40 
kept in filthy workhouses, or confined places, and become strumous 
or swoln by the confinement, by this excitement are preserved 
from coughs, wheezings, blindness, epilepsy, &c.-In more 
cleanly situations they would not be subject to one, nor then 
would they be so obnoxious to the other, or in any consi¬ 
derable degree however. Some constitutions, inveterately sub¬ 
ject to the morbus pedicu/osus, would perhaps serve to confirm this 
remark ; also by their having a strong tendency to some disease 
which these animals may tend to avert, and in which constitu¬ 
tions the facility of their propagation becomes in a wonderful 
manner increased so as to almost defy their eradication, which in 
stronger constitutions, and free from disposition to disorder, 
would not be the case. These Gastric Oestri, perhaps, in a state 
of health, without producing the terrible consequences usually 
apprehended, may tend to preserve it by their gentle stimulus to 
the stomach, and by promoting the digestion of their low watery 
food, prevent the cholic, gripes, and other indigestions which 
ultimately affect the head of the Horse, and producing staggers, 
a disease the horse is particularly subject to. 
Nor is there wanting abundant proof of the utility of local 
irritations in preventing the access, as well as in curing disorders. 
We often see a formidable disease quickly removed by blistering 
the skin, or by irritating the mucous membrane of the stomach 
or intestines by a vomit or purge. The appearance of exanthe¬ 
matous eruptions on the skin, and the formation of local abscesses, 
from the same cause of partial irritation, often relieve a general 
disorder of the system. The mucous membranes and the skin 
possess this power when irritated in the most eminent degree, 
and to these the Larvae of the Oestri are applied. Irritating the 
membranes of the stomach in other animals would excite nausea 
and vomiting ; but the Horse not possessing this power, his sto¬ 
mach is peculiarly fitted for the stimulus of such inhabitants. 
It has also been remarked in hospitals, that a patient afflicted 
