The fore foot is scarcely ever quiet; it constantly paws, which action, in the horse, always expresses impatience or pain. The breathing, of course, is peculiar; a full inspiration the animal dare not take. Before inhalation is half completed the ribs fly backward. However, the backward action has hardly been accomplished before anguish once more compels a change; thus the breathing, to a looker-on, appears short, jerking, quick, and always imperfect.

The treatment must be active, as it is likely to be short. At the first outbreak, abstract enough blood to ease the horse, but take no more; place the sufferer in a cool, loose box; put woolen bandages upon all the legs, but leave the body unclothed; give, every quarter of an hour, a scruple of tincture of aconite in a wineglass of warm water. Feel the pulse before each dose; when that has softened, discontinue the aconite; every second hour then administer one ounce of sulphuric ether and of tincture of opium in a tumbler of cold water, to dispel any congestion that may lurk about the pleura, and also to lend smoothness or fullness to the pulse.

Pursue these measures for the first day and night. On no account be tempted to bleed a second time, for fear of that weakness which generates hydrothorax. When the pulse and pain are amended, should the cough remain, introduce the steaming apparatus twice described under the headings of the two previous articles. The bowels are generally costive; be not alarmed; with the departure of the disorder they will relax. Place lukewarm water within the easy reach of the horse; but before the symptoms abate, introduce nothing of a more stimulating nature. When the disorder lessens, hay-tea may be allowed; as improvement increases, the diet may be gradually augmented after the manner described, when considering the treatment of pneumonia. Such care is essential, because any violent disorder in a confined part of the body has a tendency to involve other structures, and the danger of this increases as the inflammation is removed from the surface.

The tranquilizing of the respiration, the softness of the pulse and the return of the appetite will announce the departure of pleurisy. When these longed-for indications are remarked, blister the throat and chest; should any seeds of the malady appear to be not entirely removed, repeat the blister to the throat and chest. Should the bowels not be relieved, throw up copious enemas of blood-warm gruel; nothing more must be attempted. Aloes or salts are poisons during pleurisy; wait patiently, and in time the establishment of health will restore all the natural functions, or if they are very confined, a bundle or two of cut grass may be presented with the usual food.

A yellow, transparent discharge from the nostrils, occasionally streaked with blood, and more or less otherwise discolored; a horrible anxiety of countenance, which seems to appeal mutely to every human being the saddened eye rests upon; quickened breathing, a more rapid but a sinking pulse, and a leaden state of the nasal membranes declare the probability of a fatal termination. Pleurisy, however, mostly ends in hydrothorax, for the character of which the reader is referred to the succeeding pages.

Now comes the sad inquiry, what is the cause of pleurisy? All kinds of things may excite it; but those things which lead to so much suffering in an inoffensive animal, are under the control of man. Over-exertion, being driven or ridden far and fast, the spirit being stimulated, and the energy promoted by potent drinks; for men will give the contents of the public-house to the horse when a wager is at stake, and will lash, while the limbs can move, to win any pitiful bet,—these circumstances not unfrequently provoke pleurisy. Injuries received externally not unseldom start up internal inflammation. Hurts calculated to lead to so serious an evil, together with broken ribs, will not be surprising to those who have seen the unseemly instruments which man will, in his rage, seize upon to strike the animal with. Colds, aggravated by change of temperature, as waiting long in the rain and being flurried home afterward; inattention in feeding, thus generating a plethora, is apt to disorder any internal organ, and many other such like causes will generate the disease.

And what right has man to inflict so much agony upon any life intrusted to his care? What right has humanity to complain of tyranny in its superiors, when the human race can neglect and entail such anguish upon the beings beneath them? The greed of gain or the pride of winning are the first motives assigned as the promoters of this terrible affliction; next come the gratifications of passion; then follows carelessness for another's welfare, etc. Which of these several causes is worth the torture of a living body? such torture, too, as the rack cannot equal, and human malice is happily forbidden to rival!

