Treatment of Threatened Abortion.—Give fifteen drops of G.G., every six hours, and the dose may be repeated two or three or more times should the threatening symptoms continue after the first or even the second dose has expended its action.
This interval should elapse between doses, as too rapid ones may even defeat the object, by over-excitement of the system, while a single dose often arrests an abortion if permitted to expand its action.
After a mare has actually aborted, it is almost impossible to tell whether it occurred from contagious abortion or from some other cause, so the safe thing to do is to act as if it had been contagious abortion.
Treatment of Contagious Abortion.—The fetus and membranes should be burned. The premises occupied by the sick animal should be disinfected as follows: Remove all bedding and dirt possible and spray all available parts of barn with 3% formalin or 5% carbolic acid solution. Apply white wash containing 1 lb. chloride of lime to 3 gallons of whitewash, scatter quicklime on floor and gutters.
The animal which has aborted should receive daily a vaginal irrigation of two gallons of warm water containing 2% lysol until the vaginal discharge stops. The external parts about the vagina, including the hips and tail, should be washed thoroughly with soap and water and then with the lysol solution as above, twice daily. This should also be done to all exposed pregnant animals in the herd, being careful not to use the same cloth, solution, bucket or attendant for the well animals that was used for the sick one.
Also give G.G., at intervals of six hours.
CHAPTER X.—Part I.
GENERAL DISEASES
Rheumatism
This is a far more common disease of the horse than has generally been supposed. It is quite common in old horses, and in younger ones that have been exposed or over-worked. Cold and damp, and exposure to draughts of cold air when heated, or during and after severe effort or work, are among the most common causes.
Symptoms.—It usually begins with a shivering chill, hot skin and mouth. The horse becomes lame and stiff all over, and several joints seem affected at once, so that he cannot move from the first, or else it soon becomes confined to one joint or leg; the joint or limb becomes very hot, swelled, and exceedingly painful; the pulse is quicker at one time than another, or stops now and then for a moment or two; the breathing is quick; sweats break out, and the animal becomes weak. When the disease attacks the fore legs, farriers call it “chest-founder”; and when it attacks the loins, the back is raised and belly tucked up, and it is known as “loin-bound.” Rheumatism not unfrequently shifts from one place to another, especially if the animal is exposed to wet and cold.