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. MEMCXtlAt lJiN*RY

* •mvtUSITY OF P«TtSBII«9H

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

arlincton

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lal Liibr

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in 2009 with funding from.

University of Pittsburgh Library System

http://www.archive.org/details/farmerslibraryan01mart

LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT.

•^m^

LONDON :

VIZETELLY BROTHERS AND CO. PRINTERS AND ENGRAVERS,

PKTERBOROUGU COURT, FLEET STREET.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

THE OX.

I.— VARIOUS SPECIES OF THE OX TRIBE

II.— VARIOUS SPECIES OP THE DOMESTICATED OX . . .
III.— STRUCTURE, SENSES, AND FOOD OF HORNED CATTLE .
IV.— BREEDS AND HABITS OF THE EUROPEAN OX . . .
v.— BREEDS AND VARIETIES OF THE ENGLISH HORNED CATTLE

VI.— MANAGEMENT OF HORNED CATTLE

VII,— CHEMICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOOD OF CATTLE
-VIII.— DISEASES OF CATTLE, AND THEIR TREATMENT

MEDICINES EMPLOYED IN THE TREATMENT OF CATTLE

PAfiE
1

19
30
46

88
106
118
177

THE HORSE.

I.— EARLY HISTORY OF THE HORSE 188

II.— FOREIGN BREEDS OF HORSES 198

III.— HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HORSE 2-U

IV.— DIFFERENT BREEDS OF ENGLISH HORSES 233

<^ v.— THE ZOOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE HORSE ... 262

VI.— THE SENSORIAL FUNCTION 264

O VII.— INJURIES AND DISEASES OF THE SKULl^THE BRAIN— THE

"*• EARS— AND THE EYES 283

** VIII.— ANATOMY AND DISEASES OF THE NOSE AND MOUTH . 307
^ IX.— AJ^ ATOMY AND DISEASES OF THE NECK AND NEIGHBOURING

^ PARTS 336

^ X.— THE CHEST 344

■O XL— CONTENTS OF THE CHEST 351

XII.— THE RESPIRATORY SYSTEM 364

XIIL— THE ABDOMEN AND ITS CONTENTS 389

XIV.— DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES 398

"^ XV.— BREEDING ; CASTRATION 411

^ XVI.— THE FORE LEGS 417

rs. XVII.— THE HIND LEGS 437

tfj XVIII.— THE FOOT 451

to XIX.— DISEASES OF THE FOOT 456

XX.— FRACTURES 473

9 XXL— ON SHOEING 483

XXII— SURGICAL OPERATIONS 492

XXIII.— VICES 499

XXIV.— GENERAL MANAGEMENT . 510

XXV.— THE SKIN AND ITS DISEASES 522

XXVL— ON SOUNDNESS, AND THE PURCHASE AND SALE OF HORSES 528

XXVII.— MEDICINES— THEIR NATURE AND USES 536

A TREATISE ON DRAUGHT 553

ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME L

THE OX.

COLOURED PLATES.

30.

Teeth, at Eight Months . . Page 32

Cliillingham Wild Cattle . Frontispiece.
Jungly Gau .... to face Page 5
Aurochs, or European Bison . . „ 8

31.
32.
33.
34.

,, at Eleven Months
,, at Fifteen Months

at Eighteen Months

at Two Years

32
33
33
32

35.

„ in Third Year

ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD.

36.

„ in Fourth Year

1 . Head of the Ox . . .

in Title.

37.

„ in Fifth Year

2. Teeth of the Ox . . . Page 1

38.

„ in Sixth Year

3. HeadofGyall

39.

„ in Tenth Year

4. Domestic Gayal

40.

Larynx of Horse

6. Wild Gayal, or Jungly Gau

41.

Larynx of Ox .

6. Head of As'l Gayal, Seloi, or Gour

42.

Long-horaed Bull

7. Homs of Gour

43.

Long-homed Ox

8. Horns of Amee

44.

Devonshire Bull

9. Aurochs ....

45.

Devonshire Ox

10. Homof Ulphus ...

Hereford Bull

H. Pusey Horn

47.

Hereford Ox

] 2. Skull of European Aurochs, Young
13. Ditto, Old

10
10

48.
49.

Sussex Ox
Pembroke Ox .

68
69

14. Bison Bull ....

50.

Glamorgan Ox

15. Skull of Young Female Bison .

51.

Kerry Cow

IG. Skull of Old American Bison

52.

Irish Ox

17. Musk Ox ....

53.

Argyll Ox

18. Cape Buffalo ....

54.

Ayrshire Cow .

19. Skull of Cape Buffalo

55.

Galloway Ox .

20. Skull of Fossil Aurochs .

56.

Norfolk Bull and Co-(

21. Bull of the Campagna of Eome .

57.

Suffolk Cow .

22. Large Zebu, or Brahmin Bull .

58.

Short-honi Bull

23. Dwarf Zebu ....

59.

Short-horn Cow

24. Skeleton of Cow

60.

Durham Ox

25. Hind and Fore Feet of Ox

61.

Aldemey Cow

26. Teeth, at Birth

62-

—65. Dutch Cow-house and Dairy —

27. ,, in Second Week

Elevation, Sections, and Plan

28. „ in Third Week

66.

Stomachs of the Ox

29. „ in Fourth Week .

67.

Intestinal Canal of th

e Os

145

THE HORSE.

1. Head of the Horse

2. Horses on the Frieze of the Temple

of Minerva

3. The Godolphin Arabian

4. Arab Mare and Foal'

5. Bay Arabian

6. Cossack Horse and Soldier

7. The Colonel

8. Flying Childers

9. Eclipse
10. Fleur-de-lis
H. The Hunter
19. The Hackney

13. The Coach Horse

14. The Suffolk Punch

15. The heavy black Horse .

16. The Shetland Poney .

17. The Skeleton of the Horse

18. Skeleton of the Head .

19. Section of the Head

20. Diagram of part of the Temporal

Bone

21. Lower part of the Head
29. Nerves of the Spine

23. Section of the Eye

24. Muscles of the Eye

25. Horse suffering from Tetanus

26. Nerves of the Leg

27. Vessels of the Nose

28. The muscles, nerves, and blood

vessels of the head and upper part
of the neck

29. The Palate .

30. The Glenoid Cavity m the Tiger

and the Horse .

31. Teeth, at Birth .
39. „ in Sixth Week

33. „ at Twelve Months

34. A Grinder, sawed across

35. Teeth, at Two Years .

36. ,, at Three Years .

37. „ in Fourth Yeai- .

38. ,, at Five Y''ears

39. „ at Six Years

40. ,, at Seven Years .

41. ,, at Eight Years .

42. Neck of a Horse .

43. The Chest .
. 44. The Stomach

45. The Termination of the Esophagus
40. Cut of the Bot .

47. The Intestines

48. The Ccecum .
49.' Entanglement of the Bowels
CO. A Straight and Curved Catheter
51

Title.

189
199
909
903
291
233
234
235
249
244
249
253
956
958
961
963
266
269

269
270
279

277
289
999
299
308

309
393

324
395
395
396
396
396
397
397
398
329
399
329
337
344
389
390
399
395
396
404
411

Section showing position of the Shoulder 418

53.
54.

55.
56.
57.
58.

59.

60.
61.
69.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
79.

73.

74-

78.
79.
80.

81,
83.
84.

85—

99-

95.
96.
97-

109.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107,

Diagram exemplifj-ing the power of
the Muscles of the SJjoulder

Muscles on the outside of the Shoulder

Muscles on the inside of the Shoulder

The Pasterns

Section of the Leg

Lamenesses to which the Fore
Extremities are subject

A few of the Muscles of the Hinder
Extremities

Muscles of the Outside of the Thigh

The Haunch and Hind Legs .

The Hock ....

The Hoof ....

The Base of the Foot .

The Coronary Ring

Suspensorj' Apparatus .

Horse-shoe ....

Hoof and Shoe

Ditto . ...

Horse Sandal

Ditto ....

Diagrams showing the principle of
Traction ....

Progression of Feet in a Horse'
Walking ....

-77. Diagrams illustrative of the
principle of Traction .

Figure illustrative of Propulsion

Diagram of the Wheel .

Figure illustrative of Misapplication
of the Traces

89. Grecian mode of Harnessing Horses

Ditto of Outer or Third Horse

Sections of the shoulder, to show the
proper position of the Trace
i. Diagrams illustrative of the
principle of the Cylinder or
Roller .... 570,

-91. Diagrams showing the trans-
portation of a heavy stone . 571,

-94. Figures . showing the approxi-
mation of the Cylinder to the
Wheel

Ancient Pole and Axletree

Diagram of Wheel and Axle .

-101. Forms and Positions of
Wheels .... 576,

Motion of Conical Wheel

Diagram of the Motion of a Cone .

Figure of Cylindrical Mill-stone

Proper Form of Wheel

Figure of Chariot

108. Figm-es of Curvatures of Roads
and Wheels ....

419
490
422.
432
435
435

436

438
439-
44.0
443
451-
451
452
473
487
488
488
491
491

558

559

563

564
564

505
565
566

567

571
579

572
573
574

577
577
578
578
578
581

585

THE OX.

BY W. C. L. MARTIN,

I.ATE ONE OF THE SCIENTIFIC OFFICERS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
OF LONDON.

THE OX.

CHAPTER I.

Among the various orders of mammalia, from which
man has reclaimed aud domesticated certain spe-
cies— species, the possession of which, in a state
of subjection and dependence, contribute essen-
tially to his welfare — that of the Ruminantia, or
ruminating animals, affords him the greatest num-
ber ; and those not of the lowest importance. To
this order belong the camel, the llama and its
allies, the different species of the ox, the sheep,
and the goat. Since the remotest periods of his-
toiy, the ox and the sheep have been regarded in
the light of property ; nor is their intrinsic value
less appreciated after a lapse of ages. Who
does not know how intimately the well-being of a
nation is connected with its agrarian produce,
whether animal or vegetable ; aud how closely
the interests of commerce and of agriculture are
inter-blended together ? It has been said by some
one, that he who makes two stalks of com grow
where only one grew before, is a benefactor of his
countiy ; and by a parity of reasoning, he who im-
proves the breeds of domestic cattle, feeds two on
the land which before only supported one ; and he
who devises superior modes of management with

regard to the extension of their utility, also serves
the interests of the community. On topics like
these, however, we need not insist ; let us at once
to our subject.

The O.v, then, is one among the ruminating
order of qnadrupeds. All the animals of this order
have certain characteristics in common, which dis-
tinctly mark the differences between them and
the animals of all other orders. They have cloven
hoofs; and they are destitute of incisors, or cut-
ting teeth in the upper jaw. With regard to the
hoof we may observe that, as in the horse, the
terminal bone of the toe is incased with horn ;
but the horse has only a single series of jihalan-
gal bones, the ruminants two ; and hence the ex-
pression— cloven. But besides these there are,
in some groups, as the deer, an extralateral toe
on each side, consisting of three minute phalangal
bones, supported by a small stylet. As in the
horse, the canon-bone is single, but generally
shows, more or less by a longitudinal furrow, that
in an early stage it consisted of two portions, first
coalescing, and at length becoming ossified into
one.

With respect to the teeth, thoiigli there are no |
incisors in the upper jaw, the gum is hardened,
forming a fibrous and ehistic pad, fitted to sustain
the pressure of the lower incisors, eight in num-
ber, tlie position of whicli is rather obhque than
vertical. The molars are six in number on each
side, above and below. Of these the first three
are preceded by milk, or deciduous teeth ; the
three posterior are originally permanent. Their
surface is marked by two pairs of crescentic ridges.
In the lower jaw, their crescents have the con-
vexity outwards ; in the upper jaw, the reverse.
These creecents, as they wear down by use, show
a centre of bone surrounded by a coat of enamel.
In general, there are no canine teeth ; these
exist, however, in the upper jaw of the camel,
the llama, the male of the musk-deer, and chev-
rotains, and the male of many true deer.

The act of rumination, or chewing the cud,
supposes a 23eculiarly complicated structure of the
stomach, to be more fully explained hereafter.
We may, however, observe, that the four distinct
cavities, or receptacles, are so arranged that the
coarselj'-ground herbage received into the first
large cavity, or paunch, is thence gradually pro-
pelled into the second ; viz., the hood, or honey-
comb, through a valvular communication. Hei'e
it is compacted into small balls, which, while the
animal reposes at its ease, and in evident enjoy-
ment, are returned seriaiim to the mouth, bj' a
sort of spasmodic action, and are thoroughly re-
masticated. The aliment thus finely ground is
re-swallowed, but instead of being carried into the
paunch, it is turned aside in its passage down the
gullet, or oesophagus, by a voluntary closure of the
muscular edges of the entrance into the paunch,
and so carried into the third, or plicated compart-
ment, termed mauyplies, or manyplus, whence,
after compression between the foliations of that
receptacle, it passes through a valvular orifice into
the fourth ; viz., the rud, or abomasum, which is
the true digestive stomach.

Now, the suckling calf does not ruminate ;
for, while nourished by the mother's milk, the
process cannot be accomplished, and is not requi-
site. The proportion which the different com-
partments of the stomach, at this early age, bear
to each other, is consequently, veiy different to
that which afterwards obtains, when the aliment
is changed from milk to herbage. The huge
paunch, for instance, is, at this early period, far
less capacious than the fourth stomach, or rud,
which is indeed, at this time, the largest of the
compartments, and receives at once the milk as it
is swallowed : hei-e, by the action of the gastric
juice, the milk is curdled previously to digestion.
It is 'the inner membrane of this portion of the
stomach which is salted and dried, and, under the
name of rennet, used in making cheese : its

effect resides in the gastric juice with which it is
imbued.

These general details apply to all the Panni-
n '.ntia ; but in other respects the various orders,
or groups composing this class, differ from each
other in many well-marked peculiarities, and in
according habits. The camel, tall, gaunt, and
angular, wends his way over the deserts of the
east, with measured steps, slowly and silently
pursuing his course from Aleppo or Bagdad, to
Mecca or El-Basrah, laden with bales of merchan-
dise. The llama and vicugna scale the rugged and
precipitous Cordilleras of Peru and Chili. The
light-limbed antelope scours the desert, and the
wide karroo. The s^vift deer rejoices in the glades
of the forest. But from these ruminants, and others,
the true Ox tribe, or the genus Bos, is at once to
be discriminated, though it must be confessed,
that some of the huge and heavy (so called) an-
telopes of Africa — as the koodo, the hartebeest,
and the bekr-el-wash of the Arabs (the bubalus
of the ancients) — in some respects approximate
towards it. The genus Bos, has been subdivided
by naturalists into several subgenera ; but ^vith
these sub-sections, which naturalists of the present
day cany out to an unwarrantable excess (as if
science consisted in pushing analysis to an ex-
treme), we shall have nothing to do ; suffice it for
us to detail, in brief terms, its leading characters.
In both sexes the head is armed with horns
(we of course except the polled domestic breeds of
cattle), and these horns consist of an external layer
of corneous fibres compacted together, and sheath-
ing a hollow or cancellous bony core, continued
laterally from a bold occipito-frontal ridge. Heuce
are oxen termed hollow-horaed ruminants ; to-
gether with antelopes, goats, &c., in contradistinc-
tion to deer ; the progressive increase of the horns
is marked by successive ridges, or rings, at their
base ; oxen have neither suborbita.1 sinuses nor
interdigital pits (as the sheep), nor inguinal
pores ; their form is heavy and massive ; their
statue generally large ; the limbs are low and
strong ; the haunches vdde ; the shoulders thick ;
the head is large ; the forehead or chaffron, ex-
panded ; the muzzle, excepting in the subgenus
(0 vibos, musk-ox, for example), is broad, naked, and
moist ; the tongue is rough with hard, homey
papilla, directed backwards, and assists greatly
in the act of grazing ; the neck is thick, deep,
compressed laterally, carried horizontally, and
furnished with a pendant dewlap ; the spinous
processes of the anterior dorsal vertebrse at the
withers are very long and stout. All the Ox
tribe are gregarious in their habits ; and no quar-
ter of the globe (Australia e.xcepted) is destitute of
its indigenous species, existing in a state of free-
dom. They roam over hills or plains, or tenant
the glades of the forest. In all the species the

teats of the female are four in number. The skin
is thick.

When we said that no quarter of the globe, ex-
cepting Australia, is destitute of its native species, \
we did not forget that, throughout the vast extent I
of South America, no indigenous wild ox has, as
far as the researches of the naturalist go, ever
existed, at least under the present condition of
that portion of the surfece of the globe. The im- '
mense herds of cattle which now roam the pam- I
pas, are the descendants of those domestic oxen
wliich were originally introduced by the Spaniards ;
and, it may be added, that although in North
America the bison Americanus and the nnisk ox
are indigenous species, the domestic ox, now of
such value, is in like manner an importation ;
while the indigenous species are disappearing
before the advance of colonization. It is said
indeed, that some attempts have been, at diffei'ent
times, made to domesticate the American bison :
and that this species has interbred with the ordi-
nary cattle of European origin which have re-
turned, in the prairies, to a state of wildness.
But on this point we confess ourselves very scep-
tical, although Catesby asserts it. Even should
instances of this kind have occurred, the possi-
biUty of obtaining a permanent mixed breed, the
descendants of hybrids is out of the question, tlie
two species being more remote from each other
than are the horse and the ass. When Catesby
says " that to mix the breed (of bisons) with tame
cattle would much improve the breed (of domestic
cattle)" is a general opinion, we think that in
every sense, he is writing at random. It may be
the " general opinion," but that is of little im-
portance ; for where it possible to procure such a
hybrid stock, we could not expect to find the
domestic ox improved by such a cross. We are
among those who believe, tliat species closely
allied, have, in times passed, coalesced, and may
coalesce now ; but we say again, that anatomical
differences render these species remote : and even
were their intei-mixture possible, nothing is to be
gained by a procedure, interdicted by instinct, in
such a case as this, excepting, indeed, to neutral-
ize all that the grazier and the dairy farmer regard
as points of excellence in their favourite cattle.

This reference to the American bison, asserted
not only by Catesby, but by Pennant and others,
to interbreed with the common race of cattle, i'
leads us here to pause, in order that we may take
a general survey of the known existing species of
the genus Bos, and especially of the species do-
mesticated, in order that the true position of the
ordinary ox with respect to them, may be the
better appreciated. We shall find it to differ in
important particulai's. Let us first turn to Asia.

* Ciivicr says, " II prodait avec nos vaclies," but upon wliat
auUiority we know uou

The wild and semi-domesticated cattle of this por-
tion of the globe have yet to be thoroughly known.
There is one, liowever. to which we would first
direct our attention ; namely, the gayal, or gya1l,
an animal which appears io exist both in a wild
and domestic state, and respecting which there is,
consequently, a degree of confusion.

In the provinces of Aracan, Chittagong, or
Chatgaon, Tipura, and Silhet, this species is well
known ; but it seems to have been regarded by
some as identical with the gour, at least there is
some misunderstanding in the works of writers on
the subject.

The Gayal (Bos Gavceus, Colebrooke, Asiat,
Rev., vol. viii.) is evidently identical with the Gyall
(Bos frontalis, Lambert, Linn. Trans.) and the
Jungly Gau (Boeuf des Jongles, of M. Duvaucel,
Bos Silhetanus of F. Cuvier). This animal, also
called Gaijal (Gavaya, Sanscr., Gavai, or Gayall,
Hind., Gobaygoru, Beng., Methana, Mountaineers
east of Silhet ; Shial, Mountaineers east of Chat-
gaon), may be thus described : — Shape and size that
of the European bull. Horns short, and distant at
their base, rising in a gentle cui've directly up and
out ; ovate at their base, but not decidedly flat-
tened: front broad and tufted, with long curled
hair : dewlap deep and pendant : withers ele-
vated, but destitute of anything like a hump :
neck maneless : tail moderate : the body covered
with dark brown hair, lighter colour on the belly,
and generally white on the legs. A fine specimen
of this animal, which we have examined, exists in the
gardens of the Zoological Society, London ; and in
general aspect its appearance approximates more
closely to that of the ordinaiy ox, than does that of
any other species with which we are acquainted ;
nevertheless, the elevation of the withers, and tlie
fall of the croup, would not escape the most ordi-
nary observer. JJuvaucel, indeed for some time
believed that this species was identical with our
domestic oxen, but he had then only seen tame
specimens in the menagerie at Barruckpore. Sub-
sequently he hunted them at the foot of the Silhet
mountains, and observed that they were as com-
mon, and as widely spread, as the wild buffaloes ;
and even more wild, though, at the same time,
more easily domesticated : the cows in a state of
servitude, yield the richest milk in abundance.
Let us now see what Mr. Harris says, in a letter
to Mr Lambert. " This animal," he observes,
" which I have kept and reared these last seven
years, and know by the name of gyall, is a native
of the hills to the north-east and east of the Com-
pany's province of Chittagong, in Bengal, inha-
biting the range of hiUs which separates it from
the country of Aracan. The male gyall is like
our bull in shape and appearance, but, I conceive,
not quite so tall ; is of a blackish lirown colour :
the bonis short, but thick and strong towards tlie
A 2

base, round which, and across the front, the hair
is thick and biishv, and of a dirty white colour ;
the chpst and forehead are broad and thick, he is
naturally very bold, and will defend himself ao;ainst
any of the beasts of pi-ey. The female differs
little in appearance ; her horns are not quite so
large, and her make is somewhat more slender;
she is very quiet ; used for all purposes of the
dairy, as also (I have been informed by the natives)
for tilling the ground, and is more tractable than
the buffalo. The milk which these cows give has
a peculiar richness in it, arising, I should conceive,
from their mode of feeding, which is always on
the young shoots and branches of trees, in pre-
ference to grass. I constantly made it a practice
to allow them to range abroad amongst the hills
and jungles at Chittagong, during the day, to
browse, a keeper attending to prevent their stray-
ing so far as to endanger losing them. They do
not thrive in any part of Bengal so well as in the
aforesaid mentioned province, and in the adjoming
one, Tipperah, where, I believe, the animal is also
to be found. I have heard of one instance of a
female gyall breeding with a common bull."

The subjoined is the head of the gyall, as
given in the Linn. Trans, vol. vii., from a speci-
men which died in London in 1802, described by
A. B. Lambert, Esq., to whom the above letter
was transmitted : —

According to Dr. Buchanan the cry of the
gayal is a kind of lowing, shriller and not so loud
as ihat of the common European ox, with no re-
semblance to the grunt of the Indian ox..

Mr. Macrae states that the gayal exists in a
wild state in the range of mountains that form
the eastern boundary of the provinces of Aracan.
Chittagong, Tipperah, and Silhet ; and he adds that
the Ciicis, or Lunetas, inhabiting the hills imme-
diately to the eastward of Chittagong, have herds of
them in a domesticated stated The animal is
called Gabaij in the Hindu Sastra, hut seems,
however, to be little known beyond the limits of
its native mountains, excepting to the inhabitants
of the provinces above mentioned. The animal is
of a dull heavy appearance, but at the same time
possesses great strength and activity. Its dispo-

sition is gentle, and even in a wild state, on its
native hills, it is not considered dangerous ; never
standing the approach of man. much less sustain
ing his attack. The Ciicis hunt the wild ones for
the sake of their flesh. The gayal is a forest
animal, and prefers the tender shoots and leaves
of shrubs to grass. It is domesticated by the
Cucis, but does not undergo any labour. The
cow goes eleven months (puery eleven, perhaps
from nine to ten) with young, gives but little
milk (Duvaucel says abundance), and does not
yield it long ; but that little is remarkably rich,
almost equalling cream, which it resembles in
colour. The Cucis, however, according to Macrae,
do not make any use of the milk, but rear the
gayals entirely for the sake of the flesh and the
skin : from the hide of this animal they form
their shields. These domesticated herds roam at
large in the forests near their village during the
day, but return of their own accord at evening ;
being early taught to do so by being fed, when
young, every night with salt, of which these ani-
mals are very fond. The Hindus, in the province
of Chittagong, will not kill this gayal (their gabay),
which they hold in equal veneration -nith the cow ;
but they Jiunt and kill another gayal (as'l gayal,
or seloi), as they do the wild buffalo. The gayal,
as experiments have proved, will breed with the
Indian bull, of the zebu race, and the mixed
breed is fertile. Here, then, we have a species,
if not identical with our race of cattle, at least so
closely allied as to intermingle with it ; indeed,
we strongly suspect it to have intermingled with
the humped zebu race of the east, which carried
to the plains has increased in the development of
the fatty-cellular* mass on the withers, and in the
expansion of the dewlap. The annexed figure of
the domestic gayal, from Colebrooke (Asiatic Re-
searches, vol. viii.), might pass for that of a cow of
the zebu race. The wild breed is more thickset
and robust, than the tame, but presents the same

* This local aceumuljilion of fatty matter by domest.c aiiiniala
in warm climates is very remarkable : we have instances of it in the
laige tailed and fat-rumped sheep of Syria and southern Asia,
it takes place in the part where there is a natural tendency to its
deposition ; viz., the croup of the sheep, the withers of the ox.

general contour. A noble specimen of the gayal
is preserved in the British Museum.

But what is the as'l gayal, or seloi, ("the
other gayal") which the Brahmins of Chittagong
do not refuse to kill ; is it the wild gayal '? It
has been taken for that animal by some -wi-iters,
but it is a distinct species. We give the head of
a female of the true asseel (as'l) gayal, from
Hardwicke, and we cannot help being struck with

DP AS L GAVA

the difference between it and the head of the
Hindu gabay, The horns are compressed, and
decidedly angular, and there is no frontal tuft of
curled hair This as'l gayal ("the other gayal,"
which the Brahmins will hunt) is evidently the
gour (Bos Gour, Traill, in Edinburgh Philosophi-
cal Jounial, October, 1821), of which specimens
of the horns have been long preserved in the
museum of the Zoological Society.

HORNS OF GOl'R

Had we not seen the gayal at the gardens of
the Zoological Society, we should have been (as
we were) undecided as to the subject ; but the
scrutiny of that animal, during a few minutes,
proved to us that the head above, regai-ded as that
of a wild gayal, is, indeed, that of "another
gayal," which the Brahmins will hunt, and which
is no other than the gour of Traill, a species desti-
tute of dewlap, and far more remote from the do-
mestic ox than the gayal or Hindu gabay.

According to Dr. Traill, the goui- is nearly six.
feet high at the withers ; the limbs are vigorous,
clean made, and more deer-like than bovine (very
different from the short, thick legs of the gayal);
the back is strongly arched ; and, when the animal
stands still, the line from the nose to the base of
the tail presents a nearly uniform curve. This
appearance is owing to the curved form of the
chafFron, and still more to a remarkable ridge, of
no great thickness, which rises six or seven inches
above the general line of the back, from the last
of the cervical to the middle of the dorsal ver-
tebrte, where it gradually declines and becomes
lost This elevation is very conspicuous in gours
of all ages, although they be loaded with fat, and has
no resemblance to the hunch found on the withers of
the zebu breed of cattle. There is not a trace of the
dewlap, which is well marked in the gayal. The
hair of the skin, generally, is short and sleek,
having somewhat of the oily appearance of fresh
sealskin. The colour is deep brownish black,
almost approaching to a bluish black. Between
the horns is a tuft of curling, dirty white hair;
and over each hoof is a ring of the same colour.

With respect to the locality and habits of this
gour, we may state that it is found in most of the
mountain districts of Central India ; but, accord-
ing to Captain Rogers, is very common on th.e
mountain table-land of Myn Pat, in the province
of Sergojah, in South Bahar. "This table-land
is about thirty-six miles in length; by twenty-four
or twenty-five miles in breadth, and rises above
the neighbouring plains probably two thousand
feet. The sides of the mountain slope with con-
siderable steepness, and are furrowed by streams
that water narrow valleys, the verdant banks of
which are the favourite haunts of gours. On being
disturbed they retreat into the thick jungles of
saul-trees, which cover the sides of the whole
range. The south-east side of the mountain pre-
sents an extensive mural precipice, from twenty to
forty feet high. The rugged slopes at its feet are
covered by impenetrable green jungle, and abound
with dens formed of fallen blocks of rocks, the
suitable retreat of tigers, bears, and hyenas. The
western slopes are less rugged, but the soil is
parched, and the forests seem withered by excess
of heat. The summit of the mountain presents a
mixture of open lawns and woods. There were

once twenty-five villages Mon yn Pat ; but these
have long been deserteil on account of the number
and ferocity of the beasts of prey. On this moun-
tain, however, the gour maintains his seat. The
Indians assert that even the tiger has no chance
in combat with a fuU-gi-own gour, though he may
occasionally succeed in carrying off an unprotected
calf. The wild buffalo abounds in the plains below
the mountains ; but he so much dreads the gour,
according to the natives, that he rarely attempts to
invade its haunts ; and the hunting party only met
with three or four urnas (arnees, or wild buffaloes)
on the mountain. The forests which shield the
gour abound, however, -with hog-deer, saumers
(sambur deer), and porcupines."

The gour is very tierce, and, when wounded,
turns upon his enemy. Captain Rogers, who
hunted this animal, states that the only cry he ever
heard it utter, and that only when struck by the
bullet, was a short bellow, imitated by the sylla-
bles uyh-ugh. The gours herd together in parties
of ten, fifteen; or twenty ; they browze on the
leaves and tender shoots of trees and shrubs, and
also graze along the banks of streams. During
the cold weather they retire to the covert of the
saul forests ; but the return of the hot season
brings them out to feed in the green lawns and
valleys ; they do not wallow, like the buffalo, in the
mire and swamp. The female generally produces
young in August ; the bull-calf is called purorah
during the first year, and the cow-calf pareeah ;
the full grown cow gourin. It is asserted, by the
natives, that the gour will not endure captivity,
aiid that, even if taken young, the mountain-calf
droops and dies. (See Edinburgh Phil. Journ.,
vol. xi.)

With respect to the wild buffalo, called urna,
arna, arni, or arnee, (Bos Urni Kerr), an animal
common throughout Bengal, some consider it as a
species distinct from the common buffalo of India
(Bos Bubalus) used as a beast of burden; while
others are of a contrary opmion. To judge, how-
ever, from the skull and horns, of which latter a
pair of enormous size are preserved in the museum
of the Zoological Society, and several in the Bri-
tish Museum, we are inclined to the belief that it
is distinct ; at least we have never seen any speci-
men of the buffalo, with horns presenting similar
characters. We do not, however, insist on this;
for the buffalo of different countries exhibits great
variation : the ^Manilla buffido, for e.xample, of
which specimens exist in the Zoological Gardens,
is of very small size, with small horns. In the
mawals, or hilly tracts along the ghauts, great
numbers of the long-horned variety of the iiuffulo
are bred ; and Dillon states that the bufiklo of
Malabar is larger than the ox, with white eys
and flat horns, often two feet long : the limbs are
thick and short, "It is an ugly animal, almost

destitute of hair, goes slowly, and carries verjr-
heavy burdens. Herds may be seen, as of com-
mon cows ; and they afford milk, which serves to
make butter and cheese : the flesh is good, though
less delicate than that of the ox. The animal
swims perfectly well, and traverses the broadest
rivers. Besides the tame buffaloes, there are
wild ones, which are extremely dangerous, teaiing
men to pieces, or crushing them with a single blow
of the head. They are less to be dreaded in the
woods than elsewhere, because their horns often
catch in the branches, and give time for the per-
sons pursued to escape by flight. Probably this
wild buffalo is the arnee, which is described as
a large and formidable beast, conspicuous for
strength and ferocity. Its horns are remarkable

HORNS OF 4RNK

for their enormous size, often measuring from four
to six feet in length ; they rise upwards, first in-
clining outwards and backwards, and then arching
gradually towards each other, they form a bold
crescent. They are compressed on their anterior
and posterior surfaces, and rough with numerous
transverse furrows and ridges. The chafFron is
naiTOW and convex.

With respect to the semi-domesticated buffalo,
it is spread from India throughout Siam, Cochin
China, China, Malacca, Borneo, Java, and Suma-
tra. Westward, it has been carried into Persia,
the Crimea, Turkey, Greece, Spain, and Italy.
In Sumatra the buffalo exists in a wild as well as
in a reclaimed state ; and wild buffaloes are com-
mon in the forests of Abyssinia, where they are
hunted, the thick hide being valuable for the
manufacture of shields. According to Mr. Mars-
den, there are two sorts of tame buffaloes, or car-
bows, in Sumatra ; one black, the other white.
The animals of this latter colour are rarely eaten
by the natives, who assert that the flesh is un-
wholesome, and that those who partake of it are
covered with blotches. Mr. Marsden, indeed, re-
gards the whiteness as the result of disease in the

animal itself, or as a species af albinism. In Italy
tlie buffalo is black, with fierce glowing e3-e9. Its
introduction took place in the sixteenth century ;
and it now roams, in a state of wildness, over the
swampy plains of Calabria, the Pontine Marshes,
and vaiious other localities suitable to its habits
of wallowing in the mud or water.

The history of the buffalo need not here de-
tain us. There is a species of ox, little known to
European naturalists, existing both in a tame and
wild state, in Thibet. This species is called the
yak (Bos gruuniens). No living specimen, as far
as we are aware, has ever been seen in Europe ;
but we have had an opportunity of examining skins,
more or less imperfect, of one of which the follow-
ing is a description : — Nostrils narrow, converging
below, with a small naked space between them,
and a narrow, naked border round them ; so that
there is no true, broad, naked muzzle, as in the
common ox, but a hairy muzzle, as in the musk
ox (Ovibos moschatus). The ears are small and
pointed ; the forehead is covered with black
cui-ling locks. The hair of the hack is smooth ;
the colour a deep chocolate brown, a white stripe
occupying the ridge of the withers, and another
the centre of the croup. From the shoulders,
sides, and under part of the body, and also from
the inner side of the thighs, a pendant mane of
long hair hangs down, falling in huge masses, so
as to cover the limbs and almost touch the ground.
This mane is grizzled black, excepting a central
line of pure wliite along the belly. The tail is
tufted with a huge mass of glossy white and ra-
ther coarse hairs, eighteen or twenty inches in
length. In size the animal could not have ex-
ceeded the small Scotch breed of cattle. The
horns, and part of the legs, were deficient ; but,
according to Gmeliu and Turner, and to judge
from specimens in the British Museum, the horns
are small, round, bent forward, and pointed. The
withers are elevated, aud the col' ur is subject to
variation : we have seen a skin the tail of which
was tufted with black hairs

From long antiquity the Tartars have used the
flowing tail of this animal as a staiidaid in battle,
and as one of the distinguishing insignia of officers
of high rank. In Turkey the tail of the horse is
used ill like manner. In India the tail of the
yak is frequently mounted on ivory or silver han-
dles, elegantly ornamented : these instruments
are called chowries, and elephants of state are
taught to carry them in their proboscis, and wave
them gracefidly to and fro, for the purjiose of
keeping away the flies.

Of the habits of the wild yak Utile is known.
It is a native of the mountains of Thibet and
Bootan, and is said to be sullen and ferocious.
Respecting the tame breed. Turner, in his "Ac-
count of an Embassv to China," says, "These

cattle, though not large-boned, seem, from the
profuse quantity of hair with which they are pm-
vided, to be of great bulk. They have a down-
c.ast, heavy look, and appear, what indeed they
are, sullen and suspicious ; discovering much im-
patience at the near approach of strangers. They
do not /oH' loud, like the cattle of England ; but
make a low grunting noise, scarcely audible, and
that but seldom, and when under some uneasiness.
These cattle are pastured, in the coldest parts of
Thibet, upon the short herbage peculiar to the
mountains and bleak plains. The chain of moun-
tains situated between the latitudes of 37° and
28°, which divides Thibet from Bootan, and whose
summits are mostly clothed with snow, is their
favourite haunt. In this vicinity the southern
glens afford them food and shelter during the
severity of winter ; in milder seasons the northern
aspect is more congenial to their nature, and ad-
mits a wider range. They are a very valuable
property to the tribe of itinerant Tartars called
Duckba, who live in tents, and tend them from
place to place ; they, at the same time, afford
their herdsmen an easy mode of conveyance, a
good covering, and wholesome subsistence. They
are never employed in agriculture, but they are
extremely useful as beasts of burden ; for they
are strong, sure-footed, and carry a great weight.
Tents and ropes are manufactured of their hair ;
and amofigstthe humbler ranks of herdsmen I have
seen caps and jackets made of their skins. Tlie
best requital with which the care of their keepers
is at length rewarded, for selecting them good
pastures, is in the abundant quantity of rich milk
which they give, and in the butter produced from
it, which is most excellent. It is their custom to
preserve this in skins, or bladders, and the air
Ijeing thus excluded from it, it will keep, in this
cold climate throughout the year ; so that, after
some time tending their herds, when a sufficient
store is accumulated, it remains only to load their
cattle, and drive them to a proper market, with
their own produce, which constitutes, to the ut-
most verge of Tartary, a most material article of
commerce.''

Bell, in his travels in TartaiT, notices this
animal as the bubul of the natives (Tzulimm
Tartars). He met with it only iu its tame state,
and says that its body and limbs are very, hand-
some ; that it has a high shoulder and flowing
tail : several skulls, aud an imperfect skin stuffed
are in the British Museum.

In former times a huge wild ox, called the mo-
nassus, or bonassus, the bison, and as some think,
also the urus, spread over the cental portion of
Europe, and was common in Poeonia (the modern
Bulgaria), Hungary, Poland, and also further west-
ward. The names of this animal in the present day
are as follow: — hison, insen, uisont, &c., of barbarous

origin ; our, auer, ur, auerochs, aurochs (from a
primitave syllable, the root of Taurus, and the
\Yord tor, a mountain signifying grandeur, eleva-
tion, antiquity) ; in Polish tur, Eussian tor, Danish
zijr, in Moldavian zimhr, and Lithuanian zuhr. This
noble animal may be regarded as on the eve of
extinction, unless, indeed, it be specifically the
same with a species found in the Caucasian range,
and observed by the traveller Bell, in the country
of the Tzulimm Tartars, and respecting which he
says, "On the hills and in the woods near this
place, are many sorts of wild beasts, particularly
the urus, or uhr-ox, one of the fiercest animals the
world produces ; their force is such that neither
the wolf, the bear, nor the tiger, dare to engage
with them,"*

Be this, however, as it may, the aurochs or zubr
(Bos Urus), the European bison, once so widely
spread, is now confined to the forests of Bialowicza
(pronounced Bealawezha), in Lithuania, where it is
protected by stringent laws : he who kills a zubr
without permission of the Ptussian government,
has to pay as a fine 2000 rubles; or, if unable to
meet the penalty, must suffer ti^ansportatiou to
Siberia. Formerly the penalty was death.

