The wing of the nostril being raised, the examiner must note the appearances exposed; this he will best do by knowing where to look and what to expect. His eye has nothing to do with the skin nor with the marks that appear upon it. The opening of the lachrymal duct often challenges observation by being well defined and particularly conspicuous; but that natural development does not concern him; to that no attention must be given. The inspection must be concentrated upon the membrane more internally situated than the skin seen at the commencement of the nostrils. The skin, moreover, suddenly ceases, and is obviously defined by a well-marked margin; there is, therefore, no difficulty in distinguishing the membrane by its fleshy and moistened aspect, as well as by its situation. If, on this membrane, any irregular or ragged patches are conspicuous, if these patches are darker toward their edges than in their centers, and if they, nevertheless, seem shallow, pallid, moist, and sore, the animal may be rejected as glandered. Should any part of the membrane—after being wiped as before directed—seem rough or have evidently beneath its surface certain round or oval-shaped bodies, the horse assuredly is glandered. The membrane may present a worm-eaten appearance, or be simply of a discolored and heavy hue. In the first case, the animal ought to be condemned; in the second, it is open to more than suspicion.
No animal should be permitted to slowly perish of glanders. The disease, as it proceeds, affects the fauces, pharynx, and larynx; all become ulcerated. Not a particle of food can be swallowed; not a drop of saliva can be deglutated; not a breath of air can be inspired, without the severest torture being experienced. As the disease proceeds, the obstruction offered to the breathing grows more and more painful. Farcy breaks forth, and, as a consequence, superficial dropsy is added to the other torments. The edges of the nostrils enlarge; the membrane lining the cavities bags out, while the fauces and larynx contract: the discharge becomes more copious and the breathing is impeded. Thus the difficulty of respiration is increased, just as the condition of the lungs renders the necessity of pure air the more imperative. Ultimately, however, laborious breathing induces congestion of the brain, and the wretched sufferer falls insensible—it is hoped—to die of actual suffocation.
Such is a brief description of glanders, to cure which every now and then pretenders arise. No medicine, however, can restore the parts which disease has disorganized. There is no cure for glanders, which is essentially an ulcerative disorder. Every horse being thus contaminated should be at once destroyed: it is now lawful to do this when animals are taken in Smithfield market; but what is just in one place is surely not unjust in another. Moral rectitude resides on no particular spot. The blackguards who deal in contagion, driven from the public market, now reap a rich harvest by private sales. A chronically-glandered horse is an actual property to these rogues. It is sold. No sooner is the money paid and the vendor out of the way, than an accomplice appears and points out the nature of the bargain. The unfortunate purchaser seeks advice, and finds his worst fears confirmed. The accomplice offers to buy the horse at a knacker's price. It is obtained; and again it is advertised as "a favorite horse, the property of a gentleman deceased."
Any person ought by law to be empowered to give any man, driving or riding a glandered horse, into custody. There should be appointed certain qualified practitioners who should have authority to enter any stable at any time. Those abominations, where numbers of glandered horses are now stived together, whence they only are taken out to draw public vehicles by night, would then soon cease to exist. Were glandered horses by law condemned, men, from mercenary motives, would soon cease buying cheap life for the purpose of working disease to utter exhaustion. Such proprietors, were glanders declared just cause for slaughtering any horse wherever found, would soon discover their cheap purchases to be dear bargains. It is terrible now to witness animals, in almost the last stage of a most debilitating malady, goaded through the public streets with cruel loads behind them. It is horrible, when we reflect that every citizen in a large town is, by the avarice of unscrupulous people, exposed to a most loathsome disease, and to a most torturing death.
FARCY.
When the horse, which has been the pampered favorite in its youth, grows old, it generally becomes the half-starved and over-worked drudge of some equally half-starved proprietor. In the fullness of its pride and the freshness of its strength, it had to canter under the airy burden of my lady's figure. When the joints are stiff—when accident, disease, and sores, have rendered every movement painful; and when its energy is poorly fed upon the rankest provender—then the wretched animal is, by the whip of a thoughtless hireling, forced to toil between the shafts of some creaking cart. It is sad to watch the vehicles on a London road, and speculate upon what has been the past fortune and will be the future fate of the animals which propel them!
THE OLD FAVORITE AND THE NEW PET.
Farcy is peculiarly the lot of the poor man's horse. It is the consequence of utter exhaustion. It is the horrid friend—the last and dreadful rescuer of the thoroughly wretched. No one cause will produce it. To generate farcy, there must be a congregation of evils: the constitution must be weakly; the grooming must be neglected; the food must be stinted; the bed soiled; the dwelling small; the drainage bad; the master unfeeling, and the work excessive. All of these things, or so many of them as nature can endure, must exist before farcy can be generated.