WORMS
—are known to be of different kinds; and when any one particular species has taken possession of the stomach, or any part of the intestinal canal, in a horse, they not only occasion extreme pain, or perpetual disquietude, but become inveterate opponents to health, and constant enemies to flesh and condition. Some horses, of strong constitution, will bear their persecuting pinchings for a great length of time, before they give external proof of internal depredation; others, from less patience, or greater irritability, are very early in their indications. Symptoms of worms are various, and not unfrequently deceptive: those most relied upon are a largeness of the belly, with a leanness of the flesh; an unkind and hollow slaring of the coat, a flaccidity of the skin, a dryness of the mouth, a fœtidity of the breath, an occasional looking towards the flank on either side, or stamping with one hind foot or the other when in pain. A kind of straw-coloured sulphureous scurfy stain at the sphincter of the anus, is considered a certain and invariable sign; but ocular demonstration (which very frequently happens) removes the matter beyond all present doubt, and subsequent disappointment.
The sorts with which horses are most commonly afflicted, are as follow: Botts, a short circular worm, with a shelly kind of coat, picked at one end, and nearly round at the other, not unlike the silk-worm in its dormant state: these adhere closely to the internal coat of the stomach, causing the most excruciating pains as they increase in numbers, and are sometimes so numerous and destructive as to occasion the loss of life; instances of which have been proved by an examination of the viscera after death; of which a case is described in Page 132 of "A Compendium of Farriery," by the present Author, published in 1796. These take their seat also in the rectum, (the large intestine nearest the anus,) where they are seen adhering to the interstices as close to each other, during the moments of evacuation, as a swarm of bees; and five or six may be twitched off at a time with the fingers and thumb, just at the critical contraction of the sphincter.
There is also a large dark worm comes from horses, having a black head, and in its formation precisely the same as the grub-worm, so destructive to the roots of strawberries in certain dry seasons; but that these are of a cream coloured white, and the former of a brownish yellow, which tinge may probably be derived from the excrements in which they have been ingulfed. A third is the long white worm, from six or seven to fourteen inches long, equally picked at both ends, but larger in circumference towards one end than the other; these are prolific in the body beyond description, and when completely dislodged by medical specifics, are evacuated in putrified masses exceeding credibility. The fourth are a greenish small worm, with a perpetual vermicular motion, which, by its continual twisting and twirling in the intestinal canal, so irritates the animal, that he sometimes evacuates suddenly, and in a state so lax, that these worms are frequently expelled with the dung in great numbers, and seen working in all directions upon its surface, exactly similar to the exertions of an eel when thrown upon the grass from its native element.
Numerous are the quackeries and nostrums recommended by the il-literati, from old books, and unenlightened practice, long since buried in oblivion; but more particularly since the discovery of those grand specifics, MERCURY and ANTIMONY, which may be comparatively said to contain an equal degree of merit with the remaining conjunctive parts of the whole Materia Medica. After all the various experiments made, and minute observations collected, it does not appear that any mode, but mercurial purgation, will be productive of actual and infallible extirpation. Instances are numerous, where they have been evacuated in large quantities (and in many cases completely eradicated) by the advertised Antimonial Alterative Powders of the Author; but MERCURIALS are certainly entitled to priority, upon the well-founded plea of infallibity. Worms are as common with dogs as with horses, and may as certainly be cured by the same proportional means.