DisgasES AND THEIR CURE. 117 
over-heating, or something improper or indigestible in the food. 
Grain, and especially Indian meal, fed to a horse while in a 
state of great heat or great fatigue from violent exertion, is fre- 
quently the immediate cause of colic and spasms. In these cases 
the animal should have his abdomen fomented with wet cloths 
applied as warm as can be borne; warm water should be given 
the animal to drink, or poured down his throat from a bottle, 
and copious enemas of warm water should be administered. 
Fluxes—as diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, influenza, catarrh, 
etc.—are the indications of a general obstruction of the system 
or impurity of the fluids, with an effort at depuration in a par- 
‘ticular direction. The usual practice of checking the discharge 
suddenly by pungents, stimulants, and astringents is always 
injurious and generally dangerous. On the contrary, the action 
of the surface should be restored by bathing, with friction or 
the dripping-sheet, and all irritating matters removed from the 
stomach and bowels by means of warm and tepid water, as in 
the case of colics. There will be no danger from the discharges 
if the ce is removed, and if it is not removed, the sudden 
suppression of the evacuations may terminate in a worse in- 
flammation or speedy death, 
Affections of the skin and glands are only to be cured by 
purifying the whole mass of blood. To repel an eruption from 
the surface, or rather a glandular tumor, is not curing the ani- 
mal; indeed, it is only changing an external disease to an inter- 
nal one. Thus attention to a pure diet, to fresh air, and to 
clean apartments, each and allare essential to recovery. Many 
of these cachexies, as they are called in medical books, originate 
from the effluvia of their own excretions, as in cases where 
the urine and feces are permitted to accumulate in the stalls, 
or under the floors of the stables. 