A little self-restraint instilled by a better plan of education, a little more humanity enforced by the teachers of religion, to instruct that man should not view himself as the owner of the earth which he temporarily inhabits; that man should not consider himself the proprietor of the lives which share the globe with him; that man should be actuated by genuine CHRISTIAN LOVE toward all animated nature, feeling kindly for the lives akin to his own, and acknowledging, as fellow-sojourners, the creatures by which he is surrounded,—then, how much affliction might be eradicated from that which wickedness alone renders a "vale of tears!"

HYDROTHORAX.

This is the consequence of the latter stage of pleurisy; or rather, to speak with caution, we fear it is often the result of the severe treatment adopted to dispel that malady.

Man leaves his property, which is very ill of pleurisy over night, hopeless that the animal can survive till morning. On returning, however, to the stable early on the following day, to his surprise he beholds the horse actually looking better. The pain has evidently abated, if not altogether departed; the eye is more cheerful; the manner more encouraging. Having observed this, attention rests upon the flanks. The motion of these parts is greatly increased. They are now forcibly brought into action. The suspicion is awakened. The ear is applied to the chest. Near the breast bone, or low down, all is very quiet. A little higher up nothing can be heard; but rather past the middle of the ribs the sound of breathing is once more detected. Again and again is the experiment repeated, until the disappointed proprietor is forced to believe that which is against his hope.

Still clinging to chance, after conviction has gained possession of his mind, there is another trial he will make to render despair a certainty. He seeks some man—any one will do; and having found a loiterer, he returns with him to the stable. He places this individual upon one side of the horse, and tells the man to slap the side of the animal with the open palm, when the word "now" is spoken. This being arranged, the master goes to the opposite side. He puts his ear to the place where the silence ceased. Having assured himself the spot he has chosen is correct, he pronounces the monosyllable "now." Directly afterward a dull sound is heard, and a metallic ring or splashing noise is soon afterward audible.

All now is confirmed, yet, "to make assurance doubly sure," the owner tries to take the pulse at the jaw. There is none to be felt! The hand is then placed near the chest, upon the left side and over the region of the heart. The sensation of a throb, coming through water, is perceptible. The last requirement is confirmed. The horse has dropsy of the chest, and the termination of the disorder is all but certain.

The first thing to be done, in these cases, is to draw off the liquid before it soddens the pleura and further distresses the already labored breathing. The manner of performing this operation is very simple, and the operation itself remarkably safe. A spot near the inferior margin of the chest being selected, a small portion of skin, between the eighth and ninth ribs, is pulled forward, and then a narrow slit with a sharp knife is made upon the place which the skin originally covered. A trocar, armed with a stilet, is then inserted into the opening, and so much force applied as suffices to propel it onward. The moment all resistance ceases, the trocar is within the cavity of the thorax. The stilet is then withdrawn, and the water usually flows forth.

There is in this operation no danger of piercing the lung. The trocar must be driven upward and onward, very far and very forcibly, to induce such an effect. The lung is protected from all lawful violence by the water, on the top of which it floats.

There is, however, a dispute concerning how much of the fluid should be extracted. It is a good rule to take all you can get, or all the condition of the horse will permit to be abstracted. Do not commence the operation with any determinate quantity in your mind. Take all, if the horse will suffer so much to be withdrawn but if the animal, after the loss of a quart, shows signs of approaching faintness, withdraw the trocar, let the skin fly back, and wait a more favorable opportunity for the next attempt.

In an hour or two the trial can be repeated. Make a new opening (for never risk exciting irritation in the original wound, by again thrusting the trocar through it.) There are but few precautions to be observed during the performance of tapping the chest. It is usual to teach, that the posterior border of the ribs is to be avoided, because this portion of the bones is grooved for the reception of the artery. Anatomy, however, shows that such vessels are amply protected by the grooves in which they travel.

