By far the greater number of stable sicknesses are brought about by a persistent giving of indigestible food, while the remainder are, as a rule, due to exposure, cold, and chills. Indigestion can only be cured by careful dieting, and by giving water (if that liquid is, as is customary, administered at stated intervals) before instead of after each meal. By this method the gastric juices are given fair play, which by any other can not be the case.
Ordinary cold, which shows itself precisely as in the human subject, should be treated by clothing the body, bandaging the legs, suspending corn diet, and giving warm mashes, with occasionally a little nitre (half-an-ounce will be sufficient) introduced. If sore throat exists, a mustard poultice ought to be applied. By attending early to this common complaint, the evils attendant upon chronic cough may be averted.
Inflamed and congested lungs, bronchitis, and other dangerous chest maladies should be at once treated by a surgeon; but pending his arrival, a good deal of danger may be staved off by applying strong mustard poultices, keeping up the surface circulation, and admitting plenty of pure air.
I regard ringbone, glanders, roaring, and whistling, as altogether incurable, although the second is the only one that will prevent a horse from working, the other three being merely partial disablements. A glandered animal should at once be separated from his fellows, and, as a precautionary measure, destroyed.
In case of worms, a dose of about four drachms of areca nut, prepared with a grater, should be given every alternate day, mixed well through a soft and tempting mash. If this is not found sufficiently powerful it may be increased, and a pint of linseed oil given to the patient. All “worm medicines” should be banished from the stable.
Diarrhœa may be speedily arrested by giving bicarbonate of potash in small half-ounce doses.
Where colic occurs there is often great internal suffering. A pint of warm gruel should be at once prepared, and in it put an ounce of tincture of opium and oil of turpentine, together with double that quantity of nitric ether. The horse should be walked about as much as possible, and his attention distracted from his pain. If the attack continues obstinate, the dose must be repeated.
Inflammation of the gums, or bars of the mouth, commonly called lampass, is a very general ailment, and when horses are suffering from it they will not eat. I have never tried any treatment except a gentle aperient and a mash diet, except in one or two extreme cases where a lance was applied. The old remedies of a hot iron or an iron nail were mere symbols of cruel barbarism.
Navicular disease cannot be cured, but it may be mitigated by blistering the coronet; and a horse affected by it may be made to go sound for awhile by dividing the sensitive nerves that supply the feet: an operation for which the services of a skilled V.S. will be, of course, imperative.
Foot-fever is another ailment that ought not to be trifled with. Before the arrival of the surgeon, get the shoes taken off, the feet put into warm poultices, and administer a purgative medicine.