GENERAL EXCITING CAUSES 39 



out of harness altogether, he has at the customary hours 

 the same quantity of food thrown into his manger. 

 These hours, by-the-by, are only twice daily — one large, 

 long feed at daybreak, and another large feed towards 

 evening. Then, again, in Lincolnshire, the district I am 

 speaking of, there is often one long spell of work from 

 seven o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon, 

 during which time no break is made to refresh the 

 animals ; no water to drink ; no nose-bag to their faces. 

 A break they certainly get at eleven o'clock, when they 

 stand in a profuse perspiration, still harnessed to the 

 harrow or the plough in the middle of a field, their heads 

 down, and a biting, cutting, cold east wind, from which 

 in the Fens there is not a particle of shelter, blowing 

 about them, while the man in charge, under lee of 

 a close-cut hedge, sits stolidly munching his lunch. 

 Again, without bite or sup, the horses resume their work 

 and remain at it until three. Then, in a state of exhaus- 

 tion and fatigue, when the powers of the digestive tract 

 are probably at their lowest, the animal is placed in front 

 of an enormous feed of indigestible, bulky food. After 

 filling his stomach, he is allowed to drink heartily of the 

 water he has perhaps been craving for all day. Every 

 practitioner in this district must well know the Monday 

 evening crop of colic. Sunday's rest, Sunday's gorging, 

 and Monday's day of ceaseless work and fasting, all 

 combine to produce the colic of Monday evening. 



This is the state of things existing in the winter 

 months, with, perhaps, the break in field operations 

 occasioned by a spell of frost, which again only means 

 another period of gorging in the stables. In the summer 

 months the animals live the greater part of the time 

 in the open, and the veterinary surgeon's sphere of use- 

 fulness, for a time, is limited, with one exception. It is 



