in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court
of the United States for the Western
District of Pennsylvania.
INTRODUCTION.
Of all the beasts of the field, which we are told, the Lord formed out of the earth, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them, none has more engaged the attention of the historian and the philosopher—none has figured more in poetry, in war and in love, than the horse.
None of the writing, to which we could point the reader, contains more frequent mention, or more glowing descriptions of the power and beauty of the horse, than the great Book of Books.
The Bible teaches us, that from whatever land this animal may have been originally brought into Egypt, that country had already become a great horse market, even before horses were known in Arabia, the country with which we are apt to associate all that is most interesting of this noble beast. Geological researches, however, have discovered fossil remains of the horse in almost ever part of the world—from the tropical plains of India, to the frozen regions of Siberia—from the northern extremities of the new world, to the southern point of America. But among the Hebrews, horses were rare previous to the days of Solomon, who had horses brought out of Egypt, after his marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh, and so rapidly did he multiply them by purchase and by breeding, that those kept for his own use required, as it is written, “four thousand stables, and forty thousand stalls.” Hence, when honored by a visit from the beautiful queen of Sheba, bringing with her, camels bearing spices, and very much gold and precious stones, it was doubtless in the contemplation of his magnificent stud of horses and chariots, kept for the amusement of his wives and concubines, as well as for his other vast displays of power and magnificence, that her majesty exclaimed, in the fulness of her admiration: “Howbeit, I believed not the words, until I came and mine eyes had seen it, and behold the half was not told unto me.”
Veterinary science has also made great progress from that time down to the present, and in particular, in the last half century, the structure of the horse—injuries and diseases to which he is subject, and the treatment of these, have been investigated, in this country and abroad, with much diligence and success, both in colleges and in societies devoted to the cultivation of veterinary knowledge, and by practitioners, whose education and experience render their observations worthy of great respect; but notwithstanding all this, there has always been, to the present time, one point overlooked, which is of greater importance, than any one that has ever been investigated. I refer here to a complete treatise on the Mare and Foal at the time of delivery. This has long been felt as a real want. Not a single engraving, illustrating this subject has ever been handed to the public, and very little has been written on the treatment of the mare and the foal at the time of delivery. When the best authors come to this point, they say, “call in a veterinary Surgeon.” But, I would ask, where is the veterinary Surgeon to obtain his information? And yet, not only the surgeon, but every farmer and breeder should possess a full knowledge of it.
The man that first enters the stable should be able to administer to the wants of the mare and the foal. There is no time to be lost—no time now to obtain information, or to proceed four or five miles for a surgeon. If all is right, in five minutes all will be well, but if a false position is presented, the first person that approaches the animal should be able to administer to the wants of the mare and foal. If not, there is much danger for the life of the foal, and in a few hours much danger is to be feared for the safety of the mare.
I have had a very extensive practice in the veterinary business for more than nineteen years, and found it almost universally to be the case, that in the event of mal-presentation, the foal had suffocated before I could reach the spot, although I was but a very few miles distant. If the foal is raised from its locality, it must be exposed to the free atmosphere in twenty minutes or it will suffocate, and the life of the mare will be much in danger. Often, after I had extracted the foal, I could have obtained twenty dollars for restoring its life.