76 



Veterinary Medicine. 



operates in both predisposing to and exciting those diseases of 

 the chest and other parts, so frequent in such places. Winds raise 

 and carry such germs, but also sooner rob them of virulence. 

 (See Zymotic Diseases). Susceptible, young animals, newly 

 housed, usually suffer the most severely from these injurious con- 

 ditions. Often in their case frequent, extreme and sudden 

 changes, and great atmospheric impurity, are combined with a 

 diet to which they have been hitherto altogether unaccustomed. 

 In young horses there are superadded the exertions — too often 

 extreme — connected with training or work. There are the heats 

 and chills, the soaking perspiration and the frigid winds and rain, 

 the general exhaustion, but particularly the overwork of the 

 respiratory organs, each of itself calculated to superinduce disease. 

 Percivall justly remarks that among young horses, newly stabled 

 and put to work, the prevailing diseases are "catarrh, sore 

 throat, strangles, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy." His 

 tables of the diseases attacking the horses of his own regiment 

 (ist Life Guards), are so instructive that I here reproduce them : 



A Table (compiled from extracts from a "register of sick 



HORSES" LIMITED TO A GIVEN PERIOD) SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE 

 AGES AT WHICH HORSES APPEAR MOST DISPOSED TO CERTAIN OR- 

 GANIC DISEASES. 



Disease of lungs 



Disease of the bowels. 



Disease of the brain 



Disease of the eyes 



No. of 

 Patients 

 under 5 



Years. 



170 



lO 



4 



30 



No in 



their 5th 



Year. 



50 



20 



2 



10 



No. above 

 5 Years 



and 

 under 10. 



20 



40 



5 

 70 



No. 10 

 Years and 

 Upwards 

 but under 



50 

 70 



14 

 35 



No. 20 

 Years and 

 Upwards. 



10 



20 



2 



5 



Total 



300 



160 



27 



150 



It will be seen that nearly one- half of the sicknesses, occurring 

 among the horses of the regiment, were chest diseases, and that 

 nearly three-fourths of these were in animals under five years 

 old, or in those newly purchased from the country. 



The subjoined table shows the relative prevalence of disease in 

 different months of the year, deduced from the Register above 

 referred to : 