This species is wonderfully massive and robust
in its proportions ; its withers are thick, and ele-
vated, and covered, as are the neck, sides of the

head, and lower jaw, and throat, with long rough
hair, loriiiiug a sort of mane beneath the throat,
like a beard. This mane is often a foot in
length, and is thickest during the winter, especially
in old bulls ; the hair covering the trunk and
limbs is soft and woolly ; the tail which is short,
is furnished with a tuft of stiff hairs at its ex-
tremity ; the eyes are small, but their expression
is extremely wild and savage, and when the animal

* Cuvifer contends that the urus of the Hcrcynian forest,
described by Cesar and others, was distinct from the bi.son ; but
Dr. VVeissenborn maintains the contraiy. Tlie urus is said to have
been remarkable for the enormou-s magnitude of its horns ; the bison
^or its mane :

" Villosi terga hisontes
Latjsque feri cornibu

iri." — HiPPOL.

is irritated they glare with fary ; the tongue, lips,
and palate, are blue. An odour, described as be-
tween musk and violets, is exhaled from the skin,
and especially that portion which covers the con-
vexity of the forehead. This odour is much stronger
in the male than the female, and may be perceived
at a considerable distance from the herd. The
horns are large, round, and lateral, with the points
sweeping upwards and forwards ; the head ia large
and heavy, and carried low. The male aurochs is
upwards of six feet in height at the shoulders,
and is a most formidable animal ; so great is its
strength that, according to Dr. Weissenboru, trees
of five or six inches in diameter are levelled by
the thrusts of a bull. He fears neither the wolf
nor the bear, but assails them with horns and
hoofs ; an old bull is a match for four wolves ;
and although a pack of wolves may sometimes
hunt down a strayed aurochs, the collected herd
has nothing to fear from any animal.

Dense thickets, near the swampy hanks of
rivei-s, are the favourite retreats of this species ;
but in summer, according to Dr. Weissenborn,
the herds select sandy spots ; in winter they
shroud themselves in the thickest parts of the
vast pine woods, keeping quiet by day, and brows-
ing hj night, finding sustenance in the young
shoots and bark of sapling trees. At this season
the foresters put supplies of food for them, in the
vicinity of their haunts. In spring they visit
spots where the herbaceous plants are beginning
to vegetate ; they are fond of tree lichens.

Tlie voice of the aurochs is a short, deep,
grunt, which may be heard at a considerable dis-
tance; it betokens irritation, and it would be
then madness to venture near the animal ; indeed,
at no time is this safe, for though the zubr is very
shy, and avoids the approach of man, yet if fallen
in with accidentally, the animal's fury is aroused,
and it immediately prepares to assail the intruder.
When excited by passion, the animal thrusts out
its tongue repeatedly, and lashes its sides with its
tail ; the eyes glow like fire, roll furiously, and
seem starting in their sockets, and the head is
lowered for the onset. When taken young, they
become, it is true, accustomed to their keepers ;
but the approach of other persons renders them
furious ; and even the keepers are not safe, and
must always wear the same sort of dress when
going near them. It is remarkable that the
aurochs displays the greatest antipathy towards
the ordinary domestic cattle ; it avoids the neigh-
bourhood of sports where they feed ; or if the con-
tact is unavoidable, is roused to fury, and attacks
them, goring them to death. All experiments to
obtain a mixed lireed have utterly failed.

The aurochs, notwithstaiiding its bulk, is very
swift for a short course ; it rushes on with its
head low, its hoofs being raised at every step

above the forehead ; it is foud of the bath, and
awiDis with great ease and vigour.

Of all the senses of this animal, that of smell
appears to be in the highest perfection ; and the
herd can only be approached from the leeward ;
its flesh is in hi^ esteem, and is said to have a
bluish tinge^when roasted.

The colour of this animal during the summer,
is a deep brownish- black, or nearly black; but the
fur acquires a gi'eyer, or more rusty tint, previous
to its renewal in the spring. A magnificent speci-
men of this animal, admirably stuffed, adorns the
British Museum ; it \\as sent by the emperor of
Russia.

All agree that the Poeonian bonassos of Aris-
totle, is the aurochs, or zubr ; hut a doubt has
been started relative to the ui'us of Ccesar, found
in the vast forests of France and Germany in his
day. " These uri (he says) are little less than
elephants ; their aspect, colour, and form, are
like those of a bull ; they are extremely strong
and swift, and spare neither man nor beast they
get sight of Tiiese, when trapped in pitfalls, the
hunters immediately kill. The youths, exercising
themselves by this sort of hunting, are hardened
by toil ; and those among them who have killed
most, bringing with them the horns as testi-
monials, acquire great praise. But these uri
cannot be habituated to man, or made tractable,
not even when young. The great size of the honis,
as well as their form and quality, render them very
different to those of our oxen ; these horns, when
carefully selected, they rim with silver, and use
them as drinldng cups at their ample feasts."*

* The fashion of using homs as drinking cups at festivals was
commnji among our Saxon ancestors, and eten after the Noiman con-
quest : and inheiitances of land were transferred with the transfer of
a horn, and estahlished in fee by a bom. Several of these homs are

HORN OF ULPHUS.

still extant. The horn of Ulphus, says the author of Old England, " i.'-
a remarkable curiosity, still preserved in the sacristy of the cathedral
at York. Ulphus was a Danish nobleman of the lime of Canute,
who, as Camden informs us, ' by reason of the difference which was
like to rise betweeen his sons about the sharing of his land and lord-
ship after death, resolved to make them all alike ; and thereupon
coming to York with that hom, wherewith he was used to drink,
filled it with wine, and kneeling devoutedly before the altar of God,
and St, Peter, prince of apostles, drank the wine, and by that cere-
mony enfeoffed this church with all his lands and revenues.' Dur-
ing the civil wars the hoi-n of Ulphus came into the possession ol
Lord Fail-fax, after being sold to a goldsmith ; and it was subse-
quently restored to the church by the Fairfax family, in 1675."

Of about the same antiquity is the Pusey hoi-n. (Archseol. vol, iii.)
It is "a real ox-horn two leet one-half inch long, the circumferenct
in the large-stpai-t one foot, in the middle nine inches one-fourth, at

Relying on the vfords of Coesar, and guided in
his opinion by the huge horned fossil relics of
some species of ox, found in the British Isles and
Continental Europe, Cuvier regardad the urus as
a distinct species from the bison or bonassus, and
as being at once characterized by the immensity of
its horns : and further he is supported in his o"pi-
niou by the application of the terms, urus and
bison, by other Latin writers, to two apparently
distinct animals : thus Pliny says, " There are
two remarkable species of wild oxen, the maned
bison and the urus, whose strength and swiftness
are extraordinary, and which common people in
their ignorance call biibali." Martial says, " Illi
cessit atrox bubahis atque bison."

Dr. Weissenboni contends that the Latin
writers had no opportunities of comparing the
bison and urus, and that they used the terms
loosely, or, perhaps, gave the term bison to
the Poeonian animal, and urus to the Hercynian
one ; the former of which, being often captured,
they were accustomed to see most frequently in
the circus ; while the latter was never taken alive
by the Gauls or Germans, excepting in pits, and
then killed on the spot. The bubalus, mentioned
by Martial, he regards as the buffalo from Xorlh
Africa. He farther observes, that Solinus (third
century) expressly states that bisons (" setosi colla,
jubas horridi") swarmed iu the Hercynian forest,
where Caesar places the uiiis ; and he asserts that
formerly, before the present breed of aurochs had
degenerated, and when the bulls weighed two thou
sand pounds, their horns were of prodigious magni
tude, and that homs, even of the present race in

the small end two inches one-fourth " On a ring of silver gilt that
girt it was the following inscription :

" Kyng Knowde (Canute) geve Wyllyam Pew-se
This borne to holde by thy lond."

PTSEY HORN.

The following account of the Borstal honi is given in the tliird
volume of the AichaBologia: —

Edward the Confessor had a royal palace at Brill, or Brehul, in
Bucks, to which he often retired for the pleasure of hunting in his
tbrest of Bemwood, This forest, it is said, was much infested by a
wild boar, which was at last slain by one Nigel, a huntsman, who
presented the boar's head to the king ; and for the reward the king
gave to him one hyde of lande, called Derehyde, and a wood called
Hulewode, with the custody of the forest of Bemwood, to hold to
him and his heirs per imuni comu, quod est charta piu'dictffi foresta;.

The original hom has been preserved by the lords of Bor>lal
under the name of Nigel's horn, and is now (1773) in the possession
of John Aubrey, Esq., son and heir of Sir Thomas Aubrey, Bait.,
to whom this estate has descended without alienation or forfeiture,
from before the Conquest to the present time, by several heirs femiile
from the family of Nigel to that of Aubrey. {Archteologia, iii. IS.)

is much less. At certain times the bulls are veiy
I'm-iuus, and fight desperately with each other ;

BISON BULL.

uor is the chase unattended by danger, for a
wounded bison often turns on his assailant, -whose
life is placed in imminent jeopardy. These ani-
mals strike both with the horns and hoofs, and
endeavour to trample upon their enemy. Old
bulls, which are sometimes to be met with singly,
are very dangerous ; for the greater part of the
year the bulls and cows live in separate herds,
excepting that one or two old bulls generally ac-
company a herd of cows, and conduct its move-
ments.

In some anatomical points the American bison
is more remote from the common ox than the au-
rochs, or zubr. The ribs consist of fourteen pairs,
and, according to Cuvier, the lumbar vertebrae are
only four in number. The skull much resembles

SKOLL OF YOUNG FEMAL

(Front view.) (Profile view.)

that of the aurochs, but is remarkable for its com-
parative smallness in the female.

In the high latitudes of North America, the
lands of the Esquimaux, from the Olst to the T^th
degree of latitude, a species called the musk o.x
exists ; it is the Ovibos Moschatus of Ulainville,
and constitutes the type of a new genus.

The horns are expanded at their base, forming
a helmet-like mass, covering the forehead, where
their roots are in contact with each other ; from
this mass they emerge round and tapering, bend-
ing down between the eye and ear, and then
sweeping suddenly upwards. The ears and tail
are short, the eyes moderate, the nostrils oblong,
and inclined to each other from above downwards;
there is no true naked muzzle, but a very narrow
bare line surrounds each nostril, the rest being
covered with hair ; there is no furrow in the upper
lip. In size this species scarcely equals the smal-
lest of the Scottish or Highland breed of cattle, but
appears to be larger than it really is, from the pro-
fusion of long matted woolly hair with which it is
covered, and which hangs on each side almost to
the ground, concealing the limbs to the pasterns ;
the tail is entirely hidden : beneath the lower jaw,
throat, and chest, the hair flows full, long, and
mane-like; the general colour is dull, grizzled,
umber brown, darker on the sides and under-sur-
face ; on the centre of the back is a brownish-
white mark, or saddle.

The musk ox frequents wild, bleak, and rocky
situations, and is extremely vigorous and active ;
during the winter it feeds chiefly on lichens, and
in summer on grass. Its flesh is strongly imbued
with musk, especially at certain seasons ; but at
other times it is tolerable, and eaten both by the
Esquimaux and fur-hunters.

In the mouth of September these animals
collect in lai-ge herds, which are followed by the
hunters, not, however, without risk, for the bulls
are very daring and irascible, and when hard
pressed or wounded will rush with impetuous fury
on their enemy. The general mode, however,
adopted by the hunter, is that of concealing him-
self in some convenient sjiot whence to sc-atter
destruction ; the animals, seeing no foe, remain

bewildered witliout attempting to escape, while
their companionis drop on every side. On the
least appearance of their destroyer they instantly
take to flight, and scale the steep declivities of the
rocks with the ease of a chamois.

The wool of this animal might be turned to
good account ; it is very fine, and stockings equal
to those of silk are said to have been manufac-
tured from it in France.

In adverting to the buffalo, both wild and do-
mesticated, we purposely forbore to notice a fero-
cious animal, the Cape buffalo (Bos Gaffer), a native
of the wilds of Southern Africa, where, associated
in herds, it frequents the borders of woods and
thickets, and the watered ravines and glens among
the hilly grounds. This savage beast is fond of
wallowing in pools and swamps, and in the muddy
ooze, covering its almost naked but dense hide,
with defensive clothing against the attacks of in-
sects. The horns of this species form at their
base a solid rugged mass, covering the forehead,
fi'om which they bend downwards, and somewhat
outwards, gradually diraisbing to the points,
which suddenly curve upward. The distance be-
tween the points of the horns is frequently five
feet, but the rugose massive base of each is in
contnct forming an impenetrable helmet: their
colour is black. With these formidable weapons
the Cape buffalo has been known to transfix a
horse instantaneously, lift him up, and hurl him
with crushing violence to the ground. The eye
(i this animal is savage and lowering, and beto-
kens great ferocity ; the ears are large, and gene-
rally observed to be torn, either from combats
among the animals themselves, or from the la-
ceration of spines and thorns, as they force their
way through the dense thickets.

PE BUFFALO.

The Cape buffalo does not e.xceed the ordinary
ox in height, but is much more massively and
heavily built, and is a far more ponderous animal,
with short thick limbs, and a clense hide nearly
destitute of hair ; on the lips and throat, however,
the hairs are long, rather thickly set, and very
coarse.

When the Cape buffalo is wounded, he ploughs
up the ground with his horns, scattering the turf
and stones on all sides around, and rushes through
the thickets and up the rugged sides of the steep
ascent with wonderful energy. Often, instead of
escaping, urged by revenge, he returns as suddenly
to the attack, and appears in the midst of his
assailants, one or more of whom often fall victims
to his rage ; he gores them, tramples upon them,
and presses his whole weight upon them, as if to
glut his revenge, and bellows with mingled paiu
and fury till some well-aimed bullet lays him
prostrate on the earth. At all times old s.ditary
bulls are dangerous, and will make an attack on
any intruder, even if unassailed.

Among the natural enemies of the larger quad-
rupeds the lion is the only adversary which this
beast has to fear ; but even the monarch of the
desert does not always prove victorious, and in-
stances occur in which several buffaloes have
unite in the rescue of an attacked companion,
and gored the foe to death.

I.L OF CAPE BUFFALO.

An allied, but distinct species is described by
Col. H. Smith, under the title of Bos Pegasus ;
it is a native of Western Africa. Another species,
from Central Africa, with short and comparatively
feeble horns, and having the large ears covered
with shaggy hair, is termed by Mr. Gray, Bos
Brachyceros. Several heads of this species are in
the ]?ritish Museum.

Captain Lyon, in his travels in Northern Africa,
describes certain bovine animals, with which natu-
ralists do not appear to be well acquainted. They
are very numerous in the mountains of Wadan.
One, which gives this name to the mountains in
question, viz., the waden, is stated to be of about
the size of an ass, with very large head and horns,
a short, reddish hide, and large bunches of hair
hanging from each shoulder to the length of
eighteen inches or two feet ; it is of a very fierce
disposition. The second, bogra el weish (bekr-el-
wash), is evidently the Antilope hubahis, or wild
ox of the Arabs, and generally referred by natu-
i-alists to the antelope group ; it is heavy and slug-
gish. A third animal is noticed as the white
buffalo; of light contour, vigorous and active in its

motions, and, at the same time, so shy and swift,
tlmt it is not easily procured. These buffaloes
calve in April or May.

From this rapid survey of the aifimals of the ho-
vine group, we find that though three species, the
gayal, the yak, and the common buffalo are known
both in a state of domestication, and also in a wild
condition, yet that no wild species exists, perhaps ex-
cepting the gayal, which can be regarded as specifi-
cally identical with the domestic cattle of Europe, or
with the zebu breeds of Asia. It may be objected,
that we here overlook the wild white ox of Chilling-
ham Park, and of Craven and Chatelberault Parks,
&c. (the Bos Scoticusof some authors): but we cannot
regard this as a wild species ; it exists nowhere as
a free denizen of the forest ; it is not found in the
wilds of Central or Eastern Europe, and in England
it is kept, like the deer, within the bounds of a
park. That it is specifically identical with our
domestic race cannot be doubted ; and if tradition
is to be credited, this breed is descended from a
wild stock whiclr once roamed the wooded wastes
of our island, and of which the lingering relics owe
their existence to the care of man. We learn
from Fitz-Stephen, who wrote iu the time of
Henry the Second, that the mighty forest, north of
London, was the lair of stags, deer, boars, and wild
bulls ; and later writers notice the existence of
wild cattle iu the more uncultivated districts of
Scotland and the North of England. The waste
district of Craven was formerly the abode of herds
of wild white cattle ; but there are grounds for
believing that the white cattle of Craven Park
(Yorkshire^ were brought from Whalley Abbey
(Lancashire), upon its dissolution in the thirty-
third year of Henry the Eighth ; perhaps, however,
only to replenish the original but diminished stock
of the park. The white wild cattle of Chilliugham
have the muzzle black, and the whole of the
inside of the ear, and the tip externally red ; the
horns are moderate in size, of an elegant contoiu',
sweeping upwards, and of a white colour passing
into black at the tips. Some of the bulls have a
thin, upright mane, an inch and a half, or two
inches long. The weight of the oxen (not bulls),
says Mr. CuUey, "Observations on Live Stock,''
p. 74, is from thirty-five to forty-five stone, and
of the cows, from twenty-five to thirty-five
stone, the foui' quarters (fourteen lbs. to the stone).
The beef, he adds, is finely marbled, and of
excellent quality. These cattle are extremely shy
and savage, and at certain times the bulls are very
ferocious. The cows conceal their young in the
dense fern and underwood ; and it is dangerous to
approach the lair ; for should the mother perceive
the approach of an intruder, or the herd be
alarmed by the bellow of the calf, an impetuous
attack from the former, or even the whole troop,
is the immediate consequence. Formerly these

cattle were hunted with the pomp and circum-
stance of the chase in the olden time, but accidents
occurred from time to time, and at last the park-
keeper, selecting his individual, has resorted to
the plan of striking it down with a well-directed
rifle ball.

Now comes the question, — are these cattle ori-
ginally wild cattle in our island and continental
Europe, and, we may add. Western Asia ; or have
they ever been limited to our island ; and are they
to be regarded as truly wild, or as feral only, that
is, emancipated like the cattle of South America?
Cuvier, be it remembered, regards the urus of the
Hercyuian Forest, or, at least, oxen whose skulls
have enormous horns, the fossil remains of which
are found in the superficial beds of our tertiaiy
strata, to have been the root of our ordinary breed.
We believe these skulls to be Feferable to the an-
cient urus of Csesar, a distinct species from the
aurochs, or zubr, notwithstanding Dr. Weissen-
born's opinion to the contraiy. But, then, what
has the urus, of which these fossil bones are the
relics, to do with the wild white cattle of our parks,
a race evidently identical with our domestic cattle,
and very like the Devonshire and some of the
Welsh and Highland cattle iu form and aspect ?
We need not repeat Caesar's account of the urus,
which animal he most expressly distinguishes from
any breed of domestic cattle he knew in Italy or
Western Europe. Its gigantic statue, its enormous
horns, its untameable ferocity, are sufiicient to
demonstrate its specific distinctness. We are
ready to admit, and, indeed, the fact is evident,
that iu remote ages, antecedent to Caesar's inva-
sion, this mighty urus tenanted our island, if,
indeed, then an island ; this fact is proved by the
occurrence of its remains iu caves, and iu the de-
posits alluded to ; but we have no proof that,
therefore, the Caesarian urus is the parent of our
European breed of domestic cattle ; and as little,
that the wild oxen of our parks are of the urus
stock. Caesar tells us, that the ancient Britons
were in possession of large herds of cattle, on the
milk and flesh of which they principally subsisted,
neglecting the cultivation of grain. That these
cattle were not uri we may be assured, any more
than were the domestic cattle of Gaul, Gennau}-,
or Italy, otherwise Cfesar would have noticed the
fact and corrected his assertion, that the uri were
untameable. Besides this, a huge-homed ox, or
urus, an aurochs, or bison, perhaps of the same
stock as the Lithuanian breed, also inhabited
Western Europe and England (if then an island)
is unquestionable, from the skulls and bones in a
semi-fossil state which are found in abundance.
In addition to these there are fossil skulls of spe-
cies decidedly different, but which we cannot
positively say we're identical with the present
tame breed. They accompany the remains of

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vix., in fresh-water drifts, in bogs beneath the
peat, and in caverns. Many specimens liave been
obtained from Irebind ; from the fresh-water pli-
ocene deposits on tlie Essex coast ; the fresh-
water drift at Kensington ; and from the caves
of Kirkdale and Oreston. The relics iu question
consist of the bones of the extremities ; which are
rather shorter, but thicker in proportion to their
length than those of an ordinary domestic ox :
and Professor Owen, who attributes them to the
Bos Longifrons, says with reference to them, that
"at all events (whether attributable to this species
or not), they testify the existence of an ordinary
sized hos with the extinct carnivora of that remote
period, and one, therefore, more likely to become
their prey than the comparatively gigantic biso7i
and itrus." This small short-horned species Pro-
fessor Owen is inclined to regard as the origin of
several of our mountain varieties of domestic cattle :
those, for example, of Wales, and the ]'uuts and
kyloes of the Scottish Highlands ; and with great
propriety he observes, that the domestic descen-
dants of a primitive race of wild cattle are more
likely to be met with on the mountains than in
the lowlands of Britain, because the aborigines
retaining their ground longest in the mountain
fastnesses may be supposed to have driven thither
such domestic cattle as they possessed before the
foreign invasion, and which we may presume,
therefore, to have been derived from the subju-
gation of a native species of bos.

With all deference to so great an authority,
we are not convinced, by any means, that this Bos
Longifrons was the origin of any of our mountain
breeds. This species had a long visage, and nar-
row in proportion to its length. In our mountain
breeds, the front is broad and flat, the length short
in proportion ; the horns fine (or wanting) ; the
limbs line boned ; but the limbs in the Bos Lon-
gifrons were short and thick boned, and the horns,
though short, very thick iu proportion. But
granting the views of Professor Owen to be cor-
rect, what is the inference ? namely this : that
originall3' distinct species have commingled to-
gether; for our long-homed old breeds, it must
be admitted, were not of the stock of the Bos
Longifrons; and the theory of the non-intermixture
of allied species, falls to the ground.

Fourthly. The fossil skull of a bison, from
Derschaw, a town near Dantzig. This skull is
described in a letter to Sir Hans Sloane from
Mr. Jacob Klein, in the " Philosophical Transac-
tions" for 1731-2 (Vol. XXXVL, p. 4-27), accom-
panied by a grand figure. It is remarkable for
the convexity and bold swellings of the forehead ;
and the horns, which are larger than those of the
modern aurochs (at least in general), spread late-
rally, with even a backward inclination ; the dis-
tance between the roots of the horns is tliirteeu

inches; and the length of the horn, following the
outer curve, is twenty-two inches. Besides this
skull there are a pair of massive horns, evidently
belonging to tlie same species, from Walton in
Essex ; they formed part of Dr. Mantell's col-
lection. Of these bonis, the one we measured
ia twenty one inches in length, its circumference
at the base being fifteen inches. This species is
the Bos (bison) Prisons of Bojanus; and Professor
Owen, in his " History of British Fossil Mam-
malia," figures the frontlet and horn-cores of the
same species, from the pliocene clay, Woolwich.
This animal existed contemporaneously through-
out Europe with the urus of Cfesar, and its
remains occur in the same deposits. The ana-
tomical points of difference between this skull
and those of the Bos Primigenius, or any of the
true taurine section, are very striking. In the
ox, the forehead is flat and square ; in tlie bison
or aurochs, convex, and bi'oader than long ; in the
ox, the occiput declines from the ridge at an acute
and sudden angle ; in the bison, the occiput forms
an obtuse angle ; and its plane, which is quad-
rangular in the ox, is semi-circular. There are
other distinctive characters of no less importance ;
but we shall not enter into minutiae.

Here, then, we have an aurochs conjointly
with a nrus or long-homed ox, on the same
grounds together ; and one, too, with massive
horns, such as Dr. Weissenborn contends for, on
historical testimony were possessed anciently by
the Lithuanian animal ; an aurochs, moreover,
which might have lived, as Solinus (third century)
asserts, in the Hercyniau forest, where Cfesar
places the urus ; and probably also in Pceonia,
conjointly with the huge-horned ox of Herodotus.
Have we not here a solution of the difficulties
in which Dr. Weissenborn, looking to historical
notices, and not to the fossil relics of species, was
enveloped. We have in the same regions the
" villosi terga bisontes," and the "latis feri cor-
nibus uri,'' " excelleiiti vi et velocitate ; " and
both these animals were known in ancient Piome,
and exhibited in the amjjhitheatres. The urus of
Cfesar, the descendant of a long line of aucestiy,
which survived many changes during the pliocene
period of the tertiaiy system of geology, has
perished ; man has effected its ultimate extirpa-
tion : but the relics of the bison or aurochs, which
flourished in a coeval age, has had a somewhat
better fate ; it still exists, under protection, in the
forests of Lithuania ; and, if the species be the
same, in the chain of the Caucasian mountains.
And here we may observe, that we are warranted
in our belief that the Lithuanian aurochs is the
descendant of the race whose fossil bones are
abundant, from a comparison of the skull and
skeleton of the individual sent by the Emperor of
Russia to the British Museum, with the fossil

skulls aud bones in our various cabinets. These
relics we have not personally compared with the
bones of the skeleton in question, as the latter
were not accessible when we visited the Museum.
Perhaps it will still be in our power to make the
comparison ; but that will be of little consequence,
as it has been made by Professor Owen, whose
opinion is of the highest weight. The following
is his summary : " The metacarpal and metatarsal
bones present the same slender proportions, com-
pared with those of the ox, which distinguish the
fossils. There are fourteen pairs of ribs ; the
skull shows the same expanse, convexity, and
shortness of the portal region, as does the fossil
skull of the Bison Priscus ; the horn-cores have
the same advanced origin, and the same direction.
These, however, are relatively shorter than in
most of the fossil skulls, and the general size of
the existing aurochs is less than that of the
ancient or fossil specimens. Admitting, with
Cuvier, that such characters are neither constant
nor proper for distinction of species, we may re-
cognise in the confined sphere of existence to
which the aurochs has been progressively reduced,
precisely the conditions calculated to produce a
general loss of size and strength, and a special
diminution of the weapons of offence and defence.
I cannot perceive, therefore, any adequate ground
for abandoning the conclusion to which I had
arrived from less perfect materials, available to
that end, before the arrival of the entire skeleton
of the Lithuanian aurochs ; viz. : that the species
were contemporary with the mammoth, the ticho-
I'liiue rhinoceros, and other extinct mammals of
the pliocene period."

The subjoined are figures of the fossil skidl of
the aurochs, from Cuvier; the oi'iginal is in the
Museum of Paris : —

FOSSIL AUKOCHS.

(From view.) (Profile view.)

Fifthly. Thefossil skullof abison (bison Ameri-
canus ?) from the cliffs near Eschscholtz Bay, arctic
circle, brought to England by Captain Beechey.
This skull is smaller, less convex on the forehead,
and with all its prominences less boldly marked
than the fossil aurochs skull previously noticed.

Sixthly. The fossil skull of a musk ox, from the
cliffs at Eschscholtz Bay, brought to England by
Captain Beechey. It appears to be identical with

that of the present living species, Ovibos Moscha-
tus. Different writers describe the fossil skulls of
oxen and bisons, found in Europe and North Ame-
rica, under various names: Bos Trochocerus, Her-
mann ; Buffle Fossile de Siberie, Cuvier; Bos Lati-
frons, Harlan ; Bos (bison?) Bombifrons, Harlan;
Bos Vanaliculatus, Fischer ; Bos Velaunus, Robert.
But as we have had no opportunity of comparing
these relics with others, we cannot say how far
they are really distinct.

Abundant remains of a species of ox were found
by Captain Cantley, in the Sewalik mountains, at
the southern part of the Himalayas, between the
Sutlej and the Ganges, partly lying on the slopes,
among the ruins of falling cliffs, and partly in
situ in the sandstone, in company TOth the bones
of the mastodon, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopota-
mus, hog, horse, various species of deer, several
carnivora, crocodiles and gavials, fresh-water tor-
toises, and fishes. From this sketch of the tau-
rine and bison sections of the bovine group, we
advert to our question, the descent of the wild
oxen (so called) of some of our parks from an in-
digenous race ; that they are the descendants of
any of the species, the skulls of which we have
examined, except, perhaps, the second fp. 14), we
cannot admit ; yet these are skulls of the wild oxen
of England, if then insular. Now, let us remem-
ber, that there was a time in which Western Eu-
rope received its first tide of colonization, and
that at that time man possessed flocks and herds.
When Caesar landed on our shores, he found the
Celtic tribe in the possession of the dog, the horse,
the ox, and even the domestic fowl. Had they
not carried these animals along with them in their
early migrations, sedulously preserving them,
while they hunted do^vu the wild and the ferocious?
We think so ; the urus is extirpated ; it was so in
Britain in Caesar's time ; and the aurochs is re-
duced to a few individuals protected by Imperial
mandate. But the ancient Britons had tame
cattle in abundance, and among these a wliite
breed peculiarly valued ; this breed was long
maintained, and, as may be expected, principally
in the mountain fastnesses, never entirely subjected
to the dominion of the Piomans nor yet to that of
the Saxon invaders. " Howel dha," says an able
writer, " describes some of the cattle in the tenth
century as being white, with red ears, resembling
the wild cattle at Chillingham castle. An early
record speaks of a hundred cows with red ears
being demanded as a compensation for certain
offences against the princes both of North and
South Wales. If the cattle were of a dark or
black colour, a hundred and fifty were to be pre-
sented. When the Cambrian princes did homage
to the king of England, the same number of cat>
tie, and of the same description, were rendered in
acknowledgment of sovereignty. Speed tells us

that Maud de Breos, in order to appease King
John, whom her husband had offended, sent to his
queen a present from Brecknockshire, of four hun-
dred cows and a bull, all white with red ears ; and
the same records that describe the \Yhite cattle
with red ears, speak also of the dark, or black-
coloured breed, which now exists, and is general
throughout the principality." We may iiere ob-
serve, the Celtic tribes of antiquity regarded the ox
as one of the earliest productions of creation, and
as claiming something like reverence.

We have here, then, notices of a valued breed
of white cattle. The descendants of tlrese might, at
various times, have become feral ; that is, have
roamed in the wild forests, and returned to a na-
tural state of independence (as has, in recent
times, occurred in South America) ; and of these
feral herds the Chillingham wild cattle may be
the lineal descendants, if, indeed, not of the tame
race once so much esteemed.

We are strengthened in this \'iew of the sub-
ject by the fact, that similar breeds exist in other
parts of Europe. In Italy there is a noble breed
of white cattle, the bulls being models of beauty ;
such, indeed, as the sculptured figures of antiquity
portray with spirit and fidelity. Herds of this
breed graze in the wild solitudes of the Campagna
of Rome, tended by vaccari, or herdsmen. The

BULL OF THE CAMPAGNA OP ROME.

bulls are veiy fierce ; and the amphitheatre of
Rome, built upon the site and with the materials
of the Mausoleum of the Emperor Augustus, in
the Campus Martius, exhibits a regular succession
of combats, the relics of those of the olden time ;
among which bull-fights are most relished by
the successors of the excited crowds, who once
thronged the Colosseum and the Flavian amphi-
theatre. These noble white bulls are kept in the
vauhs which once held the ashes of the imperial
Caesars (now dens for wild bulls and buffaloes) ;
they bound from their prison upon the arena, and
are encountered by giostratori (of whom the most
celebrated are from Viterbo), who exhibit the
most consummate com'age and address.

In Hungai-y there is a breed of white cattle, of
large size, of which a magnificent specimen adorns
the unrivalled zoological collection in the British
Museum. This breed is not maned, if we may
judge from the specimen, like the Chillingham
race (though in the latter the mane is really very
trifling), and has rather longer horns, but still
fine, white, and with black and sharp points. In
the " Pictorial Museum of Auiniated Nature,"
(vol i. p. 1G4, fig, 709), is represented a scene in
Moldavia, where the people still maintain, to a
certain degree, the nomadic habits of antiquity.
It is a caravan of oxen, traversing the country,
transporting, in tall wicker vehicles, of singular
construction, various articles of produce, provi-
sions, and other things to the towns, scattered at
wide distances about the vast plains of that region.
We allude to thi;i merely for the purpose of no-
ticing the fact that the oxen are all wliite.

In Poland a race of white oxen is still pre-
served. A fine specimen is placed, in the British
Museum, between the Chillingham Bull and the
Hungarian : it is smaller than the latter, but
larger than the former, and it is nameless. Never-
theless, those who look with the eye of a zoologist
upon the three specimens, cannot but feel con-
vinced of their close relationship.

But why, it may be asked, should white cattle
have been preserved and valued before others '?
for from such a preference does our argument go
to account for the maintenance of these white
races, and the preservation of our white Chilling-
ham wild breed, the descendants of a tame or
feral race of antiquity. We know not why, but
certain it is that white animals have ever been
much esteemed by man. In ancient Persia the
chariot of Jupiter was drawn by eight white horses,
of Nisoean breed, accounted sacred.* Virgil de-
scribes the Tln-acian steeds of Tunius as surpass-
ing the snow in whiteness ; the priests and judges
of Israel rode on white asses ; the consecrated
bull, offered as a sacrifice to Apis by the ancient
Egj'ptiaus, was white, without one black hair,
otherwise its slaughter was inilawf'ul ; the sacred
bulls of the Hindoos are white. We might en-
large ujiou this point, but it is useless. How-
ever, this predilection may serve to account for
the maintenance, in its purity, of a white breed
of cattle in different countries and through a long
period of time, and for the preservation of the
white feral race, m our island, after the destruc-
tion of the rest.

Thus, then, have we ventured our opinion,
that the Chillingham breed of oxen is not de-
scended from the huge long-homed urus, little in-

* The chariots of the ancient Persian kings were dra\ni by

white horses. The horses consecrated to the sun were white ; and
the white horse was the ancient Sason standard.

" Ter eentiim nivei tondent dumeta juvenci." — Vir*jil.

ir,

bkulls aud bonra in our varioitarcd with tho
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were not aivos->ililc when we m^
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in hi« Butnnmrr : "Tlio ni'

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{•nreil with tho«4> of tlie •

foftsiU. There arc four'

•ikull showH the Kanie ix;

ahortncM of the portal rt-gion. aa dom tli« fmsii

Hkull of the Hiion PritruH ; tb<» h'>nj'«>f»^ h«*>-

tli<* Hnnt'' uilvaiK'oil <iri^in. bii<I i'

'riic>if. li<iwe\or. an' r< lativi 1 ■

nioHt of the fiMiil iikulU. ainl :... ^ ....

the existing aurochs i* Iwn than tlial uf thr
atirient or foaiiil niteciinon*. Aiiiuitiing, witb
CutitT, that aurh rluinii.'lcr« are Driiher conttant
nor pro|K'r for Uivtinction of species, we mar re-
rojjniie in the conlitu'-l «plifrr ..f eti^teiice to
uliiili the aiiro<'li« ha-,'rr»«nrlv rr«luce«l
prcciwly thf CiinlitlKUK calrulntrd to pr\>J'»' ■ n
piirral li>%s of si/e and strenirth. and a >!
diminution of the wen|>on« of ofTenc« an<! d- '
I cannot |*ireive. therefore, any b»1«-i
fur bImiiiiIiiiiiiii; the coiirlu*i<in to \>
arrivr-l !' •• '•-- •■'<■• ........'.

thiit • I

of the 1

wera conteiii|>urar> uitli the uwiuiiivth, ibv it>it^

rhino rhinocvrtM. and other eittiict maminals *'i

tlu- pi. f

III re ftf^rew of the /o*si/ slw/i •■'

''"' '"'' . :.. ' utier; the onginal w i«> '1"
Museum of i*ans : —

tlut of (g present 11
tu* 1 brvnt wt ■

hdtcrt I I

SMdes, Ovibos Moscba
l- i\\v fossil skulls of
.rifiiiiJ Nonh Ame-
l'"N TnK-liocerus, Her-
rii-. ( uvier: lies Lati.
'' ■ ■' '■-MIS. Harlan:
"'1U.K, Hobert.

I comparing
"U ouiuol Mj how tu

pvi.s .f OK were found

^' » ilik iii"Uiil.iins. nt

'' 11 .s l.rlnet'n llie

II the slopes,
1 r^rtlr in

l^jnes

1-'|>0I«-

• vend

• r lor
'!n' tan.

• k'roup. we
' -f the wild

■ '1 an in-

..iil-s of

:. .\v Live

I (p. 14), we

■ 'iie wild oxen

• t II* reraem-

W'rstern F,u-

■ ■ n. and

. iierds.

.ml tiie

i< "1 liic dog, ths borae,

, .i„- i..m\ Hud the_T

II ihoir

ilicin.

rouiL «raocaL
(Fnoi ..€• ) (l*ii^ai >k«.)

FifthW. ThefoMil skiillof abi<nn^Si«.-in Amen
canus ?) from the cIiiTh near I srl
cirvle. brought to Knt'lan.l bv
Thi.H skull is snialle'- i
and with all itn pi
Uian the fossil nun-

Sixthly. Tlie fi>s»il skull ..i a luu^k «\. fmrn th<
cliffs at F.schscholtz IJar, brought to F'.ngland bv
Captain Becchcy. It appoftra to be idcnUral with , mckuijw^gaxuii v(

l.y lni{M>nal
- lud tame

■

i ' ' ! ' ^
riy subjected
et to that of

...n « .'111 111 'i!

. •!,. !.':ll

riMiiii'l.iig
. An eailj
ih red ears

for certain

Ncrlli ani

:::^

•■ ssnip

1 tion. w

flQ

^fc_

r<igDty.

;«*»•'

senger came up to tbe castle, when all the gentle-
men came out with their rifles, and commenced a
fire upon the bull, principally by a steady good
marksman, from behind a fence, at the distance of
twenty-five yards ; but it was not till six or seven
balls had actually entered tbe bead of tbe anmal,
one of them passing in at the eye, that be fell at
last. During the whole time be never flinched.

nor changed bis ground, merely shaking bis head
as be received tbe several shots. Many more
stories might be told of hair-breadth escapes, ac-
cidents of sundry kinds, and an endless vaiiety of
peculiar habits observable in these animals, as
more or less in all animals existing in a wild state ;
but I think I have recapitulated all that my me-
mory suggests to me as deservhig of notice."

CHAPTER II.

Tt is agreed by all naturalists, that tbe domestic
ox of Europe, divided as it may be by the effects
of treatment, soil, food, and climate, into peculiar
breeds, is every where specifically identical. But
the humped, or zebu race of tbe east presents
such marked differences from those breeds in
form and voice, that many eminent writers hesitate
not to regard it as of distinct origin.

LARGE ZEBU, OR. BRAHMIN BULL.

Narrow high withers, surmounted by a large-
fatty bump ; an arched back rising at the croup,
and then descending suddenly to the tail ; slender
limbs ; a large, pendulous dewlap falling in folds ;
long, pendant ears, and a peculiarly mild expres-
sion of the eye, characterize the zebu race of
India ; a race varying in size from that of our
largest cattle, to a dwarf and often hornless breed,
not exceeding a young calf in stature. Of both
the large and dwarf races specimens exist in the
gardens of the Zoological Society. Between these
breeds there are many of intermediate stature, and
one, of Surat, has the bump double.

