At the same time cleanse the quarters, plait up the tail, and throw up copious injections of cold linseed tea. Expect the horse to become greatly prostrated when amendment commences. The entire of the irritating agent must be expelled from the body before improvement can be witnessed. The subsequent recovery is announced by a pause in the symptoms; the disease appears to be stationary, whereas previously everything denoted a hastening termination.

That pause is one of suspense, for no one can say what will follow; sometimes the cessation of agony precedes immediate dissolution; sometimes recovery dates from that event. The animal, upon the slightest change being exhibited, must still be assiduously attended. Care must never cease; and, after recovery is confirmed, the food for a week must consist of linseed tea, hay tea, and gruel. On the expiration of the week, a few boiled roots may be added, three of the drinks previously ordered being administered every day. Do not bother about the bowels; no matter, should the animal be constipated for a fortnight subsequent to the thorough emptying of acute dysentery. Upon the termination of a fortnight, stop all medicine, and allow some crushed, scalded oats and beans; withdraw some of the slops as the solids advance; but let a full month expire before a drop of cold water or a mouthful of hay are permitted to be swallowed.

To escape the loss of so large a piece of property as a living horse, it is imperative the notion should be abandoned which asserts that because the horse can swallow most opening medicines with impunity, a strong purgative cannot otherwise than benefit the animal; the deduction is not fairly drawn. But not to follow up too closely so lame a prey: aloes is the general purgative in the stable; it is a drug which should never be intrusted to the hands of the groom. The difference between the necessary and the poisonous dose is too close for the uneducated to comprehend it; more horses have been slaughtered with aloes than have perished from all the other poisons conjoined. Yet grooms are particularly fond of this medicine; the dangerous drug enters into every ball which is popular in the stable; no matter how opposite the end desired may be, in the groom's opinion aloes must produce it. Like the majority of the uneducated, the stable-man rejoices in a strong purge. Tenesmus is his delight; he loves to see sixteen or eighteen full motions, and then he cannot comprehend why the horse is weak, since the physic passed beautifully through him!

Of all persons living, grooms generally are the most prejudiced and the worst informed. All advice is disregarded; should the master speak, the groom shakes his head, and, after the lecture is ended, inquires of himself, "what the old buffer can know about it?" Here is the curse of horses! Gentlemen transfer them to the custody of the uneducated. The groom is accepted as an authority; the master asks for and is mostly governed by the opinion of an inferior. No other servant possesses such a power; no domestic more abuses his position; the carriage and the harness maker, the corn merchant, and the veterinary surgeon all pay this person five per cent. upon the employer's bills; nothing comes on to the premises but the man claims a profit from it; nothing leaves the stable but is regarded as his perquisite. He thus, while occupying a situation of trust, has an absolute interest in the extravagance of the expenditure. Wear and tear of the articles over which he watches brings to him actual emolument; his interest and his duty are at war, and when a weak person has to decide the battle, it is easy to understand on which part the victory will be declared.

CHRONIC DYSENTERY.

This affliction is not so common among horses as it is with cattle; neither is it so frequent at the present day as it appears to have formerly been. Once it was termed "molten grease," from an unfounded notion that liquid fat was discharged with the feces. Now it is known that what our ancestors took for grease is no more than the mucus, which is expelled during every form of severe intestinal irritation.

The cause of chronic dysentery among horses is not well understood. It is said to follow diarrhœa; but such an explanation seems to confound the commencement of one disorder with the establishment of another disease. Horses having chronic dysentery are, generally, old animals, which are subject to the will of a very poor or a very penurious man. They are badly kept, and may have to grub a scanty living from lanes and hedgerows; also, they are goaded to hard work upon watery food and sour grass. In such cases, disturbance of the bowels should be early attended to. The food should be immediately changed. Good sound oats and beans should be freely given, while the following drink is administered thrice daily:—

Should the primary symptom not be attended to, profuse purgation may ensue without excitement; but always will happen upon any exertion or the drinking of cold water. Violent straining often follows; the belly enlarges; the flesh wastes; the bones protrude; the skin is hide-bound; the visible mucous membranes become pallid; weakness increases; perspiration often bursts forth without occasion; the horse will stand still for hours, not grazing, nor seemingly being conscious that grass was within its reach.