There is also some selection to be made in the trocar which shall be employed. If the tube be of too great a size and permits the fluid to gush quickly out, nature may sink under the sudden change induced: the water, consequently, ought to be very gradually abstracted. For this purpose, the instrument cannot well be too small. The most diminutive of those made for human practice will be quite large enough, so that the bulk of liquid within the chest may be insensibly removed, and the horse be scarcely aware of the change. Those trocars, however, which are made for the human practitioner will not be long enough; therefore one must be procured longer, but of the like bore.

Sometimes, after the trocar is properly inserted, no fluid will pour forth: the operation is then all but hopeless. It must have been so long delayed that various substances have been secreted. These cover the interior of the chest. They obstruct the mouth of the cannula and prevent the liquid issuing by the tube.

It is customary, in these cases, to employ a whalebone probe. This is inserted up the trocar, and then moved about in different directions. The intention is to break down the layer of pus or lymph lining the thorax, and to allow the water to leave the cavity. But this is almost needless, as the author does not recollect a single case of this description which ultimately survived.

It is also advisable to draw off the fluid from both sides at the same time, so there may be no pressure upon the delicate divisions of the chest, and upon the important vessels within them. But happily the fluid is, in the first instance, generally confined to one side only.

Always pull a piece of skin either backward or forward, before the incision is made through the integument. The reason for doing this is, because, when the trocar is removed, the skin may resume its proper place, and act as a valve, keeping out the atmosphere from the cavity; for external air, getting into the interior of the chest, is proved to be most injurious to life.

There is to be tendered but one last admonition even this has been in a great measure anticipated by the previous observations. The animal must not be left during the operation. Whatever time may be consumed by the withdrawal of the liquid, the operator must remain a patient spectator of the slow abstraction; for if the horse should be left, syncope may come on during such absence, and the animal, on the person's return, be found prostrate upon the ground. On the first sign of weakness, the cannula should be at once removed; for, should it be suffered to remain, regardless of this caution, the horse may even die through sudden collapse.

The treatment, after the withdrawal of the fluid, is entirely changed; pleurisy has now departed, and weakness is left behind. The most nourishing but carefully-prepared food must be given; boiled oats and beans may be allowed in any quantity which the animal will consume, while the following ball should be administered, night and morning:—

That which will denote a fatal termination is restlessness; neighing; partial sweats; swellings under the region of the chest, and a distressed breathing, which nothing can relieve. The death struggle is as short as the disease has been painful.

DISEASE OF THE HEART.

This affection is characterized by various names in scientific books, as carditis, pericarditis, hydrops pericardii, inflammation of the pericardium, etc. All such conditions in the horse were discovered by examinations instituted after death, when, unfortunately, all opportunity of observing the symptoms had ceased. Veterinary science cannot distinguish one state from another, while life exists. Probably this deficiency may be attributed to the inutility of such discrimination. Disease of the heart in horses is incurable. In man, who can strictly conform to his physician's orders; avoid excitement; abstain from exertion; eat only such a quantity of such a food, prepared after such a manner; feed at such an hour and rest at such a time; who can live by rule;—in man, the diseases of the heart are only to be delayed, not driven from their certain issues.

Practically, therefore, so the heart be diseased, it is of small import what shape the disorder may assume. The death is always sudden; it is likely to occur when the horse is journeying at its topmost speed; when accident generally follows. Consequently, it is perhaps wiser to take the life, thus afflicted and thus dangerous. The horse may appear blooming, may even be skittish; yet, the existence shall at any moment be cut short. Auscultation affords the surest means of detection. Place the ear close to the left side and lower part of the chest; if any unusual sound be audible, conclude the heart to be diseased.