Tbe zebu race is not confined to India, China,
and the Indian islands, but is found on tbe
eastern coast of Africa, and in tbe island of Mada-
gascar, where, as in India, it is used for the
purposes of draught and burden. In ancient
times, this race, as well as a race destitute of tbe
zebu peculiarities, existed in Egypt ; the figures
of both are plainly delhieated on ancient monu-
ments and temples. An Egyptian painting, in

the British Museum, represents two herds of
oxen, of which tbe foremost in tbe upper compart-
ment is distinguished by its hump and shorter
horns from the long-homed, straight-backed cattle
in the lower compartment. Perhaps, however, it
was rather in Upper than in Lower Egypt that
the zebu breed prevailed ; such, at least, is tbe
case in the present day. In Lower Eg3'pt, as

Burckhardt states, it is almost unknown ; but it
begins in Dougola, whence all along the Nile, as
far as Senaar, no others are seen. In tbe Galla
country there is a race of large zebu cattle, gene-
rally of a white colour, high on the limbs, with a
small hump, but, on the contrary, with horns of
great bulk and length, and sweeping upwards. In
Bornou there is a very large white race, with im-
mense horns, which first bend downwards, and
then turn upwards with a half spiral revolution.
According to Clapperton, the corneous external
coat of these bonis is very soft, distinctly fibrous,
and at tbe base not much thicker than a human
nail. The bony core is very cellular, and so light
that the pair together scarcely weigh more than
four pounds. The dimensions of one of these
horns were as follows : — Length measured on tbe
curve, three feet seven inches ; circumference at
tbe base two feet ; length in a straight line from
base to tip, one foot five inches and a half. This
species, he adds, has a small neck, and is the
common domestic breed of Bomou, where the

ferior in size i.. llie .li'iilmnt.* but from » f'Ti'
met', spniiit; fruiii the (.t.^k iiilnHluiol \>y lli
earliest colonizers of this |H)rti»n uf tlie (jb.be, an
of which the nlx>rit(iiiHl wiUl »loik, prol«l>ly r\
tiiict. WHS dilTea-iit fmiu that untniiicahlo nM'*" ■
uri. Hut, nt tlie sjitne liiue. we adaiil ili''
al>ori(;iiml stock of tlir iloiiiestic ox iiiny <i

roiiraeJ over the whole of Kurojx?. and tin

cent j)nrt.s of Asia. In Spain and I'ortupnl, wh- 1

extensive wilds and vast fonittn alTord Bni|)le mr-

and piLstumge, vast herds of a feral, or wm

mce of ciiltle roam at liU-rtv. The (fr< .

of Aleiiitejo is ceKlirate.l for these cnttl.-. "i.

are verv tien-e. and. at certuin times, the dm

(jerous cluise of these Hiiiinnls is conducteJ on ir

extensive scale. The finest and Imldeat are ••■

lected for the revolting contettts of the arena; ai.

others are tamed and l.roken in f- '

jiur]Hi«es of huslxiiHlrr. I>uhn); th.

und even fatal nividi'nts often )m\>\x :.

and horst-. The men are anned wilJi long m

shaq* goads: and their o)ije<-t in to Mparmte il

bulls from the herd, ami forre tliom uit» an ''

closure, a work rc«|inring the Kreatrst dam

and uildresn. Wi-n- the Al"-- " ' -

forfstecl tinti ruhlMili'd. wr •

how the lingering nlics of i;-

fHjme to grace a iwrk. and Iw luvked u|iuu •• :

survivors of an original and a inilr wild ra«». ^•

ill our island, when t).'

t<> the aie ; when the •

cultivation, the elTirt i: :i .-. ; -

crease of |>oimldtion. liegan to make progrr>««. i'
liiiiri tytretlrfa of FlUstephcn would rapidlr ■:
niinish in nuiuhers, their last relics lindin '
and prutection in the |<ark« of kings or n
l»rd Tankertille, in a leiti'r to Mr
marsh, who rend a paper on thene ratil'
the Bristol Association, in l>«;i*«, m\ ■«
" Tliev have pre-eminentlv all th'-
of wild animals, with fu>nie |>mil:
sometimes very curious and aniii»it<v' I
their young : feed in the night. I«skiiig '
ing during the day : they an- very fur ■
pressed, hut, generally »|>eaking. very limor
moving otT on the ap|>e«nince of any one, eron
a great distiuice. Yet tlits varies very much
dilVert-nl seasons of the year, according to t
mHniier in which they are appro«chr<l. It- >■
mer 1 have been for severwl weeks at
without getting sight of them, they, on tii-
est np|>e}inincc of any one, retiring into a *>•
which series tliem a.« n sanctiiarr. On tlu* oii
hand, ill winter, when r..iiimR down for f
tlic inner |mrk, and l><-ing in conurt >
people, they will let lou aim -st com- -
them, particularly if on horscl«ck. Hui tl

• l>ninntic«tian wrnmllj y€TmiAt* ut iorKw rn ntr r«'
than dimionhn iL

■'< fWnliarities ; they will

• lly. when, if any one

III. piirticiilarly coming

!•<• St nick with a sudden

liHiiij one after another,

1" tlieir saiic-

- lif roil det-r,

1 Inking advan-

•1 I In- ground; so that on

'— tli<> whole park, and

!ii : tlieir usual

set otT in a

n a gallop till

^ u and them,

' i. hi form

i. shurt legs, ktrugbt

i.::o trxiure. thin skin,

■ - '71 eofear;

ist thui

inarka of

I aiMi aotue of lis defects ;

snd roiKh •ubjeet to the

lU bn-d in and

' Miih tlies<> as

■ 1

' ■ lower part of
urs. they move
til<-«. the bulls
lilt' bulls lllHt
v^n- witness to

I --■ -^iiin. as it

. . 1 1 u- 1 I'l llicni.

; : till V li '.Mu

1 t', ,t M-.ln.J

I'l'ding.
J is an in-
ii-i. one of the
• him from the
■ • ■•; the outer
iiig been
. III. by the
I ibr Un«-r doing il incaii-
!.• a ni«li at him. and got him
". j i" [. . K. .. nd limes,
),,■ niid bn.ke
. ! : '., ■ tluT [lerson
;.ini-e lliat c<iuld
-. B deer-hound
listely al-
Irew him
i„~ life. The
r. but kept con-
to hitn, giving
I . to unit. In this state
:i. dog with singuUr
i iing the bull at bay.

the primitive type? Decidedly the European.
The luimp, the large pendulous ears, the loose
large dewlap, the loose skin, aud the very contour
of the zebu, show that it is farther removed from a
state of nature than the hulls of the Campagna of
Rome or of Bulgaria. These characters are pa-
rallel to othere of a similar nature in the sheep,
and seem to be greatly connected with climate.
We do not think the species from which the ordi-
nary domestic ox sprung, to have been a native of
Eastern Asia or India. We believe, therefore,
that the domestic zebu breed (if really of the same
specific identity) has been introduced into the
far east, at some remote epoch, where, received as
a gift from the gods, it would soon become con-
nected with religious rites, ceremonies, and super-
stitious, till it became itself an idol, the incarna-
tion of some mystic deity. Arrian, in his " Indian
History," says, " The whole country of India is
divided into one hundred and twenty-two nations,
according to ilegasthenes. Like the Scythians,
the Indians were anciently a wandering race ; and
until Bacchus or Triptolemus made a conquest of
them, tilled no lands, and had neither houses,
towns, nor temples ; clothed themselves in the
skins of wild beasts ; ate of the fniit of the tala,
a palm-tree, and of the flesh of animals of the
chase. Bacchus built them cities ; gave them
laws ; taught them agriculture, aud the use of
wine, as he had taught the Greeks ; and how to
yoke their oxen to the plough. He also instructed
them in military discipline ; the worship of the
gods, to be performed with drums and symbols :
he introduced the satyric dance, and the custom
of suffering the hair to grow." Here we have the
picture of a migratory people, probably from the
Tartarian wilds, wandering with their herds, and
spreading over the plains of India ; and this is
the more probable, as Professor Bask finds the
grammatical structure of the Telega, Tamil, Cama-
tica, and Malayal'ma tongues, which he regards as
those of the most ancient tribes, to agree with the
Finnish aud Tartar ; whence he supposes that
one great race of men, which may be styled the
Scythian, in the most ancient times, extended
from the Frozen Sea to the Indian Ocean, until
the chain was broken by a great inundation of
people of our own race, which he calls the Japetic.
AVho were these ancient invaders ? Tribes speak-
ing a perfectly distinct language from the Tartar, —
namely, the Sanscrit, the parent of so many of the
modern Indian dialects? According to Sir AV.
Jones, and other scholars, it was from Iran* that
the stream issued which drove the Scythian tribes
southwards, and spread, like a torrent, over the
northern part of India and the adjacent region, as
the Gothic or Scandinavian flood of population

* By Iran is evidently meaut Western Asia, ineliidiiig reisia.

has spread over Europe in later periods. Hence,
then, it is that the early legions of India are in-
terwoven with or parallelized with those of G reece
(and, perhaps, still more of Egypt) ; insomuch
that, when Alexander invaded India, he found
abundant sources of analogy in the theogonies of
the Indians and of his own country, to amuse bis
veterans. (For some interesting historical details
on the subject, see Lieut. -Col. Todd's "Compari-
son of the Hindu and Theban Hercules ;" Trans.
Royal Asiat. Sec, vol. iii. p. 130.) For an ac-
count of the connexion between the Greek aud
Egyptian mythologies, and the adojjtiou of reli-
gious festivals and ceremonies by the Greeks from
the latter, we have but to consult Herodotus
(Euterpe, ii.) ; and knowing, as we do, from the
same author, aud from sculptures and mummies,
the adoration paid by the Egyptians to the ox. we
shall be at no less to conceive how both these
people, and the Sanscritic tribes from Iran, de-
rived from one aud ihe same source their rites
aud ceremonies. The traditions of the Celtic
tribes lead us to understand that the ox was held
by them also in a sort of reverence. The original
seat of the Celtic branches of the human race is
to be traced to Western Asia ; and nations, alike
ignorant of Homer and his Iliad, refer to Troja (a
city or territory of mystery) as the primitive cradle
of their race. The claim of the Cumri of Britain
to a Trojan origin was maintained in the earliest
ages, long before the fabrication of Geoffroy of
lloumouth ; and to this origin the Umbri, the
Liguriaus, the Veneti, the Sabines, and the La-
tins, also laid claim.

If Arrian, then, be right, it was Triptolemus,
or Bacchus, that taught the worship of the ox,
which the Scythian nomades already possessed,
and had carried with them in their wanderings ;
and hence (setting other reasons aside) we may
conclude that the Indian ox, modified by climate,
is not an aboriginal of the regions south of the
Indus.* But while we say this, and while we
acknowledge that no wild type exists in a region
where the wild stocks of other domesticated spe-
cies exist, and where we might expect it to be
found were that country is cradle, still we cannot
help suspecting that, in some parts of India, this
breed is crossed with the gayal. Colonel Smith
alludes to a variety of large size, having a hump
on the back which sometimes weighs fifty pounds ;
the horns are short and bent backwards, and the
colour is usually red or brown. Mr- Bird (" Asiatic
Res.," vol. viii.) has proved, by direct e.xperiments,
not only that the zebu aud gayal will breed tog©
ther, but that the offspring is fertile. We have

* Wandering tribes are unlikely to have domesticated any of the
wild animals of the countries they roamed in ; they carry lame ani-
mals with them, but the domestication of animals supposes a
>etllcd domicile, and a certain degree of civilization.

28.

already said that the Brahmins hold the wild
gayal sacred, and refuse to hunt it.

The large zebu, or brahmin bull, is certainly a
noble animal, and much more active than any of
our breeds. These animals are used in India as
beasts of draught and burden, and also for the
saddle. We learn that Lieut.-Col. Skinner, of
Danah, on the borders of the Bichaneer desert,
one hundred miles Avest of Delhi, maintains a
large stock of them ; and six or seven beasts are
always kept saddled to carry the military de-
spatches. They remain saddled three or four
hours, when, if not wanted, they are relieved by
fresh ones. They will travel, with a soldier on
their back, fifteen or sixteen hours in the day,
at the rate of six miles an hour. Their action is
fine, and they bring their hind legs imder them
in as straight a line as the horse. Such is their
activity that they can clear a five-barred gate with
ease. Thevenot says ( " Kelatiou," vol. iii., p. 151),
" As the oxen in India are by no means ungovern-
able, there are many persons who employ them iu
travelling, and who mount them as they do horses.
Their ordinary gait is easy. Instead of a bit a
small cord is passed double through the gristle of
the nose, and to this is attached a stout cord
in the fashion of a bridle, which is kept up by the
hump the animal has on the forepart of his back,
and which is wanting in our oxen. The animal is
saddled like a horse, and when a little excited
into action it goes veiy quickly ; some, indeed,
gallop as well as a good horse. These cattle are
in general use throughout the T\hole of India ;
and they use no other in ploughs, coaches, and
chariots, which are drawn by oxen, their number
being in proportion to the weight of the load."

It would seem that tvliite oxen are highly
esteemed in India, as they have been in other
parts of the world. Olearius (vol. i., p. 458) no-
tices the procession of an Indian prince, who was
drawn in a carriage harnessed to two white oxen,
which were as lively and active as horses. Bishop
Heber observes that the Thakoors, the nobility of
the Rajpoots, generally travel in covered wagons
drawn by white oxen, whose horns they gild.

" The two oxen," says Tavernier, " which were
harnessed to my carriage, cost me nearly sLx hun-
dred rupees. The reader need not be astonished
at this price ; for these are oxen of great strength,
and which travel journeys of twelve to fifteen
leagues a day, for sixty days, and always on the
trot. When they have done half their day's
work, they have two or three balls (the size of a
penny loaf) of wheaten flour, kneaded with butter
and coarse sugar ; and, in the evening, their or-
dinary fare consists of chick-peas, bruised and
steeped half-an hour in water."

By some tribes these cattle are bred on a most
extensive scale. We are informed by Lieut.-Col.

Sykes (" Proceedings Zool. Soc," 1830-1, p. 13),
that the Brinjarees, a singular erratic people,
breed vast immbers of brahmin cattle ; and that
" an army rarely moves in the field without 15,000
or 20,000 bullocks to carry its grain. Dwarf
cattle are not met with in Dukhun."

The buffalo, however, divides the palm of use-
fulness with the zebu, in the agricultural labours
of India ; and, in some places, supersedes it, being
of a more hardy and robust constitution. In Duk-
hun, for example, the buffalo, which is one of the
long-homed variety, " is mostly bred in the ma-
wals, or hilly tracts along the Ghauts. In those
tracts much rice is planted ; and the male buffalo,
from his superior hardihood, is much better suited
to resist the effects of the heavy rains, and the
splashy cultivation of the rice, than the bullock.
The female is also infinitely more valuable than
the cow, from the very much greater quantity of
milk she yields."

The bull is regarded as sacred by the Hin-
doos ; and privileged individuals, devoted to Bal-
Siva, are tiu'ned loose by the worthy Brahmins to
wander at their pleasure. They become quite tame
and fearless, and coolly help themselves to fruit,
grain, or vegetables, exposed for sale in the shop-
windows, and obstruct the streets and highways,
and take up their quarters where it suits them.
Devout persons think it a merit to pamper them ;
and they become fat and indolent. No one dare
presume to injure them ; but when they put their
muzzle into baskets of grain, or other produce, the
owner contents himself with driving them away
with his handkerchief, or, at most, only slaps their
head or neck, respectfully addressing the animal
by the title of Mahraj — your worship!'" "In
Hindu mythology," says Colonel Todd ("Trans.
Royal Asiat. Soc," vol. ii., p. 500), "the bull
Nauda is at once the guardian of one of the two
gates of heaven, of Iswara, or Bal-Siva, and liis
steed. The astronomic allusion thus blended with
mythology is evident, — viz., the entrance of the sun
into the sign of Taurus, the equinoctial festival of
remote antiquity, and regarded as a jubilee by the
ludo-Scythic nations hemming the shores of the
Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean."

In ancient Egypt, Osiris and Jsis were respec-
tively venerated under the forms of the bull and
cow. The great visible deity of Memphis was the
bull Apis ; of Heliopolis, the bull Mnevis ; and a
third bull is mentioned by some writers, Hernu-
phis, of Hermonthis, iu the Thebaid.

The bull Apis, says Herodotus, is the calf of a
cow that is incapable of bearing another. The
marks that distinguish him from all others are

* Col. Briggs states, that be has seen the sacred ox brought
into an Indian court of justice, and Bi-ithniins swore by placing
their hands on the animal, and calling it to bear witness ot' their
veracity. — Letters on India, p. 72.

tliese : — his body is black, except oue square of
white on the forehead; he has the figure of an
eiig/e on his back, a double list of hair on the
tail, and a scarabasus under his tongue. To this
deity, kept in state, bulls were sacrificed of un-
blemished form and of a snow-white colour, with-
out one black hair. When the victim is slain,
they cut off the head, which they carry, w^ith im-
precations, to the public place, uttering over it
this imprecation : "May all the evils impending
over those that now sacrifice, or over the Egyptians
in general, be averted on this head." They then
sell it to the Greeks, if any are present ; or, if
not, throw it into the river. In India, " Siva, as
the principle of fertility, has his sacred bullocks,
which are to be choseu according to certain marks.
In front of most of his temples there is a colossal
stone figure of a bull ; aud, at certain times, a bul-
lock, with a chaplet on his head, accompanied by
a number of men, is led in a kind of procession,
intended to represent the course of the suu. It is
considered a fortunate omen, when he will eat
grass from the hand of a person who ajiproaches
him ; which is exactly the same thing that Pliny
relates of the Apis."

The goddess Isis, of the Egyptians, was re-
presented as a female figure, with the horns of a
cow, such as the Greeks, says Herodotus, repre-
sent lo. The sacrificial offering was a bullock,
the cow being sacred to the deity, and therefore
never sacrificed. It was accounted, by the women
of Cyreue, a crime even to strike a cow.

Tliis widely-spread worship of the ox to which
the Indo-Scythic nations were so strongly addicted,
influenced the Israelites, who, as is well known,
soon after leavmg Egypt, set up a golden
calf as a god. And again, Jeroboam, reverting
to the worship in Egypt, set up calves at Bethel,
as objects of superstition. In this bovine adora-
tion we have undoubtedly one of the most ancient
of superstitions which have prevailed among
mankind.

In whatever part of the world the original
domestication of the ox was effected, this most
valuable animal spread with the spreading of
nations ; it is universal over Eurojie and Asia,
except within those icy regions where the rein-
deer supplies its place ; its range extends over the
whole of Africa and the great island of Madagas-
car ; and, within modern days, it has been intro-
duced from Europe into the vast continent of
America, and the islands of the southern ocean
In these new regions it has multiplied excessivel}',
and herds roam the plains in a state of semi-wild-
ness. South America owes the ox to the Spaniards ;
the earliest imported, according to Azara, were
Audalusian. Captain John de Salazar, born in
the city of Pomar, in Arragon, carried over seven
cows aud a bull to the coast of Brazil, whence tlicy

were transported l)y the rivers Parana and Par.i
gua, to the city of Assumption, in 1310, seven;!
months being occupied in their transport. From
this stock sprung the feral cattle of the extensive
Pampas, of which so many travellers have given
most interesting descriptions. Besides thousand>
of unowned cattle, living in a state of freedom,
there are extensive herds, which, though they
roam at large, have their owners, and are the
property of those on whose estaucias, or pastur
age estates they feed ; they are under the charge
of stock-keepers, who prevent their passing beyond
certain limits, or recover them when they have
wandered. The estancia of General San Piosas
is said to comprise seventy-four square leagues ot
land, and to contain .300,000 head of cattle, be-
sides wild horses. The great value of these cattle
consists in their hides and tallow ; and for these
alone thousands are annually slaughtered. About
800,000 ox-hides are annually exported from Buenos
Ayres and Monte Yiedo to Europe. Mr. Darni)i
states that from Monte Viedo alone the exportation
is 300,000, and the home consumption from waste
very considerable. "In order to obtain these
hides (he adds) some horsemen join together, and
arrange themselves in two ranks, which form an
angle ; they then jn'ess on the sides a small num-
ber of cattle, and one of the horsemen, who goes
last in the angle, hamstrings the animals with u
knife in the shape of a crescent, ,or half-moon,
fastened to the end of a staff. While this goes on
the horsemen continue to ride forwards, and when
they have thus secured a sufficient number of
animals, they retrace their steps, and the person,
who hamstrung them, gives each beast thus
maimed a finishing sti-oke with a sharp spear,
and the horsemen dismount to strip the carcass,
sometimes of the fat aud suet, but always of the
skin ; this they do with such dexterity, that some
men, without assistance, will strip twenty-six cattle
at a day's work. AYlien a single head of cattle is
to be killed for the sake of its flesh, a horseman
throws a lasso over its horns or neck, and another
does the same over one of its feet, then straining
in opposite directions they prevent it from strug-
gling free, and so strangle it. Admirable is the
dexterity with which, when the animals pass as
they rush forwards, the lasso is thrown, so that
directed backwards under its feet, the animal, at
the pleasure of the horseman, is entangled either
by one foot or by two together. "=:= The carcasses
of the oxen left on the plain are soon devoured by
carnivorous birds, vultures, and caiacaras, which

• The lasso was an insmiipent known to and used by Uie an-
cient Egyptians. It does not appear, however, tliut they laiinulied
whtn in tiill gallop on horseoack, as do the Gauchos uf South
America. They are always represeiiled with it on iViot, atul nio^
probably the plan was to lie in ambush, aud throw it as tlii' auti-
lope, or the bekr-el wash, or » ild os of ihc arabs (ivutclopc bubalii!,),
passed by. '

crowd in flocks to tlie feast. In many places
corrals or enclosures are established for the
slaughter of cattle and horses, and in which they
are kept till wanted, Mr. Darwin particularly
notices the gi-eat corral at Buenos Ay res, where
numbers of cattle are kept for slaughter to supply
food for the people, whom he justly terms a " beef-
eating" population. The cattle are dragged by
means of the lasso to the spot ; and he observes
that, " the strength of the horse, as compared to
that of the bullock, is quite astonishing; a man on
horseback having thrown his lasso (or lazo) round
the homs of a beast, can drag it anywhere he
chooses. The animal having ploughed up the
ground with outstretched legs in vain efforts to
resist the force, generally dashes at full speed to
one side ; but the horse, immediately turning to
receive the shock, stands so firmly that the bullock
is almost thrown down, and one would think would
certainly have its neck dislocated. The struggle
however, is not one of fair strength, the horse's
girth being matched against the bullock's e.\tended
neck. In a similar manner a man can hold the
wildest horse, if caught with the lazo just behind
the ears. When the bullock has been dragged
to tlie spot where it is to be slaughtered, the
matador, with great caution, cuts the ham-strings ;
then is given the death-blow— a noise more e.\.-
pressive of fierce agony than any I know. I have
often distinguished it from a long distance, and
have always known that the struggle was drawing
'to a close. The whole sight is horrible ; the ground
is almost made of bones, and the horses and riders
are drenched with gore."

In the Falkland Islands cattle and horses were
introduced by the French in 1764. The cattle are
magnificent, but the horses are small. From the
injudicious slaughter of the cows the bulls in these
islands greatly preponderate in number. These
bulls wander about singly, or in groups of two or
three. " I never (says Mr. Darwin) saw such
magnificent beasts ; they truly resemble the
ancient sculptures in which the size of the head
and neck is but rarely equalled among tame ani-
mals. The young bulls run away for a short
distance, but the old ones did not stir a step
except to rush at man and horse, and many of the
latter have been thus killed."

In Paraguay, according to Azara, an estanoia of
two square maritime leagues can feed 4000 head
of cattle, under the direction of a superintendant
and four men. The ordinary duty of these five
individuals, a duty requiring a hundred horses, is
to collect the herd once a week, driving them from
all quarters to a rodeo, or circuit, where an account
is taken of their numbers, and those selected for
slaughter which are deemed most fat. Where
there is much forest land, he adds, the herds of
horned. cattle take refuge in the woods during the

winter. In order that the plains may yield a sup-
ply of fresh tender grass in the spring, they are
fired in the autumn, and should it happen that a
hei'd of cattle are encircled by the conflagration,
they dare the flames, and dash through. On the
contrary, the horses remain in the circle, violently
kicking until tliey are bunied to death. ''The
cattle suflice here for almost every necessary' of
life ; the greater part of the population neither
taste bread nor any thing else but flesh-meat.
With the horns are made goblets, combs, and
spoons ; a horn, with a cork at the large end, the
small end being opened, serves as a pitcher. The
inhabitants form out of the hide all sorts of cord-
age and string, as well as the greater part of their
utensils ; on their hides they sleep, and witli them
they cover their cabins. The fat supplies the
place of oil, of the suet they make soap and can-
dles ; the bones are a substitute for firewood in
many places where the latter is wanting; the
skulls are used as chairs in the estancias. From
the milk they make various dishes of curds, which
though in general not very excellent (because the
cream and every unctions particle are removed),
might be as good as in Holland ; and the same
may be said of the butter."

Von Spix, in his " Journey from the city of St.
Paulo to the Iron Foundry of Ypannema," gives
very similar accounts ; but he adds that, besides
the herds which roam wild, every farmer keeps aa
many tame oxen and cows as he requires for the
purposes of. agriculture, and for milk, which is
partly made of cheese These tame cattle are
kept in the vicinity of the fazeuda, and run free
in the meadows during the day, and are only shut
up in an enclosure at night. The flesh of the tame
cattle is preferred to that of the wild, as from the
quiet life they lead it is fatter, and more tender.
Tlieir milk, also, is excellent ; but a cow will yield
only a third of the quantity that a good milch cow
gives in Europe. The Ifide of the cattle, wijich is
decidedly the most valuable part, when stripped
off, is stretched upon the ground by means of short
pegs, a little salted, and dried in the sun. " The
flesh, cut into thiu strips, a little salted, and dried
in the air, is an important article of exportation
from the harbours of St. Paulo and Rio Grande do
Sul to the cities in the north, particularly to Rio
de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, and Maranhao ;
wiiere, under the names of Carne Seca do Sertao,
Passoca, or Came Marqueda, it constitutes an es-
sential part of the subsistence of all the Brazillians,
but especially of the negro slaves."

Though the cows in Brazil yield rich milk, the
Brazillians have not succeeded in making butter,
or establishing a dairy, in the European manner;
and, as Von Spix states, even the emjieror, who
possesses in his very neighboui'hood one of the
finest herds of cows, must content himself with

Irish salt batter, wliicli lias performed a voyafje of
some months. The cow, in Brazil, yields but little
milk, though that little is excellent ; and it is ob-
served, that cows imported immediately from Eu-
rope to that country, lose their milk; a fact which,
as Spix suggests, is •probably to be explained by
the increased action of the cutaneous system, and
the flow of perspiration, from the effects of the
climate.

Australia, New Zealand, and the islands of the
southern seas, and of the North Pacific, have re-
ceived cattle from Europe ; and, indeed, in many
of these jslauds, the cattle have become feral.
Such is the case in the Sandwich Islands (North
Pacific), of wluph Hawaii is the chief. " With the
appearance of Vancouver, "says OthoVon Kotzebue,
" arose the fortunate star of these islands. Among
the innumerable benefits he conferred upon them,
they are indebted to him for the possession of
sheep and cattle. Tameamea (the native king),
declared these animals under a tabu for ten 3'ears,
which allowed time for so' large an increase that
they now run wild in the forests." It was at
Hawaii that the enterprising botanical and zoolo-
ical traveller, Mr. David Douglas, lost his life.
He left California for that island, whence, " after
surmounting innumerable dangers, with almost
unexampled courage and success, he fell a victim
to one of those accidents, improperly so called,
which a mysterious Providence, for wise pui-poses,
sonietimes permits to befall his creatures." He
lost his way, while on the road to Hido, and fell
into a pit excavated for the purpose of entrapping
wild cattle, and into which a bull had previously
fallen. Tlie result may be anticipated.

In some parts of Australia, and particularly in
the forests adjacent to Port Essington, there
abound wild oxen, wild buffaloes, ponies, and
pigs. It has been suggested, that these animals,
with the exception of the buffaloes, are the
descendants of the stoclc left at Port Raffles, when
the settlement was broken up ; but the buffaloes
brought, perhaps, originally from some of the
islands of the Indian Archipelago, are supposed
to be of longer standing in the counti-y. The oxen
are said to be very fine ; numbers, we believe,
were met with by the late expedition from Port
Essington into the interior. At some future day,
perhaps, they may prove of immense advantage.
The settlement at Port Raffles was abandoned in
18'jy, because it was only resorted to by Malay
traders.

We have represented the ox as used for the
saddle in many parts of India ; such is its use,
also, in many districts of Africa. In the Mandara
valleys, the " bullock" (says Major Denham) "is
the bearer of the grain and other articles to and
from the markets. A small saddle of plaited
rushes is laid on him, when sacks, made of goat-

skins and filled with corn, are lashed on his broad
and aide back. A leathern thong is passed through
the cartilage of his nose, and serves as a bridle;
while on the top of the load is mounted the owner,
his wife, or his slave. Sometimes the daughter of
a rich Shouaa will be mounted on her particular
bullock, and precede the loaded lanimals, extrava-
gantly adonied with amber, silver rings, coral, and
all sorts of finery ; her hair streaming with fat; a
black rim of kohal, at least an inch wide, round
each of her eyes, and, I may say, arrayed for
conquest at the crowded market." Carpets and
robes are spread on her clumsy palfrey, to form a
saddle, she sits astride, guides her animal by the
nose bridle, and, notwithstanding his sluggish
nature, " her vanity still enables her to torture
him into something like caperinj^s 'and curvetings."

A nearly similar picture of the saddle-ox is
given by Mr. Burchell, in his " Travels in South
Africa :" —

" These oxen are generally broken-in for
riding when they are not more than a year old.
The first ceremony is that of piercing the nose, to
receive the bridle ; for which purpose they are
thrown on their back, and a slit is made in the
septum, or cartilage, between the nostrils, large
enough to admit a finger ; in this hole is thrust a
strong stick, stripped of its bark, and having at
one end a forked branch, to prevent it passing
through. To each end of it is fastened a thong
of hide, of a length suQicieut to reach round the
neck, and form the reins ; and a sheepskin, with
the wool on, placed across the back, together with
another, folded up and bouod on with a rein long
enough to pass several times round the body, con-
stitutes the saddle. To this is sometimes added a
pair of stirrups, consisting only of a thong, with a
loop at each end slung across the saddle. Fre-
quently the loops are distended by a piece of wood,
to form an easier rest for the foot. "While the
animal's nose is still sore, it is mounted, and put
into training, and in a week or two is generally
rendered sufficiently obedient to its rider. The
facility with which the Hottentots manage the ox,
and their adroitness, have often excited my admira-
tion : it is made to walk, trot, or gallop, at the
will of its master ; and being rather longer legged,
and rather more lightl}^ made than the ox in
England, travels with greater ease and expedition ;
walking three or four miles an hour, trotting five,
and galloping, on an emergency, seven or eight."

Pack-oxen are also much employed in South
Africa, in the same manner as the pack-horses
were formerly in England, and the mules are still
in Spain. So rapidly does a string of pack-oxen
travel along that it is not easy to keejj. up with
them and their nimble-footed drivers, even by
mounted horsemen ; for they trot or gallop over
the roughest gronnd, where huge rough stones

)

24 Tilt

crowd in tlucks to the feast. In mnny placM
corrals or enclosures are estaMishcd for the
slaugUter of cuttle and horses, ami in which tliev
are kept till wanted, Mr. Darwin jmrtiiularlv
notices the <,Teat corral at Buenos Avres, where
numliers of cattle are keja for slaughter to supply
food for the people, whom he justly tenns a " beef-
eating" population. The cattle are dnig'.'<''' l*J
means of tlie lasso to the spot ; and he ol>scr^-es
that, " tlie strength of the horse, as o>ini»an>d to
that of the hullock, is quite astonishing; n man on
horseliack having thrown his lasso (or lazo) round
the horns of a lieast, can dnig it anywhere he
chooses. The animal having ploughi-d up the
ground with outstretched legs in vain cflorls to
resist the force, generally ditshes at full sjHvd to
one side ; but the horse, imniediurily tunnng to
receive the siiock. stands so limily that tlie bullix-k
is almost thrown down, and one would think wouM
certainly have its neck dislocated. Tiie stniggle
however, is not one of fair stren;»lh, the horse's
girtli being niatclied again>t tin- l>uilink'h extemled
neck. In a similar manner a man can hold the
wildest horse, if caught with the la/o just lieliind
the ears. When the bullock has In'on drugged
to the spot where it is to be slaughtered, the
matador, with great caution, cuts the liara-stringH ;
then is given the death-blow — a noise more ex-
pressive of lierce agony than any I know. I have
often distinguished it from n long rlistance, and
have always known that the slnigglo was drawing
to a close. The wlude sight is horribb- ; the )^>und
is almost made of lH)nes, and the horses aud riders
are drendied with gore."

In till" Falkland Islands cattle and horses were
introduced by the French in Kill. The cattle are
magnificent, but the horses are small. From the
injudicious slaughter of the cows the bulls in these
islands greatly prejiondenite in nunibtr. 'Ihese
bulls wamler about singly, or in graipsoflwo or
three. "I never (says Mr. I»arwin) saw such
magnificent beasts: they tndy resemble the
ancient sculptures in which the size ofthehea<I
and neck is but rarely eipialled anicmg tame ani-
mals. The young bulls nm away f.ir a short
distance, but the old ones did m.t stir a step
except to rush at man and horse, and many of the
latter have been thus killed."

In Pai-aguay, according to Azara, an estanria of
two square maritime leagues can feed lOOit head
of cattle, under the direction of a superinttn.Iani
and four men. The ordinary duty of these five
individuals, a diitv requiring' a hundred horses, is
to collect the herd once a week, driving them from
all quarters to a rodeo, or circuit, where an account
is taken of their numbers, and those selected for
slaughter which are deemed most fat \\'here
there is much forest land, he adds, the herds of
horned cattle take refuge in the woods during the ■

winter. In
ply of frf<h
tired in the
lierl of car
they ihire i
ciintniry. ii,
kicking unt
cattle Kulli<-
life: the J
taste bp-.i
With the
8|>oons ; n i '
utetisils :
they ■

pIlU-C !■'.

d\e»; the t
Minnv pini-e
»kull-
the ri
thou-
cream nu'l
might I"' •'
niav I
■\
run!
Ten-

the 1
uuut\

P»T

|innl.

kep,

in tb'

up in an r

rattle i« t"

quiet

The.,

ull, ;
|H»gs.
Ile,b.

in tjj
from :

Sill to Uie ri
de .Tnnrim

but f-

Brayi

or e-!
and. ;i.> .
posst-s.se8 1 i
finest henl-

( er lint ih. plains may yield a sup-
t. jer gris> in the spring, they are
a Inin. and -.houl.l it liapp*-n that a

' ^ ' ' by ilie i-onllagralion,

-!i !lin.u;;h. On the

I ■'!! tlie cia-le, violently

il««ry uff biinied to death. "The

. iiv> f.ir nlro'wt ererr neccssarj- of

! • i-qadatioii neither

•1" but llesh-meat.

;,'.>bl -ts, combs, and

i at the large end, tlie

> i-^ as a pitcher. The
111 le nil soils of cord-

^•1 eater [wrt of their

> ^leep, and with them
r The fat supplies the
I.. -. t li.y make ii<«p and oui-

«•* are a Mil 'lilute for firewood in

« 9u>r« the litter in wanting; the

■ iu.-i:Ls. Fr>m

'■ • iirds, which

- -...■- .1 i^bersuise the

i« uii' : ii> (mnicle are removed),

-• *>-\ ■■- ■■: I lullaiij ; aud the t>aioe

iiey from the city of St.

"f Ypnnnema." gives

]:' M.i.j-. that, liesides

1 1 \( ry famur keeps lUi

'' - ad be re<|iures for the

< . ^ind for milk, which is

r',. ..<• lame cattle are

. • iid.i. and run fn-e

! ^ . and are only shut

I'be flesh of the tiimo

f the wild, as from the

■I' r. and more tender.

bill a cow will yield

:li .1 a g'Kid milch row

I' the cattle, which is

] irt. when Btrijiped

11 id by means of short

• i in the sun. "The

'■• d. and dried

■ expirtiition

, ■ ■ Grande do

ii' ill the north, parlicularlT to IJio

ll^i«, PiTiinrnbiiro, and Maranhao;

'-' I do Scrtao,

iites an es-

;;.^ lirazillians,

1. il yield rich milk, the

- . • 'dcd in making butter,

V 111 the European manner;

• ven the emf>eror, who

. iilciiirlKK>d one of the

' content himself witl

jr ■•

Ji* ift»»

'■>7

lofty horus, black aucl stout ; the forebeaJ should
be broad aud rough, the ears liairy, the e3-es and
lips black, the muzzle upturned, the nostrils
wide, the neck long and brawny, the dewlap
large, and reaching almost to the knees, the chest
broad, the shoulders massive, the belly large and
protuberant, the sides well stretched out, the
flanks broad, the back straight, or a little de-
clining, the legs compact and straight but rather
short, the knee-joiuts well set, the hoofs large, the
tail long and haiiT ; the whole body should be
soft to the touch, and the skin covered with short,
thick hail-, of a red colour, or dark brown. With
respect to the bull, he should resemble the ox,
only vrith a greater development of limb and
bidk; his aspect should be stem, his horns
shorter, his neck more brawny, so as even to
preponderate over the volume of the trunk ; the
belly shoidd be more confined.

The cow should be tall and long made, with a
very large belly, and veiy broad forehead ; the
eyes should be black and open, the boms graceful
and smooth, the ears black aud haiiT, the jaws
straight, the dewlap large, the legs and hoofs
moderate. Our ancient writers give the same
description. All insist upon a muscular frame, a
brawny neck, a wide chest, large hoofs, stout
limbs, and long t;iil ; and such are the animals
of Greek aud Roman sculpture.

It is evident, that the breed of oxen which the 1
Romans aimed at, was a strong-limbed, heavy,
massive sort, fit for labour, from which the cow
even was not excluded : —

"Ex asqiiore cemes
Plura'domum tardis decedere plauslra juvencis."
" Yuu will see the numerous wagons, with the slow, heavy

loaded heifers,
Move homewards from the plain."

Xhe wagon and the plough were for the ox ;
in Italy, m Greece, and iu the East, agricultural
labom- was its lot ; nor is the practice of working
the ox, in Europe, yet abolished, although the
horse now takes his share, which was not anciently
the case.

Allusions to oxeu engaged in the labour of the
plough are abundant, both iu the Scriptures and
classic writings. The plough of antiquity was of
simple construction, and in the East still continues
to be a rude instrument, aud adapted only for a
light soil, or for making superficial farrows.
Among the Romans, as is evident from Vir-
gil (Georg. I., 169, et seq.), the tiller of the
groutid made his own plough, which was fitted for
a pair of oxen, and over which, while at work, the
ploughman was obliged to bend, loading it with
his own weight, iu order to keep the share steadily
aud uniformly on the ground.

Another use to which the ox was anciently
applied, was that of treading out the corn. To

this practice the Mosaic injunction alludes: —
" Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he trea.leth
out the corn ;" and Homer also refers to it : —

" As when the peasant his yoked steei-s employs
To tread his barley, the broad-fronted pair,
With ponderous hoofs, soon tritiiiate the grain."

Horn. Cowptr'i irand.