At length a living skeleton alone remains of that which was a horse. The eyes have a sleepy, sad, and pathetic expression; the head is often turned slowly toward the flanks; the sight remains fixed for some moments upon the seat of pain; the horse stands on one spot, or only changes it when the bowels are about to act; colic at length sets in, though frequently it is present earlier; and the wretched quadruped then fades speedily away.

It is a general practice to turn animals suffering from chronic dysentery upon some village common. The horse is put there with scanty food and no shelter, under a plea of humanity, or "to give the old 'oss a last chance." There can be no feeling in placing a diseased animal far away from sight or help, where it must pine, shiver, and starve, in a dreary solitude.

Supposing the affected life to be claimed by a generous master, either of the following drinks may be given, thrice daily:—

The above drinks may be changed, as either appears to have ceased to operate. The food should be of the best and lightest description. Boiled roots, boiled linseed, boiled rice, crushed and boiled malt, etc. etc.; no hay. The body should be frequently dressed, and always clothed. A good bed ought to be allowed. The lodging must be well drained and roomy.

Yet, after all this trouble, a speedy cure is not to be expected; and rarely does an old horse, should it recover, prove highly useful. How sad, however, is that condition where the continuance of the life is made conditional upon the service of the body—where interest is the only motive which permits existence! No sympathy to be anticipated in suffering; no pity in disease! The only feeling that actuates the custodian is a cold regard for the gain which the jaded being can yet bring him. A life of usefulness, years of toil, injuries sustained and accidents surmounted,—all cannot win a day's respite from the doom which attends the creature whose exertions in man's service have led to the disablement of its powers. Such, however, is the fate of the horse in England, which land specially boasts it is a "Christian country."

Chronic dysentery is the inheritance which the horse earns from being subjected to the dominion of man. Excessive labor, filthy lodging, and innutritious diet are the causes. Each of these causes increases as the age advances.

Prior to its domestication, the horse might not have found on every spot an abundance of excellent fodder; but then it was at liberty to seek a better fare in another place. Man has taken away all power of choice; he forces the creature to toil, and obliges it to eat only that which parsimony may afford to place before it. When so vast and so absolute a power is claimed, it becomes a positive duty to see the mere animal necessities are satisfied: it is cruel folly to tax the powers and to stint the body. It is a crime to undertake a trust and then confide the fulfillment of its responsibility to an ignorant inferior. It is a sin to seize on life and to neglect the prisoner you hold in captivity. Where existence is claimed as a property, and animation is forced to wear out being in labor for the master's profit, surely the least obligation the superior could own should be the provision of ample lodging and fitting sustenance! Both are withheld from the aged horse.

ACITES, OR DROPSY OF THE ABDOMEN.

In the horse, acute peritonitis is unknown, save as the result of operation; then its fury takes possession of the cavity and generally refuses to yield to medicine. It is different, however, with chronic peritonitis, which, though not a common disorder, is too often encountered to be esteemed a rare disease. It is, when early noticed, tractable; but the earlier symptoms are generally not understood. The first sign is a ragged coat and a tender state of the abdomen; the horse, which was passive previously, now shrinks from the curry-comb; snaps and kicks at him who dresses it. Such actions are viewed as denoting a return of spirit. Intending to encourage the favorite quality of the stable, the flank is violently struck or slapped by the servant; and the indication forced from a dumb animal by agony, is by grooms regarded as the proof of reviving animation.

Masters should, in justice to themselves if from no higher motive, visit the stable more frequently than is their custom. The horse is all gentleness and simplicity; a groom only knows less about the animal than a child, for he has acquired notions which induce him to misinterpret plain actions. Every owner of a stable should learn to feel and count the horse's pulse; he should be acquainted with the normal standard and its healthy character; chronic peritonitis might then early be discovered. The pulse under this disease is hard and small, it vibrates about sixty times in a minute. The head is pendulous; the food is oftener spoiled, rather scattered about than eaten; the membranes are pale and the mouth is dry; pressure upon the abdomen elicits a groan, and turning in the stall always calls forth a grunt.

When such symptoms are observed, the food should be small in bulk, but nutritious in quality; no work should be imposed; the medicine should be tonic and alterative.

Small blisters should succeed each other upon the abdomen; but as these cases are always tedious and very much depends upon the constitution of the animal, charity alone should propose such a disease for treatment, as the general termination of the malady is incurable dropsy of the abdomen.

