However, with the honesty which seems to prevail in and around the stable, the diseased horse is often sent to the nearest market. The proprietor, under some strange quibble of conscience, sells to another that which he is convinced is worthless. A rich master vends and a poor man buys; the cheatery of such a bargain is obvious, but to such results always tend a violated contract. The natural contract between man and horse is outraged; a conditional gift is construed to imply an unconditional bestowal. The terms are warped according to the convenience of the receiver; the possibility of any obligation being implied is never suspected. A few, and very few good people, from feeling only fulfill the conditions of the bond; but kindness, when bestowed upon the horse, is regarded as a weakness and a gratuity. From the highest to the lowest, none think that all of animated creatures are born with rights; no one behaves as though domesticated animals were only intrusted to the care of man. Violation of moral conditions begins the evil, which ends in cheatery and robbery of one another.
The symptoms which announce that the serous membrane has effused water into the abdomen are a want of spirit; constant lying down and remaining in one position for a long period; perpetual restlessness; thirst; loss of appetite; thinness; weakness; enlarged abdomen; constipation and hide-bound.
A HORSE WITH ACITES, OR ABDOMINAL DROPSY.
The enlargement of the belly has something peculiar in it; the swelling lies toward the inferior portion of the abdomen. Near the loins there is apparently an empty space; if the hand be placed on the enlargement, and another person strikes the belly on the opposite side, a sense of fluctuation can be distinctly felt. If the horse be thrown upon its back, the swelling will, with the change of position, gravitate toward the loins. At length small bags containing fluid depend from the chest and the inferior surface of the belly. Should the disease be suffered to progress, the sheath and one leg generally enlarge; the hair of the mane breaks off and is easily pulled out. Where once hung the tail now remains little more than the dock with a few scattered hairs. Ultimately purgation starts up, which terminates the suffering.
Of course, after effusion, all treatment is powerless—creatures in the last stage of dropsy presenting sights which the mind shudders to contemplate; objects of this kind are sometimes to be seen on commons in the neighborhood of London. They are turned out to die miserably under the plea of humanity; the utmost limit of cruelty is justified or made pleasant by a pretense to sympathy. The poor horse literally starves; were there food to eat, the remaining strength would not serve to collect it. Still the proprietor is so very humane he cannot endure to destroy the property he has paid for; the poor animal is therefore thrust forth to cheaply live, or to die without trouble to its owner.
INFLUENZA.
This affection may rage throughout the kingdom, or it may be located upon a very circumscribed spot. In a disorder so eccentric, it is very difficult to decide the question whether or not it is contagious; it commonly runs through the stable in which it appears; but it does not invariably attack every animal within the building. It may, in a large edifice, first seize the horse nearest the door, then travel to the stall farthest from the entrance; thus it skips about without regularity, and often spares many individuals.
Occasionally influenza fixes upon an animal when in the field; but it is a more probable visitant of the stable: this is a seeming proof that the contagion does not reside in the air, since the atmosphere is as much as possible excluded from every mews. We may conjecture it is not dependent upon any vapor exuding from the earth, since the creatures whose noses are nearly always in contact with the herbage are, of all others, least liable to the affection.
It is terrible to contemplate the suffering and loss of life which have been consequent upon the errors of mankind. Influenza is regarded as a new disease; a new name deceives the world, though it is more than probable that a disorder of a low, febrile, and typhoid character has prevailed among animals for many ages. Nature has, for thousands of years, been striving to enforce the self-evident truth that man is by moral obligation bound to provide for the welfare of the animal he enslaves. His gain or the inclination of his will can be no argument against the fulfillment of so plain a duty; the implied contract, the common parent of all living things, has been emphasizing with sickness and with death; all has been to no purpose. Cunning men have been employed, and nostrums have been invented to maintain misrule; wealth has been sacrificed and ruin endured, to uphold an unrighteous cause; but the voice of nature pleading for her children has not been understood.