STRANGLES. 
609 
which is often resolved by a blister; and, secondly, because out 
of the many young three-and-four-year-old horses which I have 
for many years had the medical superintendence of, I should say 
that not above one in four of them underwent regular strangles ; 
though very many of them at one time or other sickened. I have 
at this present moment, in my own possession, a young horse, 
whom I purchased of the gentleman who bred him. He is 
now four and a half years old, and has never had strangles; 
though he has, in the course of the last winter, sickened three or 
four separate times. Another colt, that was purchased at the 
same time, and of the same person, and that is a year older than 
my horse, has never had strangles. When I come to turn these 
facts over in my mind, and compare them with the accounts of 
the disease transmitted by old authors of treatises on farriery, I 
can hardly reconcile the one with the other without coming to the 
conclusion, that strangles must be a disease of less general occur¬ 
rence than formerly, It is, in course, to be admitted, that many 
of the young horses we obtain in regiments have had the disease 
prior to purchase : I cannot, however, bring myself to believe 
that this has been the case with so large a majority as I find 
apparently escaping it. Let other veterinarians turn their atten¬ 
tion to these interesting points : we shall then probably, ere many 
years pass over our heads, elicit some curious if not valuable 
addition to our present stock of information on the subject. 
Peculiarities of Strangles. —The disease is said to re¬ 
semble small-pox or measles in the circumstances of its being 
an eruptive fever, and one that occurs but once in the animaFs 
lifetime; and there appears some truth in this. In my own 
practice (which, from having been mostly in the army, is one 
well calculated to throw light on this point) I do not remember 
to have met with any decided cases of secondary strangles, un¬ 
less it be in the form of what is called vives : a term, grooms 
and farriers seem in the habit of applying to any subsequent 
tumour about the throat; though Gibson (who is good autho¬ 
rity in these matters) says, that it consists in a swelling of the 
glands or kernels under the ears of a horse.” But there is an¬ 
other question for consideration. Does strangles, in any for my 
