be present and the surface of the body be cold; it is also 
an excellent remedy when the fever is of a putrid type and the breath is 
very offensive; in some cases it is best to alternate it with mercurius corrosi- 
vus. Nux vomica is needed for sudden decline of strength, abdominal pains, 
quick and feeble pulse, fluttering of the heart, cold extremities, and spasm 
of the muscles of the pharynx and gullet; it is especially useful when the 
body is warm, the pulse quick and feeble, the urine scanty and high-colored, 
and the bowels constipated, a dose every two hours being suitable. If 
diarrheea sets in, with swelling in the sheath and legs, arsenicum should be 
given; the same is particularly useful for such a condition in the later stages 
when there is great prostration, and when abscesses of a malignant charac- 
ter form about the head and other parts of the body. When dysentery comes 
on, with bloody discharges from the bowels, mercurius corrosivus should be 
used instead of arsenicum, every two hours until the blood disappears from 
the discharges, the arsenicum being then resumed. The best diet consists 
of arrowroot and gruel, in drenches of a quart at a time if the horse will 
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