Virgil describes the manner in which the
threshing- floor must be laid down, showing that
nothing like the modern style of threshing could
have been used. He directs, that " the threshing-
floor be well levelled with a huge cylindric roller,
and consolidated with binding chalk, that weeds
may not spring up, and that it may not become
dusty, or full of chinks." Among the Romans,
however, horses were also employed in this work,*
aud Isaiah (.xxviii. 27), also, alludes to horses or
horsemen.

The custom of threshing by the treading of
animals is still common in northern Africa, where
the ueddars, or nedders, the " Libycse arefe," of
Horace, receive the sheaves, which are opened
and spread out, and oxeu, or mules and horses,
three or four abreast, are driven round aud round,
till all the grain is trampled out. These nedders
are merely round, level plats of ground, in the
open air, " daubed over with cow-dung, to prevent
as much as possible, the earth, sand, or gravel
from rising ; a great quantity of them all, notwith-
standing this precaution, must unavoidably be
taken up with the grain ; at the same time, the
straw, which is their only fodder, is hereby shat-
tered to pieces ; a circumstance very pertinently
alluded to in 2 Kings xiii. 7, where the king
of Syria is said to have '' made the Israelites like
the dust by threshing." (" Shaw's Travels.")

In other parts, as in Syria and Asia Minor, a
dray, on which a driver sits, or which he loads with
a weight, is drawn over the sheaves by oxeu. The
flat under-surface is stuck full of flints or pieces of
iron, arranged in regular rows. This is the tribu-
lum of Varro aud Virgil ; and is mentioned by
Isaiah. " Behold, I wdl make thee a new sharp
threshing instrument having teeth : thou shalt
thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and
shalt make the hills a chafl;"(ch. xli. 15). "We do
not know in what the traha, or trahea, differed.

Another method is by a sledge, moving on
three or four wooden rollers, with iron bands,
having acute serrated edges to cut the straw : on

• The Romans used the flail in their bams ; and Columella
says, that "when the ears only are reaped they may be carried to
the barn, and aflei-wards, during ihe winter, beaten out willi flails,
or trodden out by cattle. But if it be found convenient to beat out
the corn iu the threshing-floor (area), there is no doubt this work is
better done by horses than by oxen ; and if there are fevr of these
a trihula, or traha (sorts of sledges or planks, sometimes on rollers),
may be added, either of which very easily bruises the straw. When
ears only are threshed, it is done tie best with Jiails." The bruised
straw was important as fodder, its reduction by crushing rendering
it fit for food of calde.

2(5

iHi; ox.

scattered about reuJer it dangerous tn give the ;
spur to the horse, or proceed at a quicker poce |
than a cautious walk. . (

One of tlie great l>enefits rendered hv the ox in
South Africa, is by its hibour in the shafts of the |
wajton, especially 'as far as the iiiteresu of llie
Eunipean settlers are concerned The usual mode
of travelling over the plains and vast karroos of
this region, Is in large, heavy, tilt-covered wagons,
drawn \v ten or twelve oxen in pairs. It is ^
astonishing what toil these often ill-treated and ;
cruelly-used animals will endure, an«l bow jmi-
tieiitlv thev undergo privation. The driver,
generally a Hottentot, uses a whip, with a handle
of strong liaralkio. twelve or fourteen feet in
length, having a thong still longer; this he crocks
from time to time, calling the cattle by their ^
respective names, and directing them by the ex-
clamations of "hott' and " haar." to tlie right or
left: occasionally he apj-lies the bi^h to quicken
their speed. But the severities of the H.iltentot » .
lush are nothing to the revolting tortures, which
Ikrmw relates the Dutch .\fnciin \ti*<n of hi« I
time to have inllieted. not only witii in! "
but even in wantonness, njMin their •

cattle. These barbarities, however. w<- .-•

shock coiunioii humanity by detailing. Punng
serene and pleitsant weather, no kind of (rnvelling
is more pleasant. The rvuuls acrv>*» the desert, it
is true, are merely rude tnicks of wlieels. which
have previouslv jMus-ied. %iui s")metinws the way
leads over rugged and bnik>n. or nx-kv gruund .
but still the scenery is often inlen !.liiig ; the
flowers, the birds, the antelo|H>s. Hrrent the aJ-
niiration of the new settler : and as a number of
wagons geueniUy travel together, fonninu a nor! of
caravan, the hours of day pass pl< .ucuitly ; and at
night, the fires are lighted, the wiig.nis ranged in i
proper order, and the party bivouac till moraiug.

In a similar manner the bnlbick cnrnvans Ira- '
verse the wide pbiius of Moldavia, Wallachia, anii
Turtary.

There are different breeds of oxen ni ■' ' - -
and on Southern Africa ; fortnerly, if I
his " Voyages," Ac, ITvJtt,) is to l>e en
zebu breed extended thither ; but it dm-s nut
exist there now. Acconling to Pen-ivnI. tlie larye
druughl oxen form a pi-ctiliar breeil, ■listingui>he<i
by a large head, long bonis and b-^s, with verv
broad hoofs ; they are lank b<-fi're, but bmuil
behind. Hesides this, Uierc is a race of smaller
stature, and beautiful figure, something like the
Aldeniey breed of Lurope. The cows of this
breed alTord a great quantity of milk. an<I the
oxen are fattened for the table. The l-eef, how-
ever, of the Cape is, on tlie whole, coarse and
iudifl'erent ; this is partly owing to tlie feeding of
the cattle upon sour acrid grass and shrubs. 1
instead of in rich pastures, and partly to the

exh nHii'j

fp.,„ 1. .,

11.
at oiic<

thai II
amon^'-

If the animals, which are often driven

i«i .• . - mid killed in Uiis unfit state,

! any attempt to get them

r-i.iii of the- domestic ox is

•iiii-ie value to man; but

> v.iiiie is tlie must highly

- e\er lutii been, and not

ii it must U> confessed,

.11 ancient times, at least

.1 noinans, was basetl upon

I wlut it \a in

r ^ sang more of

• ; I i» and herdsmen.

::ir nhei'p was as much,

f the cow ; and it was

: ~ il> -li and labour, that

iliui for thuAe qualities

for

1 •> . ;

frf HWK car*. cat llwlii ctniK

. .. < u.<t.b, |i«t«mrt«|wll1(

> >tui(M* H tko ;

.1 toUfu nail'

(/r«y. iB.
uvaaat raAStuiTtaa.

'. wlMw ka^ h ^f, mtmm awk U

.•>( fnt* <kt iMa a»«a IW b«< :
'X la Um Im^ af Wr ri4*; all ha

- il — rtrf vilk lafft foa <t aUu ;

,-..X.

I mid

1 ■ ii..t

■ the

/VT -hort.

li..- k<

iit. a little prut uUrant. and

at a 1

fp.n, f^c\\ ..ib<r; the f<*t

shoul'i

i.ii nor bard to tbe^
I \ !i . hide of a blac|(
\t< \t. buve it r. .1 : t]|
u. ..;,.. Tb- cm\- .il
.^-\ . KU'— of the lir>l coll
others, iiii<nue liatc betj

. as described by Colv
.iian. with lar^e liiulj

2<J

sour ; tlie butter is made of goat or sheep's milk.
It is put into a goat-skin, tied to one of tlie tent
poles, and for one or two hours constantly moved
backwards and forwards. The buttery substance
then coagulates, the water is poured out, and the
butter is put into another skin. If, after two days,
they have collected a certain quantity of butter,
they place it over the fire, tlirow in a handful of
bo'.irgoul (wheat boiled with some leaven, and then
dried in the sun), and leave it to boil, skimming it
carefully. After having boiled for some time the
bourgoul precipitates all the foreign substances,
and the butter remains quite clear at the top."
We learn from the same learned traveller that, by
the Syrian Arabs, " the sheep and goats are milked,
diu-ing the three spring montlas, morning and
evening. They are sent out to pasture before sun-
rise, while the lambs or Idds remain near the camp.
About ten the herd returns, and the lambs are
allowed to satiate themselves ; after ■which the
ewes belonging to each are tied to a long cord, and
milked one after another. When a ewe is feeble
in health, her milk is left wholly for the lamb.
The same process occurs at sunset. From a hun-
dred ewes or goats, the milk of which is always
mixed together, the Arabs e.xpect, in common
years, about eight pounds of butter per day, or
about seven hundred weight in the three spring
months. What the Arab's family does not use, is
sold to the peasants or townspeople."

In Barbary, according to Shaw, the milk of
the ewe is put into a goat-skin turned inside out,
then suspended from one side of the tent to the
other, and on passing it to and fro in one uniform
direction, a separation of the butteiy and wheyey
parts is quickly occasioned. In the Levant they
tread the skin bags, partially filled ■with milk,
with their feet, till the butter separates. Between
the skin bag of the Arabs and the long vessel of
Pliny's description, there is no essential difference.

The fondness of the Arabs for butter is e.\-
cessive ; they eat it in large quantities ; the richer
who can afford it, not only swallowing it by cupfuls,
but even saturating their food with it. And if
Pliny alluded to these people, his expression,
" Butyrum, barbararum gentium lautissimus cibus,
et qui divites a plebe discernat," is most descrip-
tive. In fact, they not only eat it in quantities
before breakfast, but as Burckhardt assures us,
snuff the concrete oil up their nostrils. " Some
tribes," he adds, " welcome a guest by pouring a cup
of melted butter on his head. Our way of spread-
ing butter thinly on bread seems the height of
absurdity to them, and indeed to other Asiatics.
When they do eat it with bread at all, it is in the
way which was taught us bj' a Bedouin, who, observ-
ing us sitting on the ground refreshing ourselves
■nith buttered bread and dates, looked compas-
sionately on our ignorance of the true use of.

butter, and to give us a valuable lesson on the
subject , commenced brealdng oil' a thin bit of bread
about the size of a crown-piece, and heaping there-
on as large a lump of butter as it would support,
threw it into his mouth with great satisfaction.
He pursued his' instruction, until his rapid pro-
gress towards the bottom of our butter-skin obliged
us to declare ourselves sufficiently instructed."
Inured to constant and severe exercise in the open
air, the Arabs know nothing of the malady tenned
dyspepsia ; they can endure hunger for days, and
then eat to repletion, and swallow butter by whole-
sale without the least injury. D'Arvieu.x states
that the Arabs regale themselves with butter and
honey at breakfast ; adding, that although these do
not seem to suit very well, experience teaches
that it is no bad mixture, nor disagreeable to the
taste of one if ever so little accustomed to it. This
mixture of butter and honey recalls to our mind
an expression in Isaiah, " for butter and honey
shall every one eat that is left on the land."
(Ch. vii. 22.)

Again, in second of Samuel (x-rii. 29), we
read that Shobi, and Machir, and Barzillai brought
" honey and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kiiie
for David, and for the peojile that were with him,
to eat." In Deuteronomy (xxxii. 13, 14), we
read of " honey out of the rock, and oil out of
the flinty rock ; butter of kiiie (not sheep), and milk
of sheep, with the fat of lambs." The language is
figurative, it is true, but the association of delicate
viands is ad naturam. In Job (xx. 17), we
read of " brooks of honey and butter;" aaid in the
book of Proverbs the expression, " Surely the
churning of milk bringing forth butter," alludes
to the mode of procuring this delicacy, which was
not effected as in our island in the present day.
by allowing the separation of the cream from the
milk, and subjecting the former to the action of
the churn, but by churning the milk itself.

In India, a liquid butter, termed ghee, is in
general use, and the mode of its preparation for-
cibly reminds us of Pliny's description. The
milk, ■when first dra^nn from the animal, is boiled
in earthen vessels for two, or even three hours ; it
is then allowed to cool, and a little curdled milk,
called tyre, is added to promote its coagulation.
By the next morning the whole mass has been
converted into tyre, or coagulated acid milk : about
five or six inches in depth are then taken from
the top of each vessel, and put into an earthen
jar, where it is churned by means of a split bam-
boo, rapidly turned round and round : after half
an hour's churning a little hot water is added, and
the churning is continued till, in about half an hour
afterwards, the butter begins to separate. When
this butter has been kept for two or three days,
and has become rancid, as it will in a hot climate,
it is melted in an earthen vessel, and boiled until

all the water tbat maj- be mixed with it is evapor-
ated ; a little tyre and salt, or betel-leaf, is then
added, and it is put into pots to be kept for use,
and is sometimes preserved for ma\iy months. It
is a very important article of internal traffic
through a great part of India, and is in general
consumption among all the natives who can afford
to buy it ; but from its strong smell and flavour it
is distasteful to Europeans.

Of the demand for the ox as a sacrifice before
the altar, in ancient times, we need not speak, nor

of the use of its flesh as food, though that of the
" fatted calf" was in far higher esteem. At the
present day throughout Southern and Eastern
Europe, beef is not regarded in the same light
as it is in England, and is* considered to be in-
ferior to mutton. Thus Cervantes, in allusion to
the comparative cheapness of the former, says of
Don Quixote, that " three-fourths of his income
were scarce sufiBcient to afford a dish of hodge-
podge, in which the mutton bore no proportion to
the beef."

CHAPTER III.

It is not within our province to enter minutely
into the osteology of the ox, nevertheless we annex
a view of the skeleton of this animal, viz. of a

cow of the middle-honied breed, in order that its
general characteristics, which mere description
could not convey, may be seized upon by the eye.

SKELETON OF COW,

On comparing the skeleton of the ox with that
of the horse, we perceive that the height is less,
in proportion to the length, than in the latter. In
the horse, if we remove the neck and tail, the
body and limbs describe the limits of a square ;
not so in the ox, which is shorter on the limbs
than the horse, and has the trunk comparatively
more elongated. The head of the ox is in a line
carried from the shoulders, and is braced up to
the spinous processes of the dorsal vertebrae by a
powerful ligumentum nuchaj. The frontal and
occipital bones are cancellous, the two tables of
bone being separated ; and these cells are conti-
nued up the osseous core of the horns, so that the
cranial cavity is really less than from an external
view' of the skull might be anticipated ; the sca-

pula, or blade bone, has its upper edge straight,
the angles being acute ; the ribs are thirteen on
each side, eight true and five false ; they are
broader in proportion than those of the horse, and
the last pair are more remote from the pelvis, or
haunch. The number of the vertebrae is as fol-
lows; neck, or cervical, 7 ; dorsal. 13; lumbar, 6;
sacral, 4 ; caudal, 16. The pelvis differs greatly
from that of the horse ; the ischial portion is jiro-
duced, with the tuberosity truncated, so as to pre-
sent three angles, and the haunch, or iliac portion,
is more spread ; hence an angularity of the haunch
compared to what we see in the contour of the
horse. The spinal column of the trunk does not
fall gently in, as we see ui the horse, but is rather
arched, and then carried straight to the set-on of

the tail without any downward curve. The hu-
merus, or shoulder bone, forms a considerable
angle with the scapula, and is succeeded by the
radius and ulna, or bones of the fore arm; of which
the latter enters into the structure of the elbow
joint, and becoming soldered to the radius is, con-
tinued to the knee, composed of carpal or wrist
bones, consisting of six bones in two layers, of
which two only form the lower range. To these
succeed the metacarpal or shank bone, analagous
to the canon bone of the horse, but furrowed e\-
teriorly ; it has a small splint bone posteriorly,
with sesemoid bones at its lower end, where two
articulating processes receive the two first bones of
the digits, or toes. The hinder limbs are on the
same plan ; the small bones of the hock (really
the tarsus) consist of five bones, of which the
elevated calcaneum, or heel bone, receives the
tendons of the back of the thigh. The thigh
bone is larger and longer than the humerus, and
the metatarsal bone, or shank, longer and slen-
derer than the metacarpal, or shank bone of the
fore limbs. The bones of the toes are also smaller.
The annexed cut represents the forefoot of the
ox (a), and the hind foot of the same (b).

^il

FOBE FEET OF OX.

We have already detailed the characteristic pe-
culiarities in the dentition of the ox, peculiarities
which distinguish between the ruminants and all
other herbivirous quadrupeds ; but, as in tlie case
of the horse, there are certain points connected
with the dentition of the ox, which ought to be
understood by every practical farmer, for it is by
the characters and changes of the incisor teeth
of the lower jaw, that the age of the ox may be
the most correctly estimated. The regular num-
ber of these incisors, as we have stated, is eight

in number ; but the first set are deciduous, being
gradually shed, and replaced by a new series. The
new born calf has generally two central incisors

protniding through the gum, and more or less de-
veloped ; these, like the others about to follow,
are covered with white enamel, and have sharp
edges and slender roots. About the close of the
second week, a tooth on each side of this central

pair cuts the gum, making the number four ; at the
end of the third week, the number will be in

creased to six ; and at the termination of the
fourth week the full number of the deciduous, or
milk-incisors, will be complete. At this time the
upper line of the sharp edges of the two central
incisors has begun to wear, the osseous portion of
the tooth appearing where the enamel is abraded ;
this increases, and, in the course of two months

the next teetli will begin to sliow signs of wearing,
and iu about three months the next in succession ;

till in the course of four months or a little more,
the whole set show the effects of use, but the
four central teeth by far the most decidedly. At
this time, independently of their wearing down by
attrition, the two central teeth begin to diminish
in size ; at first this is not very perceptible, but,
in the course of a few months, the change will be
very palpable. This diminution is the result of a
process of absoi-ption, which goes on with increased
rapidity as the new teeth, in their nutrient cells
beneath, become more and more developed ; the
worn surface of the teeth, in question assumes a
triangular form, with an oblique inclination in-
wards, the osseous portion appearing as a distinct
central mark. At the age of about eight mouths

EIGHT MONTHS.

the diminution and wearing down of the two cen-
tral incisors is very decided ; and before the close
of the twelvemonth, the next incisor on each side

ELEVEN MONTHS.

will show the same appearance, and the four, in-
stead of being close together, will be separated

from each other, especially at their base : at the
close of fifteen months, the number of teeth thus

FIFTEEN MONTHS.

diminished by absorption, worn by use, and sepa-
rated from each other, will extend to six ; an'd at
the close of eighteen months the whole eight will

EIGHTEEN MONTHS.

appear as little worn radiments. During these
changes the ox experiences more and more diffi-
culty in cropping his herbage, and from this
cause and the action going on connected with the
formative process of the permanent teeth, in their
capsules, or cells,- the animal is subject to many
disorders, and is liable to become out of condition,
especially in pasture grounds where the herbage is
not abundant and succulent.

Still these rudiments of teeth remain for some
months, their decrease continuing, first, more espe-
cially in the two central teeth ; till, at the com-

TWO YEARS.

mencement of the second year, the two central
permanent teeth shoot up, and put out the mere

relics of their predecessors. During this process,
the extremity, or alveolar margin of the jaw itself,
is growing and widening, so as to afTord room for
the development of the rest of the teeth yet in
their capsules ; and the increase of both teeth and
jaw goes on in according harmony. It is not until
towards the close of the second year that the ne.xt
incisor on each side takes the place of its temporary
predecessor ; nor until the close of the third that

THIRD YEAR.

the next in rotation succeed. The corner milk
teeth, ho\vever, are now mere rudiments, and tliey

FOTTETH YEA

give place at the close of the fourth, or heginnin"
of the fifth year, to their successors : in aH these
changes some allowance must be made for the
vigour or the weakness of the animal ; but such is
the average routine.

FIFTH YEAR.

The last teeth obtained are smaller than the
rest, and can scarcely be said to be fully grown
until a few months have elapsed. The whole set
is complete, but while the outer teeth have been
growing, the two central permanent teeth first and
then the next, have been wearing, and show the
marks of attrition ; which, at the age of six years,

will have extended to the whole set. The teeth
become flattened at the top, with a dark central

SIXTH YEAR.

mark, bounded by a line of bone, and this by the
layer of enamel. As yet the four middle teeth
are the largest ; but, again, by slow degrees a
change takes place, and the process of absorption
and weai-ing down goes on. First, the two central
teeth show this, then the next on each side, till, at
the age of ten, the four middle teeth are smaller

TENTH YEAR.

than the outermost two on each side, which, ne-
vertheless, are greatly worn. The animal has
turned the grand climacteric, and the teeth con-
tinue more and more to show the ravages of age ;
but, as among other domestic animals, and the
human species, not invariably to the same extent,
the process being slower or quicker, according to
circumstances. At sixteen the ox is old, but there
are many instances in which tlie cow will give milk
to the age of eighteen or twenty ; and rare cases
are on record in which the cow has given milk, and
suckled a calf, at a later date, even in her thirty-
first or thirty-second year.

With respect to the grinders, or molar teeth,
they cannot be conveniently examined in the living
animal ; nor even, were they accessible, could a
very certain conclusion be deduced from them.

The calf is horn with one or two milk grinders
on each side above and below ; but by the fifteenth
or twentieth day, the number is increased to three.

A fourth molar, permanent, appears in the
sixth or eighth month after birth ; a fifth molar,
permanent, in the twentieth or twenty-second
month after birth ; and a sixth molar, in about
the fiftieth or fifty-second month. The first milk
molar is shed about the time when the fifth molar

■jl

appears, and the secoTul auJ tliirJ, at intervuls of
ten or twelve months.

It has been usual to judge of the age of cattle
by their horns, but we shall show that this is a
fallacious method, and of course inapplicable to
the polled breed.

The calf at its birth has the horns in the form of
small osseous tubercles covered with a corneous
la3'er ; the osseous tubercle sprouts from the fronto-
occipital ridge, and continues to increase by the de-
position of osseous particles, secreted by the arteries
from the blood. The core of the horns is, in fact, ex-
tremely vascular, and the channels of the blood-ves-
selsmaybe seen alongitsextent, as if cut by a gauge ;
it is also multitudinously perforated for the pas-
sage of vessels, and, consequently, a fracture of
this part is followed by profuse bleeding. The
core is hollow, or cavernous, commuuicaliug with
the frontal sinuses, and is lined, as well as the
latter, with a continuation of the delicate mem-
brane, spread over the nasal cavity and extensive
turbinated bones. The horny case, lilie the nails
of the fingers, or the scales of the nianis, is formed
in the same way, growing by successive additions
to its base as the core developes. Horn may be
regarded as composed of hairs, agglutinated into a
mass ; and in some animals, as the prongbuck, of
the rocky mountains, the fibrous nature of its
structure may be readily perceived.* From its
mode of growth from the cutis, horn consists ol
layers, or laminie, placed upon one another, the
addition taking place on the inner, or under sur-
face, so that layer after layer is carried onwards
by the successive deposits of others in rotation.
At some periods, a greater secretion and deposi-
tion of horny matter occasionally takes place than
at other times, and this often produces a thicken-
ing, in consequence of the addition of the extra
quantity of matter. To such a cause are the rings
at tlie base of the horns of cattle owing. The cow
generally exhibits one ring at the base of the horn
when three years old ; a second is added when at
the age of four years ; and so on for several
successive years : hence, adding two to the number
of rings exhibited, her age is supposed lo be pretty
accurately calculated. But this is fallacious ; for,
if a heifer become impregnated at the age of two
years, her horn immediately shn^s a ring, as it
■would have done when three years old, conse-
quently she may be a year older tiian the calcula-
tion. Again, in some cows the rings are very
imperfect, or not distinctly marked, and run into
each other, so that it is almost impossible to count
them. Indeed, after the age of six or seven, the
successive additions are generally very irregular
and undefined, the surface appearing rugose, with-
out definite annular elevations ; hence the test

♦ It is so in the Burmese oxen witli huge horns, described by
Capt. Clapperton.

cannot be applied. Moreover, an aged cow may
be made to appear much younger than ahe really
is, by having one or two of the upper rings neatly
rasped and scraped down, so as to become con-
tinuous and uniform with the smooth surface
beyond.

In the bull, which has thicker and shorter
horns than the cow, the first ring does not make
its appearance until the animal is five years old ;
and the successive rings are often irregular and
confused. Sometimes, indeed, they can scarcely
be made out at all ; and all attempts to judge of
age by this test are nugatory. The same observa-
tions apply to the bullock.

And here we may advert to the peculiarities
in the horns of the bullock, which exceed, in size
and length, those either of the bull or cow. When
the stag, or the buck of the fallow deer, is emascu-
lated, the antlers are either not reproduced, or are
small and malformed ; whereas, in the bullock, on
the contrary, the horns, instead of being arrested
in their growth, shoot out in length, and very
frequently assume a graceful tournure.

At the base of the horns in cattle, the corneous
investment is very thin, especially where it unites
with the cutis : here it covers a vast plexus of
vessels and nerves, rendering a blow upon the part
extremely painful. To one aware of this circum
stance, it is revolting to witiaess the inithless
manner in which the drovers use their ashen
sticks, striking at the junction of the horn with
the skull, and either almost paralyzing, or, on the
other hand, infuriating the animal with the agony
produced. Heartily do we wish such a weapon
changed for a slight goad, which, used properly
is a far more humane instrument ; and that blows
upon the head (and the foot also) were punishable.
The craelties of Smithfield are notorious : there is
not room to tie half the beasts sent there to the
rails. The packing of the beasts into circles within
that once extensive and suburban, but now mise-
rably limited space, is managed during the night;
and the barbarities practiced to effect this object
are unfit to be written. Nor are they much dimi-
nished when an animal has been sold, and is to be
driven through, and extricated from a mass of fif-
teen hundred cattle ; often a bullock half blinded
with the hammering of bludgeons, and maddened
by pain and fright, escapes from its tormentors,
and rusliing along the streets, occasions the de-
struction of life, and spreads terror as it goes.
Perhaps a time may come, hastened by the railway
mode of conveyance for carcasses slaughtered at
a distance, in which the nuisance of Smithfield
will be abolished, and also the slaughter-houses in
the most crowded portions of our metropolis. The
danger in driving cattle to these dens of blood, the
cruelties inflicted in forcing them to enter (for the
scent of gore produces instinctive horror), the

effluvia of prutrescent matter exlinled from tliem,
and the disgusting objects exposed to view,
combine to render them the disgrace of Lon-
don. In these points, at least, Paris is far
superior.

With regard to the senses of the ox, namely,
sight, hearing, smell, and taste, they are respec-
tively enjoyed in that degree of perfection which is
in accordance with the habits and necessities of
the animal.

Sirjht. — From the earliest times the eye of the
ox has been celebrated for beauty, and the calm
tranquility of its expression. Homer has applied
the epithet, " ox-eyed," to the queen of the deities
of classic mythology.* The eye of the ox is full
and prominent ; it is defended by long-lashed lids,
and a membrana nictitans. The pupil is oblong,
and the tapetum lucidum m;iy be seen through it.
The sight is diurnal and acute: like the horse,
however, the ox can discern objects very tolerably
during the dusk of evening, and even at night ;
but the latter is a season of repose, during which
it chews the cud at leisure.

We know not from what cause, but the bull, as
is generally admitted, is apt to become furious and
excited at a display of red or scarlet colours ; a
cloak, or mantle, will often rouse his anger. A
red flag is used by the giostratori of the Roman
amphitheatre ; and the matadores of the Spanish
arena,

" Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand."

When the ox labours under inflammation of
the brain and its membranes (phrenitis), the sen-
sibility of the retina is morbidly increased ; and
the sight of a red garment rouses the animal to
perfect madness. Many accidents have happened
to persons, with red about their dress, while cross-
ing fields in which a bull was grazing at liberty.

Hearing. — This sense is acute in tlie ox ; the
external ears are more ample than those of the
horse, and freely moveable. In the polled breeds,
the external ears are generally larger tlian in
the homed races ; but we do not know that the
sense is more refined. It does not appear that
musical sounds exert any decided influence on
cattle. The sound of the trumpet, the huntsman's
halloo, and the ciy of the pack, excite the horse ;
the jingling bells of the wagoner's team are be-
lieved to be agreeable to the animals; and those
also of the caravans of mules which traverse the
rugged mountains of Spain. It is, indeed, the
custom in Switzerland to hang bells around the
necks of the cattle, not, however, with the object
of pleasing their ears, but as a means of tracing
them when they have strayed among the hills ;
the slightest tinkle being heard, in those still and
elevated regions, at a great distance.

* BuwTts ir^Tuia ''HpTj : Jiino, bovinis oculis, vcneranda.

Smell. — The ox enjoys this sense in great per-
fection. The nasal cavity is ample ; and there is
a free communication between the internal nares,
which is not the case in the horse, the septum
maldng a complete division. The brain of the ox
is not more than half the size of that of the horse ;
but yet the olfactory nerves are nearly as large ;
and, indeed, comparing the volume of the two
brains, nearly larger.

The sense of smell aids that of taste in the
selection of suitable food ; the instinct, guided
thereby, impelling the animal to reject what is
noxious or improper.

Taste. — The sense of taste, if not at a high
ratio, is, nevertheless, sufficiently developed for
the requirements of the animal, and enables it to
distinguish and enjoy the flavour of such plants as
are suited to its nutriment. We may, however,
observe, that both this sense and that of smell are
liable, in the domestic ox, to be deceived ; espe-
cially under particular circumstances, as when,
after being kept on winter-fodder, they are turned
out to graze in the spring, when the scent of the
young herbage is scarcely developed. It is veiy
"doubtful whether wild herbivorous animals are
ever so deceived ; they are constantly in the exer-
cise of their instinctive faculties, which thereby be-
come more acute and discriminating ; while, on
the contrary, the tendency of domestication is to
curb instinct, which, for want of constant exercise,
becomes enfeebled, or less imperious in its govern-
ance. Hence it happens that domestic cattle, in-
troduced into strange pastures, often perish from
eating poisonous plants, which the cattle accus-
tomed to those pastures have learned, by expe-
rience, to refuse. The more an ox is stall-fed, the
more likely is it, if allowed to graze, to crop dele-
terious herbage.

We are told in the " Swedish Pan" (Amoenit.
Academ., vol. ii.) that oxen eat two hundred and
seventy-sLx plants, and refuse two hundred and
eighteen. Among the noxious plants most acces-
sible to grazing cattle ai-e meadow sweet (spiraea
ulmaria) ; hemlock (conium maculatum) ; water
hemlock (phillandrium aquaticum) ; water cowbane
(ciouta virosa) ; meadow saffron (colchicum autum-
nale) ; hellebore (helleborus foetidus) ; monkshood
(aconitum napella) ; foxglove (digitalis purpurea) ;
and yew (taxus baccata). Happily, however, in
our island, such is the excellence of pasturage, that
fatal accidents, from poisonous plants, are not of
very common' occurrence.

It is remarkable, that while the meadow sweet
and the long-leaved water hemlock, or cowbane,
are deleterious to the ox, the goat feeds upon
them, not only with relish but with impunity.

When Linuasus visited Tornea, he found a
terrible malady sweeping away the cattle of the
district, and which he at once traced to the long-

Tin: ox

appears, and the second and third, at iutervub uf
ten or twelve months. I

It has been usual to judge of the age of cattle ^
by their horns, but we shall show that this is a
fallacious method, and of coui-se inapplicable to
the polled breed. !

The calf at its birth has the horns in the form of
small osseous tubercles covered witli a corneous
layer ; the osseous tubercle sprouts from the fronto-
occipital ridge, and continues to increase by the de-
position of osseous particles, secreted by the arteries
from the blood. The core of tlie honis is, in fm-t, ex-
tremely vascular, and the cliannels of the blood-ves-
sels may be seen along its extent, as if cut by a gauge ;
it is also niultitudinously perforated for the pas-
sage of vessels, and, consequently, a fracture of
this part is followed by profuse Ideeding. The
core is hollow, or cavernous, communicating with
the frontal sinuses, and is lined, as well as the
latter, with a continuation of the delicate mem-
brane, spread over the nasal cavity and extensive
turbinated bones. The horny case, like the nails
of the fingers, or the scales of the manis, is fiirine<l
in the same way, growing by successive additions
to its base as the core devclopes. Iloni may be
regarded as compised of hairs, agglutinated into a
mass; and in some animals, as the prongburk, of
the rocky mountains, the fibrous nature of i;
structure may be readily perceived.* t'rom r
mode of growth from the cutis, horn consists . I
layers, or limiiim", placed upon one another, the
addition taking place on the inner, or under sur-
face, so that layer after layer is carried onwards
by the successive deposits of others in rotutitm.
At some periods, a greater secretion and dejKisi-
tiou of homy matter oci-asionally takes place than
at other times, and this often produces a thicken-
ing, in consequence of the addition of the extra
quantity of matter. To such a cause are the ringii
at the base of the honis of cattle owing. The c<iw
generally exhibits one ring at the base of the honi
when three years old ; a second is added when at
the age of four years ; and so on for several
successive years : hence, adding two to the number
of rings exhibited, her age is sup])Ofied u> be pretiv
accurately calculated. IJut this is fnllarious ; for.
if a heifer become impregnated at ihe age of two
years, her honi immediately sh">vs a ring, as it
■would have done when three vihts "Id, conse-
quently she may be a year older tlian the calcula-
tion. Again, in some cows the rings are verv
imperfect, or not distinctly markeil, and run into
each other, so that it is almost impossible to cotint
them. Indeed, after the age of si.\ or 8e\en. the
successive additions are generally very irregular
and undefined, the surface appearing rugose, with-
out definite annular elevations ; hence the test

• It is so in the Bunncae oxen with huge honw, devribcd bj
Capt. Clappettou.

ciiiiii 1h applied. MoraoTer. an aged cow m.iv
l«e HI ) !■■ iipi)ear much younger llian she really
is, li\ oM'i^' one or two of the upper rings neatly
nisiM iitil scr»ped down, so as to become con-
tiniii i.iul uniform with the smooth surface
bey.. I

1 the bull, which has thicker and shorter
honi- ban the cow. the first ruig does nut make

its n| iHi'.. until tlie animal is live years old ;

and 9 mi . .^si\e rings are often irregular and
coiifi d ^umeliuies, indeed, they can scarcely
bo III e "lit at all : and all attempts to judge of
age 1 tliii ti-st are nugatory. The some observii-
iL.ti- )ply t.j the bullock.

,v 1 here we may advert to the peculiarities
in til joni-. .'f the bull<M-k, which exceed, in size
iiii'l l-gtb. til. -se either ufthe bull or cow. Wlieu
ill.' -gr, (.r the buck of the fallow deer, is emo-scit-
bit.' I. tie aiiilenj are either not reproduced, orare
^lll.>lltld niulfornied; whereas, in the bullock, on
ill. . tniPi'. the honis. instead of being arrestt^^d
111 tlif grviwih. shoot out in length, and very
Iri I'lKly uMume a graceful tuuniiire.

Athe lias« of the horns in cattle, the corneous
iii\. jfiit is Terj" thill, especially where it unites
Willi le cutis: here it covers a vast plexus of
ve-~. an. I iienrea. rendering a blow upon the part
' I iinful. To one aware of this cirruni
- revolting to witiios the ruthless
«liicli llie droTcrs use their ashen
stiih Milking at the junction of the honi with
til. ill. and eiilier almost paraly/.ing. or, on the
oili' I Rii'l. infuriating the animal with the agunr
pi'"iijd. Heartily do we wish such a weiiiwii
r) 1 ' ' ■-• -li^jlit goad, which, used proi)crly
is .uiiine instrument ; and tliat blows

n\ :au\ the fool also) were punishable.

Till Jilucj of Smiihfield are notorious: tliere is
not I m to lie half the IkwsU neui there to the

r :' I 'ing of the U-osts into circles within

II -;\e and suburlian, but now mise-

ri ; :i.e, is managed during the night;

ami , Liifl-anUes practiced to elTeit this object

are 1 U I.. I* written. Nor are tliey much diini-

II ■ :, :iniiiial has been Sold, and is to be

ill iiid exlrieated from a mass of fif-

t. aitle; often a bulhx-k half blinded

Willi .c iiiimmering of bludgeons, and maddened

' by I' I und fright, escapes from its tormentors,

ami filing along the streets, occasions the de-

! stni. )n of life, and spreads terror as it goes.

j I'erliie a time may come, hastened by the railway

mod. of conveyance for carcasses slaughtered at

' a di ttice. in which the nuisance of Smiihfield

I will I al^olished, and also the slaughter-houaMin

the net crowded portions of our metropo^'

daii).' in driving cattle to these dens o|

crui l9s intlicted in foiring them to eg

I scentof gore produces instiocuve

:: —

Tjs ate .

fewaiaiMai*

aiv^kMw • iH^

ifaamlMtMiw'
i|ttatei«l»

oaiHia M> ■>..

oQt ^wms

white borehnuiid (mari'ubium vulgare}, impatient
ludj'S suiock (eardamiiie impatiens), cominou ce-
landine (chelidouium majus), and the blue erigeron
(erigerou acre). It must here, however, lie no-
ticed, that man}' of these plants, when very young,
are sometimes cropped by the cattle, without any
ill effects : and that, on the contrary, some nutri-
tious plants are, when in seed, refused from their
perfume being too strongly diffused. But, after
the animals have endured a long continued fast,
their eagerness interferes with their discrimination.

Some plants are often eaten by cattle, while green
and fresh ; j'et, singular to say, they are refused
if offered in a faded or dry state. Among these
are cock's comb (rhinanthus crista galli), the
horsetails (equisetuin), the bedstraws (galium),
wliich spoil the hay, and the common buckbean
(nienyauthes trifoliata). Again, there are others,
such as the crawfoots (ranunculus), and the swal-
low-worts (asclepias), which loose their noxious pro-
pirties when dried, and may be eaten by the cattle
without injury.

Some plants are stimulants, or cordials ; such
are the garlics (allium), and the docks (rumex).

The goat not only feeds with impunity upon
several plants refused by other cattle, but even
eagerly seeks for them. Of these we may men-
tion the common mare' s-tail (hippuris vulgaris),
common prickly seed (echinospermum lappu-
la), the greater water plantain (alisma plantago),
highly injurious to other domestic animals ; the
wood anemone (anemone memoralis), the meadow
anemone (a. pratensis), the spring anemone (a.
vernalis), celeiy-leaved crowfoot (ranunculus sce-
leratus), the knotty-rooted f]gwort{scrophu]aria no-
dosa), and tame-poison (asclepias viucetoxicum),
of which it is extremely fond. To these may be
added, the small water-wort (elatine hydropiper),
box-leaved audromeda (a. calcyculata), biting stone-
crop(sedum acre), snapdragon (antirrhinum linaria),
stinking chamomile (anthemis cotula), black-ber-
ried bryony (bryonia alba), marsh lousewort (pedi-
cularis palustris), wood lousewort (p. sylvatica),
hemp agrimony (eupatorium cynnabinum), annual
mercury (mercurialis annua), deleterious to all
domestic animals ; corn horsetail (equisetum ar-
vense), marsh horsetail (e. palustre), and the male
polypody (polypodyum filix mas).

Some plants are eaten solely by the hog ; but
it is only their roots, in general, that are sought
after. Among these are the common cyclamen
(cyclamen Europaeum), common asarabacca (asa-
rum Eurcipieum), the white and the yellow water-
lily (nympliKa alba, and lutea), towards which the
horse exhibits a marked aversion ; the water sol-
dier (stratiotes aloides), sea-wrack-grass (fostera
marina), and maiden-hair (aspleuium trichomanes).
The hog also greedily searches the ground for
earth or pig-nuts, the roots of two species of um-

belliferous plants, bunium bulliocastanum, and b.
flexuosum.