The signs visible, externally, are sometimes sufficiently emphatic to admit of no doubt. The eye is expressive of constant anguish; the countenance is haggard; the pulse is feeble and irregular, but the heart throbs; its throbs are visible, and frequently they are to be seen as plainly on the right side as on the left. The beat is occasionally so violent as to shake the body. The carotid artery can be felt to pulsate in the neck. The regurgitation, within the jugular vein, is nearly always excessive,—it often reaches almost to the jaw. It takes place by jerks, which ascend high and higher, each becoming less and more weak, as it mounts upward.

An attempt to represent this has been hazarded in the illustration. It is, however, impossible to truthfully depict action; and the reader will comprehend the jerks, in nature, do not occur all at the same period; but the first subsides before the second can be exhibited.

The appetite is sometimes ravenous; more often it is fastidious. The breathing is not accelerated, excepting during the existence of pain; lameness is occasionally witnessed in one fore leg; dropsical swellings and abdominal pains have been observed. The animal, when progressing, will suddenly stop, tremble, and appear about to fall; as suddenly, it will recover and proceed upon the journey. Noises, expressive of acute anguish, are, under the impulse of the moment, occasionally uttered. Sometimes the horse cannot be made to move, and it is always averse to turn in the stall. Often it is seen to yawn; but more frequently has been known to heave long and deep-drawn sighs. No ascertained sign, however, announces the climax of the disorder to be near at hand. Death is always unexpected, and, therefore, is a surprise.

The cause of heart disease is unknown. It may, however, be surmised from the fact that it is most common in gentlemen's stables, and is all but engrossed by the animals which have for years been subjected to the abuses therein practiced. It is incurable; and all physic is thrown away upon this disorder.

CHAPTER VII.

The noise is produced by spasm of the diaphragm. The horse must, as the word "overmarked" seems to imply, have been pushed far beyond the point where man should have pulled the rein. A little distance farther, after the symptom is developed, will bring the animal to the ground; let the check, therefore, be immediately given; the rider should dismount; the loins be covered with the gentleman's coat, if nothing better be at hand; he who has caused the misery is bound to make any sacrifice for its alleviation. The girths should be loosened, the bridle removed, and when time has passed for the system to become slightly tranquilized, the sufferer should be very gently led to the nearest shelter. So soon as it is under cover, the following drink should be administered, but time should be taken to give the medicine, as the condition of the horse forbids all haste:—

This should be repeated every quarter of an hour, till four drinks are swallowed; then the intervals should be lengthened to half an hour, and, as the symptom decreases, the medicine ought to be administered at still longer periods, and ultimately, but gradually, withdrawn.

There are, however, other things to be done. When the animal is first brought in, procure five quiet assistants; give a leg-bandage each to four of the helpers, and a sponge, with a basin of cold water, to the fifth. Order the men to perform their ministration silently; the four are to bandage the four legs while the fifth sponges out the mouth, nose, eyes, and anus; this done, the body is to be superficially cleaned. Sweat is to be removed and dirt taken off; the ears pulled, and the head made comfortable; the tail and mane having been previously combed, a hood and body clothing should be put on.

All this should be well understood beforehand; while it is being accomplished not a word should be spoken; nothing is more soothing to an agitated system than perfect silence. Wet swabs should then be placed upon the feet, a pail of gruel suspended from the manger, and a man left to warn off all noisy strangers from the exterior of the building; for during spasm from overexertion perfect quietude is quite as essential as medicine.

Spasm of the diaphragm, if taken in time, is not generally fatal; and no man, however determined a "Nimrod" he may be, is justified in proceeding after having recognized so mysterious a warning. The sound before alluded to must emphatically inform him all is not right with the animal on which he is seated. It is folly to urge that the horse enjoys the chase as much as the rider; no life would, for its own pleasure, run itself to a spasmodic exhaustion. Old hunters may have left the field to follow the hounds; the animals, however, obey only the impulse of education, and did what they imagined would gratify their superiors. The horse is given as a servant to man; the creature is obedient to its destiny; to serve is its lot, to please is its reward. Body and soul it devotes to the heartless being who is assigned its appointed lord; it will spend its last breath in the gratification of its master; such affection surely merits better treatment than the quadruped generally receives.

