520 



On Mismanagement of Farm-Horses. 



Insufficient food frequently causes functional diseases of the 

 digestive system. It produces atony, weakness, and perverted 

 secretion, and is thus a common cause of indigestion, acidity, and 

 occasionally of colic. It favours the development of intestinal 

 worms, and by inducing hunger, or impairment of the functions 

 of digestion, sometimes gives rise to crib-biting and wind-sucking. 



There is no age at which animals are exempt from the evils of 

 insufficient food, but there are certain ages at which they suffer 

 more frequently and severely than at others. Thus the conse- 

 quences of a scanty diet are more speedily produced, more 

 aggravated and lasting, in very old and in young animals than in 

 adults, and the reason is obvious. In old age, the powers of 

 assimilation are often considerably impaired, waste is rapid, 

 strength beginning to decline, and health and vigour can only be 

 maintained by abundance of well-chosen nutriment; while in 

 youth there is a twofold demand for new materials, which are 

 required at this time not only for repairing the waste of all the 

 tissues, but also for increasing their bulk. This twofold con- 

 sumption of aliment, with the want of strength to resist depressing 

 influences, sufficiently accounts for the marked effects of de- 

 fective feeding on horses previous to maturity. 



When insufficient food, as is too often the case, occurs in 

 connection v/ith other errors of management, its evil conse- 

 quences become immeasurably increased. When insufficient 

 quantity co-exists with bad quality of food, its effects are pro- 

 duced with ten-fold rapidity and certainty. Irritation of the 

 alimentary canal, as indicated by diarrhoea and colic, is amongst 

 the earliest consequences of this two-fold error. In such cases 

 irritation of the kidneys is also often induced, and this, with an 

 impoverished state of the blood, sometimes gives rise to diabetes. 

 Insufficient food greatly aggravates the evils of bad shelter and 

 exposure to rain and cold ; it increases their tendency to induce 

 catarrhs, pulmonary affections, ophthalmia, rheumatism, and such 

 like diseases, by reducing the vigour of the body and its power 

 to resist disease ; while, in connection with want of cleanliness, 

 it is a fertile cause and great aggravation of mange, grease, and 

 other skin affections. 



In fine, insufficient food is sometimes an exciting, but still 

 more frequently a predisposing, cause of disease. It induces a 

 debilitated and deteriorated state of the system, which resists ill 

 the ordinary exciting causes of disease, favours the transmission 

 of contagious disorders and the development of latent maladies, 

 and lessens in all patients the hope of a speedy and favourable 

 recovery. The evil consequences of a scanty diet often remain 

 long after the error has been amended. All animals lose con- 

 dition much faster than they can gain it. Thus, if the food of a 