A few plants are relished by all domestic
herbiverous animals, and are much sought after;
among these are the comujon millet-grass (millium
eft'usum) meadow soft-grass (holcus lanalus), annual
meadow-grass (poa annua), oats, barley and wheat,
the carrot and parsnip, the great round-leaved
willow (salix caprea). the Norwegian cinquefoil
(potentilla Norvegica), the creeping trefoil or
I'jutch clover, and other species of clover, lucern,
sainfoin, &c. But many of these plants must be in
different states in order to be equally liked by
every domestic species. It is observed of the
cotton grasses (eriopharum) that they are hurtful
to cattle from their hairs, which are apt to serve
as a nucleus, to those concretions of extraneous
matters sometimes found in the stomach. The
utilitj' of rooting up as much as possible all no.xious
plants from pasture grounds, and the ditches around
them, is palpable, and it would be well if the
farmer attended to this point more than is usually
the case. We ourselves have seen in Cheshire
the long-leaved water hemlock, or cowbane, in
the greatest abundance in the ditches of the mea-
dows, from which, with a little trouble, it might
have been extirjmted.

It is not very easy, unless the fact be ascer-
tained from circumstances, to determine positively
that a suffering beast is labouring under the effects
of poisonous plants taken into the stomach. The
general symptoms are stupor, and great swelling;
a refusal of food, a grinding of the teeth, and a
rolling about as if from extreme agony or colic.
The first thing to be done is to clear the stomach-
bag, and freely washing out the contents by means
of the stomach-pump, plenty of warm water being
used, and the operation being persevered in till no
particle remains behind ; brisk aperients should
then be given, followed by carminatives.

It is a remarkable fact that, although the ox is
decidedly herbiverous, yet in some countries it is
fed, during a part of the year at least, on a propor-
tion of animal diet. In Norway, for example, the
lierds and flocks ai-e driven to the mountains, and
are there depastured ; but during the long winter
they are housed and fed partially on the hay grown
within the immediate precincts of the farm, and
brought from the hills, and more plentifully on a
kind of food which, to our English farmer, must
apiiear very strange and disgusting, but which the
cattle are said to relish very much. This food
consists of a thick gelatinous soup, made by bull-
ing the heads of fish, and mixing horse dung with
the broth. The boat of the farmer in Norway
supplies not only himself and his family with the
staple portion of his winter subsistence, but his
cows also. A writer in the " Edinburgh Journal,
of Natural History," says : " AVe are assured by M.

38 THI

Yvavt, that in Auvergne, fat soups are given to
cattle, especially when sick or enfeebled, for the
purpose of invigorating them. The same practice
is observed in some parts of North America, where
the country people mix, in winter, fat broth with
the vegetables given to their cattle, in order to
render them more capable of resisting the severity
of the weather. These broths have been long
considered elficaeious by veterinary practicioners
of our own country, in restoring horses which have
been enfeebled through long illness. It is said
by Peall to be a common practice in some parts of
liulia to mix animal substances with the grain
given to feeble horses, and to boil the mixture
into a sort of paste, which soon brings them into
good condition, and restores their vigour. Pallas
tells us, that the Paissian boors make use of the
dried flesh of the hamster reduced to powder, and
mixed with oats, and that this occasions their
horses to acquire a sudden and extraoi'dinaiy de-
gree of embonpoint. Anderson relates in his
history of Ireland, that the inhabitants feed their
horses with dried fish when the cold is veij
intense, and that these animals are extremely
vigorous, though small. We also know that in the
Feroe Islands, the Orkne}'s, the Western Islands,
and in Norway, where the climate is still very cold,
this practice is also adopted ; and it is not un-
common in some very warm countries, as in the
kingdom of Muskat in Arabia Felix, near the
straits of Ormuz, one of the most fertile parts of
Arabia, fish and other animal substances are there
given to the horses in the cold season, as well as
in times of scarcity."

We may here add, that other herbivorous
animals, also, occasionally partake of animal food,
to which they are doubtless led by instinct as to a
stimulus required by the system, for the mainte-
nance of a due degree of energy. In Lapland, for
example, the reindeer devours the lemming, a
little rodent animal, allied to the vole or field-
mouse, and which often swarms in myriads in that
country. The American reindeer, according to
the assurance of Franklin, are accustomed to
ilevour mice, and also to gnaw their fallen antlers.

Though not very delicate as an organ of taste,
the tongue of the ox is of great assistance in the
prehension ;md collection of food. It is shorter
than that of the horse, and rough on the upper sur-
face with retroverted horny papilte ; by its action
it combs the grass together into a roll, in order to
bring it between the incisor teeth, and the pad of
the upper jaw. During the mastication it dis-
poses the food between the grinders, and by the
assistance of the bars or ridges on the palate,
forms it into balls for swallowing : in the act of
drinking it constitutes a trough, through which
the fluid passes ; it is used to clear the naked
muzzle from various impurities, and also as a rasp

to rub its own coat, or that of its companion, in
token of friendship. It is from this habit of
rasping each other's coats, that compacted balls of
hair are so often formed in the stomach, where
they lodge, to the interference more or less decided,
with its digestive functions. These matted balls
of hair are found in the rumen or paunch, and also
in the abomasum, or true digesting stomach ; they
vary in size, and are often formed at a very early
age. In some cases, bits of straw, wood, and
other e-xtraneous matters are mixed with the hair;
and occasionally they consist of distinct layers,
with a central nucleus consisting of a nail, a bit of
stone, or some other substance.

While speaking of the tongue, we may remark
the OS hyoides, or its bony support, and the larynx
connected with it, differ much from the same parts
in the horse ; but these parts will be better under-
stood by comparing the annexed figures.

LARYNX OF H0H3E.

LARYNX OF OX.

In both cuts the letters refer to the same
parts : a. The spur of the os hyoides. b. The base
or greater cornu. c. The inferior lateral cornu :
c'. The middle cornu (wanting in the horse).
D. The superior lateral cornu. e. The epiglottis.
F. The arytenoid cartilage, g. The thyroid car-
tilage. H. The- cricoid cartilage, k. The cartila-
ginous rings of the trachea, with their ligamentous
interspaces, l. The rima glottidis, or entrance
into the windpipe, defended by e, the epiglottis ;
long, narrow, and pointed in the horse ; thick,
rounded, and curled in the ox. In the horse the
elongated spur (a) binds the tongue more tightly
down, and interferes with its freedom; while in the
)x, the short tuberculous spur permits far greater
liberty of motion. The difference in the form of

the thyroid, cricoid, and arytenoici cartilages, is
too palpable to be overlooked.

Iiitelliiieitce, — Intelligence appears to be more
limited in the ox than in the horse. The brain is
comparatively smaller in the former than in the
latter; and the ratio of intelligence is probably
in about the same proportion. But we must not
regai'd the ox as remarkable for stupidity. The
worldng ox Itnows its driver, and readily obeys his
word of command, displaying, at the same time,
considerable docility and willingness. The cow
not only knows, but often evinces decided affection
towards the person by whom she is regularly
milked and fed, and not unfrequently refuses the
attentions of another. Cows, pastured in the
fields, draw towards the accustomed spot, at the
usual milking time, aud, by their lowing, seem to
give notice of their readiness. In Switzerland,
the herds feeding on the mountains are called
home to their chalet by the sound of the Alp-horn.
The Alp-hom is merely a wooden tube, of simple
construction ; and its deep, mellow, and prolonged
note, heard at a distance floating over the upland
pastures, aud frequently echoed in succession by
crags aud rocks, makes a pleasing impression on
the traveller. On many of the higher Alps this
honi is sounded regularly at sunrise and at sunset.
At whatever part of the day it is blown, to collect
the cattle, the cows are seen, as soon as its note
can reach their ears, scampering away for the cha-
let, often at a gallop. In one of the volumes of
the "Menageries," the writer says, "A corre-
spondent informs us that he once witnessed the
evident dismay of a cow in not being able to obey
the summons. She was a very pretty young crea-
ture, and was lying niminating, iu a little dell, by
herself. Presently the Alp-hora was heard ; and
the peasant who sounded it, was seen in front of
a chalet that stood on a green hill, at no great
distance. The poor creature instantly rose, but
could not proceed; for she was lamed and sorely
wounded, most probably from some fall she had
met with. After dragging herself along for the
distance of some yards, she stood still and lowed :
the honi sounded again, and again, making a great
effort, she went on a few yards. She then laid
herself down and lowed most piteously, fixing her
eyes, all the time, on her companions, who were
running, from every direction, to the chalet. The
poor creature seemed to be suffering, not merely
from her hurts, but also from that pain a punctual
person feels on breaking an engagement, or failing
in the performance of a duty. The traveller hur-
ried to the chalet, to tell the peasants what had
happened, and returned with them to see them
assist the grieving absentee. By the time they
reached the dell she had made a little more pro-
gress, but was again prostrate on the ground, and
lowing in a melancholy manner. When the pea-

sants came near to her she rose up, and ceased
her complaints at once : and, though, with all the
aid they could give her, she was obliged several
times to lie down again, she did not repeat them ;
and at last she reached the dairy, where she lowed
in a very different tone."

In Norway a wooden tmmpet, about five feet
long, made of two hollow pieces of birch-wood,
bound together with slips of willow throughout its
whole length, is used to call the cattle feeding on
extensive hilly pasture grounds. Its notes may
be heard at a great distance ; but, instead of being
mellow, they are extremely harsh and discordant.

In Terceira, one of the Azores, where cattle
are abundant, the oxen are remarkable for docility
and intelligence. They are very fine and large,
with horns of a prodigious size, and " are so gentle
and familiar, that when, among a thousand col-
lected together, the owner shall call one by its
name (for, like our dogs, they have each their own
name), the ox will not fail to come to him." —
" Voyage de la Compagnie des Indes de Hollande,"
vol. i., p. 490.

In South Africa the oxen know their names,
and obey the voice of the driver.

But all instances of the intelligence of the ox,
that we have ever heard of, fall short of those re-
lated by Kolben and others, relative to the baekeley,
or war oxen, of the Hottentots, while that people
were in a state of pastoral independence. The ox
was the sharer of its master's toils and wars, his
assistant on the plain, and the guardian of his
flock ; it seemed, indeed, to lose its ordinary cha-
racter in his service, and rise into a higher state
of being. " The Hottentots," saj^s Kolben (vol, i.,
p. 160), "have oxen, which they use with success
in battle : they call them backeleys; the word
baekeley, in their language, signifying »rar. Every
army is always provided with a large troop of these
oxen, which permit themselves to be governed
without trouble, and which their leader lets loose
at the appointed moment. The instant they are
set free they throw themselves with impetuosity
on the opposing army; they strike with their
honis, they kick with their heels, they overthrow,
they rip up and trample beneath their feet, with
frightful rapidity, all that opposes ; so that, if they
be not promptly driven back, they plunge with
fury into the midst of the ranlis, throw them into
disorder and confusion, and thus prepare for their
masters an easy victory. The manner in which
these animals are trained does great honour to the
talent of these people." In another place the
same writer says, "These backeleys are, more-
over, of great use to their owners as guardians of
their flocks. AVhen out, in the pastm-e-lands, at
the least sign of their conductors, they will hasten
to bring back the cattle, which are straying at a
distance, and keep them herded together They

rusli on strangers with fury; whence they are of
great service against the boschmeu, or robbers,
who may attempt the plunder of the flock. Each
kraal has at least half a dozen of these backele^s,
which are chosen from amongst the most spirited
oxen. On the death of one, or when, in conse-
quence of old age, it becomes unserviceable (in
which case its owner kills it), another ox is selected
from the herd to succeed it. The choice is referred
to one of the old men of the kraal, who is thought
to be the most capable of discerning that winch
will most easily receive instruction. They asso-
ciate this noviciate ox with one of long experience ;
and they teach him to follow this companion, either
by beating, or some other method. Dui'ing the
night they are tied together by the horns, and they
are thus also kept during a greater part of the
day, until the learner has become a good guardian
of the flock. These guardians know all the inha-
bitants of the kraal, — men, women, and children;
and testify towards them the same respect that a
dog displays to all those who live in the house of
his master. There is, therefore, no inhabitant of
the kraal who may not, with all safety, approach
the flocks : the backeleys never do them least in-
jury. But if a stranger, and particularly an Euro-
pean, should offer to take the same liberty, without
being accompanied by some Hottentot, he would
be in great danger : these guardians of the flock,
which usually feed around it, would come upon him
full gallop ; and then, unless he be within hear-
ing of the shepherds, or have fire-arms, or good
legs, or unless a tree be near in which to climb, he
is sure to be killed. It would be useless for him
to have recourse to sticks or stones ; a backeley
has no fear ibr such feeble weapons."

Le Vaillant, who first met with these backeley
oxen, among the Nimiqua tribe (" New Travels in
the Interior of Africa," vol. ii.), confirms Kolbens
details, though he denies tliat they are used by all
the Hottentot nations. He adds, that they are
not only capable of repelling wild beasts, but even
venture to attack them ; and that a hysena, how-
ever hungry, will never come near a flock guarded
by two or three of these formidable animals, a
number of which will even make head against a
lion. It does not appear, as far as we can learn,
that any of the tribes of Southern Africa rear
backeley oxen in the present day. They have
milch cows, and use milk in different forms, fresh
or curdled ; they have oxen for draught, burdens,
and the saddle, but not war-oxen.

Reproduction. — The heifer ought not to be al-
lowed to breed until turned two years old ; the
reason is obvious, her own system, before this
period, is not sufficiently matured for the tax upon
it— a tax which will be paid, not only by the dam,
but also by her progeny, for both will suffer from
a deficiency in nutriment, the whole of which is

necessary for the growth of the foiiner, which,
during the second year, is rapid. If the bull be
kept separate from the herd of cows, the farmer
may regulate the succession of calves almost at
pleasure, so as to suit his pasture, or his arrange-
ments. The best time, as it respects the mother,
the calf, and the free supply of milk, is when the
spring grass is beginning to shoot luxuriantly,
affording a good and sufficient store of nutriment.
It is true that veal and butter yield a better profit
at an earlier period, but the breeder must judge in
points of this nature from circumstances.

The jseriod of gestation in the cow is gene-
rally stated as nine calendar months, or two hun-
dred and seventy days ; but there is often consi-
derable variation of time. M. Tessier observes (in
a memoir read to the Royal Academy of Sciences,
in Paris), that the shortest period, as far as his
opportunities of observation enabled him to ascer-
tain, was two hundred and forty days, the longest
three hundred and twenty-one ; the difference
being eighty-one days.* This range of time is very
extraordinary, and appears to depend on the care
paid to the animal, and on its state of health ; by
wliich the development of the calf is influenced
through the sanguiferous system of the mother.

With respect to the bull, he does not attain to
a due degree of strength till two years old, and is
in higher vigour at three ; but how long the breeder
may keep him after that age must depend upon
his own judgment, and a variety of circums^tances.

The cow seldom produces more than a single
calf, sometimes, however, twins, and very rarely
three. In the 'case of twins, if they be respec-
tively male and female, the female is generally,
but not always, unproductive. Females, thus con-
ditioned, are termed free-martins ; they are evi-
dently the tawi^ of Columella. (Libr. vi.) Varro
also uses the word taura, as applied to a cow of
this description. Bewick states, that the free-
martin resembles the bullock more than the cow in
form ; an observation also made by Hunter, who
adds, that its flesh is generally considered finer in
fibre than that either of the bull or cow, and to
surpass that of the ox or heifer, in delicacy of fla-
vour ; but there are not wanting exceptions where
the flesh has turned out nearly as bad as bull-beef,
and certainly worse than that of a cow. For an
accormt of the anatomical peculiarities of the free-
martin, by John Hunter, see " Philosophical
Transactions," vol. Ixix. p. '289 ; and also Professor
Owen's edition of Hunter's " Observations," 18;^7.

Every twin female, however, is not necessarily
barren, even when tbe other calf is a male. This
has been satisfactorily proved : it was, indeed,

* In the " Bulletin des Sciences," by the Soc. Philomatique,
Paris, 1797, M. Tessier says, tbat out of 160 cows, some calved in
241 days, and five in 308; giving a laliuide of 67 days. — See
Sir E. Homes Paper on Pliil. Trans., Pan I. lor 1822.

known to Hunter; and, in the "Observations''
above alluded to, Professor Oweu adds a confirma-
tory note, from " Loudon's Magazine of Natural
History,'' stating that a cow in tbe possession of J.
Holroyd, Esq., of Withers, near Leeds, produced
twins, a bull calf, and a cow calf. As popular opinion
was strong on the necessary barrenness of the fe-
male, Mr. Holroyd determined to put it to tbe test,
and reared both calves up to maturity. In due
time this heifer brought forth a bull calf, and had,
regularly, calves for sL\ or seven years afterwards.
In the •' Farmer's Magazine," for November ISUO,
there is an account of a twin heifer, belonging to
Mr. Buchan, of Killingtringham, which produced
a calf : she was very handsome, with a well-formed
udder, and was a good milker. In the same Maga-
zine, November IbOT, auother instance of a simi-
lar natui'e is recorded, and others might be ad-
duced. When the twins are both bull calves,
or both cow calves, they are generally equally pro-
ductive.

There is an instance on record in the " British
Farmer's Magazine," May 18'28, of a cow which
produced three calves at a birth, precisely resem-
bling each other.

In the "Nouveau Bulletin des Sciences," a most
extraordinary account is given of a cow which pro-
duced nine calves at three successive births. First,
in 1817, fom- cow calves ; secondly, in 1818, three
calves, two of them females ; and thirdly, in 1819,
two calves, both females. With the exception of
two, belonging to the first birth, all were suckled
by the mother.

And here we may offer a few remarks on the
principles by which the breeder ought to be guided
in the successfid management or improvement of
his stock, in whatever points he wishes it to excel;
whether in those required by the grazier or the
dairy-farmer. Eveiy man, whether grazier or
dairy -farmer, is desirous of turning his cattle to
the most advantage ; nor can this be done, unless
the size of the farm, the soil, climate, the produce
and the nature and extent of the pasturage, be
well considered ; for the cattle that the farm is
best adapted for maintaining will be the most pro-
fitable. It is, however, essential, whatever the
cattle be, whether for the purpose of the dany, or
for the immediate supply of the markets with their
flesh, that they be well bred, and excellent of their
kind. To the dairy-farmer, the most important
points are, the quantity of milk yielded, its qualitj',
its value for the production of butter, or of cheese.
a freedom in the cows from vicious habits and ill
temper, their character as good and healthy breed-
ers, the ease with which, when useless as milkers,
they become fattened for the market, and the na-
ture and quantity of food requisite for this purpose.
To the grazier, the quickness of becoming fat, and
at as little expense as possible, the fineness of the

grain of the meat, or of the muscular fibres, the
mode of laying on the fat, the smallness of bone,
soundness of constitution, and congeniality \vith
the soil and the climate, are the chief points which
he takes into consideration. If he is wise he will
never stint keep, nor transfer his stock from a good
to an indifferent soil, and this is true also with re-
spect to tbe dairy-farmer.

Contour, or beauty of form, is desirable ; in-
deed it is more or less connected with what may
be termed utility of form, that is, a preponderance
of those parts in the beast which are most delicate
for the tal)le, and bear the highest price, over the
parts of inferior quality, or offal. This is con-
nected with smallness of bone, but not a preterna-
tural smallness, and with a tendency to depositions
of fat, which, however, should not be carried to an
extreme, otherwise the quantity of flesh is dispro-
portionate, and its fibre is dry and insipid ; nor is
the weight of the beast projjortionate to its ad-
measurement. Previously to the time of Mr.
Bakewell,* the cattle in general were large, long-
bodied, big-boned, flat-sided, slow to fatten, great
consumers of food, and often black, or foul-fleshed,
or as it is called in Yorkshire, " lyery." This tridy
patriotic breeder, acting upon true principles, en-
ergetically set to work on the improvement of
cattle, and, in defiance of opposition and a thousand
diflBculties, lived to see the success of his long-
continued efforts. Experience and a close and
acute observation had taught him that " like pro-
duces lilie ;" in other words, that the qualities of
the parents, such as beauty, or utility of form,
disposition to fatness, goodness of flesh, abundance
of milk, and even temper, were inherited by
their offspring ; and that by careful selections
on the side both of the sire and dam, a breed
might be ultimately established, to which the title
blood could be distinctly applied. This, of course
supposes a primary selection, but a selection of
such of the offspring as exhibited the properties
which constituted their perfection, in the highest
degree ; and again of the ofispring of these,
and so on progressively. At first, Mr. Bakewell
was necessitated to breed in and in, but as his
stock increased he was enabled to interpose more
or less remote removes between the memV)ers of
the same family; and ultimately he established
the Dishley, or New Leicester long-horns, a breed
remarkable for smallness of bone, roimdness of
form, aptitude to fatten upon a moderate allow-
ance, and fineness of flesh. But while he accom-
plished this, rendering the animals admirably
suited for the grazier, it was found that their
qualities as milkers were much deteriorated ; the
dairy-farmers, consequently retained their old
breed, noted for the richness, though perhaps not

* Born at Dishley, in Leicestershire, 1725. His lather and
grandfather resided on the estate before him.

the great abundance, of the milk. We are not here
speaking about the differences or the distinguish-
ing excellences of the various breeds of cattle,
but of the principles upon which excellences, it
matters not of what sort, may be obtained. " Like
produces like," and both parents must present the
same excellences, the same characteristics. It was
by following out these rules that Mr. Bakewell
arrived at perfection in his breed ; indeed by some
he is thought to have pushed his principles too
far, and the following remarks have perhaps some
justice in them : — " It was his grand maxim that
the bones of an animal intended for food, could
not be too small ; and that the fat being the most
valuable part of the carcass, it could not, conse-
quently, be too abundant. lu pursuance of this
leading theory, by inducing a preternatural small-
ness of bone, and rotundity of carcass, he sought
to cover the bones of all his animals externally
^vith masses of fat. Thus the entirely New Lei-
cester breed, from their excessive tendency to fat-
ten, produce too small a quantity of eatable meat,
and that, too, necessarily of inferior flavour and
quality. They are, in general, found defective in
weight, proportionally to their bulk ; and if not
thoroughly fattened their flesh is crude and with-
out flavour ; while, if they be so, their carcasses
produce little else but fat, a very considerable
part of which must be sold at an inferior price to
make candles instead of food : not to forget the
very great waste that must ever attend the con-
sumption of over fattened meat.

" This great and sagacious improver (Mr. Bake-
well) very justly disgusted at the sight of those
huge, gaunt, leggy, and misshapen animals with
which his vicinity abounded, and which scarcely
any length of time, or quantity of food, would
thoroughly fatten, patriotically determined upon
raising a more sightly and profitable breed ; yet,
rather unfortunately, his zeal impelled him to the
opposite extreme. Having painfully, and at much
cost, raised a variety of cattle, the chief merit of
which is to make fat, he has apparently laid his
disciples and successors under the necessity of
substituting another that will make lean." — Ulm-
trations of Natural History, p. 5.

Granting the truth of these structures, which
we soai-cely can, to the full extent, what is the
inference as it respects the system of breeding?
Namely this : that by pursuing the proper mode,
by proper selections, and by joining like excel-
lences and properties in the sire and dam, and
not by rashly crossing distinct breeds, but by mak-
ing one breed the great foundation, and working
upon it, remembering that "like produces like,"
not only will the point aimed at be attained, but
that it may even he overshot, thus demonstrating
the power which the judicious breeder possesses.

Since Mr. Bakewell's time, the New Leicester

breed has become degenerated ; by some the stock
has been bred in andintoocloselj', and by others very
injudiciously crossed. In the mean time the short-
horned breeds of cattle have been gaining an as-
cendency, so that few really excellent long horns
are now to be seen. This, however, has nothing
to do with the great principles we have endeavoured
to illustrate ; they apply alike to all breeds of cattle.
Every breeder, then should well consider the
properties of the stock from which he breeds,
investigate their good qualities and their bad
qualities, and while he endeavours to keep up or
improve the former, he should study to remove
the latter. His selection must be strict ; the
heifer or cow should have as few of the bad points
as possible, every excellence in perfection, and be
in good health ; the bull should be of the same
kind, and if related, only in a remote degree ; nor
should he have been brought up on a pasturage
differing from that of the cow, or under the in-
fluences of a different local climate ; he should
not only possess the good points desired, in all
their perfection, but he should also have the
points which the farmer considers to be the ex-
cellences of his own stock, as admirably developed.
Thus acting with judgment, he may expect im-
provement, and if he fail, there is some concealed
fault which has been overlooked, either on the one
side or the other, or some defect in their parents,
and which, (in accordance with the tendency there
is in families to exhibit, from time to time, certain
peculiarities, latent perhaps for a generation), has
again made itself manifest ; consequently, on both
sides there ought to be what is termed " good
blood." But this is to suppose a stock already
improved to a great extent ; and here we may
repeat the injunctions laid down by tiie Rev. H.
Berry, which more particularly apply to the farmer
commencing de novo. " A person selecting a stock
from which to breed, notwithstanding he has set
up for himself a standard of perfection, will obtain
them with qualifications of different descriptions
and in different degrees. In breeding from such
he \vill exercise his judgment, and decide what are
indispensable or desirable qualities, and will cross
\vith animals with a view to establish them. His
proceeding will be of the 'give and take kind.' He
will submit to the introduction of a trifling defect
in order that he may profit by a great excellence ;
and between excellences perhaps somewhat incom-
patible, he will decide on which is the greatest and
give it the preference. ''=

* " A person would often be puzzled; he would find different
individuals po.ssessing different perCections in different degrees; —
one, good Hesh, and a tendency to fatten, with a bad form ; another,
with fine form, but bad flesh, and little disposition to aequire fat.
What rule should he lay down, by the obsei-vanee of which good
might be generally produced, and as little evil as possible effected ?
Utility. The truly good form is that which secures constitution,
health, and vigour ; a dispositiou to lay on flesh with the greatest
possible reduction of offal. Having obtained this, other things aj-e

" To a person commencing improvement, the
best advice is to get as good a bull as he can, and
if he be a good one of his kind, to use him indis-
criminately with all his C(pws ; and when by this
proceeding, which ought to be persisted in, his
stock has, with an occasional change of bull, be-
come sufficiently stamped with desirable excel-
lences, his selection of males should then be
made to eradicate defects which he thinks desira-
ble to be got rid of.

" He will not fail to keep in view the necessity
of good blood in the bulls resorted to, for that
will give the only assurance that they will trans-
mit their own valuable properties to their offspring;
but he must not trust to this alone, or he will
soon run the risk of degeneracy. In animals
evincing an extraordinary degree of perfection,
where the constitution is decidedly good, and there
is no prominent defect, a little close breeding may
be allowed : but this must not be injudiciously
adopted, or carried too far : for, although it may
increase and confirm valuable properties, it will
also increase and confirm defects ; and no breeder
need be long in discovering that, in an improved
state, animals have a greater tendency to defect
than to perfection. Close breedmg from affinities
impaii's the constitution and effects the procreative
powers and therefore a strong cross is occasionally
necessary."

The dairj'-farmer, however, is less concerned
in this high breeding than the grazier : yet he is
not by any means indifferent in the matter ; for his
aim ought to be, to obtain a breed no less valuable
as milkers than for their disposition to fatten
when the milk is dried. These two qualifica-
tions are not to be attained very easily ; yet they
may be, and, indeed, have been attained, and
especially among the improved short-hom breeds,
as those of Durham and Yorkshire, or the cross-
breeds between the old Shropshire and the Hol-
demess. The breeds most valued in the great
dairies around the metropolis are mixed between
the Yorkshire, Holderaess. and Durham. For
quality and quantity of milk they are eminent ;
they yield, on the average, each cow, a gallon of
milk per day, and often nine quarts ; and when
dry, they are in general readily fattened for the
butcher.

With respect to the points of symmetry in
cattle, of which the various breeds exhibits several
degrees of modification, there are certain rales
which are generally acknowledged as applicable to
good cattle of all kinds.

The Bull. — The forehead of the bull should
be broad and short, the lower part, that is, the
nasal part and jaws, tapering; and the muzzle fine ;
the ears moderate ; the neck gently arched from
the head to the shoulders, small and fine where

of minor, Ihongh perhaps of considerable importance." — Prize
Emay, by the Rev. H. Berry.

it joins the head, but boldly thickening as it
sweeps down to the chest, which should be deep,
almost to a level with the knees, with the Iniskets
well developed. The shoulders should be well
set, the shoulder-blades oblique with the humeral
joint advancing forwards to the neck. The barrel
of the chest should be round, without hollowness
between it and the shoulders. The sides should
be ribbed home, with little space between them
and the hips ; the whole body being barrel-shaped,
and not flat-sided. The belly should not hang
do\vn, being well supported by the oblique abdo-
minal muscles, and the flanks should be round
and deep. The hips should be wide and round,
the loins broad, and the back straight and flat.
The tail should be broad and well haired, and set
on high, and fall abruptly. The breast should be
broad ; the forearms short and muscular, tapering
to the knee ; the legs straight, and clean, and fine-
boned. The thighs should be full and long, and
close together when viewed from behind. The
hide should be moderately thin, with a mellow
feel, and moveable, but not lax ; and it should be
well covered with fine soft hair. The uosti-ils
should be large and open ; the eyes animated and
prominent ; the homs clean and white. •

The Ox. — In the ox, the masculine characters,
so prominent in the bull, are softened ; the neck
is earned nearly straight from the top of the
shoulders, without an arch ; and the general frame
is lighter, but the points of excellence are the same.

The Cow. — Cows of a coarse, angular, gaunt
figure may give good milk, and that in abundance,
as, indeed, was the case with some of the old im-
improved breeds ; but it is desirable, and more-
over it is possible, to unite qualities as a milker
with such an aptitude to fatten, as will render her
valuable when dry, and profitable to the butcher.
In a cow thus constituted, the head must be long,
rather small and fine; the neck thin and deli-
cate at its junction with the head, but thickening
as it approaches the shoulder and descends to the
chest; the breast should be at least moderately
broad and prominent, with a small dewlap ; the
chine should be full and fleshy; the ribs well
arched, and the chest barrelled ; the back straight,
the shoulders fine, the loins wide, the hips well
formed and rounded, the rump long ; the udder
shoidd be moderate with a fine skin, and of equal
size both before and behind ; the teats should not
be too large or lax, and they should be equi-
distant from each other. If the vascular system
be well developed, the milk-vein, as it is termed,
is generally large; and though this vein is not
connected mth the udder, but carries the blood
from the foreparts to the inguinal veui, still it has
been taken, and with some justice, as the criterion
of a good milker. The eyes should be clear,
calm, and tranquil, indicative of a gentle temper ;

the skin thin, but mellow ; and the hair soft.
Most fiirmei's are acquainted with the folhiwiiii;;
lines, whicli give a ri'snme of the points of such a
cow as that we have described ; —

" She's Ii>ii(,' in licv liii'C, iinil fmc in hcv horn ;
She'll ,|ui, klv -el hit will
She's eleim in h,r jaws, ,
She's he^ivy in Hank,

" She's broad in her rilis, and long in her rump ;

A strnigllt and llat buck without ever a hump ;

She's wide in her hips, and calm in her eyes;

Slie's fine in her shoulders, and thin in her thighs.
*' She's light in her neek, and small in her tail ;

She's wide at her breast, and good at the pail ;

She's fine in her bone, and silky of skin;

She's a grazier's without, and a butcher's within."

Cows thus admirably formed will often yield from
twenty to twenty-four quarts of milk daily, and
some, in the spring time, in good pasturage, even
tliirty, or more. The milk may, perhaps, yield
less butter in proportion than that of some other
breeds of oattle ; but it would appear that as the
cow advances in age to her sixth and seventh year,
the milk becomes richer ; and it is well known
that the extensive dairymen of London prefer a
cow which has had a tliird or fourth calf, and is
tive or six years old, to a younger animal.

We are perfectly aware that Mr. Culley (" Ob-
servations on Live Stock,") considers it as an
impossiblity to unite good milkers with good
feeders ; for, he says, whenever we attempt both,
we are sure to get neither in perfection: — "In
proportion as we gain the one, in the same pro-
portion we lose the other: the more milk, the
less beef; and the more we pursue beef, the less
milk we get. In truth, they seem to be two dif-
fetent varieties of the same kind, for very dif-
ferent uses; and, if so, they ought most certainly
to be ditlerently pursued by those who employ
them. If the dairyman wants milk, let him pur-
sue the milking tribe; let him have both bull
and cows of the best and greatest milking family
he can find ; on the contrary, lie that wants feed-
ing or gray.ing cattle, let him procure a bull and
cows of that sort which feed the quickest, wherever
they are to be found. By pursuing too many
objects at once, we are apt to lose sight of the
principal ; and by aiming at too much, we often
lose all. Let us only keep to distinct sorts, and
we shall obtain the prize in due time. I appre-
hend it has been much owing to the mixing of
breeds and improper crossings that has kept us so
long from distinguishing the most valuable kinds."
Mr. Culley wrote in 1807, and since his day many
improvements have taken place in the breeds of
cattle; and experience has proved that the im-
proved Yorkshire cow, in which the characters of
the Durham and Holderness are mingled, unites
the two qualities in high perfection. Not that she
displays them at the same time : while giving

milk she may, and perhaps will be, in tolerable
store condition, showing her aptitude to fatten ;
but when, in process of time, or by design, she
becomes dry, she then fatt.cns rapidly, and costs
little in preparation for the butcher.

Formerly, the labouring ox, or steer, was
greatly employed for the purposes of draught, in
the cart or at the jjhmgh ; and on some large
farms teams of oxen are still maintained. In
North and South Devon, the greater part of the
agricultiu'al labour is performed by oxen ; and ox
teams are common in Sussex and Plerefonlshire.
Four good steers will do as much work, either at
the plough or in the cart, as three moderate
horses. They are woi'ked in yokes, and require
to be shod, in order that the hoof may be de-
fended, otlierwise inflammation would soon ensue,
and the beast would be ultimately crippled. The
hoof being bilid, the shoes are accordingly adapted ;
and they should be thin and light. In Devon-
shire, oxen are generally put to farm labour when
they are about two years old, and they are kept to
work for thi'ee or four years ; they are then grazed
(u- fed on hny fur eight or ten months, and in that
time are retuly for the market. Mr. Youatt, speak-
ing of these oxen, says, respecting their feeding,
that, "if the grass land is good, no corn, or cake,
or turnips are required for the first winter ; but,
of course, for a second winter, these must be
added. The grazier likes this breed best at
five years old ; and they will usually, when taken
from the pluugh, fetch as much money as at six :
at eight or nine years, or older, thoy are rapidly
declining in value." It is by no means, how-
ever, in all parts of Devonshire, that the ox is
used for the plough ; and the reason is, that the
demand for oxen among graziers is so great that
the breeders obtain good remunerating price for
them before they are old enough to be put to
labour or about the time in which they are tit
for breaking in; and this circumstance leads to a
consideration of the expediency or inexpediency
of the general employment of oxen in laborious
service. On the continent the ox is most ex-
tensively used for the cart and the plough, as it
was in ancient times ; but in England the great
demand of the ox for food (and that of the best
quality, rendering attention to breeding and feed-
ing of paramount importance), the slowness of
the ox, and its inferiority as a beast of draught,
compared with the horse — the improvement in
our working class of horses — and the greater ease
with which the latter are trained and managed, all
appear to combine in rendering the services of
the ox far less necessary than they would other-
wise be, and have been, and still are, on the con-
tinent. A farmer who can sell four or five oxen
for a good profit, at two years old, will not keep
tliem for the plough, especitdly when two horses

■nill do the ^ork of three or four oxen, and that
fur many years ; yet, in large farms, it may be
advantageous to keep a few oxen at least for the
lighter work, so as to save the time of the horses,
which might be devoted to more important labour ;
and this the rather as the keep of the working
ox is less expensive than that of the working cart-
horse, ilr. Culley, no ordinary judge in agricul-
tural matters, is a decided advocate for the partial
employment of the ox under proper circumstances.
He admits that oxen are not in all things equal to
horses, but urges that the advantage of employing
them, " in every kind of work wherein they suit,
is very considerable." They may be employed in
"several kinds of home-work, such as ploughing,
loading dung, corn, &c., equally as well as horses."
And he adds, " I advance this opinion on several
years' experience, and believe that most farmers
might use some oxen along with their horses ; but
would recommend that oxen and horses be in
separate draughts, because the difference of the
step is so unequal." In a note, he further ob-
serves, " The author and his brother, in partner-
ship, at this time employ about 150 oxen in the
draught, which is mentioned here as a proof that
they approve of drawing oxen in many cases,
after more than thirty years' experience. They
use them in carts singly, and two in a plough
with cords, without a driver, where they go equally
as well as two horses, though not quite so swift ;
and I am happy to add, that the working of oxen
is becoming more general every day, as many of
our neighbours are following this example."

Mr. Youatt, who commends the activity and
excellences of the North Devon cattle, as workers,
is evidently in favour of teams of oxen for agricul-
tural labours. In Devonshire, he says, four oxen,
or six growing steers, are the usual team employed
in the plough ; and certainly, he adds, " the oxen
move along with an agility that would scarcely be
expected from cattle : the team may be watched a
long while without one harsh word being heard, or
the goad or whip applied. The opponents of ox
husbandry should visit the valleys of Xorth and
South Devon, to see what the animal is capable of
performing, and how he performs it. The profit
arising from the use of oxen in this district is owing
to the activity to which they are trained, and
w'hich is unknown in any other part of the king-
dom. During harvest time, and in catching wea-
ther, they are sometimes trotted along, with the
empty wagons, at the rate of six miles an hour ;
a degeee of speed which no other o.x but the
■ Devon has been able to stand." Of course the
saddle oxen of India and Africa are here ex-
cepted.

Notwithstanding the recommendations of Mr.
Culley, and the views of Mr. Youatt, it does not
appear to us that any advance has been recently

made in the employment of oxen in husbandry ;
neither do we think it probable. There is a gene-
ral penchant for the horse : the small or middling
farmer finds a few horses sufficient for his purpose,
and is naturally unwilling to burden himself with
inferior workers, which, after all, must be w'ell fed ;
and the large farmer, aware of the superior efficacy
of the horse, thinks it scarcely worth while to have
an effective team of neat cattle, when his horses
are so often idle, and when, in busy times, a few
more hired for the occasion, or purchased, if even
to sell again, will enable him to get through the
work with expedition. Besides all this, as we have
already said, the ox, in our densely-populated
island, is required, as early as possible, by the
butcher : the demand being pressing, such, in fact,
as to render the importation of foreign stock, if
not positively necessary, at least (as is deemed by
parliament) not to be debarred.