When spasm of the diaphragm terminates fatally, approaching dissolution is announced by easily recognized signs. The pulse cannot be felt at the jaw; the heart only flutters; the feet are icy cold; a yellow discharge drains from the nostrils; the breath becomes fetid; the pupil of the eye enlarges; the horse wanders round and round its box; it soon sinks and perishes.

ACUTE GASTRITIS.

This most painful affliction is only known in the horse as the consequence of some poisonous substance being swallowed. Poisoning entire teams of valuable horses has followed the use of certain powders, these being mixed with the corn; the intention was to improve the personal appearance of the animals to which the drug was administered. Carters have a large faith in condition powders, and a distant belief in the magic of medicine; in their ignorance, they spend their hard-earned wages to procure the stuff, too often compounded of agents which never should be trusted in the hands of the uneducated. The men argue, if these powders, say one spoonful given each night, will make the horse bloom in a fortnight, two spoonfuls must do the same thing in a week; the spoonful possibly contains the utmost limits of the dose; that quantity exceeded may endanger or destroy life. But ignorance is always impatient; it ever desires the speediest results; and if accident attends its eagerness, indignation should be visited upon those who put responsible trusts in such keeping; upon the men who for gain sell poisonous drugs to the obviously uninformed.

Books and charts are published, explaining the various antidotes and tests to be employed for the detection and counteraction of the different poisons. Such authorities are of little service in the stable; the tests require care and time for their application; the symptoms are mostly so urgent as to permit no leisure for scientific inquiry. In an acute case, dependence must be placed on general principles, and fortune must be relied on to guide the result.

Certain poisons act instantaneously and without any warning sufficiently energetic to be interpreted, as the twigs or leaves of the yew-tree.

Other agents immediately establish the lesson which sometimes speedily kills, but more often produces consequences which will ultimately destroy life, though death may be some time before it occurs, as the mineral acids, etc.

The presence of particular kinds is announced only by violent disorder, as powerful diuretics and potent purgatives.

The symptoms, therefore, are not decided; the carter has his motives for silence, and the inability of the horse to vomit forbids the earliest announcement of deranged stomach. The time for antidotes has generally passed before attention is excited; to support the life, in the hope that it may survive the destroyer, is evidently the best thing which can, under such circumstance, be adopted. Chloroform, ether, and opium render the body insensible, and, by sparing the nervous system, certainly existence will be prolonged. Purgatives had better be withheld they may already have been administered in enormous doses; fearful amounts of aloes destroy life without purgation being exhibited.

Against alkalies there does not exist the same objection; carbonate of magnesia, carbonate of soda or of potash may, in quantity, be mixed with gruel and horned down; both opium and ether may be blended with the drink. Should the pulse be low, a drachm of carbonate of ammonia may be added to each dose of the other ingredients. Should corrosive sublimate be in any degree suspected to be the agent employed, mix one dozen eggs with the other components; these will in no way detract from the operation of the drench.

The mixture should be given in as large quantities as the animal can be induced to swallow. The gruel should be quite cold, and one quart should constitute a dose. No bleeding should be permitted the abstraction of blood promotes absorption; to prevent the absorption of the poison is the present endeavor. The following draught contains all that can be recommended, so long as ignorance of the actual poison it is desired to counteract, exists. When the information is positive, of course Morton's Toxological Chart will be a far better guide than any observations the author has ability to offer.

To these may be added, should the pulse be of a sinking character:—

Carbonate of ammonia  One drachm.

If corrosive sublimate is known to have caused the agony, one dozen raw eggs ought to be blended with the drench.

Use discretion in the administration; but repeat the drinks as often and as quickly as can be accomplished without adding to the distress of the horse. Regard the state of the animal, and, if weakness be present, take time when giving the drench. Should delirium be displayed, do not trust to the natural functions; employ Read's pump, with the horse catheter attached, and inject, with all dispatch, the whole quantity at once through the nostril.

