MENSTRUATION IN MARES. 
283 
or nine hours on a stretch, is highly injurious, being certain to 
cause remote, if not immediate disease. 
(3). On the return of the team to the stable in the evening, it 
is wise at all times to divide the night’s allowance of food, 
giving just as much at first as will remove the sensation of 
hunger, and in an hour or so afterwards the remainder may be 
given with impunity. 
It has been shewn in cases where the digestive organs fail 
in appropriating nourishment from various improper articles of 
food, that they become distended, irritated, and otherwise dis¬ 
ordered. Sometimes imperfect food is digested, and yet pro¬ 
duces disease, from the imperfect blood sent thereby into the 
circulation. 
Diabetes, or 'profuse staling, is caused in this manner—from 
horses eating mow-burnt hay, heated oats, and decaying veget¬ 
able matters of various kinds. In this disease saccharine mat¬ 
ters are supposed to be formed in the intestines, which are 
taken up by the lacteals, passed into the blood, and again 
eliminated by the kidneys into the urine. 
[To be continued.] 
MENSTRUATION IN MARES. 
[Written for the American Veterinary Journal, by C. H. Cleaveland, M.D. 
Waterbury, Vermont.] 
E)R. Dadd : Many thanks for the number of the American 
Veterinary Journal you so kindly sent me. It far exceeds in 
mechanical and intellectual excellence the idea I had formed of 
it; and, in my opinion, it cannot fail of being highly serviceable 
to that noble companion of man, the horse, as well as to the 
owner who is so fortunate and so wise as to subscribe for and 
read it. 
I do not wish to bore you at this time with compliments, 
however well deserved, but to ask your and your readers’ 
attention to one fact in the physiology of the horse, or rather 
the mare, which seems not to be well understood by many who 
would almost consider themselves insulted if it were hinted to 
them that they did not “ know all about a horse.” 
Probably all know that all mares of the proper age, and at 
certain seasons of the year, menstruate, or, in other words, 
have uneasy turns, get “foolish,” as they say in Illinois ; and 
that, at such times, they seem unwilling to perform their usual 
task, either as travellers, or as draught horses; that they seem 
fretful and often ill tempered, vicious, spiteful, and frequently 
get a most thorough whipping, because their masters also get 
“ foolish.” 
