ON CATAllIlIl IN THE HORSE. 
7 
dealers’ stables, where the process of making up the horses for 
sale is carrying on, there is scarcely one of them that does not 
cough. 
Treatment .—In the majority of cases, a few warm mashes, 
warm clothing, and 'a warm stable, a fever-ball or two, with a 
drachm of aloes in each, and a little antimorw at night (in almost 
any of its combinations, but of which the antimonial powder is 
probably the best), will usually set all right. Indeed, all would 
soon be right without any of our medicine; and much more 
speedily and perfectly than if we had foolishly given those cor¬ 
dials ol’which "rooms and farriers are so fond. 
Caution .—We are now approaching, gentlemen, a class of 
diseases, in the treatment of which a great deal of tact is re¬ 
quired. You would do very wrong if you treated every case of 
common cold in this cavalier way; and you would be equally re¬ 
prehensible, and get into sad disrepute with your employers, if 
you made a serious business of these every-day complaints. Your 
duty to your employer will lead you to adopt every proper mea¬ 
sure to prevent the malady from increasing, and to restore health 
as speedily and with as little expense as you can; and, on the 
other hand, the duty which you owe to yourselves, the preserva¬ 
tion of your professional reputation, will urge you, while you do 
not make an unnecessary or palpable job of the case, yet never 
to hazard the occurrence of a w^orse disease by apparent or real 
negligence. Nineteen horses out of twenty with common catarrh 
will do well ; but in the twentieth case, a neglected cough may 
be the precursor of bronchitis, pneumonia, and death. Then, al¬ 
though you may not do much, you will always ponder the case 
well. If there is no acceleration of pulse, no heat of mouth, or 
redness of nasal membranes, or soreness of throat, or loss of ap¬ 
petite, you may tread the ground lightly, especially if the owner 
is a niggard. But you must make yourself sure of all this ; you 
must remember with what kind of animal you have to do, and to 
what a sad degree he may be predisposed to serious thoracic af¬ 
fection. You must recollect, and experience w'ill soon convince 
you of this, how insidiously these chest complaints creep on, and 
how frequently inflammation is established before you are aware 
of its existence. If there is the least fever, bleed. The surgeon 
would never be justified who sufl'ers a common cold, attended 
with heat of mouth or indisposition to food, to pass without the 
abstraction of blood. You need not make your patient quite a 
sick horse, but you should be always on your guard. 
Caution against Physic .—Never give a physic-ball in catarrh. 
Let no wish of the master or the groom induce you to do it. You 
know not what sympathy may exist between the portion of mem- 
