74 Stable Management and the Prevention of Disease 



bushes. This will prevent jackals burrowing down to the 

 carcases. 



The stable-gear into which it is possible that the discharges 

 of the sick animals may have soaked should be buried with 

 them, or burnt. 



All this must be done under the supervision of trustworthy 

 Europeans, as natives cannot be depended upon to do it 

 properly. 



Burning the carcases would be far preferable to burying 

 them ; but fuel is in most places too scarce to allow of this. 



Before the surviving horses return to their stables all the 

 flooring should be renewed, and other precautions against 

 infection should be taken, as recommended after an attack of 

 glanders. 



At the latter end of 1880, Dr. Evans, Inspecting Veterinary 

 Surgeon, was sent by the Indian Government to Assam for 

 the purpose of investigating the nature of a very fatal disease 

 amongst the horses, or rather ponies, of that part of India. 



It proved to be anthrax fever, and Mr. Evans's observations 

 throw considerable light upon the subject. He found that — 



1. There was some reason to believe that the period of 

 incubation might be quite seven days, although it is not 

 known to have been more than five in Bengal. 



2. That ponies in Assam running loose and unstabled on 

 the tops of hillocks, and fed, so far as can be ascertained, 

 upon grass grown on dry ground, or even upon bamboo-leaves 

 instead of grass, catch the disease almost as readily as those 

 upon the swampy level land below the hillocks. 



3. That although, in large numbers of cases, ponies caught 

 the disease from drinking stagnant water, yet they were 

 capable of catching it when the water was apparently pure. 



4. That the conditions most favourable to the spread of 

 anthrax are a large extent of swampy ground gradually dried 

 by exposure to the sun. The germs of the disease could 

 readily be carried in the air from such ground to the ponies 

 living upon hillocks above it. Dr. Evans calls attention to 

 the fact that experiments have shown that the germs of 

 anthrax pass into the animal system more readily by the 



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