Acites offers a good illustration of the loss inhumanity brings down upon man, and of the gain which would attend a loftier conduct. Chronic peritonitis attacks aged animals; such horses are used only for harness purposes. Few masters inquire what propels the carriage, so the vehicle gets over the ground. The affected quadruped cannot drag its own body; thus more than double duty is cast upon the sound steed. The single horse has not only to draw the entire carriage and its load, but it also has to pull along its disabled companion. Servants frequently hide defects, hoping that time will remedy them, or dreading the reception proverbially given to the bearer of bad tidings; thus the sound horse ultimately fails, while the sick animal is rendered worse by violent exercise.

However, with the honesty which seems to prevail in and around the stable, the diseased horse is often sent to the nearest market. The proprietor, under some strange quibble of conscience, sells to another that which he is convinced is worthless. A rich master vends and a poor man buys; the cheatery of such a bargain is obvious, but to such results always tend a violated contract. The natural contract between man and horse is outraged; a conditional gift is construed to imply an unconditional bestowal. The terms are warped according to the convenience of the receiver; the possibility of any obligation being implied is never suspected. A few, and very few good people, from feeling only fulfill the conditions of the bond; but kindness, when bestowed upon the horse, is regarded as a weakness and a gratuity. From the highest to the lowest, none think that all of animated creatures are born with rights; no one behaves as though domesticated animals were only intrusted to the care of man. Violation of moral conditions begins the evil, which ends in cheatery and robbery of one another.

The symptoms which announce that the serous membrane has effused water into the abdomen are a want of spirit; constant lying down and remaining in one position for a long period; perpetual restlessness; thirst; loss of appetite; thinness; weakness; enlarged abdomen; constipation and hide-bound.

The enlargement of the belly has something peculiar in it; the swelling lies toward the inferior portion of the abdomen. Near the loins there is apparently an empty space; if the hand be placed on the enlargement, and another person strikes the belly on the opposite side, a sense of fluctuation can be distinctly felt. If the horse be thrown upon its back, the swelling will, with the change of position, gravitate toward the loins. At length small bags containing fluid depend from the chest and the inferior surface of the belly. Should the disease be suffered to progress, the sheath and one leg generally enlarge; the hair of the mane breaks off and is easily pulled out. Where once hung the tail now remains little more than the dock with a few scattered hairs. Ultimately purgation starts up, which terminates the suffering.

Of course, after effusion, all treatment is powerless—creatures in the last stage of dropsy presenting sights which the mind shudders to contemplate; objects of this kind are sometimes to be seen on commons in the neighborhood of London. They are turned out to die miserably under the plea of humanity; the utmost limit of cruelty is justified or made pleasant by a pretense to sympathy. The poor horse literally starves; were there food to eat, the remaining strength would not serve to collect it. Still the proprietor is so very humane he cannot endure to destroy the property he has paid for; the poor animal is therefore thrust forth to cheaply live, or to die without trouble to its owner.

INFLUENZA.

This affection may rage throughout the kingdom, or it may be located upon a very circumscribed spot. In a disorder so eccentric, it is very difficult to decide the question whether or not it is contagious; it commonly runs through the stable in which it appears; but it does not invariably attack every animal within the building. It may, in a large edifice, first seize the horse nearest the door, then travel to the stall farthest from the entrance; thus it skips about without regularity, and often spares many individuals.

Occasionally influenza fixes upon an animal when in the field; but it is a more probable visitant of the stable: this is a seeming proof that the contagion does not reside in the air, since the atmosphere is as much as possible excluded from every mews. We may conjecture it is not dependent upon any vapor exuding from the earth, since the creatures whose noses are nearly always in contact with the herbage are, of all others, least liable to the affection.

It is terrible to contemplate the suffering and loss of life which have been consequent upon the errors of mankind. Influenza is regarded as a new disease; a new name deceives the world, though it is more than probable that a disorder of a low, febrile, and typhoid character has prevailed among animals for many ages. Nature has, for thousands of years, been striving to enforce the self-evident truth that man is by moral obligation bound to provide for the welfare of the animal he enslaves. His gain or the inclination of his will can be no argument against the fulfillment of so plain a duty; the implied contract, the common parent of all living things, has been emphasizing with sickness and with death; all has been to no purpose. Cunning men have been employed, and nostrums have been invented to maintain misrule; wealth has been sacrificed and ruin endured, to uphold an unrighteous cause; but the voice of nature pleading for her children has not been understood.

