20 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 
THE EXAMINATION OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT. 
The first point in connection with the examination of the organs of 
digestion is the appetite and the manner of taking food and drink. A 
healthy animal has a good appetite. Loss of appetite does not point 
to a special diseased condition, but comes from a variety of causes. - 
Some of these causes, indeed, may be looked upon as being physio- 
logical. Excitement, strange surroundings, fatigue, and hot weather 
may all cause loss of appetite. Where there is cerebral depression, 
fever, profound weakness, disorder of the stomach, or mechanical 
difficulty in chewing or swallowing, the appetite is diminished or 
destroyed. Sometimes there is an appetite or desire to eat abnormal 
things, such as dirty bedding, roots of grass, soil, etc. This desire 
usually comes from a chronic disturbance of nutrition. 
Thirst is diminished in a good many mild diseases unaccompanied 
by distinct fever. It is seen where there is great exhaustion or depres- 
sion or profound brain disturbance. Thirst is increased after pro- 
fuse sweating, in diabetes, diarrhea, in fever, at the crises of infec- 
tious diseases, and when the mouth is dry and hot. 
Some diseases of the mouth or throat make it difficult for the 
horse to chew or swallow his feed. Where difficulty in this respect 
is experienced, the following-named conditions should be borne in 
mind and carefully looked for: Diseases of the teeth, consisting in 
decay, fracture, abscess formation, or overgrowth; inflammatory 
conditions, or wounds or tumors of the tongue, cheeks, or lips; 
paralysis of -the muscles of chewing or swallowing; foreign bodies 
in upper part of the mouth between the molar teeth; inflammation 
of throat. Difficulty in swallowing is sometimes shown by the symp- 
tom known as “ quidding.” Quidding consists in dropping from the 
mouth well-chewed and insalivated boluses of feed. A mouthful of 
hay, for example, after being ground and masticated, is carried to the 
back part of the mouth. The horse then finds that from tenderness 
of the throat, or from some other cause, swallowing is difficult or 
painful, and the bolus is then dropped from the mouth. Another 
quantity of hay is similarly prepared, only to be dropped in turn. 
Sometimes quidding is due to a painful tooth, the bolus being 
dropped from the mouth when the tooth is struck and during the 
pang that follows. Quidding may be practiced so persistently that 
a considerable pile of boluses of feed accumulate in the manger or on 
the floor of the stall. In pharyngitis one of the symptoms is a 
return through the nose of fluid that the horse attempts to swallow. 
In some brain diseases, and particularly in chronic internal hydro- 
cephalus, the horse has a most peculiar manner of swallowing and 
of taking feed. <A similar condition is seen in hyperemia of the 
brain. In eating the horse will sink his muzzle into the grain in 
