REPORT OF THE VETERINARY 
250 
the lightest application of the cautery. Three horses, in good 
condition, middle-aged, and strong, died of gangrene in a very 
few days after the use of the budding-iron. It is not, however, 
with regard to farcy alone that this disposition to gangrene 
has been remarked. A strong cart-horse had contused wounds 
on the withers ; the application of the budding-iron brought on 
rapid sphacelus of the part, and destroyed the animal. 
Distemper. — That species of mucous fever, called “dis- 
temper” in the dog, and which destroys so many animals in cold 
and humid seasons, has not been very destructive during this 
year. Many of those that perished had been reduced to such a 
state of debility and suffering by previous unskilful treatment, 
that they may almost be said to have entered our infirmary and 
died. 
There is no disease in the treatment of which so many medi- 
caments are employed, and with so little judgment. Every 
sportsman, eveiy farrier, every druggist has his specific, which 
he employs without regard to the degree of excitement, or of de- 
bility, or to the form, or duration, or complication of the disease. 
It is this abuse of measures for the cure of this disease which so 
often renders it incurable ; while the natural preservatives are 
neglected, namely, the sending of the patient into the country, 
or to a purer atmosphere, and where, to all the exercise they 
may be disposed to take, are added the use of milk and the 
simplest food. 
Mange. — The dog is subject to various psoriform cutaneous 
eruptions, produced in summer by the heat of the atmosphere, 
and in winter by the heat of the fire. They have been more 
frequent than usual this year, and they have been peculiarly 
obstinate in the horse. In this latter animal they are coincident 
not only with the returning warmth of spring, but with the pro- 
duction of our artificial grasses. The lucern and the clover, 
with which at certain seasons horses are almost exclusively fed, 
speedily produce intolerable itching of the skin, with loss of hair ; 
and these affections rapidly increase by neglect, and are only 
removed by the employment of the most active treatment. The 
horses in the neighbourhood of Lyons that inhabit the same 
stables with the cows are more subject to this complaint than 
others. The horses also belonging to the better classes in this 
town are very subject to these eruptions, being much too well 
fed, and kept in stables small and hot, and un ventilated. 
The agriculturists in easy circumstances, who possess separate 
and wholesome stables for their horses — who are not compelled to 
give them this new and unwholesome food, or who can mix them 
with good straw or chaff, and who have the opportunity of fre- 
