242 GREASE. 
loosen the most constipated body in two days. That effect being gained, 
while the food is liberal and the animal is led to plenty of exercise, give 
one of those drinks, night and morning, which are tonic to the system, 
but seem to exhaust their virtue upon the skin. 
Drink for Sitfasts, 
Liquor arsenicalis . . . . . . Half an ounce. 
Tincture of muriate of iron. . . Three-quarters of an ounce. 
Wrateras. a 3 i ee we le One-pint: 
Mix, and give. 
GREASE. 
This filthy disorder is a disgrace to every person concerned with the 
building in which it occurs; it proves neglect in the proprietor, want of 
fitness or positive idleness in the groom, and culpable ignorance or the 
absence of the slightest moral courage in all people entering the doors 
of the stable. It is one of those disorders which it is easier to prevent 
than to cure. By an ordinary regard to cleanliness, and by an average 
attention to the necessities of the animal, this taint may be avoided; 
wherever it is witnessed, it not only argues the human being to whom 
the building belongs to be in the lowest stage of degradation, but it also 
testifies to the sufferings endured by the poor creatures which are com- 
pelled to drag out life in such custody. 
The grease is, in the primary instance, inflammation of the sebaceous 
glands of the legs; but it soon extends beyond the limits of its origin, 
and involves the deeper-seated structures. A white leg is more subject 
to the disorder than one of another color, and the fore limbs are almost 
exempted from the ravages of grease. The reason of that exemption is 
found in the greater proximity of the anterior extremities to the heart 
or to the center of the circulation. Consequently the vitality in the fore 
legs is more active, and the flow of blood much more energetic; hence 
the anterior extremities can resist that ailment which fixes with impunity 
upon the posterior limbs. Added to this, in the fore legs the vessels 
describe almost perpendicular lines, whereas in the hind members the 
arterial current is impeded by numerous angles; these conditions doubt- 
less operate upon the health of parts, but, above everything else, ranks 
the fact that the front legs are not subject to the same external causes 
as are the members more backwardly located. The stalls are drained 
from the manger to the gangway; consequently all the contamination 
of the space in which the horse is confined flows toward the hind feet; 
there are, moreover, other reasons, which the intelligence of the reader 
will not require should be particularized. 