Even at this day the old fault is to be met with on every hand; it is exhibited by the rich as well as by the poor, by the highly educated and by the very ignorant. In every place exist horses of fabulous excellence in the master's opinion, imprisoned within walls which exclude the vital air. The roof may not permit the animal's head to be raised, the sides may not allow the body to be turned; the fumes within the walls shall oppress the lungs and sting the eyes of the man who enters the building; yet within a circumscribed space, so foul and pestilential, the horse is doomed to exist. Then the animal's disease is heard of with surprise, and its death is lamented as a misfortune!

What cause is there for grief or for wonder, if impurity does generate disease and death? What need has man to ape the martyr, because influenza starts from the contamination which by human will has been created? The pest once originated sweeps onward, nor can mortal exclamation nor mortal sorrow check the course of the destroyer; all fall alike before the scourge. The filthy and the cleanly alike are stricken; yet neither masters nor legislators can draw wisdom from the visitation.

In influenza there is no difficulty in pointing to the structure affected; it would, however, be hard to allude to the part which was not involved. The weakness and stupidity which accompany the affection declare the brain and nervous system to be diseased. Local swellings show the cellular tissue to be deranged; heat and pain in the limbs and joints announce the serous, the ligamentous, and osseous structures implicated. The muscular and digestive functions are acutely disordered; the rapid wasting of the flesh demonstrate the absorbents are excited. There is no portion of the body which can escape the ravage of influenza.

Youth, or rather the approach of adultism, is the favorite season of the attack, which is most prevalent during the spring time of the year. There is, however, no period or any age which are altogether exempt from its influence.

All kinds of treatment have been experimented with. Bleeding, purging, blistering, setoning have all been tried, and each has destroyed more lives than the whole can boast of having saved; experience has by slow degrees shown the inutility of active treatment. Bold measures, as those plans are termed which add to another's suffering, commonly end in hydrothorax or water on the chest.

It is difficult to determine when the first symptom of influenza is present. The author is indebted to the acuteness of Mr. T. W. Gowing, V. S., of Camden Town, for a knowledge of a marked indication declarative of the presence of influenza. A yellowness of the mucous membranes, best shown on the conjunctiva or white of the eye, is very characteristic. Whenever the sign is seen and sudden weakness remarked, caution should be practiced, for it is ten to one that the pestilence is approaching. Influenza is a very simulative disorder; it has appeared as laminitis; disease of the lungs is, perhaps, its favorite type. Bowel complaints are apt to imitate each other; blowing generally commences such disorders. But when influenza is prevalent, let the body's strength and the yellowness or redness of the membranes be always looked to before any more prominent indication is particularly observed.

The other symptoms—which, however, are very uncertain, as regards any of them being present or absent—are pendulous head, short breath, inflamed membranes, swollen lips, dry mouth, enlarged eyelids, copious tears, sore throat, tucked up flanks, compressed tail, filled legs, big joints, lameness and hot feet. Auscultation may detect a grating sound at the chest, or a noise like brickbats falling down stairs at the windpipe; whenever this last peculiarity is audible there is a copious nasal discharge. Sometimes one foot is acutely painful, and, notwithstanding the weakness, the leg is held in the air. Purgation has been witnessed, although constipation usually prevails, and the animal generally stands during the continuance of the disorder.

Move the horse slowly to a well-littered, loose box; mind the door does not open to the north or to the east. No food will be eaten; but suspend a pail of well-made gruel within easy reach of the animal's head. Let the gruel be changed or the receptacle replenished at stated periods, thrice daily; sprinkle one scruple of calomel upon the tongue and wash it down with a drink composed of sulphuric either, one ounce; laudanum, one ounce; water, half a pint; do this night and morning. Should the weakness be excessive, double the quantity of ether and of laudanum contained in the draughts. Watch the pulse—it always is feeble, but at first has a wiry feeling. So soon as the character of the pulse changes or the wiry sensation departs, which generally happens when the nasal discharge becomes copious and cough appears, one pot of stout may be allowed, and some nourishing food, as bread, on which a very little salt has been sprinkled, may be offered by hand. The horse feels man to be its master and appreciates any attention bestowed upon it in the hour of sickness. It will stand still to be caressed, and advance its hanging ears to catch the accents of sympathy.