The symptoms of poisoning are various; they are also modified by the strength upon which they act. The annexed list, however, contains the general appearances by which poisoning is announced, though the whole of the symptoms are never simultaneously exhibited: Loathing of all food; extreme thirst; redness of the nasal and conjunctival membranes; discharge of ropy saliva; frequent eructations, which smell pungently fetid; colic, rolling on the ground, pawing, striking at the abdomen, etc.; tucked-up flanks; heaving; panting; small, quick pulse; superpurgation; violent straining; passing of mucus in large quantities; protrusion and inflammation of the opening; glances at the abdomen; prostration of strength; convulsions; madness and death.

And now, whence is derived the source of this evil? It springs from the ignorance of the age. Is it not, at the present day, a common saying, that "intelligence goes begging, while handicraft finds employment?" Goodness, education, and industry cannot, at this time, insure the bread which will support existence. The cunning and the knowingness of the uninformed is much preferred. There is no mystery in the groom's office which might not be acquired in a week. The horse would fare better and be more safe in the custody of a person who possibly might sympathize with its solitude and appreciate its disposition. A higher class of servants would involve a higher rate of wages. But these might be paid, and notwithstanding, the horse proprietor be, in the long run, an evident gainer. To put the wounds inflicted on the sensibility of a feeling man out of the question, it is a heavy misfortune to look upon three or four valuable horses stretched out in death. Add to this, there are other accidents that ignorance, without malice, commits, and all of which must be paid for by the master. Then there are the petty frauds and understandings in which cunning delights, and all of which are indulged at the master's cost. On the other hand, there is the certainty, or all but certainty, that intelligence would perform its duty. The horses would thrive better and last longer when confided to proper custody. The losses, attendant upon ignorance, would be avoided,—not to mention the ease of mind secured by confidence in the probity of the person to whom authority is intrusted. What a mockery it is, to cry up education and then to shun the educated! A stimulus would be given to the ignorant, when it is recognized that the informed will be alone engaged to fill offices of trust.

CHRONIC GASTRITIS.

This affection is more general than is commonly understood. The horse being unable to vomit, of course the first positive proof of disordered stomach cannot be exhibited. Thus, little attention is generally paid to its digestion, when primarily diseased.

Chronic gastritis is usually said to be provoked by rearing upon sour or soft land; but well-bred animals are very often subject to the malady. The ailment is frequently first displayed at the period when the services are esteemed most valuable, or between the fifth and sixth years, long after the mode of rearing must have ceased to operate. The symptoms are various, and hardly ever alike. The stomach may affect the nervous symptom; then, its complications become difficult to disentangle. The affection is mostly declared by an irregularity of bowels and a capriciousness of appetite. The animal starts off violently purging. The looseness stops as suddenly as it commenced. Obstinate costiveness then sets in, and each state can be traced to no obvious reason. The straw or litter may be eaten ravenously, but all the wholesome provender obstinately refused. The dung shows the condition of the appropriating functions; it crumbles upon the slightest force being imposed; it appears to consist of fibers not agglutinated together. Sometimes it is coated with mucus, and always smells abhorrently. A dry cough may be present; the visible membranes are pallid; the mouth feels cool; the breath is tainted; the eyes are sunken; the respiration is catching; the belly is pendulous; the anus is lax and prominent; the coat dry and ragged; while the body quickly becomes emaciated.

The slightest exertion produces a thick and copious sweat. The symptom, however, which is most remarkable, when the cleanly habits natural to the animal are considered, is the peculiarity of the appetite. The rack and manger are generally neglected; but every unnatural or offensive substance, within reach of the extended jaws, is devoured with avidity. Woodwork has largely disappeared. Soil and stones have been removed from the stomachs of creatures destroyed for incurable disease. Either of the substances last named, however, are usually spared, so long as a morsel of plaster, a portion of mortar or of brick, is within reach. Animals, when in the field, will leave the grass and enter any ditch to gnaw at bricks and mortar. When confined, they will, under the morbid influence of this affection, employ themselves for hours searching for a morsel of either among the straw.