The oxen of Devon may work quickly and spi-
ritedly, but such as we have seen have been slow
in their movements, especially in hot weather, by
which they always appeared to us to be greatly
distressed, far more so than the horse ; besides
which, they seemed more exhausted by severe mus-
cular exertion, and less capable of rall3-ing. Nor
need we wonder at this, when we consider the com-
plicated process of rumination wliicli must take
place in the ox before digestion and assimilation '
can invigorate the exhausted system ; remember-
ing, at the same time, that, during muscular exer-
tion the whole process is suspended. Consequently
an hour or two devoted to rest is of far less service
to the ox than to the horse. If the ox labours at
the plough dm'iug a whole day, with two hours'
intermission, and in that iuteiTuission takes food,
it is of no use ; nay, it has only distended the
paunch, rendering him less capable of work ; and
in the evening, he may then, perhaps, if not over-
heated, begin the process of rumination ; this com-
pleted, he takes more food, and, with perhaps a
filled paunch, is again required to labour the next
moniiug, to the arrest of rumination. Thus, either
the ox must be punished, or allowed to do only
part of a day's work ; and then only after the rumi-
nation of the last meal has been completed, and
before the paunch is reloaded ; or, on the other
hand, the work must be light, and the pace not
over-urged. We may admit the ox as an assistant
in husbandly, but not as a principal. On the con-
tinent, the ox works slowly ; and Buffon well ob-
serves that "the ancients limited to one hundred
and twenty paces, at most, the extent of the furrow
which the ox ought to trace by an uninterrupted
continuance of efforts and movements ; after which,
they say, one ought to cease urging him on, but
permit him to take breath some moments before
carrying out the some furrow, or beginning another,"
In our climate the farmer is anxious to set his

seed into the ground, and to see man and beast do
a good day's labour.

Still, however, on large farms, a team or two of
oxen may be found very sei-viceable for work suited

to their powers and requirements : they may be
available, but the horse is essential ; not, indeed,
abstractedly so, but according to the views and
habits of the English farmer.

CHAPTER IV.

We may now proceed to investigate the various
breeds into which the ox has ramified by the care
and agency of those interested in the improvement
of our domestic cattle. But, by way of a prelimi-
nary step, let us glance at the principal races of
Continental Europe, from some of which certain
of our breeds have, it is said, but recently de-
scended ; we allude to our (now improved) short-
homed cattle, originally, it is believed, from Hol-
land, or some adjacent parts of the continent, and
according to a vague tradition imported into York-
shire (or that division of the East Riding called
Holderness), in the seventeenth century. We may
also mention the Alderney and Jersey breeds, origi-
nally from Normandy, and still often directly re-
ceived from that province. In France the breeders
and cattle-dealers divide their oxen into two prin-
cipal sections ; " Bceufs de haut crii." and " Bosufs
de nature." The " bceufs de haut crii" are of small
or middle size, wth a wild aspect, a thick skin,
rough hair, and ample dewlap : the horns are more
or less black or greenish ; the suet is particularly
abundant. These cattle are more peculiar to the
hilly and mountain districts than to the plains.
To this section belong the breeds of Limosin,
Saintonge, Angoumois, La Marche, Gascogne, Au-
vergne, Bourbon, Charolais, Burgogne, Morvan.

The " bcEufs de nature" are of moderate or
large stature ; the body and head are small ; the
nose and ears fine, the horns white, the skin fine
and supple, the hair soft, the aspect tranquil.
These cattle readily fatten ; and are chiefly con-
fined to districts of little elevation, and to lands
abounding in pasturage. To this section belong
the breeds of Cholet, Nantes, Augers, Le Ivlarais,
Bretagne (Brittany), Maine, Pays d'Auge, Cotentin,
Franche-Comte, Camargue, &c.

Beginning with the breeds of the first sec-
tion, we may observe, that the cattle of Li-
mosin are of moderate stature, somewhat elon-
gated in form, and robustly made : the head is
large ; the horns are massive, long, and pointed,
sometimes sweeping upwards, sometimes down-
wards. The shoulders are thick, the withers low,
the region of the loins somewhat hollow, the dew-
lap lax, the general colour white or straw-yellow.
Weight, from 600 to 850 lbs.

The breeds of Angoumois and Saintonge pre-
sent very similar chai'acters, but are of inferior size.

These cattle are used for work in their respec-
tive provinces, and also in Perigord and IJaut-
Poitou ; afterwards they are fattened, some in
Normandy, and others in Limosin ; and numbers
are sent to the slaughter-houses around Paris.

The cattle of La Marche, and Bern, and Tou-
raine, closely approximate to those of Limosin ;
but are lower in stature, with long, heavy horns,
turned up at the tips, and of a greenish colour.
Numbers are fed in the pasture-grounds of Nor-
mandy.

The Gascon breed are of considerable size,
from 700 to 8T)0 lbs. in weight : they are long low
beasts, with a huge head and horns ; the skin is
very thick ; the colour generally of a dull white,
sometimes with a tinge of sootj'-brown, which ap-
pears mostly on the head. Oxen of this breed are
consumed at Bordeaux, and are slaughtered for the
provision of shipping ; some few are fattened in
Limosin, and sent to Paris.

The Auvergne cattle are of small size, weigh-
ing from 750 to 850 lbs. ; they are short in sta-
ture, but broad and thick, with large bones, and a
heavy contour; the head is short and broad, the
muzzle thick, the horns short, turned up, and
somewhat twisted and crumpled ; the belly hangs
low ; the usual colour is red, with marks of white,
more or less large, on the sides and back.

The cattle of this breed are reared in the
mountains of Auvergne, whence they are brought
down, at the age of three years, to work in the.
plains of Haut-Poitou ; they are afterwards sent
to fatten in the pastures of Normandy. Some,
however, are retained at Poitou, and are fattened
on hay, in the neighbourhood of Heraie-Saint-
Maixeut, and of La Motte-Saiute-Heraie, and
turn out good beasts i they are known by the name
of " Mottois."

There is a breed of small cattle in Bourbon,
with a slender head and neck, and long pointed
homs ; their colour is red, mottled with white.
These small native Bourbon cattle are in little
esteem ; and a breed, brought from some other
province, is far more valued, and is fattened in
Bourbon on hay.

The Charolais cattle are of moderate stature,
weighing from 600 to 850 lbs. ; their contour is
short, robust, and massive ; the head is well pro-
portioned and plump ; the horns are short and

fine, witb a slightly green tinge ; the back and
loius are almost straight; the belly is voluminous;
the colour is milk-white, sometimes with red spots.

The oxen of this excellent breed, which is
doubtless capable of great imiirovement, are fat-
tened, after having worked for three years, in the
pastures of Charolais, and supply the markets both
of Paris and Lyons.

A smaller breed of very similar cattle is spread
throughout the province of Xivernois ; these cattle
are very gentle, the skin is thin, and the contour
less massive than that of the preceding breed.
The oxen are used for farm-labour, and afterwards
fatted. The best are sent to Morvan for the
markets.

The Burgogne, or Burgundy, breed of cattle
are small, and much like the breed of Berri or La
Marche : their colour is white. This breed is in
little estimation, and is altogether uncultivated ;
its hide is inferior in quality; it yields but
little suet, and the quality of the flesh is in-
difl'erent.

We now come to the breeds of the second sec-
tion, '• les bceufs de nature.''

An excellent breed of cattle is found in the
district around Cholet (Anjou), the oxen often at-
taining to the weight of 900 lbs. The proportions
are veiy tolerable : the head is brood and short;
the hoiTis are long and white, with black tips ; the
shoulders, loins, and rump ai't on the same level ;
the breast is deep ; the dewlap small ; the most
common colours are grey, black, or brown. The
Cholet cattle are not bred in that district, but in
Bas-Poitou, and are afterwards sent to Cholet,
where they are fattened on hay, cabbages, &e., and
killed at the age of six. or seven years. These
cattle find good markets in the various provinces ;
and numbers are sent to Paris, more particularly
between the months of April and July. It is in
Bas-Poitou also that a breed called Nantes cattle
are reared, and which are afterwards distributed
i]i the environs of the latter place. The o.xen are
used for farm-labour in the Pays de Retz, and over
a great part of Bretagne and Anjou, and especially
along the borders of the Loire, fi'om Angers to
Normandy. There is, about Nantes, a smaller
breed also, with a finer head ; the oxen are much
employed in the neighbourhood of Rennes and
Fougeres, and are ultimately sent to the pastures
of Normandy.

In the marais. or low district, along the coast
between Machecoul and Rocbefort, several breeds
■ of cattle appear to be reared and fed, the oxen
being used for labour. Of these the largest breed
often weighs 900 or 1000 lbs. : the contour is not
first-rate : the head is long, the horns large, the
skin thick, the tallow abundant and oily. 'I'his is
the ox of the marais, to the north of LuQon.

The ox of Fontenay is smaller and more com

mon ; it is reared in the large marais between
Lucon and Rocbefort.

At Aunis, Poitou, and in the marais of La Cha-
reute, a Flanders breed of ox prevails, originally
from the Netherlands, or Holland. It is of tall
statm-e, long in the body, and high in the limbs,
with the volume of the tnnik diminished : the head
is long, the horns very large, the skin dense. The
cows are always meagre, but give a great quantity
of milk.

Besides these, there is a mixed breed, resulting
from crossing the Flanders stock with the others.

In Basse-Bretagne, there is a very dimhiutive
breed of cattle, with a fine head and slender limbs ;
the horns are very long, and black at the tip. The
colour is red and white, or black aud white. It is
fed in Basse-Bretagne chiefly for ship provisions,
though a few, fattened in the pastures of Normandy,
find their way to the Paris markets.

An excellent breed of middle-sized cattle pre-
vails in Maine. The oxen weigh about seven hun-
dred pounds. The head and neck are fine, the
horns short and white, the dewlap is almost want-
ing, the haunch is flat, the tail high set, the colour
white aud red. This breed is noted for gentleness
of disposition, and is both widely spread and veiy
much esteemed. The ox is worked to the age of
six or seven years, and then sent to the pastures of
Normandy. This breed has been crossed by one
from Holland ; aud the mixed stock, of superior
size, were first bred by M. Boreau de la Besuar-
diere, of Angers, who introduced some bulls from
that country.

In the Pays d'Auge, a breed of cattle, origi-
nally from Holland prevails. The oxen of this
breed are of large size, usually weighing one thou-
sand or twelve hundred pounds. Their contour is
very good : the head is short, and broad, the horns
white, thick, short, and round, the tail high-set, the
hair thick ; the skin is thick, the colour is black or
brown, mixed with white, the head being often en-
tirely of the latter colour. These oxen readily
accumulate an abundance of fat, which is, in gene-
ral, of a slight yellow tinge.

Coming from a good stock, and more care being
taken iu the breeding of this race than is usual iu
France, the ox of the Pays d'Auge is superior to
most others. The breed was originally introduced
about fifty years since, by M. de la Roque, a stock
feeder, who obtained it in Holland ; and, from the
selections made in the choice of individuals des-
tined for breeding, it maintains all its original ex-
cellences, which areiu full perfection at the seventh
or eighth year. Many oxen, however, are sold for
slaughter at the age of three or four yeai-s ; but
some are kept for three or four years to labour, and
are then fattened.

In the district of Cotentin, in Normandy, there
is a breed of considerable size, with a long head

and long slender horns, and having the back ridged,
tlie thighs lauli, the Hmbs slender, the body volu
mhious, and the skin thin. The colour is blackish
brown.

Between this old, coarse breed, and the Hol-
land of the Pays d'Auge, has resulted a mixed race,
which often attains to a very a large size, with the
limbs stouter, and in better proportion, and with a
general increase in bone as well as flesh. This
breed is usually mottled, red and white, and it is
almost the only one bred in the Normandy pastures,
and there also fed. The original cattle of Franche
Conite are very small, and of little value ; the
horns are often crumpled, and the general colour
is blond, or brown. There is, however, an im-
proved breed in Franche Comte, which supplies
the cattle feeders in the arrondissement of Avesiies.

In the Pays de Camargue, at the embouchure
of the Rhone, a wild, savage breed exists, less re-
markable for stature than for strength and solidity
of contour. The body is stout and robust, the
belly extremely voluminous : the horns short, and
so arched as to form a perfect crescent ; the skin
is thick, and covered with black hair.

These cattle, which inhabit the island of Ca-
margue, in the mouth of the Fthone, a little below
Aries, are in a semi-domesticated condition, and
are noted for their strength and ferocity. They
are said to have been brought, originally, from
Auvergne. Their heavy contour, their black
colour, their savage habits, and their great strength,
give them a certain degfee of similarity to the
massive buffalo. It is this fierce breed which fur-
nishes the bulls for the combats of the amphi-
theatre, which still from time to time, are e.xhi-
bited at Nimes and at Tarascon.

Such are the principle breeds of France, as
detailed by M. Desmarest; but as he observes,
there are innumerable shades of variation ; and,
we raaj add, that changes and improvements are
perpetually taking place, insomuch that old breeds
are gradually gi^'iug place to new, or, by admixture,
are losing their original characters. In Normandy,
celebrated for its pastm'e lands, we have seen ex-
cellent cattle, not at all resembling the Alderney
breed, but lai'ge, straight-backed, deep, and broad-
breasted, well barrelled, short-horned, and mottled
red and white. In other parts of France, we have
seen small and meagre cattle, without the slight-
est pretensions to blood, but, at the same time, tole-
rable milkers. A writer in the " Penny Magazine"
says, " The Norman breed gives the character to all
the cattle usually met with in the north of France,
e.xcept near the llhine. They are mostly of a
light red colour, spotted with white ; their hoi'ns
are short, and staud well out from the forehead,
turning up with a black tip ; the legs fine and slen-
der, the hips high, and the thighs thin. The cows
are good milkers, and the milk is rich. Thev are

in general extremely lean, which is owing, in a
great measui-e, to the scanty food they gather by
the sides of roads and along the grass Ijalks which
divide the fields. In Normandy itself they have
good pastures, and the cattle are larger and look
better. The Alderney and Jersey breeds, which,
from the extreme richness of their milk, are much
prized in gentlemen's dairies m England, are
smaller varieties of the Norman, with shorter
horns, more turned in, and a more deer-like form."

In Switzerland there are two or three breeds
of active, handsome cattle, well adapted for rang-
ing the mountain pastures ; of these the most
celebrated is the Freyburg stock, much cultivated
in the rich grounds between the mountains in the
neighbourhood of Gruyeres or Greyerz so cele-
brated for its cheese ; the cows are of good size,
wide in the flanks, strong in the horn, and short
in the bone ; the set-on of the tail is prominent,
and detracts from their appearance ; as milkers
they are excellent, either when ranging in their
pastures, or when stalled and fed with clover, hay,
and lucern. The oxen are slow and heavy, but
at the same time powerful, and work well ; they
also fatten readily ; but in Switzerland, as through-
out the continent generally, the stall-fed fatted
steer is in far less estimation than in the British
islands. It is of little consequence whether the
meat be lean or fat, coarse or fine grained, when
the mode of cookery is such as to break down the
texture of the flesh, or to disguise it in such a
manner that it would be diflicult to say of what
animal it is a part. In the Jura mountains, a
breed of cattle similar to the Swiss, but of small
stature, greatly prevails. These cattle are very
hardy and active, and clamber about the moun-
tains, or among the rocks and woods with the
activity of goats ; the cows are good milkers, and
are of great importance to the mountain peasants ;
the oxen are very strong for their size, and are
used for labour ; they invariably draw by the horns.
The cattle of this breed are mostly red ; they
thrive on scanty fare, and are well fitted for the
locality they occupy.

In Switzerland, Savoy, and the adjacent moun-
tain-districts, considerable attention is paid to the
cows, which have generally bells roimd their necks,
and are attended by cowherds, who use the Alp-
horn to collect them at stated times. These bells
are not intended merely as ornaments, or to give
pleasure to the ear, they are of great utility ; for
when a cow happens to stray on the mountains, the
vacher or his dog has always a guide in the bell,
the slightest tinkle of which is heard at a great
distance in those lofty and still regions.

With respect to the pastoral economy of these
mountain districts, it is in keeping with the
character of the country. The richer proprietors
or breeders in the Alps, possess tracts of pastur-

flge, and sometimes houses at different heights.
During tlie winter they live at the foot of tlie
mountains in some sheltered valle}', and house
their cattle ; but on the return of spring they quit
their winter abode, and ascend gradually as the
heat brings out vegetation on the higher lands, on
which, during the summer, the cattle feed at large.
In autumn they descend by the same gradations
to the valley.

The farmers or proprietors, who are less wealthy,
have a resource in certain common pastures, to
which they send their cows, the number possessed
by each person being determined by his means of
keeping them during the winter. Eight days after
the cows have been driven up to these common
pastures, all their owners assemble, and tlie quan-
tity of milk each cow produces is accurately weighed.
This operation of weighing is repeated one day in
the middle of summer, and again at the end of the
season. The milk of all the cows has. in the
mean time, been put together, and made into butter
and cheese ; and this common product is divided
into shares, according to the quantity of milk each
owner's cow yielded on the days of triiil.

The chalets or public dairies on these common
pastures have always some persons residing in
them during the summer months, when the churn
and the cheese press are never idle : some of them
are in such lofty situations, that to go to them and
return to the valley below, take up the time of a
whole day. The cheese is made in copper caul-
drons of an enormous size, and is itself formed
into masses inconveniently heavy ; a cheese weigh-
ing two hundred pounds is by no means a rarity in
the mountains of Savoy and Switzerland ; and in
some of the chalets such a cheese is put into the
press every day during the summer season. The
cows are milked morning and evening. At the ap-
proach of sunset they may be seen slowly travers-
ing the mountain pastures, from every quarter
(either going of their own accord, or in obedience
to the sound of the Alp-horn), to the chalet, in
order to be milked. These cattle are said to know
so well the proper season for shifting their quarters
and seeking the milder climate of the valleys, that
they would set off themselves and return direct,
each to its winter station, even if not conducted.

In the Jura (on the frontiers of France towards
Switzerland) excellent butter is made, and great
quantities of cheese.

In the North of Italy, where the celebrated
Parmesan cheese is made, the cattle resemble
those of Switzerland. Parmesan cheese is made
from skimmed milk, and saffron is added to give
flavour and colour ; Gruyeres cheese is made en-
tirely from new milk.

In other parts of Italy is found an improved
breed of cattle, remarkable for the great size of
the horns ; but m the Camj^agna of Kome a very

fine race, to which we have previously alluded,
exists in a semi-wild state, under the care of
keepers, or vaccari. Some of the bulls are ex-
tremely noble animals, often white, others are
grey, more or less tinged with brown ; the horns
are large, well turned and pointed. Many of
these animals have a name and genealogy, and
are bred on the celebrated teimta, or cattle farm,
of some nobleman or great landed proprietor ; and
these particulars are specified in the printed bills
distributed at the door of the amphitheatre when
a great bull-fight is about to take place.

Of the cattle of Hungary, Wallacliia, &c., we
have already spoken; they are white, or whitish,
with long homs; and a similar breed prevails in
Russia. From this latter country, tallow and hides
are imported into England ; and cattle are reared in
vast numbers, but principally in the more southern
provinces. In the district adjacent to St. Peters-
burgh, and even Moscow, few cattle are reared, and
the markets are supplied by cattle driven from dis-
tant parts. The herdsmen live in a state of bar-
liaric simplicity, and are, in fact, nomadic in their
habits. They travel with their herds to St. Peters-
burg, Moscow, and other large towns which depend
more on them for a due supply than on the far-
mers of the adjacent districts. The following
noticeof these cattle from Johnson's "Russia,"gives
a good picture of the mode in which they perform
their long journeys : — " Along the road we passed
one or two large droves of horned cattle proceeding
to St. Petersburg; we learned that they were
brought from the pro^'inces south of Moscow.
These cattle are all of a white colour, well made,
and of about seven hundred weight. Their journey
to St. Petersburg generally occupies three months;
they travel from eight to sixteen miles during the
night, and are allowed to pasture and rest during
the day, on the sides of the road ; the herds are
attended by one or two men, who convey their cook-
ing utensils, baggage, etc., in a wagon drajvjj . by
two oxen, and while their numerous cattle repose
undisturbed under the shade of the delicate .uiich,
they stretch themselves on the ground, and pass
their time in a true Scythian state. Here, are
also seen a few sheep, but of an inferior b'-'oed,
and covered with hair somewhat like that of a
goat. This country is not favourable for the pas-
ture of sheep, owing to the coarseness of the grass
and the quantity of wood. Little or no attention
seems to be used in the rearing of any.other
domestic animal except the horse ; to hiui. Pi\qne
the Russian devotes his whole attention, au,d from
him he derives his livelihood." ' .

The Calmuckson the Koomanian steppe (esti-
mated at 20,000 families), on the western' sidp of
the Lower Volga, feed vast numbers o^'.biack
cattle, as well as camels, horses, sheep, and goats.
In winter, when the grass of the plains is entirely

48 ''■

and long slender horns, iind having the back rid;,-' !
the thighs lank, th.- liniln slender, the hody v .1 i
minous, and the skin thiu. The colour is bl.ul.i
brown.

iJetneen this old, coarse breed, and the II
land of the Pays d'Auge. has resulted a nii\<d m-. ,
which oftfjn attains to a very a large size, with the
limbs stouter, and in better proportion, and with a
general increa.sc in bone as well as llesh. 'I i
breed is usually mottled, red and white, and it
almost the only one bred in the Normandy pastiu
and there also fed. 'I'he original cattle of Fran. '
Conite are veri- small, and of little value: i'
horns are often cnnnpled. and the general co'
U blond, or brown. There is, however, an m
proved breed in Franche Comte, which sup]>lica
the cattle feeders in ihearrondisseinent of .Xvesnes.

In the Pays d<- Caraargue, at the embnuchure
of tlie Khone, a wild, sava^;.- breeil exists, less re-
markable for stature than fur strength and s.didiiy
of contour. The lx)dy is stout and rol'Ust, the
belly extremely voluminous ; the horns short, and
so arched as to form a perft-ct crescent ; llie bkin
is thick, and covered with black hair.

These cattle, which inhabit the island of Ca-
margue, in the mouth of the llhone, a little below
Aries, are in a semi-doracsiicatcd condition, and
are noted for their strength and fenicity. They
are said to have been brought, originally, from
Auvergne. Their heavy contour, their black
colour, their savagii habits, and their great strength,
give them a certain degree of similarity to the
massive butValo. It is this fierce brred which fur-
nishes the bulls for the combats of the amphi-
theatre, which still from time to time, are exhi-
bited at Nimes ainl at TariLscon.

Such are the |«rinciple breeds of France, as
detailed by M. Dcsmarest ; but as he obsen-es,
there are innumerable shades of variation ; and.
we may add, that changes and iniproveinenUs are
perpetually taking jdnce. insomuch that old breeds
are gradually giving |>lace to new, or, by admixture,
are losing their original characters. In Normandy,
celebrated for its pa.sture lands, we have seen ex-
cellent cattle, not at all resembling the .\Mfniey
breed, but large, straight-backed, deep, ami broad-
breasteil. well barrelled, short-homed. an<l mottled
red and white. In other parts of France, we have
seen small and meagre aiitle, without the slight-
est pretensions to UiuhI, but. at the same lime, tole-
rable milkers. A w riter in the " Penny Magazine"
says, " The Norman breed gives the character to all
the cattle usually met with in the north of Fram-e.
except near the Khine. They are mostly of a
light red colour, spotted with white : their horns
are short, and stand well out from the forehead.
turning up with a black tip ; the legs fine and slen-
der, the hips high, and the thighs thin. The cows
are good milkers, and the milk is rich. Thev are

itTi

tUJ.

nolstcin.

r>i

along the western portions of Europe, through
the Netherlands, to the borders of France. At
all times the cows have been noted for the
quantity of milk yielded, and also for au aptitude
to fatten, thus exhibiting qualities upon which the
breeder, aiming at improvement, might work with
a certainty of success. In reference to our short-
horned breed, Mr. Culley says, " There are many
reasons for thinking this breed has been im-
ported from the continent : — First, because they
ai'e in many places called the Dutch breed.
Secondly, because we fiud very few of these
cattle any where in tliis island excepting along
the eastern coast, facing those parts of the
continent where the same kind of cattle are
still bred, and reaching from the southern ex-
tremity of Lincolnshire to the borders of Scotland.
The long-homs and these have met upon the
mountains which separate Yorkshire from Lanca-
shire, and by crossing have produced a mixed
breed, called 'half-long-horns,' a very heavj^ and
strong but not unuseful kind of cattle ; but we do
not find that the one kind have spread further
west nor the others further east. Thirdly, I re-
member a gentleman (Mr. M. Dobinson) of the
county of Durham, who went, in the early part of
his life, into Holland, in order to buy bulls; those
he brought over were of much service in im-
pro\'ing the breed : and this Mr. Dobinson and
his neighbours, even in my da\', were noted for
having the best breed of short-horned cattle, and
sold their bulls and heifers for very great prices.
But afterwards, persons of less knowledge going
over, brought home some bulls that, in all proba-
bility, introduced along that coast the disagreeable
kind of cattle, well-known to the breeders adjoin-
ing the river Tees by the appellation of 'lyery,'
or ' double-lyered ; ' that is, black-fleshed ; for,
notwithstanding one of these creatures will feed
to a vast weight (and though fed ever so long), it
will not have one pound of fat about it, neither
within nor without ; and the flesh, for it does not
deserve to be called beef, is as black and coarse-
grained as horse-flesh." Such cattle, however, are
not now to be seen. Here, then, we must look
for the origin of our Durham and Holderness
race, one of the most important within the limits
of the British islands.

With respect to Spain and Portugal, as w^e
have already said, vast herds of cattle, in a
semi-wild state, feed in the extensive forests and
mountain regions. They are found in the great
forests of Alemtejo (Portugal), and in the moun-
tain region of the Sierra Nevada (extending over
the southern part of Spain south of the Guadal-
quiver), including the SieiTa de Aguaderas, the
Sien-a de Estancias, the Monies de Granada, etc.,
covering nearly 1 '2,000 square miles. Besides
these fierce, wild, or rather feral, cattle, there

are tame breeds of large size, and numerous in
the higher mountain districts ; but in the plains
and table-lands they are of small stature. We
cannot learn that much attentirin is paid to the
improvement of horned cattle either in Spain or
Portugal. Oxen are used for labour in the cart
or wagon, and also for carrying luggage, but the
flesh is not in esteem ; there are, indeed, gi-aziera
and cowherds in the hills, but more attention is
paid to the goat, of which both the flesh and the
milk are used extensivelj'. In )]0 part of Europe
are goats so numerous as in Spain.

It is from the herds of cattle which wander
uncontrolled by man, that the bulls destined liir
the amphitheatre are taken. An eye witness thus
describes the mode of capturing the bulls in the
forest of Alemtejo. In this forest, he says, "some
hundreds of square miles are occupied by growing
timber; but witliin its bounds large open spaces
exist, which serve for pasturages ; and occasionally
a farm, a vineyard, or an olive grove may be seen
struggling, as it were, for existence, amidst the
vast solitudes. But though occasional glimpses of
cultm-e appear, they are far too few and far
between to offer any serious check to the increase
and independence of the herds which roam around
them undisturbed. It was in this forest that I
witnessed, for the first time, the method of cap-
turing the wild bulls. I received intimation that
the village of Aleoxete, on the Tagus, was to be
the scene of a bull-fight, and that the villagers for
many miles round were invited to join in the
hunt ; which was to take place on the following
day. I accordingly crossed the river in company
with many persons, mostly military, each being
provided with a long pole, having a small spike
fixed in one end, and mounted as inclination cir
ability suited. When we arrived at the opposite
bank, a little before daybreak, we found two hun-
dred and fifty or three hundred persons assembled :
some mounted on different sorts of quadrupeds,
from the noble Andahician horse to the humble
hack donliey, and many on foot. They were all
armed in a similar manner to ourselves. As sonu
as daylight began to appear, we all marched "i'i
toward the forest. The morning was peculi.irly
fine, and the interest of the beautiful scenery w:i«
heightened by the varied costumes of the persons
by whom we were surrounded. As soon as we had
advanced some distance into the wood, we halted
for the purpose of refreshment, before the arduous
and somewhat perilous duties of the day bcLjan.
After a hasty meal, we divided into two parties ;
one stretching in a long line to the right, and the
other to the left. We had not advanced far in
this manner before we fell in with a herd of cattle,
havmg twelve bulls with it ; which no sooner
descried us, than they bounded off with the speed
of lighining. The sport now begun : we put oiu"

D -3

50 T'"-

ilestrojed. llie herds liml iil.iiinliuil piistimiRC in llu-
swiimpv tracts aloiiR the river Surjw, on the low
slioresof the Ciispinii, and on the level unmnd
bordering the river Koonia alove Kislar. In the ,
north of "Russia a few small cattle exist, but bare
the ox gives iilace to the reindeer.

In Norway cattle are abundant, but of amall
size ; and the same ol.servati.m applies to Ice-
land, which originally derived its cattle from the
former country. The Iceland cjUiIc have much
resemblance to those of the Orluiey Islands, but ,
are, perhaps, larger. To the natives of Iceland '
their catite are of the utmost ira|x)rtance ; iind.
though the management of tiie si.xk is conductnl
on no principles, the breed is not destitute of pre-
tensions to a tolerable form and contour, and
might, by judicious management, be greatly im-
proved. Mackenzie, in liis " Account of Iceland,'
observes, that " The cattle, in i>oint of size and
appearance, are very like the largest of our Higli-
land sorts, excejit in one respect, — those of Ice- '
land are seldom seen with horns. As in oilier
countries, we meet wiili finer cattle on some faims
than on others; but i^he adds\ from every olnjcrra-
tion I could make, and information I could obtain,
the Iceland farmers know notliing of the art of
breeding stock. The bulls are in general ugly,
anil no use is made of them till after tliey arc five
years old. In rearing a bull-calf no more atten-
tion is paid to him than others. Taking all cir-
cuiustanccs of management together, I hnd some
reason to be surjiriscd to Iind the cattle. u|>oii the
whole, to be so handsome. Tiie cows, in gcncnil.
yield a considerable quantity of milk ; many of
them ten or twelve quarts a day, and some a gmod
deal more."

In another place, tlie same writer obs( i . ~
"The cow, horse, and sheep alTonI the prii
souive of wealth, comfort, and sulisistence !■
Icelander. A cow on the farm of the Amti

• Stephenson, we were assured, gave regnlarly i . ■ , '.
d4y. {wenty-one quarts of milk. Their value is

. w. '•11 known and appreciated by the Icelanders, who

talle the greatest care of them in the winter, and

scViii.b) sliake otT their habilual listle—>ness while

employed in gathering the hay that is to supfxirt

thMv through the inclemencies of that sea-son."

• iltxs is, in fact, the great harvest of Iceland ;

'^ formerly some com was cultivated, but the in-

.'hailitants find it more to their advantage to attend

• • to .fJiij! rearing of cattle. In I'^iU there were on
' ■ t''? MO'iil -1 .■< 5 1 farms, with "Ji i.UJ.'i head of honied
. .cattle, ;'Jls,!S IS sheep, and ".id,.!.'!! horses. The
, .couKiKin food of the people is butter, milk, and

• ;fisli : I'lesh meat and ne bread are holiday fare.

.'In|Sweden the cattle are small, and the pas-
'^*_'t'"i'.*^'J^""fls generally indilTcrent : and. frmi the
.^nature of the climate, all domestic animals must
. '^e kept in stables, or under cover, from four to

sc\en 111
In the I
place l«it
In I)
to the r'

and I
'iil.sc

of ac
from ■

(told I
I
tnci-
shori
to ll.
-h r.

1% bi

tvir.
cows

lllld a

dry
the ^M
doll,
bneii
of K.
reari
in r.
I
and I
dilTfi
exist,
or 1 1
race
short
in fact.

. a'ld f«l on dried fodder.

'1 thf reindeer takes ibe

111 the ox.

iirk, a -111 • rior rac* of cattle exists ;

..f !':-•. n^^ well as of lnir»es,

■'11 is paid. The

I on an extensive

... {i'diue of butter and

It The Htock of homed

II i-tiiimted at l,ft(l7,(ini),

i avenigea yearly about

. mid 5,76(1 odrcs. Of

.1' 'II millions uf |iounds

.i\ . niue e\|Hirt ; and of

I..'ird. wtlt-mcnt, and

' i in great quantities. Des-

■ ..f the coire fwin Denmark,

rich iMsturvs of Holland,

tvit'iity piuta (French mea-

-laics. the Hungarian breed

,M-nt nunilxrs being driven

»hich tiler are bred, and

.ri/.iers.

'.'. I -tj.li.di.'i, and other dis-

,. In rd of cattle, with

lb I' breed is nejirly allied

K :iiid our own lloldemess

1 iiey are of various colours;

i\.ii itiiermiiiglerl with white,

!i la-d COW" of tlii« breed

' . met with. " They are

. |•ll^tll^||1«. and the oxen

. i or »t«ll fed at a proper

hiM- III the bom and Uine, and

!• ; li'it iher are not considered so

as the Hunguian

111 make the bmden

.. Lip bone and coane fea-

Its lulls, in pratevnce to those

il.< com, thia breed would in

ir bc-i fthort-homs. The

!!• I while still in milk.

I . r l.v the time they atts

1, f.. 111. wed by laime of

I ■•<■ 111 igliU.iirh<<>d of Lon-

lloldcnies^ cows. This

1 in all the northern jiarts

'.< inti> Denmark, and is

iiitlaiid; it in also spread

II i.diielderlaiid.Utrecht.
: home<l race of cattle,

iiiig race, has long
, ;, this the Holstein

'iitcs to this

I Yorkshire

.1 race may.

lni«i-«l (luni .lutiaiiJ and ILdstein,

almost hid from view by the cloud of dust, lash-
ing itself into fury with its tail, rushed upon its
opponent. All wlio were not accustomed to such
spectacles thought the man must inevitably have
perished; but just as the long and powerful horns
seemed to touch his body, he stepped nimbly aside,
and turning smartly round, planted all four darts
in the animal's neck, just behind the horns.
Loud shouts of applause rewarded his dexterity ;
and the bull, more enraged than ever, ran round
the area, tearing up the eai-th, and bellowing with
rnge, until encountered by a second picadore, with
the like success. After the Spaniards had ex-
hausted themselves in exciting the rage of the
bull, they quitted the area; the populace were
admitted to throw the bull. This was generally
done by one man leaping between the horns, upon
which he supported himself in an upright postui'e,
till relieved by his companions, who threw the
bull to the ground. The cry of largo, largo, was
the signal for its liberation ; when, some tame
cattle being admitted, it was led by them to the
pen. Six bulls were thus baited the first day, the
other six on the day following. Three weeks after-
wards I had these very animals under my charge,
as baggage oxen, as tame and gentle oxen as could
be desired."

In this instance the object was not the destruc-
tion but the subjugation of the beasts. But it is
far otherwise in the regular amphitheatres of
Spain and Portugal, where a bull is only occasion-
ally saved by acclamation, after having killed seve-
ral horses, or wounded several men, to the delight
of the spectators, and especially' the female portion,
who wave their handkerchiefs in token of their ap-
probation of the animal's courage.

Sir J. C. Hobhouse saw three horses killed by
one bull ; he was saved by acclamations, w'hich were
redoubled when it was known he belonged to a
priest. This occurred in 1809, in the great am-
phitheatre of Santa Maria, opposite to Cadiz. .

The Spanish bull-fight, disgraceful to any
civilized communitj', and revoltmg to every well-
regulated mind, is powerfully described by Lord
Byron, in his poem of Childe Harold. He painted
from nature : —

" The lists are op'd, the spacious area clear'd,

Thousands on thousands pil'd are seated round;
Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard
No vacant space for lated wight is found.
Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound.

" Hushed is the din of tongues : on gallant steeds,

With milk-white crest, gold spur, and light-pois'd lance,
Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds.

And, lowly bending, to the hats advance.

Rich are their scarfs, — their chargers featly prance.
If in the dangerous game they shine to day.

The crowd's loud shout, and ladies' lovely glance.
Best prize of hstttr acts, they bear away.
And all that kings or chiefs ere gain their toils repay.

" In costly sheen, and gaudy cloak array 'd,

But all on foot, the light-limbed matadore
Stands in the centre, eager to invade

The lord of lowing herds, — but not before

The ground with cautious tread is travers'd o'er.
Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed ;

His arms a dart, — he fights aloof, — no more
Can man achieve without the friendly steed —
Alas ! too oft coudemn'd for hira to bear and bleed !

" Thrice sounds the clarion, — lo ! the signal falls :

The den expands, — and expectation mute
Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls.

Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute,

And wildly staring, spurns with sounding foot
The sand, — nor blindly rushes on his foe.

Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit
His first attack, wide waving to and fro
His angry tail ; — red rolls his eye's dilated glow.

' Sudden he stops ; his eye is fixed — away.

Away ! thou heedless boy ! Prepare the spear I
Now is thy time to perish, or display

The skill that yet may check his mad career.

With well-timed croupe the nimble coursers veer, —
On foams the bull, — but not unscathed he goes.

Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear.
He flies — he wheels — distracted with his throes ;
Dart follows dart, lance lance, — loud bellowings speak his woes.

'' Again he comes ! nor dart nor lance avail ;

Nor the wild plunging of the tortur'd horse;
Though man and man's avenging arms assail.

Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force —

One gallant steed is stretch'd a mangled corse ;
Another — hideous sight! unseam'd appears:

His goiy chest reveals life's panting source :
Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears.
Staggering, but stemming all, his lord imharmed he beajs.

' Foil'd, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last.

Full in the centre stands the bull at bay,
'Mid wounds and clinging darts, and lances brast,

And foes disabled in the brutal fray :

And now the matadores around him play,
Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand.

Once more through all he bursts his thundering way, —
Vain rage ! the mantle quits the cunning hand.
Wraps his fierce eye, — 'tis past, — he sinks upon the sand.

* Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine,

Sheath'd in his form the deadly weapon lies;
He stops — he starts — disdnining to decline :

Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries, —

Without a groan, without a struggle dies !
The decorated car appears;— on high

The corse is pil'd, — sweet sight for vulgar eyes !
Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy,
Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by."

In noticing the horned cattle of Spain, we may
be pardoned this digressive allusion to one of the
principal objects to which the finest and noblest
bulls are destined. Selections are made, not for
the purpose of founding breeds of high strain, but
for the combats of the amphitheatre ; and all ideas
of a fine bull are centered in those qualities which
render it promising as a combatant in " the brutal
fray." The points of gladiatorial excellence are
of paramount importance. Its value is according
to the sport it is likely to afford in the arena ;
for this purpose it was reared, and not for the ad-
vantage of the dairyman or the grazier.