Beware of what is termed active treatment; a purgative is death during influenza. It generally will induce the prostration from which the animal never recovers. Formerly it was common to see four strong men propping up a horse during its endeavor to walk. But the lower class are fond of joking one with another. Such was the usual result of their employment on these occasions. In the fun the horse got but partial support, while the noise distressed the diseased sensibilities. Horses have large sympathies, and readily comprehend the attentions dictated by kindness. The disregard which people too often display toward sickness in an animal acutely pains the creature: its effects may be told by the altered character of the pulse. Whereas the voice, when softened by pity, often causes the heavy head to be turned toward the speaker; and the muzzle of a diseased inmate of the stable has frequently reposed long upon the chest of the writer.

ABDOMINAL INJURIES.

These are of various kinds. They differ materially, but they all provoke inflammation of the vast serous membranes lining the abdominal cavity; and their symptoms are therefore too nearly alike to be distinguished from each other. A mere list of such perils must astonish the reader; and his pity will be excited when he learns that such accidents, numerous as they are, generate the most violent agony. These injuries consist of ruptured diaphragm, ruptured stomach, ruptured spleen, ruptured intestines, strangulation, intro-susception, impactment, and calculus.

Ruptured diaphragm is attended with a soft cough, and symptoms of broken wind—occasioned by the almost sole employment of the abdominal muscles—with sitting on the haunches. Still, Professor Spooner, of the Royal Veterinary College, mentioned in his lectures that an animal belonging to the Zoological Society lived two years with a ruptured diaphragm, through which the bowel protruded into the thorax. In the horse such a lesion is speedily fatal.

A position so unnatural as that of sitting on the haunches may denote something very wrong to be present; but it gives no definite direction to our ideas. Animals are known to have assumed it, and subsequently to have recovered. The diaphragm when it yields generally gives way upon the tendinous portion. Through the opening the peristaltic action soon causes the bowels to obtrude; and death is produced by displacement and strangulation of the intestine. The posture previously delineated is common to all injuries of the abdomen; so is the opposite peculiarity—or the horse remaining upon its chest. The last attitude may not, to most persons, appear so strange, seeing that the creature assumes it whenever it rises or lies down. Then, however, it is only momentary. When it denotes abdominal injury, it is comparatively of long continuance. At the same time the breathing and the countenance bespeak the greatest internal anguish.

Ruptured spleen is the gentlest death of all those which spring from abdominal injury. The spleen is at present a mystery to veterinary science. It has been discovered after death of enormous size; but the symptoms during life had not led to the expectation of any very serious disorder. Ruptured spleen and ruptured liver are both productive of similar symptoms; both answer to the same tests, and the termination of each is alike.

Ruptured stomach mostly happens with old and enfeebled horses. Night cab-horses are very liable to it; so also are animals of heavy draught. The drivers often neglect to take out the nose-bags. The horse's most urgent necessities always yield to man's passing convenience; so the creature has to journey far or to remain out till the empty stomach grows debilitated. It is then taken home and placed before abundance. Elsewhere this folly has been commented upon. It was shown that light food and perfect rest were the best restoratives for an exhausted frame. The drivers, however, refuse to be taught. The horse eats and eats. No contraction of the exhausted stomach warns the animal when to stop. The viscus is crammed. Then digestion endeavors to commence. With rest the organ recovers some tone. The muscular coat of the sac starts into action, and, encountering opposition, the vital powers exert themselves with the greater energy. The stomach is thus burst by its own inherent force; the largest division of its various structures always being exhibited by the elastic peritoneal covering—the lesser rent being left upon the inelastic mucous lining membrane. Excessive colic, followed by tympanitis, are the only general symptoms which attend ruptured stomach. The history of the case, if it can be obtained, is, however, a better guide; but there are too often interested motives for distorting the facts. Vomition through the nostrils has been thought to particularize ruptured stomach; but experience has ascertained that vomition may be induced by any lesion which is sufficiently great to cause revulsion of the system.