The old custom of purging and bleeding for a case of this kind is positively injurious. It is better to administer bitters, alkalies, and sedatives;—the first, to amend the appetite; the second, to correct the acidity of the morbid secretion; the third, to destroy the uneasy sensation which provokes too many of the symptoms.

Or,

One of the above balls may be given daily. When their benefits seem exhausted, give, instead of a ball, half an ounce each of liquor arsenicalis, the same of tincture of ipecacuanha, with one ounce of muriated tincture of iron and of laudanum, in a pint of water. Also, damp the food and sprinkle magnesia freely upon it. Then, as the strength improves, introduce sulphuric ether, one ounce; water, one pint, daily and ultimately change this last for a quart of good ale or stout.

Before concluding, there remains to point out the cause of this lamentable affection. Ignorance views each part of the body as distinct; it cannot see the various components are connected, and, in the mass, constitute one whole. Thus, medicine appears to the uninformed as thrown away, when internally administered for a skin disease. So it may to such persons appear strange how the air inhaled can disorder the digestion! To those better informed, however, it will only seem a natural consequence that impure atmosphere, inspired day and night, should impair the body's health. It will, with such people, be recognized as likely that the disorder should break forth when the frame is on the eve of being matured. The cause of indigestion is close and unhealthy stables. What loss will instruct mankind, that they cannot enslave life and treat it according to their convenience? Life has its natural rights: these cannot be disregarded—the requirements of breathing creatures must be fulfilled. The ability of the enslaver to use according to his pleasure, must not be selfishly regarded; else nature is outraged, and in its deprivation, pride learns the impossibility of forcing all things to conform with its inclinations.

BOTS.

No animal which has not been turned out to graze during the summer months can possibly be troubled with these parasites. Such annoyances form no light argument against the benefits accomplished by that which is in slang phrase termed "Dr. Green." The appearance of the coat and aspect of unthriftiness, after a run at grass, generally declare bots to be present within the body.

Uninformed persons are always desirous to possess some medicine which will destroy bots; they wonder that science lacks invention sufficient to compound such an agent. An anecdote may probably dispel such astonishment.

A patron of the Royal Veterinary College was once conducted by a pupil through the museum belonging to that establishment; the pair at last stood before the preparation of a horse's stomach, eaten through by, and also covered with, bots.

"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the visitor, after the nature of the specimen had been explained. "What a spectacle! What a myriad of tormentors! And have you no medicine to remove such nuisances? Can veterinary science discover nothing capable of destroying those parasites?"

"Why, sir," replied the student, "only look at that preparation. To my knowledge, it has been put up in spirits of wine, and corked air tight for two years. The creatures must be either very dead or very drunk by this time; yet, as you witness, they hold on. What sort of physic could accomplish more than is already effected by the spirits of wine and close confinement? I am at a loss to conjecture!"

For the above, the author is indebted to the admirable lectures delivered by Professor Spooner; but the conclusion drawn by the student must be more than satisfactory. Bots, once within the stomach, must remain there till the following year, when, being matured, their hold of the lining membrane of the viscus will relax, and, in the form of a chrysalis, they are ejected from the system. No medicine can expedite the transformation. It has hitherto appeared easier to kill the horse than to remove the parasite.

To the investigation of Bracy Clark, Esq., V. S., the public owe all their knowledge of the fly whence the bot is derived. The common parent, according to the above authority, is the œstrus equi; and the author gladly avails himself of the original description by the above-named talented gentleman.

"ON THE ŒSTRUS EQUI, OR THE STOMACH BOT.

