38 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 
Anodynes quiet the nervous system. Pain in the horse, as in the 
man, is one of the important factors in the production of fever, and 
the dulling of the former often prevents, or at least reduces, the 
latter. Anodynes produce sleep, so as to rest the patient and allow 
recuperation for the succeeding struggle of the vitality of the animal 
against the exhausting drain of the disease. 
The diet of an animal suffering from acute inflammation is a factor 
of the greatest importance. An overloaded circulation can be starved 
to a reduced quantity and to a less rich quality of blood by reducing 
the quantity of feed given to the patient. Feeds of easy digestion do 
not tire the already fatigued organs of an animal with a torpid diges- 
tive system. Nourishment will be taken by a suffering brute in the 
form of slops and cooling drinks when it would be totally refused if 
offered in its ordinary form, as hard oats or dry hay, requiring the 
labor of grinding between the teeth and swallowing by the weakened 
muscles of the jaws and throat. 
Tonics and stimulants are remedies which are used to meet special 
indications, as in the case of a feeble heart, and which enter into the 
after treatment of inflammatory troubles as well as into the acute 
stages of them. They brace up weakened and torpid glands; they 
stimulate the secretion of the necessary fluids of the body, and hasten 
the excretion of the waste material produced by the inflammatory 
process; they regulate the action of a weakened heart; they promote 
healthy vitality of diseased parts, and aid the chemical changes 
needed for returning the altered tissues to their normal condition. 
FEVERS. 
Fever is a general condition of the animal body in which there is an 
elevation of the animal body temperature, which may be only a de- 
gree or two or may be 10° F. The elevation of the body temperature, 
which represents tissue change or combustion, is accompanied with 
an acceleration of the heart’s action, a quickening of the respiration, 
and an aberration in the functional activity of the various organs of 
the body. These organs may be stimulated to the performance of 
excessive work, or they may be incapacitated from carrying out their 
allotted tasks, or, in the course of a fever, the two conditions may 
both exist, the one succeeding the other. Fever as a disease is usually 
preceded by chills as an essential symptom. 
Fevers are divided into essential fevers and symptomatic fevers. 
In symptomatic fever some local disease, usually of an inflammatory 
character, develops first, and the constitutional febrile phenomena are 
‘the result of the primary point of combustion irritating the whole 
body, either through the nervous system or directly by means of the 
waste material which is carried into the circulation and through the 