Intro-susception is always preceded by colic. The last-named affection causes portions of the bowels to contract. Such contracted intestines become small, firm, and stiff. They are, while in that condition, by the peristaltic action readily pushed up other portions of the canal, which are of the natural size. The entrance of the contracted bowel acts upon the healthy tube as if it were a foreign substance. Contractibility is excited. The displaced and intruding bowel is grasped as by a vice, and the accident is of that kind which provokes its own continuance. Cure is hopeless, while consciousness remains; the only hope is the administration of chloroform in full and long-continued doses; thereby to arrest vitality and chance the release of the imprisoned gut. While intro-susception lasts, all passage is effectually stopped. Inflammation soon commences, and the symptoms of outrageous colic are exhibited. However, such is not always the case. Mr. Woodger, veterinary surgeon of Bishop's Mews, Paddington, attended a case of this description, in which the symptoms present seemed to denote congestion of the lungs.

Invagination is here used to express the entrance of one entire division of the bowels within another. In this sense it is chiefly witnessed upon the large intestines; whereas intro-susception is mostly present upon the smaller bowels. The mesentery must be ruptured before such an accident can take place; but then the agony attendant upon the previous derangement is so powerful that it is impossible for the hugeness of this lesion to increase the violence of the torture; nor is there any sign by which so sad a catastrophe can be predicated.

Before strangulation can possibly occur, the mesentery must be sundered. It almost always happens to a portion of the small intestines. The bowel, freed from its support, soon involves itself with numerous complications; or the rent membrane may twine round a knuckle of the gut.

The above illustration, however, shows one of the simplest forms in which the accident can possibly take place; but no person, however acute, could distinguish between strangulation from rupture of the intestines. The last generally occurs upon the smaller bowels, and happens to the interspaces upon the superior portion of the tube, between the vessels which nourish the digestive canal. The ingesta, is consequently forced between the layers of the mesentery. The most intense anguish, inflammation, and death are the consequences.

Calculus or stone may be present, either in the stomach or in the canal. Those in the stomach are of small size; those within the intestines may attain the weight of more than twenty pounds. Those of the stomach are always smooth, as also may be those of the bowels. To the intestines, however, there are common three kinds of, or differently composed calculi: the triple phosphate or the earthy; one formed of the minute hairs which originally surrounded the kernel of the oat; and another composed of dung, held together by the mucous secretion of the bowel. Any of these calculi may, as the size increases, gradually stretch the intestine; thus forming a living sac within which the stone abides. While it remains there, the food passes over it and no injury is occasioned. But by any movement it is likely to be dislodged and thrown into the healthy channel: There it is firmly grasped with such force as to produce rupture of the intestine, and the hold is only relaxed after inflammation has ended in mortification and in death. The bowels, in truth, are impacted by calculus. The passage is stopped. However different the causes of abdominal injury may appear, they are each generally characterized by the severest possible abdominal pain. This symptom is often so violent that the agony conceals all other indications; or if any others can be exhibited, they are so partially shown and displayed for so very brief a space as not to permit of their being rightly interpreted.

It is very desirable that every one should witness a powerful horse in its agony. No stronger means could be found for enforcing such a lesson than the sufferings which spring from abdominal injuries. When this is proposed it is not intended the person should look on misery only so long as the spectacle stimulated his feelings; but that he should watch hour after hour and behold the afflicted life resigned under the pressure of mighty torment. Were such a sight once contemplated—were man fully conscious of how brimming with horrible expression every feature of the horse's frame can become—the thought of anguish wrenching life out of so huge a trunk would surely compel the better treatment of a gentle, inoffensive, and serviceable slave. Ruptured stomach a little forethought would prevent. The triple phosphate calculus is common among millers' horses, which are foully fed from the sweepings of the shop. But if man will oblige duty to bow before convenience, or make it secondary to expense, the misery he inflicts will surely in justice recoil upon himself.

Abdominal injuries are probably the sources of the greatest agony horse-flesh can endure. To account for the generality of such lesions, it is merely necessary to regard the places in which horses are housed and the manner in which they are fed. In the owner's estimation a horse seems to be a horse, in the same sense as a table is a table. Both objects are necessary to his comfort, to his pride, or to his profit. Neither have higher claims. Both are to be used and to be flung aside. The one is to be cleaned and repaired at the cheapest rate; the other is to be lodged and supported at the lowest cost. When either grow old in his service, each is equally to be discarded. The two things apparently rank in man's estimation as simple chattels subject to his will and made to please his fancy. That there is a huge life, a breathing sensibility attached to one of these articles; that it delights in its master's pleasure, and, if properly trained, it is capable of sharing its master's emotions, is so preposterous a sentimentality as to be "with scorn rejected."