From this glimpse of the various races of cattle,
or rather the principal races of cattle on the con-

5-t

tinent, as far as any thing veiy definite is known
resi}ecting them (and this, we confess, is very little),
let us turn our attention to the races which prevail
within the British Islands,

In no part of the world has so much capital
and so much skill been expended in the improve-
ment of horned cattle, as in Great Britain. We
speak of recent times ; for formerly it was not so:
our agriculture was bad, our farming operations
conducted on no principles, and our management
of cattle was in accordance with the rest. Setting
aside the now common culinary herbs of the garden,
we knewnothing of the vai'ious plants, lucern, sain-
Ibin, clover, and others, termed artificial grasses.
Nor was the cultivation of turnips, or mangel wur-
zel, and similar vegetables, in extensive opera-
tion. In fact, we had not wherewith to feed cattle
in winter, and the art of stalling was not imagined.
"The roast beef of old England," partial as we
have ever been, as a nation, to this sort of animal
diet, was a very different thing to the roast beef of
the present day ; and then it was not the diet of
the middle or lower classes, the wealthy alone could
jirocure it; and that only during the summer,
^\ bile the cattle fed in the pastures, and throve on
the natural herbage ; but, in October and Novem-
ber, cattle were slaughtered for winter consumption;
the carcass was cut up, and put into brine, and
<luring that season nothing but salt meat could be
obtained; we mean by those who could afford to
purchase it. Salt fish was the ordinaiy, or staple
animal food of the lower classes ; and from this,
and the want of fruits, roots, greens, legumes, &c.,
dreadful diseases were engendered, and (as clean-
liness was out of the question) became perpetuated ;
now smouldering, and now, the season of the year
concurring, breaking out, and depopulating towns,
villages, and hamlets, We are not speaking of
remote times, but of comparatively recent periods.
" Three or four centuries ago," says Gilbert White,
" before there were any enclosures, sown grasses,
field turnips, or hay, all the cattle that had grown
fat in summer, and were not killed for winter use,
were turned out soon after Michaelmas, to shift as
they could through the dead mouths, so that no
fresh meat could be had in winteror spring. Hence
the marvellous account of the stores of salted flesh
found in the larder of the eldest Spencer, in the
days of Edward the Second, even so late in the
spring as the third of May (viz. six hundred boars,
eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred of sheep).
It was from magazines like these that the turbu-
lent barons supported in idleness their riotous
swarm of retainers, ready for any disorder or mis-
chief. But agriculture is now arrived at such a
pitch of perfection that our best and fattest meats
are killed in winter ; and no man needs eat salted
flesh, unless he prefer it, that has money to buy
fi esh. ". But there were thousands, the serfs of the

soil, wlio had no money to huy either salted or
fresh meat, and a little reflection will serve to show
what their condition must have been in the olden
time of merry England, had not the religious esta-
blishments, the abbeys and priories, on which it is
now the fashion to pour obloquy, expended their
revenues for the good of the district — for the bene-
fit of the poor and the starving. Take, for exam-
ple, Chartreux House (Charter House), founded by
that " perfect gentle knight," Sir Walter Manny.
On this monastery the tyrannical barbarian, Henry
the Eighth (to whom the cause of Protestantism
owes nothing) laid his despoiling clutch. Let us
pass over the fires at Tybuni, in which the prior,
with other monks, perished ; but mark what a
fountain of charity (one out of hundreds) the ruth-
less monarch stopped. The time sen'ing commis-
sioner, or governor, Ffyloll, states, that the proctor
of this monastery used to account for an expendi-
ture, chiefly for hospitality, charity, and buildings,
of £1061 a year; the regular receipts being
£'04^ 4s. ; the city of London benevolently maliing
up the deficiency. Not regarding the dearth of
the season, neither the increase of their number,
nor yet their approaching ruin, the monks (and
Ffyloll pleads it as a reason for crushing them)
" would have, and hath, that same fare continued
that was then used, and would have jileuty of bread,
and ale, and fish, given to strangers in the buttery,
and at the buttery door ; and as large distributions
of bread and ale to all their servants, and to va-
gabonds (travellers) at the gate, as was then used."
The poor, in reality, depended on the chaiity (never
grudging) of the. religious houses; but, of course,
" the roast beef of old England " was a thing un-
known. Barley bread, bean bread, and stockfish,
formed the ordinary, or rather better sort of fare,
washed down with bad ale, in which that "poison-
ous weed," hoj)s, had neither partner parcel.

"The roast beef of old England! " alas, alas!
how few who use these words dream of the real con-
dition of feudal England, from the time of the
Norman conquest to that of the bishojj-uufrocking
Elizabeth, and even still later. The expression is
accepted as an intimation that roast sirloins were
as " plentiful as blackberries ;" and to this belief
history adds something, by throwing a mantle of
oblivion over the frequent famines, which, bringing
plagues in their train, so often, in the " olden time,"
desolated the towns and villages — " hajiprj villages"
— of "merrij EiKjland." How vast is the distance
in fare, clothing, and all the luxm'ies, nay, common
needs of life, between a nobleman and a humble
peasant, or serf! Let us, en jiassant, revert to a
nobleman's household book (Earl of Northumber-
land) in the days of Henry the Eighth, from the
statements of which we may easily judge as to the
consumption of roast beef by the communalty : —

" One hundred and nine fat beeves are to be

lionght at Allluilluw tide, at thirteen shillings and
foiiriieuce a-jiiece ; and twenty-four lean beeves are
to be bought, at St. Helen's, at eight shillings
a-piece ; these latter are to be put into the pastures
to feed, and to serve from Midsummer to Slichael-
mas ; which is, consequently, the only time the
family (consisting of ii'ZH persons) eats fresh beef.
Duiing all the rest of the year they live on salted
meat. One hundred and sixty gallons of mustard
are allowed in a year, which indeed seems requisite
for the salt beef. Six hundred and twenty sheep
are allowed, at twenty pence a-piece, and these seem,
also, to be all eat salted, except between Lammas
and Michaelmas. Only twenty-five hogs are al-
lowed, at two shillings a-piece ; twenty-eight veals
(calves), at twenty-pence, and forty lambs, at ten-
jJence or a shilling. These seem to be reserved
fur my lord's table, or that of the upper servants,
called the luiight's table. The other servants, as
they eat salted meat almost through the whole year,
and with few or no vegetables, had a very bad and
unhealthy diet, so that there cannot be any thing
more erroneous than the magnificent ideas formed
of the Boast Beef of Old Eiiriland. My Lord and
lady have set on their table for brealdast, at seven
o'clock in the morning, a quart of beer, as much
wine, two jDieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four
white ones, or a dish of sprats ; in flesh days, half
a chyne of mutton, or a chyne of beef, boiled. If
we consider the magnificent and elegant manner
in which the Venetian and other Italian noblemen
then lived, with the progress made by the Italians in
literature and the fine arts, we shall not wonder that
they considered the ultra-montane nations as bar-
Ijarous. The Flemish appear to have much ex-
celled the English, and even the French." (Hume.)
Agriculture, at this period, was in a rude
state ; whole tracts, now under the plough, were
then undrained bogs or morasses, or rough wood-
lands, concealing a tlim and barbarous population.
Take, as an example, the Weald of Kent, formerly
a wild, uncultivated forest; roads were few, and
none good, and pack-horses were the ordinary
means of cari-ying on internal commerce. The
implements of husbandry were rude ; no pro-
vision, or but little, was made for cattle during
the winter months ; nor were systematic attempts
at elevating the breeds undertaken by the farmer.
'We are not, however, to suppose that no good
breeds of cattle existed ; England is essentially a
corn-growing and a grazing country ; and her green
pasture lands, her verdant meadows, and fertile
vales, watered by streams or rivers, have ever
nourished herds of kine ; om' humid climate and
cloudy skies are favourable to the production of
grasses, clothing the fields with verdure. As the
woods disappeared, and the marshes were drained,
the extent of pasturage increased ; the operations
of farming be''au to be conducted on a better

plan ; the cattle began also to improve ; from dif-
ferences of situation and pasture, or from acci-
dental or intentional intermixture, the old stocks
soon assumed new characteristics, and ramified
into breeds varying in minor details, though still
preserving their outstanding characters. Of these
some were of great value i'rom the abundance of
milk, others from their tendency to fatten and keep
in condition, even on inferior pasture grounds ;
and others from their strength and hardiness a.s
working steers. Mixtures of these breeds pro-
duced others, and thus varieties were ever spring-
ing up, and coalescing, or running into each other
by imperceptible gi'adations, till at length, some-
what after the middle of the last century, science
and experience were called in to the breeder's
aid ; and ^persevering patience and great pjecuniary
outlay were ultimately productive of the most
beneficial results.

From the earliest times, as far as we can
learn, two or three distinct stocks of cattle appear
to have existed in Great Britain. Of these one
prevailed in Lancashire, and the adjacent coun-
ties, and particularly in the district of Craven, in
Yorkshire. It was also spread over a great part
of Ireland, as Tipperary, Limerick, Munster, i-c.
Tliis breed, now greatly modified, was remark-
able for the enormous length and bulk of the
horns, for thickness of hide, and deep, curling
hair. The general form was rather coarse, and
the limbs big-boned ; but the cows yielded milk
remarkable for its richness.

Another stock, wliich we may term original,
is represented by the cattle of Devonsliire, Here-
fordshire, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands. In
this stock, varying in stature according to climate
and pasturage, the horns are of moderate size,
fine, well-tunied and sharp-pointed ; the limbs
are clean, the figure compact, and the expression
animated ; the oxen fatten readily, and the cows
yield rich milk, To this stock the wild cattle of
Cbillingham evidently belong, and perhaps re-
present it in its pristine purity.

Of the antiquity of these two very distinct
races there is no doubt, and it is not improbable
that the latter was from the earliest times more
exclusively confined to the hilly and mountain
districts, while the long-horned breed occupied the
low flat lands, and the midland counties. Besides
these two races we have an ancient stock of polled
cattle (if indeed it is distinct from the middle-
horned stock) represented by the Galloway and
Angus ox, generally black, of which vast numbers
are depasturated in Norfolk and Suffolk, where a
polled breed, move or less directly sprang from
the Galloway, now prevails. To this stock the
semi-wild cattle of Chatelherault Park, Lanark-
shire, belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, appear
to approximate. These feral cattle are hu'ger

and more robust than the Chillingliam, the bod}'
is dun white, the inside of the ears, the muzzle
and hoofs black instead of red, and the forepart of
the leg from the knee downwards, is mottled more
or less with black ; the roof of the mouth and the
tongue are black, or largely spotted with black.
The cows, and also the bulls, ai-e generally polled
or hornless. As we have observed, the polled
cattle of Galloway are black, and in these dun
cattle of Chatelherault Park, the black shows itself,
as if to proclaim what was the original colour; the
inside of the ears of the Chillingham wild cattle
are red. With respect to the short-horned breed,
or the Durham and Holderness stock, often called
the Dutch or Holstein, we have already expressed
an opinion that it is not of ancient British origin,
but that it is from a race spread over the north
western portion of the continent, and prevalent in
Guelderland, Utrecht, Holland, &c. There is, in
fact, a tradition that the short-horned breed was
introduced into Holderness about the middle or
close of the seventeenth century.

The Aklerney race of cattle is confessedly of
French origin, and numbers are still imported
from Normandy. Though often kept in parks and
pleasure grounds, few professed farmers, except in
Hampsliire, esteem these cattle ; for though the
milk is extremely rich, the cow yields but little,
and consequently does not repay its keep.

The cattle of Great Britain, as the breeds are
at present established, may be divided according to
the foregoing remarks, into the following primai-y
sections : — First, Long Horns ; secondly. Middle
Honis ; thirdly, Polled Cattle ; and fourthly, Short
Horns, exclusive of the Aldeniey. Of these the
three first are of untraceable antiquity in our
islands, so that we may call them original, without
entering into the question relative to their pri-
mfEval source ; as we call the Pied Men of
America, or the natives of the South Sea Islands,
aborigines, though it is evident that at some re-
mote period their invading ancestors colonized the
lauds, and perhaps extirpated prior possessors.

The above sections do not, we are ready to
admit, derive their nomenclature from points of
zoological importance ; indeed the horns alone,
taken as a standard, would be inadmissible ; but
it so happens, that in conjunction with certain
forms of horn other characters are associated, and
various important qualities, of no ordinary interest
to the farmer or breeder; consequently, in the
terms "long-horn," or "short-horn," other points
are included, these appellations being used for
convenience, the farmer knowing well the whole
that they imply.

Each of these sections is subdivided into
various families or breeds, distinguished by minor
but not unimportant peculiarities ; and these breeds
are not only numerous, but are continually inter-

blending, improving, or deteriorating, according to
the skill of the breeder, and the object at which he
aims. Some breeds, by no means destitute of value,
especially in dairy counties, are of such mingled
origin, that like mongrels among dogs, it is diffi-
cult to assign them very definitely to any section :
but these are undergoing perpetual modification.

Looking at the cattle of Great Britain as a
whole, we may justly regard them as unequalled
by any country in the world, whether we take into
consideration quantity or quality of milk, quality
of flesh, its fineness of grain, a tendency to the
acquisition of fat, or points of symmetry, all, in
fact, that the dairy farmer, be his produce butter
or cheese, all that the grazier for the market, can
wish for ; the cattle of our islands are pre-eminent.
Nor is this to be wondered at — climate, produc-
tion, enteiqnise, skill, and money combine their
agencies. There is, besides, a spirit of emulation,
and agricultural societies, under the patronage of
the nobles, themselves competitors for the prize,
tend to the advancement of the great object — the
improvement of domestic cattle. Nor mtist we
here overlook the annual exhibition of prize-cattle
in Loudon, by the Smithfield Cattle Club, an
e.xhibition interesting not only to those immediately
engaged in agricultural pursuits, but to those who
appreciate the national importance of improve-
ments in every branch of the Bes rustica. Here
are to be seen the result of exertions, carried on
principally during the last eighty or ninety years,
with a view to unite and bring to perfection the
most desirable points in the various breeds of our
domestic cattle. Nor are agricultural implements
and machinery of the latest and most improved con-
struction overlooked. Specimens of artificial ma-
nures, soils of various districts differing from each
other in geological formation, and the results of ana-
lytic chemistry both as respects soil and artificial
manures, are there to be examined. Fiare, or new
roots, plants, or seeds, adapted for our climate,
and promising to benefit by their introduction,
together with vegetables grown to peculiar perfec-
tion by some new mode of culture, are also
exhibited. The utility of such an exhibition,
independent of the emulation it produces, is very
evident. "In spite of the advances which agri-
culture has made during the present century, how
slowly do improvements extend beyond the intel-
ligent circle, in which they were first adopted !
And it is one of the great advantages of institutions,
such as the Smithfield Club, to spread them more
rapidl}- and widely, by drawing the agriculturist
fi-om the secluded scenes in which he carries on
his occupations, and bringing them before him in
the manner best calculated to demonstrate their
practical value."

With respect to the prize oxen and sheep, it
must be acknowledged that they are fattened often

to a distressing degree ; and many have asserted
that the stimulus of prizes for bringing an animal
into a state of unnecessary fatness is a work of
supererogation ; and if this were all, so it would
he ; hut breed, contour, age, the nature of the
diet, its quantity, and the time of fattening, are all
])oints to be taken into consideration ; hence this
over.accumnlation of fat is regarded simply in the
light of a test by which the properties of such and
such breeds are tried. A piece of artillery is tried
by a charge of powder far greater than is ever
required for actual service : in like manner an ox
is fattened for exhibition beyond a useful market-
able condition, simply by way of showing the
capacity of the breed for acquiring, at the least
expense of food, and at the earliest age, such a
condition as the public demand really renders
necessaiy.

Having so far sketched a rapid outline of the
ox of our islands in former times, when agriculture
was practised rudely, and little winter fodder, or
none, stored up, — of the old stocks, time-imme-
morial occupants of their peculiar districts, and of
the recent improvements which have tended to
raise our homed cattle generally to so high a
degree of excellence, it will be necessary before
entering more circumstantially into the characters
of our principal breeds, and their points of distinc-
tion, to give a list of the technical names applied
by the farmer to neat cattle of different ages, and
of different sex.

The general name of the male of neat cattle*
is Bull : during the time he sucks he is called a
bull-calf, until turned a year old ; he is then
called a stirk, or yearling bull ; and then, in order,
a two, three, or four year old bull, until six, he
is then said to be aged. When emasculated he is
called an ox-calf, or stot-calf, until one year old,
when he takes the name of stirk, stot, or yearling ;
on the completion of his second year he is called a
two years old steer, and in some counties a
twinter, then a three years old steer, and at four,
an ox, or a bullock, which latter names are con-
tinued. We may here remark that the term ox
is often used as a general or common appellation
for neat cattle, in a specific sense ; as the British
ox, the Indian ox, and that irrespective of sex.
The female is termed Cow ; but while sucking the
mother, a cow-calf; at the age of a year she is
called a yearling quey, in another year a heifer or
twinter, then a three years old quey or heifer, and
at four years old a cow. These appear to be the
terms in general use, but others, to be regarded
perhaps as provincialisms, may prevail in some
districts.

Let us now proceed with the breeds of
British cattle, the subject demands a separate
chapter.

• "Neat," from ncac Saxon, (not French "vet"
clean, neat,) all kind of beeves as ox, cow, heifer, &c.
Neachynb, neathered, a keeper of beeves.

CHAPTER V.

We have said that one of the stocks of British
cattle, to which we may apply the term oriijinal.
was a long-homed variety, the stronghold of which
was Craven, hi the West Riding of Yorkshire and
Lancashire, whence it diverged over the midland
counties. This breed prevailed also in various
parts of Ireland ; while a light, active, middle-
horned breed, also claiming to be called original,
but now much crossed with the Devonshire and
Hereford breeds, occupied the more hilly and
mountain districts. Long-horned cattle are not so
often to be seen pure as formerly. Within our
own remembrance, however, they were the ordi-
nary cattle of the midland counties ; the huge
horns generally swept in a cm've downwards, and
often met before the muzzle in such a manner,
that the points were obliged to be sawed off in
order that the animal might be at liberty to feed.
In other instances the homs took a literal direc-
tion, first sweeping horizontally outwards, and then
curving gently forwards ; occasionally the horns
seemed somewhat distorted, and the toumure of
each did not precisely correspond.

These long-homed Craven, or Lancashire, cat-
tle were large, long-bodied, and coarse in the bone ;
but they had good points : the hide was thick and
mellow ; and though the milk was not abundant
it was extremely rich.

The great improver of this breed was Mr.
Bakewell, who founded what was termed the new
Leicester breed of long-homs ; but, before his
time, other spirited individuals had made success-
ful attempts ; and among them may be mentioned
Sir Thomas Gresley, whose seat, Drakelow House,
was on the borders of the Trent, near Burton.
Sir Thomas Gresley 's stock was celebrated in its
day; and, in or about the year 1720, a small
farmer at Linton, in Derbyshire, but close to the
borders of Leicestei-shire, commencing upon this
stock, pushed its improvement still fm-ther ; tiU
unfortunately, some disease broke out, which,
bafHing all remedies, carried off the gi-eater
part of his cattle and put a stop to his enter-
piise.

The Gresley stock was the origin also of the
Canley breed of Mr. Webster, who crossed it with

a pure Lancashire strain; and a bull termed
Bloxedge, of this intermixture, was of noted ce-
lebrity.

The Canley breed spread, and maintained its
reputation, and became incorporated with the
stocks possessed by other breeders, who saw the
importance of improvement in those points which
concern the grazier, viz., — utility of form, and a
propensity to fattening at an early age, and in a

reasonably short space of time. It was on the
Canley stock, viz., two heifers and a long-horn
bull, of superior qualities, that Mr. Bakewell, of
Dishley, began bis important experiments ; and
from them arose the new Leicester, or Dishley
long-horns. His aim was not so much improve-
ment for the dairy, or the small farmer, to whom
milk was the primary object, as for the grazier ;
consequently, smalluess of bone, rotundity of con-

.^^"^.^

TIIK LO.NG-HORNED BULL.

tour, and a disposition to the laying on of fat,
where its accumulation was most advantageous,
were his great aim ; and he fully succeeded. It
is remarkable, that one of the results of this high
breeding manifested itself in the contour and size
of the horns, which, first sweeping outwards and
downwards, shot forward at the points. In the
bulls, their length seldom exceeded two feet ; but
in oxen and cows, they measured from two and a
half to three and a half feet in length.

With respect to the general principles of breed-
ing pursued by Mr. Bakewell, and applicable to
every description of cattle, we shall not here repeat
what we have already stated. Certain it is that
the practice of this theory is found to be ever suc-
cessful when judiciously carried out ; for " like
produces like." A bull, the produce of the Canley
heifer. Comely and the Westmoreland bull, was
called Tivopcnny, and was in high repute ; but a
bull termed Z>, still more valuable, was the grand-
son of Twopenny, and born of an immediate rela-
tive. And here, if we may venture to judge, Mr.
Bakewell was in fault ; he bred two much in and
in, and thereby prepared the first steps of a future
degeneracy, which, we have every reason to believe.

soon manifested itself. For, although much may
be attributed to the subsequent triumph of the
improved short-horns, and its intermixture with
offsets from the Dishley stock ; yet certain it is
that the Leicester, or improved Dishley, breed
have left little more than a name behind them.

We must not suppose, however, that Mr. Bake-
well was the only man of his day (about 1750-60)
who bent his mind to the improvement of the
long-horns. There were other labourers in the
field ; but all appear to have taken the Canley
breeds as the foundation upon which to work : for
example , the bull Shakspere, the property of Mr.
Fowler, of Hollwright, Oxfordshire, was the son of
D, by a daughter of Twopenny, and was perhaps
the most valuable bull, of the breed, that ever ex-
isted. He approached perfection as nearly as
possible ; and from him, and heifers of the same
stock, Mr. Fowler raised a breed of long-horns of
extraordinary value. For example, in 1791, at a
sale, which it was his custom to hold at certain
intervals, five bulls and six cows returned the sum
of £2,204. One bull, Garrick, sold for j£250, aged
five years; another, Sultan, two years old, £230 ;
another, Washington, £215; and not a bull for

less than £152. Of cows, the first, Brindled
Beauty, by Shakspere, sold f(jr ,£xi73 ; and the
lowest for £U0, In 1789, Mr. Fowler refused
5(10 guineas for ten bull calves.

Direct from the Canley stock, and i\Ir. Fowler's
bull Shakspere, was raised a splendid breed of
long-horns, by Mr. Princep, of Croxall, in Derby-
shire, which was highly esteemed, as were those of
Mr. Paget, of Ibstock, in Leicestershire, Mr.

Mundy, of Derby, and several other successful
breeders, whose labours we need not here follow out.
While the successful cultivation of the long-
horns was thus carried on in England, we must not
suppose that the cognate breed of Ireland was ne-
glected. But there was, referable to this breed, a
singular variety, prevailing more especially in the
north of Ireland, of rude figure, with large bones
and heavy dewlap, which, either, fi'oiu some iuhe-

THE LONG-HORNED OX.

rent idiosyncracy, or, more probably, from the oh- i
stinate prejudices or indolence of the small farmers,
never received improvement; while on the con-
trary, in other districts, first by the introduction
of the old Lancashire stock, and subsequently by
the accession of bulls of the new Leicester breed,
and others of the improved Canley strain, the
long-horned cattle began to rise in quality, and
lost their heavy sloiicliini/ aspect, and their dispro-
portion of bone to flesh. Yet it was found that,
in jjroportion as these long-horns improved for
the purposes of the grazier, and acquired, with
better contour, a tendency to fatten even on ordi-
nary diet, the quantity of milk jdelded by the cows
became diminished, to the detriment of the cottier
or small farmer, who could not pretend to rear
beasts for the slaughter market, and who depended
upon his milk and its products. It is true that,
in the grazing grounds, or parks, of the gentry
and nobles, who aimed at a valuable stock, in the
sense of the feeder, the improvement of the breed
was worth every effort ; nor were efforts spared.
We need not enumerate the spirited and enter-
prising individuals who were foremost in this
work, nor detail the success which crowned their

exertions. As a proof, however, of this success
we may state that, in 180-2, ten bullocks, aged six
years, were sold, at the fair of Ballymahoe, for 400
guineas, and ten four years old heifers or cows for
300 guineas. These cattle were bred by Lord
Oxmantown (afterwards Earl of Eosse), and were,
in all respects, models of their kind. The effects,
of these improvements seem to linger still in Ire
land, whence the English grazing-grounds and
markets derive most of the long-horned cattle which
are now to be seen ; but all do not carry the marks of
this improvement, many being coarse, bony beasts,
which will do little credit to the best pasturage.

Within the last twenty years, the short-horns
have been introduced into Ireland, and a half-bred
stock has been the result ; this stock is hardy,
though less so than the old breed of long-horns,
which, especially among the small farmers, still
maintains its ground.

Besides the long- horned, and half long-horned
breeds, there is, in Ireland, a very distinct race of
I middled-horned cattle, which, though very generally
spread, seems to be more prevalent in the moun-
tain districts. This breed, which is active, wild
and very hardy, and when removed from the hills

a pure Laiua!,liire stniin : iiu.l a lull termed
liloxedge, of tliis intermixture, was of noted ce-
lebrity.

The Caiiley lireed spread, and maintained its Dislil'-
reputation, and licoinie incor|>onited with the fr»->m i
storlts ]iossessed by otlu-r bn-eders. who saw the i loii(»-ii
iiiiportiuice of improvement in those jxiiuts which i meut I
concern the gi-azier. viz., — utility of fonn. and a milk x^
propensity to fattening ut an early age, and in a conse.|

port spa.'
^, viz.. n

reasonabl;
Cnnley 8i
bull, of --^rior qu .

■ of time. It wa.s on the
." heifers and a lung-hum
n.s. that Mr. Ikkewell, of
u|.<jrtant experiments; and
new Leicester, or Dishley
uas not HO much improve-
!li<- small farmer, to whom
• ■I'ieot, ait for the grazier;
-. u( bone, rotundity of con-

tour, and a dispo<;itiim to the laying on of fat. [ s-

where its acctmiulaticm was most advantageous, I •
were his gi-eat aim ; and he fully succeeded. It in
is remarkable, that one of the results of tliia high olVseia
breeding manifested itself in Uie contour and size I that tl
of the bonis, which, first sweeping outwards ajid b .
downwards, shot forwanl at the jioints. In ihe '
bulls, their length seldom exceeded two ft>et ; but ' «
hi oxen and cows, they measured from two Siid a ' «'
half to three and a half feet in lenglli. | 1,

With respect to the general principles of breed- t:
ing pursued by Mr. Bakewell, and applicable to 1 :
every description of cattle, we shall not here r»'|>eat >
what we have already stated. Certain it is that | I
the practice of this theory is found to be ever sue- | I '
cessful when judiciously" carried out : for " like lli« m.
produces like." A bull, the produce of the C'aulev ist«l
heifer. Comely an<l the Wrstniorelajid bull, was ' p
called TirojM-ituij, and was in liii,'h repute; but a -t
bull tei-med i>, still more valuable, was the grand- , .
sou of Twopenny, and born of an immediate rela- s.
live. And here, if we may venture to judge, Mr ' ii
Bakewell was in fault; he' bred two much in and i . :
in, and thereby prepared the first steps of a future li .
degeneracy, which, we have everj- reason to believe, j ai,...„. .

"■ ' • " K ■- -'■' b much may

ijili of the

■I! 1 • ■ iiMiire with

i'i<* the L>ub ley stock ; yet certain ilia

!•• ^ico«t^r. or improved Dishley, breed

' iri n name behind them.

li .wf\er. iliat Mr. IJake-

. : )as day ^alnml 1750 00)

' > the improvement of the

' re iithcr laU>urcrs in the

to luive taken the C'anley

•.t \i\t»n which U) work : for

•' - jiroperty of Mr.

■ was the son of

iiid was perhaps

• 1 li.. ine.l, that ever ex-

I !■■ rl". . iM'n as nearly aa

Ml. I li. ifeni of the same

i A i.r>>'.l of long' boms of

i r (xaiiiple. in 1701, at a

custom to bold at certain

i -:\ cows retunie<l the sum

r:. k. Bddf..ri-^.'>0. age

■ 11. two years old. f"i!]

iiMi: ■■1..11. i.;|.'i; and not a bi

While speaking of the cattle of Cheshire, we
must not forget to observe, that a small herd of
■wild white cattle, like those at Chillingham, is
preserved in the Park at Lyme Hall. These cattle
are very sh}', frequenting the higher grounds in
summer, and the woods in winter : during the lat-
ter season they are supplied by the keepers with
hay.

The original cattle of Staffordshire were of the
long-horned stock, afterwards greatly improved by
the Dishley breed ; but these have given place to
the Yorkshire short-horns, and are seldom to be
seen, except perhaps towards the borders of Der-
byshire, and even there they are considerably
modified. The prevailing breed is the result of
crossings of the short-horned stock and the old
long-horns. Middle-horned Devon cattle have
been introduced upon the farms of some agricul-
turalists of note, and polled Galloways have also
attracted attention. In many large parks and
grazing grounds, as those of Trentham, numbers
of black Scotch cattle are fattened ; and the mar-
kets of the principal towns are well supplied with
beef of first-rate quality. In those parts of Staf-
fordshire adjacent to Derbyshire and to Cheshire,
excellent cheese is prepared ; but little, we be-
lieve, comes to the Loudon market. It is the
practice, in these districts, to kill the calves (those
excepted which are intended to be reared) at a ver}'
early age ; consequently the veal is usually small
and inferior. This observation applies also to
Cheshire and Derbyshire ; on the other hand, the
veal in the London markets is often too old. The
difference between the veal in London, and that
in the towns of Staffordshire, and the counties
immediately adjacent, is very striking. The Lon-
don markets are chiefly supplied from Essex,
where the calves bought by the farmers, at ten or
fourteen days old, are fed for twelve or fourteen
weeks before being sent to the London butchers.

The same changes, with respect to the cattle,
have taken place in Shropshire as in Staffordshire.
The old long-horn, which formerly prevailed there,
was a coarse but hardy beast, generally streaked
with a broad line of white along the back ; and,
though not disposed to fatten, was well fitted for
the dairy. Few of these old cattle are now to be
seen : the Holdemess and the Hereford breeds
have not only modified the stock, but, to a certain
extent, usurped its place ; while various breeds
from Wales, small but good and hardy cattle, ai'e
cultivated by the smaller farmers.

Our remarks respecting the decline, or admix-
ture of the long-horned stock, and the ascendancy
of the Durham or Holdemess breed, are applica-
ble to Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Cam-
bridgeshire, Bedfordshire, A-c. In the latter county
Holdemess cattle, and other short-horns, prevail ;
but not to the exclusion of Devons and Herefords,

with Highland cattle, for fattening. In Bucking-
hamshire the short-horns have superseded the
long-homs ; and the same may be said of Berk-
shire and Wiltshire. In Hampshire the long-horna
have disappeared ; and, in some favourable tracts,
short-horns are to be seen ; but, in its southern
portion, the Alderaey and Suffolk breeds prevail ;
while, more inland, a mixed breed, between the
Aldemey and Suffolk, Hereford, or Devon, is cul-
tivated. In the Isle of Wight, a small mixed
breed, good for the pail, but worthless for the
feeder, is mostly to be found.

In Oxfordshire the improved long-homs have
ceased to retain their ground ; a few of a mixed
race still remain, but the introduction of the short-
horns, by Sir C. Willoughby and other spirited
improvers of neat stock, has ended in the prevalence
of the latter. Against their introduction objections
were raised at the time by breeders, who feared the
pasturage not adapted to their constitution ; their
fears, however, proved utterly groundless.

It would appear, then, from this survey, that
in a short time (if such is not the case at present)
the long-homed stock of cattle, formerly the
characteristic breed of our Midland counties, and
brought during the last centuiy to perfection by
Mr. Webster, Mr. Bakewell, and other zealous
cultivators of the ox, will disappear ; it will merge
into other breeds ; it will become, so to speak,
absorbed and lost, and the old Craven or Lanca
shire ox, as well as the improved Leicesters of
Mr. Bakewell's cultivation, will be known only by
description. They have succumbed before the
superiority of the short-horns, cattle of larger bulk,
of earlier maturity, and even superior aptitude to
fatten, compared with the best improved long-
homs, and also hardier than the latter.

The fact is, that the great improvers of the
long-homs, while they aimed at, and succeeded in
producing a grazier's-stock, rendered the cattle
as a dairy-stock, inferior to the old coarse breed,
and entailed upon it a delicacy of constitution
which disqualified it for the ordinary farm. Mr.
Culley says, speaking of the comparative merits of
the long-horns and short-horns, in his day (1807),
" When I say the long-horns excel the short-homs
in the quality of the beef, I mean that preference
is only due to the particular variety of long-horns
selected, improved, and recommended by that at-
tentive breeder, Mr. Bakewell; for as to the long-
homed breed in common, I am inclined to think
their beef rather inferior than superior to that of
the generality of short-horns ; and there is little
doubt but a breed of short-horned cattle might
be selected, equal, if not superior, to even that
very kindly-fleshed sort of Mr. Bakewell's pro-
vided any able breeder, or body of breeders, would
pay as much attention to these as Jlr. Bakewell
and his neighbours have done to the long-homs.

But it has hitherto been the misfortune of the
short-horned breeders to pursue the largest and
biggest boned ones for the best, without consider-
ing that those are the best that jmy the most
money for a given quantity of food." It would
almost appear as if Mr. Culley had ventured to
prophecy. His anticipations have been more than
realized; and whether we regard milk or flesh,
the short-horns have risen pre-eminent. Breeders
have stepped forward, and the result of their
efforts is notorious.

But before we investigate the pretensions of
the short-horns, an old, an aboriginal breed has
a claim upon our notice ; we mean that which is
usually denominated the middle-horned, that of
which the Chillingham wild ox may be taken as
a type.

The Middle-Horned Stock. — This stock,
once, perhaps, more extensively spread in our
island than at present, still prevails in many
districts, ramified into varieties according to the
nature of the locality, and the improvements of the

breeder. We find this race in Sussex, in Here-
fordshire, in Cornwall, Devonshire, Wales, and
Scotland.*

These cattle are distinguished by an air of
vivacity, almost of wildness ; the head is small,
with a broad forehead, and graceful horns ; the
eye is large and animated, the body well built, the
limbs vigorous, the setting of the tail high, the
skin mellow and elastic, and the hair curly ; the
colour is red, or black, often unbroken by white.
With respect to milk, the cows yield rather a
moderate quantity on an average, but it is of
superior quality. There is a remarkable tendency
to the acquirement of fat, which marbles the grain
of the ilesh, rendering it of first-rate excellence.
Every breed of this stock, however, is not of the
same value, and different breeds have different
points of superiority. In Cornwall, for example,
a small black race of cattle formerly prevailed,
and may still be found in the western mooi'lands.
This bi'eed is similar to some of those found in
the Scottish Highlands ; and from its hardiness

THE DEVONSHIRE BULL.

is well fitted for the locality it occupies : its hair
is deep, close, and curly, and the skin thick, two
points of advantage in a climate of alternate
storms and calms, cold and heat. During the
summer the commons and wild moorlands_ supply
a sutficiency of food ; and when in their' winter
sheds, chopped straw, furze, heath, and other
coarse herbage, are sufficient. Hence these cattle
are maintained at very little cost, and as they
yield a fair quantity of milk, and when put upon

moderately good fare, rapidly fatten, they will suit
the small farmer, perhaps half-farmer, half-fisher-
man, in a bleak mountain-district, over which the
ocean tempest is driven so frequently.

In more favourable districts the North Devon

* It would seem as if those cattle had been driven westwardly
and northwardly from the other parts of our island, and found a
permanent asylum in the mountainous districts, though, as we
have already said, we suspect them to have been aborigines of
these districts, an old loiig-horned race occupying the more level
and marshy parts.

breerl, one of high excellence, or a cross between
the Devon and the old Cornish is cultivated, and
sometimes a cross between the latter and the
Alderney. The pure North Devon cattle, how-
ever, are decidedly preferred ; and though the
short-horned Durham breed has been introduced,
and crosses between it and the Devon occurred in
the fertile parts, yet the pure Devous are better
adapted for the country generally, and are also
more easily obtained. Excellent butter and
clouted cream are made in Cornwall, but no
cheese, or but little, and that very inferior.

There is perhaps, no county m which oxen
are (or till very lately were) more useful for the
plough, and the wain or cart, than in Cornwall.
The plough is very simple, with a straight mould-
lioard, and is drawn by four or six oxen ; there is
a peculiar wain of light construction, well adapted
for the rough roads of this country, and usually
drawn by oxen ; these are generally put into har-
ness at three years old, and worked until the age
of seven or eight ; the strong roads render their

shoeing necessary ; but with their feet thus de-
fended, they exhibit considerable activity, and get
through more work daily than might be expected.
It must be acknowledged, that for lightness of
step, spirit, and energy at the plougli, the North
Devon cattle are unequalled ; and these are the
most valued in Cornwall. No heavy breed is
suited for a rugged, hilly country, nor indeed is
any, unaccustomed to such a district, and, as it
were, not duly acclimated. We are infonned that far
fewer oxen are now employed for labour in Corn-
wall than within even the last ten or fifteen years.
This may be owing to the increased den)and for
oxen in the grazing counties where they are
fattened, viz,, Somersetshire, &c., or to an im-
proved system of husbandry, and better roads.

JIany of the finest Devonshire oxen are fattened
for the market in Somersetshire and Dorsetshire.
The cattle of Devonshire are admirable ; of these
the purest are to be found in the Jiorthern portion
of that county bordering the Bristol Channel ;
such at least is the opinion of some, who regard

THE DEVONSHIRE OX.

the larger variety found in the South, as mixed
with other breeds of inferior strain ; but there is,
perhaps, something of ultra-refinement in this
view of the matter.

The Devonshire bull has the head small ; the
muzzle fine ; the nostrils ample ; the horns taper-
ing, and of a waxy yellow ; the eye large and
clear ; the neck thick, and arched above, with
little dewlap ; the chest is broad and deep ; the
breast prominent : the limbs fine-boned ; the fore-

arm muscular; the hips are high, and the hind
quarters well filled up ; the thighs are voluminous ;
the tail long, slender, set on high, and tufted at
the extremity. The ox is taller, and more lightly
made, with line withers, and a slanting shoulder ;
the breast is prominent ; the limbs are fine-boned,
muscular, and straight, but rather long; the neck,
too, is thin, and rather long, the head small, the
muzzle fine ; the horns longer than in the bull,
slender, and tapering. The whole form, indeed,

indicates activity and freedom of action. The
sldn is moderate, and covered with mossy or curl-
ing hair ; but occasionally it is smooth and glossy.
The colour is universally red, chestnut, or bay,
seldom varied Avith white : a jjaler space surrounds
the eye, and the muzzle is yellow.

The cow is far inferior to the bull in bulk and
stature ; and the latter is inferior to the ox. The
cow is active, with a full eye, and animated e.x-
pression ; the muzzle is very fine, and the general
contour light ; the ribs, however, are well-arched,
giving greater internal room than might at first
be supposed, a point essential to a good breeder.
With respect to the qualities of the Devonshire
cattle, they are, by many, esteemed of the highest
order, while others underrate them. The o.\en,
as workers at the plough, on a light soil, are, from
their docility and easy action, of first-rate order ;
but, on heavy soils, although they are willing to
exert their strength, at a dead pull, to the utmost,
their want of weight and muscular power is a dis-
ad\antage. In light farm-work their alertness is
conspicuous ; and two oxen will perform the labour
of one horse. Oxen, however, are not used for
labour universally throughout Devonshire, nor,
where the practice still continues, is it so much in
vogue as formerly ; for the breeders obtain a re-
munerating price from the graziers for their oxen,
at an earlier age than that at which it is usual to
break them in.

It is the general plan to take oxen into work
at two years old : they are put to light labour, for
the first year or two, and then to harder work, till
the age of five or sLx, when they are grazed or fed
on hay, corn, oil-cake, or turnips, for tlie market ;
for which they are ready in about twelve months,
or even earlier. Few oxen equal the Devons in
the jsromptitude with which they fatten ; they do
not, indeed, attain to the weight of the larger
breeds, but they lay on flesh rapidly, and with a
small proportionate consumption of food ; and the
meat is of first-rate quality, being fine-grained and
beautifully marbled.

