DISEASES.
The list is long and fearful, and even the brief one subjoined, will be found sufficiently great to inculcate the utmost caution in their management. The horse in his natural condition is subject to few ailments. It is only in his intensely artificial state, and when made the slave of man, that he becomes a prey to disease in almost every shape. A careful and judicious attention to his diet, water, exercise, stable, and general management, will prevent many of those to which he is subject.
Glanders.
This is one of the most alarming. The first and most marked symptom is a discharge from the nostrils of a peculiar character. The disease produces inflammation there and in the windpipe, and in aggravated cases passes down to the lungs, which are soon destroyed.
It is propagated by contagion, by exposure in humid stables, and is induced by hereditary indisposition and great exhaustion. Youatt says, there is not a disease which may not lay the foundation for glanders. The poison resides in the nasal discharge, not in the breath. When exposed to it, the mangers should be thoroughly scraped, washed with soap and water, and afterwards with chloride of lime. All the clothing and harness, which may have received any of the contagious matter, must be thoroughly cleansed and baked.
The best preventives are dry, clean, and well-ventilated stables, proper exercise, green food in summer, and roots in winter.
The disease may be arrested in its early stages, by turning the animal on a dry pasture, but it is liable to return on subsequent confinement. Iodine has lately been announced as a remedy, but of the certainty of its effects, we are not aware.
It is generally considered incurable, and when thoroughly seated, it may be deemed an act both of humanity and economy to terminate the existence of its victim at once. This course becomes a duty, from the fact that many grooms, by
their attendance on glandered horses, have been affected, and though the disease is, in their case, more manageable, yet it is frequently fatal.