492 WEST OF SCOTLAND VETERINAIIA' MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
liability to disease, or, in other words, the difference between well 
bred and poorly bred horses in adaptability to work under influences 
which, as a rule, rapidly exhaust the vital energies. \Ye cannot, or 
at least do not, breed horses in Bengal in sufficient numbers, and of 
a description to meet our requirements, and, as a consequence, have 
to depend almost entirely upon importation for our supply. I 
should say three-fifths of our horses are Australian, the remainder 
being stud bred, i. e. bred by the Indian Government, but cast as 
unfit for cavalry or artillery purposes, and a few country bred, 
Arabs, English, and Cape horses, all of which latter find their way 
to the Calcutta market in small batches periodically. Of the 
different breeds here given, there can be no doubt those bred in the 
country are best adapted to it; I have found they are not nearly so 
liable to disease, especially to those forms of it depending upon 
exposure to the sun, and the exhausting effects of our hot and 
rainy seasons. At the same time, I have also found that if we have 
an animal of any breed seriously ill, his recovery depends not so 
much upon his breed as upon his degree of breeding. I have no 
doubt you will agree with me in this, as you must have observed 
the same in your practice in this country. Certain symptoms 
which indicate one of our most common diseases eminently illus¬ 
trate this. We observe them almost daily in horses for six or 
seven months in the year, never varying except in intensity, and in 
proportion to the description of work or degree of exposure to 
which the horse has been subjected. The disease in its different 
degrees of intensity has received the different names of coup de 
soldi, or sun-stroke, pulmonary apoplexy, heat-exhaustion, and 
heat-apoplexy, each being usually marked by symptoms which, 
apart from post mortem appearances in fatal cases, are similar in 
their nature. We have no disease which I should better like to 
bring before your notice, or which is better deserving of your de¬ 
liberate consideration ; with your ])ermission, therefore, I will pro¬ 
ceed to describe the given forms of the disease, taking them in the 
order in which I have mentioned them, and pointing out the class 
of horse usuallv affected. 
The disease which is called coup de soleil (sunstroke) is, I think, 
invariably the result of rapid driving or riding in the sun. It is 
common to all horses, but especially to imported ones, and amongst 
them to the light and well bred, because pace can be got out of 
them that cannot be got out of a low-bred horse, better suited for 
slow work. I have known them in numerous instances go until 
they dropped. * 
The symptoms are rapidly developed ; the driver or rider, in a 
case of this sort, generally inexperienced or ignorant, only awaken¬ 
ing to a sense of danger on perceiving the horse begin to get heaw 
in hand, and to stagger and become unsteady on his fore extremi¬ 
ties. If pulled up now and attended to at once there is not gene¬ 
rally much difficulty in the management of the case. More often, 
however, the poor animal drops, and after a few wild but vain 
attempts to get on his legs again, goes down altogether and dies. 