Nobody speaks of the horse as a creature enjoying man's highest gift—as a living animal. Everybody talks about his or her constitution; but no one imagines the horse has a constitution which can be destroyed. All horses are expected to thrive equally. They are regarded as things to be used, and to be sold or packed away when not required. They are obliged to live by man's direction, and are expected to display the highest spirit whenever they are taken abroad. Should it be astonishing if the framework nature has so exquisitely balanced occasionally becomes deranged under man's barbarous and selfish sway? Is it cause for legitimate wonder if, under so coarse a rule, disease sometimes assumes strange forms, or attacks parts which are beyond the reach of human science?

WORMS.

Worms are of various kinds; but all, according to the notions of ignorance, announce their presence by particular symptoms. The parasites, when really present, can, however, cause no more than intestinal irritation, the continuance of which may give rise to several disorders. Chronic indigestion is by the groom always recognized as a "wormy condition."

The only certain proof of the existence of such annoyances is visible evidence. Upon suspicion, careful horse proprietors may administer certain medicine, because some physics only cool the body and cleanse the system. The generality of worm-powders are, however, too potent to be safe. Like all drugs sold as "certain cures," they are so powerful that they frequently do more than remove the disorder which they pretend to eradicate—for they also destroy the animals to which they are administered.

Having premised thus much, the author will now commence to describe the usual form of irritation to which worms of different kinds give rise.

The parasite especially inimical to colts is the tænia or tape-worm. It is mostly perpetuated by the farmer's prejudice, which procures foals from dams that are done up for work: which starves the mother till her produce runs by her side, and which attempts to rear young stock upon the sour grass of a public common. Both sire and dam should be in perfect health if a valuable colt is desired: neither can be too good. The mare should not, during gestation, be "turned out" to distend the abdomen with watery provender—to have the stomach and intestines filled with bots—to allow filth and excretions to accumulate upon the coat and to check the healthy functions of the skin. Gentle work, only sufficient to earn the stable-keep, will injure no animal. The mare will rather be benefited by moderate exercise, and by also having all the food and attention to which she has become habituated. But to expose a mare during the summer months, and to stint the animal during the winter season, can produce nothing which shall repay the expense of rearing. The little progeny before it sees the light is the inhabitant of an unhealthy home; after birth the mother's secretion is thin, poor, and watery. It neither satisfies the cravings of hunger nor can nourish a body into growth. Ill health in the young encourages parasites. The colt soon becomes the prey of the tænia.

The young when afflicted with the above parasite may not die, but they are reserved for a miserable and a useless life. The developments are checked. The foal grows up with a large head, low crest, tumefied abdomen, and long legs. If it be a male it cannot be operated upon before the fourth year; even then it is cast only because there is no hope of further improvement. The appetite during the long time of rearing is more than good; the ribs, nevertheless, are not covered with flesh; the dung is not well comminuted—it is friable and sometimes partially coated with slime; the anus projects—occasionally it is soiled by adherent strips of tenacious mucus, almost like to membrane; the coat is unhealthy; the breath fetid; the animal may rub its nose violently against a wall or remain straining it upward for a considerable time; the eye becomes unnaturally bright; the colt begins to pick and bite its body, often pulling off hair by the mouthful.

All this agony and the deprivation, of a life depends on the parsimony of man. Women know that the body during certain times requires extra nutriment. Thus delicate ladies in peculiar states are accustomed to take "hearty pulls" at porter or at stout. It is very general for physiologists to argue from animals up to man. Why should not the custom be reversed? Why should not veterinary science reason from the human being down to the horse, and thereby instruct the stolid in the necessary requirements of the mare during particular states? "Stint the dam and starve the foal" is certainly a true proverb.

Tænia is best destroyed by the spirits of turpentine in the following quantities:—

Procure one pound of quassia chips. Pour into these three quarts of boiling water. Strain the liquor. Cause the turpentine to blend, by means of yolks of eggs, with so much of the quassia infusion as may be necessary. Add one scruple of powdered camphor to the full drink, and give every morning before allowing any food.

This probably may kill the worms; but as every link of the tænia is a distinct animal of both sexes, and capable of producing itself, the eggs must be numerous. For the destruction of these, nourishing prepared food is essential, such as gruel, scalded oats, etc.; but little or no hay. At the same time a tonic will be of all service. Take