"When the female has been impregnated, and the eggs sufficiently matured, she seeks among the horses a subject for her purpose, and approaching him on the wing, she carries her body nearly upright in the air, and her tail, which is lengthened for the purpose, curved inward and upward: in this way she approaches the part where she designs to deposit the egg and, suspending herself for a few seconds before it, suddenly darts upon it, and leaves the egg adhering to the hair: she hardly appears to settle, but merely touches the hair with the egg held out on the projected point of the abdomen. The egg is made to adhere by means of a glutinous liquor secreted with it. She then leaves the horse at a small distance, and prepares a second egg, and, poising herself before the part, deposits it in the same way. The liquor dries, and the egg becomes firmly glued to the hair: this is repeated by these flies till four or five hundred eggs are sometimes placed on one horse.

"The skin of the horse is usually thrown into a tremulous motion on the touch of this insect, which merely arises from the very great irritability of the skin and cutaneous muscles at this season of the year, occasioned by the heat and continual teasing of the flies, till at length these muscles appear to act involuntarily on the slightest touch of any body whatever.

"The inside of the knee is the part on which these flies are most fond of depositing their eggs, and next to this on the side and back part of the shoulder, and less frequently on the extreme ends of the hairs of the mane. But it is a fact worthy of attention, that the fly does not place them promiscuously about the body, but constantly on those parts which are most liable to be licked with the tongue; and the ova, therefore, are always scrupulously placed within its reach.

"The eggs thus deposited I at first supposed were loosened from the hairs by the moisture of the tongue, aided by its roughness, and were conveyed to the stomach, where they were hatched: but on more minute search I do not find this to be the case, or at least only by accident; for when they have remained on the hairs four or five days, they become ripe, after which time the slightest application of warmth and moisture is sufficient to bring forth in an instant the latent larva. At this time, if the tongue of the horse touches the egg, its operculum is thrown open, and a small active worm is produced, which readily adheres to the moist surface of the tongue, and is from thence conveyed with the food to the stomach.

"At its first hatching is is, as we have observed, a small active worm, long in proportion to its thickness, but as its growth advances, it becomes proportionably thicker and broader, and beset with bristles.

"They are very frequent in horses that have been at grass, and are in general found adhering to the white insensible tissue or coat of the stomach.

"They usually hang in dense clusters to this white cuticular lining of the stomach, and maintain their hold by means of two dark-brown hooks, between which a longitudinal slit or fissure is seen, which is the mouth of the larva. When removed from the stomach by the fingers by a sudden jerk, so as not to injure them, they will, if fresh and healthy, attach themselves to any loose membrane, and even to the skin of the hand. For this purpose they sheath or draw back the hooks almost entirely within the skin, till the two points come close to each other they then present them to the membrane, and keeping them parallel till it is pierced through, they expand them in a lateral direction, and afterward, by bringing the points downward toward themselves, they include a sufficient piece of the membrane, to remain firmly fixed for any length of time as at anchor, without requiring any further exertion.

"These bots, as is also the case with two or three other species, pass the autumn, winter, and spring months in the stomach, and arrive about the commencement or middle of the summer at their full growth, requiring a twelvemonth fully to complete their structure."

"ON THE ŒSTRUS HEMORRHOIDALIS, OR FUNDAMENT BOT.

"The part chosen by this insect for this purpose is the lips of the horse, which is very distressing to the animal from the excessive titillation it occasions; for he immediately after rubs his mouth against the ground, his fore legs, or sometimes against a tree, with great emotion; till the animal at length finding this mode of defense insufficient, enraged he quits the spot, and endeavors to avoid it by galloping away to a distant part of the field; and if the fly still continues to follow and tease him, his last resource is in the water, where the œstrus never is observed to pursue him. These flies appear sometimes to hide themselves in the grass; and as the horse stoops to graze, they dart on the mouth or lips, and are always observed to poise themselves during a few seconds in the air, while the egg is preparing on the extended point of the abdomen.