Treatment.—If there should be considerable heat and fever, as is most commonly the case, give first A.A., a dose of fifteen drops, every two or three hours, until the heat has been partially subdued, or until six doses has been given. Then alternate the B.B., with the A.A., every three or four hours, a dose of fifteen drops, until the animal is restored. If a limb or joint is painful, hot and swelled, bathe it in Humphreys’ Marvel Witch Hazel night and morning, and a flannel bandage applied to the limb will also be of great service, in addition to the internal medicines.
If at any time a horse shows symptoms of stiffness or lameness, fifteen drops of B.B., night and morning, will soon remove it.
Chronic Rheumatism
May be regarded as a continuance of an acute attack, or as is more frequent a recurrence of it, being generally milder in character and less painful. The general circulation, as indicated by the pulse and respiration, is not much affected, and the manifestation of the disease is usually confined to some form of lameness usually affecting one limb at a time. Suddenness of the attack and change of its locality are characteristic of the disease. Often after having been apparently cured it returns after an uncertain interval or appears in another locality. Limbs and tissues that have once suffered are more liable to a recurrence, and it may be generally assumed that when a horse has once had a siege of rheumatism and again has sudden lameness and pain, that it is a return of the old disorder. Bad weather, exposure, or over-work are the most frequent occasions of a recurrence of the attack. The lameness most frequently attacks one or the other leg, or there may be a general stiffness or lameness. Not unfrequently the lumbar or loin muscles become the principal seat of the disease and the term lumbago or loin-bound is applied to it; or when the muscles or fibrous tissues of the shoulder become affected, causing lameness of the forelegs, the animal is said to have chest founder.
Treatment.—B.B., is usually the best remedy. If there is fever, heat or some lameness, alternate A.A., and B.B., a dose every two hours. In old cases, and to eradicate the disease from the system, give B.B., morning and noon, and J.K., at night, not forgetting an occasional dose of H.H., to increase the action of the kidneys.
Fever—Swamp Fever—Blood Poisoning
Fever is always a symptom of some other disease, never a disease of itself. An injury to any part of an animal, may, by sympathy, set up a fever in the rest of the body. However there are some cases where the fever is the most pronounced symptom, as in Swamp Fever and Septicemia or Blood Poisoning.
Swamp Fever or infectious Anemia is an infectious disease attacking Horses and Mules. It is characterized by high fever and loss of flesh and strength, with intervals of comparative good health, with no fever and a voracious appetite and the animal apparently getting well; only to be succeeded by another attack of fever, etc.
Treatment.—Since the disease can be readily caught by the other horses and mules, separate the sick from the well. Then give the A.A. and I.I., alternately in doses of fifteen drops, at intervals of two hours at first, and later at longer intervals as the animal improves.
Blood Poisoning or Septicemia is the poisoning of the blood by germs or their products. It occurs more or less in all infectious diseases, but particularly the infection caused by a wound.