As it regards the dairy, the North Devonshire
cow holds a moderate rank : some cows yield much
more than others; and the milk is extremely
rich, producing a more than ordinary proportion of
cheese or butter. A good cow will give about
three gallons of milk per day, for the first twenty
weeks after calving ; after this- the milk decreases,
and stops at the end of about nine months ; so
that the total annual amount will not be more than
about a gallon and a half per day : but then, the
proportionate quantity of butter is considerable.
A cow of mixed breed, between a North Devon
and a Yorkshire bull, has been found to give
twenty-f(jur quarts of milk per day, for five months
after calving ; but the milk was less rich than
that of the pure Devon breed, twelve quarts pro-

ducing only one pound of butter; while eight
quarts of the milk of the pure Devon cow re-
turned the same quantity. This, and other mixed
breeds, prevail about Exeter, and along the whole
vale of the Exe. Many are excellent, being fine
in the coat, horn, and bone, and short in the legs.
Pure North Devon cows are kept chiefly for
breeding, and are superior as nurses, the calves
thriving rapidly on their rich milk : a good cow
will often fatten two calves a year. When dried,
at the proper age, the Devon cows rapidly acquire
flesh, and make fair grass-fed beef, in three or four
months. The cows weigh from 30 to 40 st. ; the
oxen from 50 to 60 St., and upwards. Numbers
of the latter are sent, from the noi'thern parts of
the country to the Loudon market, and the mar-
kets of the principal towns in the west of England.

Devonshire is celebrated for a delicacy pre-
pared from the milk, well-known as clouted cream.
In order to obtain this, the milk is suffered to
stand in a vessel for twenty-four hours ; it is then
placed over a stove or slow fire, and very gradually
heated to an almost simmering state, below the
boiling point. When this is accomplished (the
first bubble having appeared), the milk is removed
from the fire, and allowed to stand for twenty-four
hours more. At the end of this time the cream
will have arisen to the surface, in a thick or
clouted state, and is removed : in this state it is
eaten as a luxury ; but is often converted into
butter, which is done by stirring it briskly with
the hand, or a stick. The butter thus made,
though more in quantity is not equal in quality to
that procured from the cream which has risen
slowly and spontaneously ; and, in the largest and
best dairies in the vale of Honiton, the cream is
never clouted — except when intended for the table
in that state.

With respect to the South Devon breed, it
appears to be superior, for the dairy, to the pure
North Devon ; some cows being almost equal to
the best short-horns in the quantity of milk : these
cattle are profitable also to the grazier and the
butcher ; but their flesh is not equal, in fineness
of grain or delicacy, to that of the North Devon
breed. They closely resemble the Hereiords, and
indeed, often have white faces.

To the east of Devonshire lie the counties of
Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, noted for their agri-
cultural produce. Dorsetshire sends vasts quan-
tities of butter to London ; and cheese is made
from the skimmed milk. This cheese is most
esteemed when streaked with blue mould ; but it
is consumed almost exclusively in the county it-
self. The vale of Blackmoor is very rich, and
affords pasturage to numbers of cattle: these are
mostly of a mixed breed, in which the strain of
the Devonshire prevails ; but there are also num-
bers of South Devons. Crosses with the Dm'ham

race, and also with the Hereford, are not uncom-
mon in Dorsetshire ; the object being to obtain
good dairy cows, irrespective of other qualities.
In the more hilly districts-, where the pasturage is
scanty, a hardy race of half long-horned cattle pre-
vails ; these are generally brindled on the sides,
with a white stripe down the back, and white on
the under parts. This race, originally long-horned,
is now crossed with the Devon, and is much im-
proved : the cattle are hardy ; they fatten quickly,
and the cows are good milkers.

Except in some parts, oxen are not much used
in husbandry ; and where they are so the pure
North Devons ar« preferred. After working for
three or four years, the oxen are fatted for the
markets ; and many find their way to London.

Somersetshire is celebrated both for corn and
the products of the dairy. In that part which bor-
ders upon Devonshire, and along the coast, the
cattle are of the North Devon breed ; and, having
good pasturage, are usually superior in size to the
original stock. Those of the vale of Taunton are
very fine, and well suited both for the grazier and
the dairy-farmer. Less light than those of North
Devon, the oxen have nearly as much activity, are
equally docile, and considerablj' stronger : hence
they are efficient workers. In other parts of the
county, while this breed is preferred for husbandry
labour, and for aptitude to fatten, auotlier is reared
for the purposes of the dairy, principally of the
Dui'ham or short-horned stock, or a cross between
this and others. The dairy-farmers seldom graze,
except a few dried cows for the adjacent market ;
but in the centre of the county, from the Mendip
Hills to Bridgewater on the west, and Chard on
the south, grazing for the market is extensively
carried on. The cattle are either of the Devon or
Hereford strain ; they are mostly bought in Fe-
bruary, and kept on hay till spring, when they are
turned out to graze, an acre or an acre and a half,
according to the pasturage, being allowed to each
ox. They are in condition by Michaelmas : many
are kept till Christmas, hay being gradual!}' given,
in proportion as the grass fails, till it is required
entirely. Great numbers of these cattle are sent
to London. In the south-east portion dair3'-farms
prevail, and the business of cheese-making begins
soon after Lady-day. Of the cheeses of Somerset-
shire the Bridgewater and the Cheddar are parti-
cularly celebrated. Of the latter little is made at
the village so named ; it is chiefly in the grazing
lands round Glastonbury, and at other places, as
Huntspill, South Brent, East Brent, &c.

The dairy-farmers in Somersetshire usually
sell off their cows for fattening at the age of
about twelve years, as the milk then begins to
deteriorate in quality, and it would be unprofit-
able to continue them for the pail. Vast numbers
of calves are bred, and of these a great proportion

VOL. I.

are fattened by hand from the pail, the calves
being separated from their dams at the age of
three or four days; those that are intended for
rearing are fed principally on whey, and turned
to grass in spring ; but to the others, milk, whey,
and occasionally linseed-meal are given.

Herefordshire possesses a peculiar breed of
middle-horned cattle, allied to the Devons, but
heavier and coarser, of a red colour, with white
faces, and with white along the back and under
parts. The true Herefords are shorter in the leg,
heavier in the chine, and wider and rounder in the
hips than the Devons ; the head is also larger in
proportion, and less flue, and the hide thicker,
but mellow and supple. As milkers they are
inferior to the Devons, but acquire an earlier
maturity, and fatten both more rapidly and to a
greater weight; consequently, the oxen are com-
monly sold off at the age of two or three years, in
a state fit for the feeder. The graziers of Buck-
inghamshire, and other counties, purchase, for
fattening, great numbers of these oxen at the va-
rious fairs, especially the Michaelmas fair at He-
reford ; they are brought to the London markets,
when ready, and meet an excellent sale. Few
oxen are, in fact, fattened in Herefordshire ; but
only heifers and cows for home consumption.
Herefordshire is essentially a breeding county (not
a dairy nor yet a feeding county) ; and the great
object is to supply the graziers with a valuable
stock. The cows preferred are worthless as milk-
ers ; but such as experience has taught the breeder
will produce the best offspring: they are rather
small and light, but roomy; insomucli that they
often bear bull-calves which soon attain to thrice
then- ovra weight. These cows, however, when
dried, fatten rapidly, and become full-fleshed and
rounded.

Formerly it was the custom to work the oxen
for two or three years before sending them to
market ; but it is now found far more profitable to
take advantage of their early maturity, and sell
them without unnecessary delay, thereby saring
fodder, and also obriating the slow return of capital
which the long-keeping of oxen necessarily entails.
As dairy-farming is not practised (at least as a
general rule) in Herefordshire, the milk of the
breeding cows is given almost all to the calves ;
nor is this plan to be C3ndemned : the breeder's
great aim is to ripen his beasts for the grazier, or
at least for early fattening. A mingled system of
breeding and dairy-farming would defeat its ob-
ject and lead to loss, for neither department would
be properly conducted.

Gloucestershire, closely as it approximates to
Herefordshire, is a dairy county, celebrated for its
butter and cheese, but especially the latter, of
which large quantities are sent to the London
market.

IIERKFOKD HUt

The old Gloucester breed of cattle was rather
small, of a reddish browu colour, with a streak of
■white running up the back from the base of the
tail ; indifferent in figure, but well adapted for the
dairy. This old middle-homed race is now seldom
to be met with, at least pure ; it has been crossed
by the loug-honis of Wiltsliire ; and this mixed
breed, while it exhibited superiority of size, and a
tendency to fatten, was little, if at all, deteriorated
as to milking qualities. In the hilly or Cotswold
districts, a mixed breed, of variable goodness, pre-
vails. The Cotswold hills extend across the county
from Chipping Campden to Bath, and are divided
into an upper and a lower range : the soil of the
upper range is chiefly a calcareous sand, a few
inches deep, resting on oolite, or, as it is com-
monly called, stonebrash. Cattle, but principally
sheep, are kept on these hills, and even the poorest
tracts are admirably adapted as pasturage for the
latter ; where these have well manured the laud,
it bears tolerable crops of oats and bailey. In the
lower hills, and in the valleys between them, the
soil is deeper, and affords fair pasturage to cattle,
of which numbers are kept for the purpose of the
dairy, and good cheeses are made. Winter and
spring vetches are sown in considerable quantity,
and supply both the cattle and sheep when green
fodder is scarce. In general, however, the cattle
are badly fed duiiug the wnter.

It is in the more fertile and lower portions
of this county, such as the vale of Berkeley and
the banks of the Severn and Ledden, that the
richest land for the cultivation of crops and the

pasturage of cattle is found. Here the old pas-
tures are left untouched for the cows, that the
cheese may retain its celebrity ; and here, conse-
quently, daiiy-fai'ming is most advantageously and
extensively carried on. In the vale of Gloucester-
shire there are many valuable crosses of cattle ;
some between the old breed and the long-honis,
others between this cross breed and Dm-ham and
Yorkshire short-horns. Milk, remarkable both
for richness and the quantity yielded, is the dairy-
man's object ; and for this he sacrifices all otlier
properties of the cattle. Hereford and Devon cattle
are also kept, but only for work and for fattening :
of these many are fed in the neighbom-hood of
Gloucester.

In the management of the milch cattle of this
fertile district, old rich pastures are greatly pre-
ferred for them ; for it has been ascertained by
experience that lands, however liLxuriant, which
have been nnich or recently manured, produce an
alteration in the quality of the milk, so as to ren-
der the cheese made from it very inferior. It is
also found to be an excellent plan to remove the
cattle frequently from one pasture to another ; and,
when the hay is off, to turn them upon the new
after-grass of the meadows, the succulent young
herbage being conducive to abmidance of good milk.

The produce of a good cow should average
from three and a half to fom- and a half hundred
weight of cheese per annum, or from twelve to
eighteen quarts of milk per day. Some first-rate
cows, on rich pasturage, have been known to yield
twenty-four quarts eveiy day, at two milkings, for

UERRFORD OX.

the space of seven months after calvmg ; but this
is an uncommon circumstance. After the seventh
month the quantity of milk rapidly diminishes,
till within six weeks previously to calving again,
when the cow is no longer milked. Mr. Rudge,
in his " Agricultural View of Gloucestershire,"
considers that the profit, on a daily of twenty
good cows, costing £20 each (in all fi-tOO), fed upon
forty acres of land, will amount to about £136
per annum. He calculates the cost of the dairy
utensils as imder £-ii.

Two sorts of cheese are made, single and
double Gloucester; the former is prepared from
skimmed milk, and a superior sort from a mixtm-e
of skimmed and pure milk ; the double Gloucester
from pure unsldmmed milk only. Great quantities
are maile in the vale of Berkeley.

During winter the milch cows ai'e kept in dry
and sheltered situations, and suppUed with hay, as
are also the young store beasts ; in the hilly dis-
tricts, however, less attention is paid to them at
this seascm, and they often suffer greatly. This
is bad management and false economy : the cows
ought to be kept in fair condition, so as to benefit
immediately by the spring pasturage. Sufficient
shelter is often too much neglected : good sheds
are essential as a protection against severe cold ;
nor are they less serviceable in the e.xtreme heats
of summer. Deficiency of food, moreover, dete-
riorates and stunts the growth of the young stock,
foiling the best endeavoiu's for the improvement
of the breed. This mismanagement is, however,
chiefly confined to the hilly district, where the soil

is unproductive, rendering winter fodder scarce ;
or where, from old custom, no efficient attempts
are made to meet the exigency. More liberality
would be far more profitable.

The prevalent breed of cattle in Sussex closely
resembles that of North Devon ; there are, how-
ever, certain points of difference : and, on the
whole, the Sussex ox is a heavier and coarser ani-
mal than the Devon, but equally valuable for farm-
labour, and for the fineness of the grain and the
marbling of the flesh.

Sussex is not a great dairy county : but it con-
tains rich jnars^-irt/ids, well adapted forthe pasturage
of sheep and oxen, and dou-n-la)icls, where a thin
soil overlaj's the chalk, and produces grasses ad-
mirably fitted for the peculiar breed of sheep,
" the South Downs," which are so celebrated for
the excellence of their flesh. In some parts of
the do^vns, along the slopes of the hills and in the
hollows, there is excellent ai-able land, on which
oxen as well as horses are worked, the former
being preferred by many.

The centre of the county constitutes the wealden
district, composed of various clays and sands, -with
subordinate beds of limestone, giit, and shale. Here
the land is poor ; but, in some parts, tolerable
crops of wheat, oats, and clover are obtained : there
are extensive woods of fir and bu-ch, and moor-
lands overgi'own with heath and the bilberry plant

The centre of this county, as is evident from
its present state, was once almost impenetrable
from its dense forests, heaths, and morasses. Here,
from remote times, the peculiar breed of ox still

prevalent has existed. Its colour is of a uniform
blood bay, or chestnut red ; the horns are well-set
and tapering; the head is small, the eye large,
the throat clean, the neck thin ; hut the shoulders
are thick and heavy, and the forelimbs rather
coarse, — that is, less fine in the hone than in the
Devon. The barrel is well formed and capacious ;
the hack straight ; the hips vride and well covered ;
the tail is thin and tufted at the extremity, and is
set on nearly as high as in the Devon ; the hide
is mellow and fine ; the coat is mostly sleek, but
sometimes wavy.

The Sussex cow is kept principally for the sake
of breeding : her milk, though excellent in quality,
being small in quantity ; hence her place in the
dairy is supplied by various crossed breeds, which
are found to answer best for the pail.

The cow is lighter in the shoulders than the
ox, and her neck is thin ; but altogether her con-
tour is not so good : there is, moreover, a wilduess
in her aspect, and a restlessness in her temper,
which render her not veiy manageable ; yet, when
dried, she fattens with extraordinary rapidity, and
becomes well covered with flesh.

Jt is usual to rear all, or almost all, the calves
in this coimty ; the males for labouring oxen, the
females for breeding, or for fattening at an early
age. They are seldom kept with the mother for
more than ten or twelve weeks, when they are
weaned, and fed on grass and hay. After losing
her o\Mi calf, a good cow will suckle another, and
sometimes even two, for the butcher.

Besides this i:)ure Sussex breed, a larger and
heavier breed is also to be seen, the result proba-

bly of a cross mth the Hereford, though no white
face betrays the admixture. The oxen of this
larger variety are slow, and less adapted for work
than those of the lighter but still vigorous and
powerful variety, which almost equal the horse as
good and obedient workers. These oxen are gene-
rally broken in at tlnee years old, kept at labour
until six, and then fattened for the butcher by
seven. Some, however, work them longer; and
oxen have been brought into excellent condition in
their eleventh or twelfth year, and sold to great
advantage. This plan saves the necessity of so
frequently breaking in yoimg oxen ; but it is doubt-
ful whether, as a general rule, aged beasts will
fatten so kindly, or produce meat of a quality so
good, as others in their prime.

Not only oxen but heifers are used for the cart
and the plough ; these are not in a condition to
breed, and are treated like oxen, being, after three
or four years' labour, fattened for the mai'ket.

The Sussex oxen find a ready sale in the Lon-
don markets ; their average weight is one himdred
and twenty stone, but some have been known to
exceed two hundred stone. In this county winter
stall-feeding is greatly practised, and is attended
■vrith many advantages. Some farmers, however,
prefer feeding the oxen loose in the yard, as they
find the animals fatten more quickly— no doubt
the gentle exercise increasing then appetite and
digestive powers ; but then, besides what they con-
sume, they waste and trample down much proven-
der, which, were the oxen tied in their stalls,
would be saved : they are then more easily fed,
and more manure can be preserved. Previously

to the stall (or yard) feeding, the oxen intended
for fattening are sent, after their spring labour at
the plough is over, to feed during the summer in
the marsh- lands, and on the after-grass of the
hay-meadows. On the approach of winter they
are stalled every night ; and when winter sets in,
having been accustomed to it, are kept constantly
tied up.

The Sussex cattle prevail in the adjacent j)arts
of SuiTey ; but short-honis, Devons, and various
crosses are also to be met mth. In the weald of
Kent, also, Sussex cattle are used for the cart and
plough, and gi'azed in the Romney marshes, where,
however, sheep are more profitable. In the eastern
parts of Kent few cattle, except for the produce of
butter for home consumption, are kept, and these
are of various and mingled breeds. Scotch and
Welsh cattle are fed by some farmers in the straw-
yard during the winter, and fattened by grazing
in the marshes during the spring and summer.
In some parts stall-feeding is also practised ; but
Kent cannot be called a cattle or a dairy county.

Following the middle-horned cattle from Eng-
land to Wales, we may observe that several breeds
of this aboriginal race have existed from the ear-
liest times, and still maintain their ground in the
mountain-land of Cambria.

In form they much resemble the Devons, He-
refords, and Sussex breed ; but from the nature
of their pasturage they are smaller, wilder, more
hardy, and thrive on poorer fare : they are usually
fine in the head and limbs, active, and vigorous.
The colour is black, dark brown, or red, sometimes
contrasted with white. In the vales the cattle are

larger, and often crossed with other breeds, a.s
those of Herefordshire and (jloucestershire. In
Monmouthshire Durhams, Irish, and Scotch cat-
tle have been introduced, especially the Ayrshire
breed, which is excellent for the dairy; but the
old breed, closely allied to tliat of Glamorgan-
shire, maintains its ground, especially in the more
northern parts and on the hills.

In Carmarthenshire, Brecknockshire, Cardi-
ganshire, and Pembrokeshire, an old and useful
breed of black cattle still prevails. The Pembroke
ox is short in the limb, with moderately small
bone ; deep and round in the carcass, with rough
short hair ; and a hide of moderate thickness, and
pleasant to the touch. The head is moderately
small, the aspect animated, and the horns are
white. Some individuals have white aljout the
face and under parts, and some are of a dark
brown. These cattle are small but hardy, and the
oxen fatten well on indifferent land. The cha-
racter of the meat is first-rate ; the grain is fine
and beautifully marbled, and its flavour excellent.
The cows are fair milkers, and, from their hardi-
ness, are veiy profitable to the small farmer or
cottager. The oxen are as profitalde to the gra-
zier; they are good workers, strong and active,
and are ready at the age of four or five years for
the market, arriving early at maturity. Great
numbers of these cattle are sent to the London
market. A,^.similar but superior breed of cattle
occupied Glamorganshire, generally of a red or
a brown- red colour, often with white faces, and
otherwise varied with white. The head was small,
the aspect lively, the neck inclined to be arched,

lEMHKt'K.E

GLAMORGAN OX.

the carcass round and well turned, the back rising
to the root of the tail, -which was peculiarly ele-
vated. The aptitude to fatten, the early luatui'ity
and docility of the oxen, and the fineness of the
beef, rendered the Glamorgan breed highly valu-
able ; and no beasts sold at a higher proportionate
rate in the London market. Fifty years ago they
were purchased by the great feeders in Leicester-
shire, War^^-ickshire, Wiltshire, and other counties;
and George the Third had a valuable and well-
selected stock on his farm at Windsor, which was
often recniited by fresh accessions from the native
district. Glamorganshire was then a noted cattle
distiict ; but, during the war, the farmers neglected
then- cattle for the plough : they commenced rais-
ing corn, alternating the crops vnth turnips, and
increasing the stock of the sheep. The result was
that the cattle speedily degenerated, and were no
longer sought after. Nor is it imtil recently that
serious exeilions have been made to restore the
breed to its pristine excellence by intelligent and
spirited individuals. Crosses willi the Hereford
were tried, and, at first, mth some show of success ;
but soon, after one or two generations, the defects
of the Glamorganshire strain reappeared. Crosses
still more mdikely to succeed were tried ; till at
length one with the Ayrshire bull was attempted,
and the result has been successful. This mixed
breed is equal in hardiness to the old ; the oxen
ai-e good workers and fatten readily ; the beef is
admirable ; and the cows jdeld more milk than did
those of the old stock. This improved breed is
becommg extended, thougli it meets a rival in the

pm'e Herefords, which are, by some breeders, pre-
ferred, and by some still used to cross the Glamor-
gan. In the more hilly districts the old Glamorgan
loreed suffered less deterioration than in the vales ;
but it is there subject to poor and scanty food. In
summer the pastm'age is bare and meagre, and in
winter the only resomxe is wretched hay from the
peat lands ; consequently the cattle are small and
stunted ; yet they produce excellent beef, and, on
better land, become qmckly fattened. Numbers
are sent to the London market.

In Monmouthsliire, now an English county,
the Glamorgan cattle prevailed, and still occupy
the hills ; in the vales Herefords are prevalent,
and cows from the rich tracts of Gloucester, these
being esteemed for their milk. In some parts
Dm'ham short-horns have been introduced, and
also the Ayrshire breed : but, of late years, many
Irish cattle, and those not excellent, have been
imported ; their low price tempting pm-chasers to
the injiuy of the native breeders.

Many cattle are bred in Kadnorshire : the
jirincipal breed is a cross between the Pembroke
and Hereford. The colour is red or brindled,
with a white face. The characteristics of this cross
are, a good figiu'e, a moderate size, and a readiness
to fatten when removed from the coarse moun-
taui-pastm-es to the feeding districts of England.
Droves of these cattle are sent to the pasture-lands
of the comities of Oxford, Leicester, Northampton,
&c., whence they find their way to the London
market. For the dau-y the old unimproved breed
is preferred, the strain of the Herefords tending

KERRY COW.

to the diminution of tlie quantity of tlie milk,
^Yhile it improves size and aptitude to fatten.

In Montgomeiyshire there are two varieties of
cattle : those in the mountains are small, short-
legged, of a red colom-, with dusky faces, indifferent
in figure, but hardy, and tolerable milkers — yet
not without an aptitude to fatten. Those in the
rich vale of the Severn and its tributaries are not
unlike the Devons ; of a brown colour, e.xcepting
a white line down the abdomen, with slender well-
tm-ned homs. The cows are tolerable milkers,
and the oxen fatten readilj'. In this part of the
county excellent cheese is made. Many Herefords
ai'e grazed in the pasture-lands.

In Denbighshire and Flintshire the dairy is
much attended to, and both butter and excellent
cheese are produced. In the former comity black
cattle occupy the hills ; but in the vales a mixed
breed, in which the strain of the long-horn is evi-
dent, cliiefly prevails. In Flintshii-e, indeed, the
cattle, though generally excellent both for the
daily-farmer and the grazier, ai'e of no definite
breed: they are the results of various crossings,
many resembling the ordinary cattle of Cheshire.

In Merionethshire, CarnaiTonshire, and the
Isle of Anglesey, a race of black cattle, -with rather
longer homs than are usually seen in the time mid-
dle-horned races, is prevalent. This breed is de-
cidedly in the highest perfection in Anglesey, and
is doubtless of great antiquity. It is of small size,
but astonishingly hardy and ^^gorous ; the chest is
deep and ample, with a large dewlap ; the barrel
is romid, the haunches elevated and well spread,

the shoulders rather heavy, the hide mellow, the
hair black and cmling ; the forehead is flat, and
the horns sweeji boldly upwards. Vast numbers
of these black cattle are bred in the island, and
droves are sent into the pasture-lands of England
for fattening. Formerly it was the custom to s\rim
the droves across the straits of Meuai, not without
danger from the rapiditj' and force of the current ;
but now the celebrated chaui-bridge prevents the
necessity of this practice. The number of black
cattle annually exported from this island has been
estimated at ten thousand ; but, of course, this is
liable to fluctuation, nor is it easy to obtain au
accurate estimate.

Anglesey is a breeding district exclusively ; it
is adapted neither for the dairy nor for feeding.
Speaking of the Isle of Anglesey, we ai-e naturally
led to the Isle of Man ; for to both these Islands
the ancients applied the title of Mona— a word of
uncertam origin, but supposed to be derived from
the ancient British word Mon, which means iso-
lated. The cattle of the Isle of Man ai-e generally
small, and of Welsh or Scotch breeds, — viz., Angle-
seys, Kyloes, and Galloways, especially in the rude
and hilly parts ; but larger breeds of mixed sti'ains
have been introduced upon better pasture-lands.

A native middle-homed race of cattle exists
every where in Ireland, and particidaiiy in the
hilly and mountain districts, where, from its hardi-
ness, it thrives on indifferent pasturage, and con-
trives unshielded, during the winter mouths, to
find support. There are several varieties of this
stock, vaiyiug in minor details of size and contour ;

GLAMORGAN OX.

the carcass round and well turned, the back rising
to the root of the tail, which was peculiarly ele-
vated. The aptitude to fatten, the early niatm'ity
and docility of the o.xen, and the fineness of the
beef, rendered the Glamorgan breed highly valu-
able ; and no beasts sold at a higher proportionate
rate in the London market. Fifty years ago they
were purchased by the great feeders in Leicester-
shire, War\\-ickshire, Wiltshire, and other counties ;
and George the Third had a valuable and well-
selected stock on his farm at Windsor, which was
often recruited by fresh accessions from the native
district. Glamorgansliire was then a noted cattle
distaict ; but, during the war, the farmers neglected
theh cattle for the plough : they commenced rais-
ing corn, alternating the crops with turnips, and
increasing the stock of the sheep. The result was
that the cattle speedily degenerated, and were no
longer sought after. Nor is it until recently that
serious exertions have been made to restore the
breed to its pristine excellence by intelligent and
spirited individuals. Crosses witlr the Hereford
were tried, and, at iirst, with some show of success ;
but soon, after one or two generations, the defects
of the Glamorganshire strain reappeared. Crosses
still more unlikely to succeed were tried ; till at
length one with the Ayrshire bull was attempted,
and the result has been successful. This mixed
breed is equal iu hardiness to the old ; the oxen
are good workers and fatten readily ; the beef is
admirable ; and the cows yield more milk than did
those of the old stock. This improved breed is
becommg extended, though it meets a rival in the

piu'e Herefords, which are, by some breeders, pre-
ferred, and by some still used to cross the Glamor-
gan. In the more hilly districts the old Glamorgan
breed suffered less deterioration than in the vales ;
but it is there subject to poor and scanty food. In
summer the pastm-age is bare and meagre, and in
winter the only resom-ce is wretched hay from the
peat lands ; consequently the cattle are small and
stunted ; yet they produce excellent beef, and, on
better land, become qmckly fattened. Nmubers
are sent to the London market.

In Monmoutlishhe, now an English county,
the Glamorgan cattle prevailed, and still occupy
the hills ; in the vales Herefords are prevalent,
and cows from the rich tracts of Gloucester, these
being esteemed for their milk. In some paits
Diu-ham short-horns have been introduced, and
also the Ayrshire breed : but, of late years, many
Irish cattle, and those not excellent, have been
imported ; their low price temptmg pm'chasers to
the mjiuy of the native breeders.

IMauy cattle are bred iu Radnorshire : the
principal breed is a cross between the Pembroke
and Hereford. The colour is red or brindled,
with a white face. The characteristics of this cross
are, a good figure, a moderate size, and a readiness
to fatten when removed from the coarse moun-
tain-pastures to the feedmg districts of England.
Droves of these cattle are sent to the pasture-lands
of the comities of Oxford, Leicester, NorthamjDton,
&c., whence they find their way to the London
market. For the dauy the old unimproved breed
is preferred, the strain of the Herefords tending

73-

stress of -weather, for days at sea, the vessel being
driven far out of her course, and the cattle all the
time suffering for want of food and water.

Turning to Scotland, it may be observed that,
from the most remote times, this land of heath
and mountain has been the nurseiy of an original
breed or race of black cattle, of wild aspect, of
beautiful symmetry, and though small, yet vigor-
ous and hardy ; patient of hunger and cold, and
rapidly fattening on tolerable laud. These cattle
are middle-horned ; the head is short, broad, and
flat across the forehead, and adorned with ele-
gantly-tumed horns ; the muzzle is fine, the eye
bright and large, the body compact, and the limbs
short, clean, and muscular. Several varieties may
be noticed ; and of tliese the western race, occu-
pying the Hebrides, or Western Islands, and the
adjacent parts of the mainland, is the most pure,
change the colour from black to white, and there
is little difference between a beautiful kyloe from
Arran, Islay, or the Isle of Skye, and one of the
wild cattle of Chillingham : if we may venture an
opinion, they display more nearly than any other
breed the characters of the mountain cattle of our
island when invaded by Caesar. We say the moun-
tain cattle, because we snspiect that a larger and
heavier long-liorned race even then tenanted the
swampy plains and low grounds of many portions
of the countiy.

The kyloes, or black cattle of the western isles
and highlands of Scotland, constitute the chief
wealth of that portion of Caledonia. The Hebri-
des alone, including Long Island (composed of
of Lewis, Uist, and others), are calculated to con-

tain a hundred and fifty or sixty thousand head of
these cattle, of which perhaps thirty thousand an-
nually cross the ferries for the mainland ; whence
great numbers find their way into the parks and
pasture-lands of England, even to the southern
coast.

It must not be supposed that the droves
speedily reach their southern destination ; on the
contrary, their journey is very protracted, and
broken by long intervals. During the first winter
they are allowed to gi-aze in the pastures of the
north ; and then, as the spring advances, are
driven farther south. As they proceed in this
manner from stage to stage, their numbers dimi-
nish by sales, or by the respective lots reaching
the parties to whom they were consigned : but
those destined directly for the midland or southern
counties, where the pasture-lands of some large
landed proprietor await their reception, are months
upon the road, unless indeed, as is often the case,
they are sent by sea to some convenient port, and
there landed.

In a well-bred kyloe, the following characters
are conspicuous : The head is small and short, with
a fine and somewhat up-tmnied muzzle ; the fore-
head is broad ; the bonis -wide apart at their base,
tapering, and of a waxen yellow ; the neck is fine
at its junction with the head, arched above, and
abniptly descending to the breast, which is broad,
full, and veiy prominent ; the shoulders are deep
and broad, and the chine is well filled, so as to
leave no depression behind them ; the limbs are
short and muscular, with moderate bone ; the back
is straight and broad ; the ribs boldly arched, and

ARGVLr, (tX.

brought well up to the liips ; the chest deep and
voluminous ; the tail high set, and largely tufted
at the tip ; the eoat of hair thick and black : such
is the bull. The ox differs iu proportion. The
cow is far more slightly built, and her general con-
tour is more elongated. Although, as we have
said, black is the ordinaiy or standard colour of
the kj'loe, many are of a dark reddish brown, and
some of a pale or whitish dun.

Some little difference in size, as might be ex-
pected, exists among the kyloes of different locali-
ties. Those of the Isle of Skye, and of Lewis and
Uist, are rather smaller than those of Islay, Jura,
Argyleshire, Lochaber, or Inverness.

Multitudinous as are the cattle bred and reared
in the Hebrides, few are fattened there ; nor is
much attention paid to the daily ; few farmers
keeping more milch cows than will serve the wants
of the family in milk, butter, and cheese.

The kyloe cow does not yield much milk, but
that is of extraordinaiy richness. In North Uist
and Tiree, however, where the herbage is generally
good, both cheese and butter are made for the
markets, each cow being estimated to yield twenty-
two or twenty-four pounds of the latter, or from
eighty to ninety pounds of the former during
the summer.

Great attention is paid to the rearing of calves ;
and far more than imder the old regime, to the
treatment of the cattle, which formerly had little
or no pro\asion made for them during the ^nuter,
and were ill-fed even during the summer; the
consequence of which was, that a large per centage
died of staiTation, and diseases attendant upon in-
nutritious fare. The cows, it is true, were housed
during the winter ; often, indeed, they shared the
rude shealing of the peasant ; but this bettered
their condition very little, for suffering and priva-
tion were the lot of the family.

In well-managed establishments at the present
time, the cattle are treated upon principle. The
calves, all of which are reared, are generally pro-
duced in February, March, and April ; three times
a day they are allowed to draw milk from the ud-
ders of then- dams, which are aftenvards emptied
by the daiiy-maid ; when at the age of three or
four months, the calves are sent only twice a day
to their dams m the meadows, and are weaned in
September, or early in October. Dui-ing the win-
ter they are housed, and fed on hay and tmiiips,
as ai-e also the breeding cows ; the rest are kept m
the pastures, and when these become bare, are
supplied with coarse hay, and sometimes with
turnips or potatoes.

In Argyleshire the kyloes are larger than in
the Hebrides, and many of them are models of
beauty — pictures of a noble semi-wild race ; de-
scendants of the old mountain-breed, which once
roamed the wilds of Caledonia, and came "crush-

ing the forest" to meet the fierce hunter. Well
has the poet described the ancient wild bull: —

■' Mightiest of all the bea.sts of chase
That roam in woody Caledon,
Crushing the forest in his race,

The mountain bull comes thundering c

Besides these kyloes, there are other breeds
in Argyleshire ; the Ayrshire cow is principally
used for the daiiy.

In the eastern counties of the Highlands, as
Aberdeenshire, Forfarshire, Bantl'shire, Kincardine-
shire, &c., various breeds of kyloes, more or less
improved, prevail. Aberdeenshire is a great
grazing land, and in this and the adjacent counties
there are many spirited and successful breeders.
Great numbers of cattle from this part of Scot-
land are purchased by the English graziers for the
London market. In the Shetland Islands, the
Orkneys, and the northern counties of Scotland, a
small, shaggy breed of cattle, evidently of the same
stock as the kyloes of the western isles, is com-
monly to be seen. Stunted in growth by hard fare
on the bleak moorlands, still these dwai-flsh cattle
have much to recommend tliem. They are fitted
for then- high northern locality ; their deep, rough
curly coat defends them against the severities
of the winter ; they live where most other cattle
would starve ; in some favoured spots they even
fatten ; and if transported to some tolerable pas-
tiu'age, become ripe for the butcher with incredible
rapidity. But they do not thrive if taken too far
south ; they become enen'ated ; they pine in the
midst of plenty ; -and disappoint the hopes of the
grazier. Within late years this breed of slots
has been improved, by crossings with the kyloes
of the western isles and the Ai-gyleshire strain;
and excellent cattle are sent to the south, to be
fattened in congenial pastures.

In Ayrslui'e, Carrick, and the adjacent por-
tion of the Lowlands, there is an admirable breed
of milch cattle, independently of those that are
grazed there for the butcher, which, from whatever
source they originated, owe much to the care and
selection of judicious breeders. At some period
or other there has evidently been a cross of the
Durham or Holderness, and perhaps also of tlie
Alderuey. This breed, which became established
from the middle to the close of the eighteenth
centmy, has found its way not only into England,
but also into Ireland and Wales ; recommended
by the excellency of the cows as mdkers, although
they are under the middle size. It has been
estimated that a good Ayrshire cow will yield,
for two or three months after calving, five gallons
of milk daily ; for the next three months, three
gallons daily ; and a gallon and a half for the fol-
lowing three months. This milk is calculated
to return about two hundred and fifty pounds of

AYRSHIRE COW

butter amiually, or five hundred pounds of cheese.
The foregoing estimate is, however, somewhat ex-
aggerated ; and, perhaps, during the best of the
season, four or fom- and a half gallons of milk is
the average product daily of a good cow, kept in
fair condition. Every thirty-two gallons of un-
skimmed milk will yield about twenty-four pounds
of cheese, and ninety gallons, twenty-four pounds
of butter. We are supposing a good farm, and
a first-rate stock of Ayrshire cows ; and, consider-
ing the size of the cattle, this return from each
cow is very considerable. The mode in which the
cows are treated by an entei^prising and successful
farmer, of Kirkuni, is thus detailed : — He " keeps
his cows constantly in the byre (or shed), till the
grass has risen so as to afford them a full bite.
Many put them out e veiy good day through the mnter
and spring, but they poach the ground with their
feet, and nip up the young grass as it begins to
spring ; which, as they have not a full meal, in-
jures the cattle. Wlienever the weather becomes
dry and hot, he feeds his cows on cut grass in the
byi'e, from six o'clock in the morning to six at
night, and tm-ns them out to pastm'e the other
twelve hoiu's. When rain comes, the house-feed-
ing is discontinued. WTienever the pastm-e grass
begins to fail in harvest, the cows receive a supply
of the second growth of clover, and afterwards of
turnips strewed over the pasture-ground. Wlien
the weather becomes stormy, in the months of Oc-
tober and November, the cows are kept in the
byre during the night, and in a short time after-
wards during both night and day : they ai'e then

fed on oat-straw and turnips, and continue to yield
a considerable quantity of mUk for some time.
Part of the turnip crop is eaten at the end of harvest
and beginning of winter, to protract the milk, and
part is stored up for green food dm'ing the wmter.
After this store is exhausted, the Swedish turnip
and potatoes are used along with diy fodder, tiU
the grass can support the cows. Chaff, oats, and
potatoes ai'e boiled for the cows after calving, and
they are generally fed on rye-grass dming the
latter part of the spring."

In this part of Scotland, a peculiarly rich
cheese, termed Dmilop cheese (from the district
of that name, in Cumiingham, where it was first
made), is prepared. It is the product of the
unsldmmed milk ; but common or mferior cheese
is also made from the milk after it is skimmed.

With regai-d to the Ayrshii-e breed of cattle,
as fitted for the grazier, it is less so than for the
dairy-farmer ; nevertheless, in rich lands, the oxen
fatten with considerable facility, and even the
cows accumidate flesh; but, then, they cease to
yield much milk, and, as there are decidedly better
"breeds for the purpose of the grazier, few are
purchased by the great cattle-dealers for de-
pasturing on the luxm-iant feeding-grounds of
England. Undoubtedly their great value is as
milkers, and that piincipally in their own terri-
tory, to the feed and climate of which they seem
to be constitutionally adapted.

The improved Ayrshire cow, of the present
day, has the head small, but rather long, and
narrow at the muzzle, though the space between

the roots of the horns is considerable ; the horns
are small and crooked, the e.ye is clear and lively,
the neck long and slender, and almost destitute
of a dewlap; the shoulders are thin, and the fore-
quarters generally light; the back is straight, and
broad behind, especially across the hips, which are
roomy ; the tail is long and thin. The carcass is
deep, the udder capacious and square, the milk-
vein large and prominent; the limbs are small
and short, but well knit ; the thighs are thin ; the
skin is rather thin, but loose and soft, and covered
•with soft hair. The general figure, though small,
is well proportioned. The colour is varied with
mingled white and sandy-red.

The bulls mostly preferred by the dairy
fanners are comparatively light in the head and
neck, broad in the hips, and full in the flanks ;
the neck is arched above, the horns are short and
wide apart, and the limbs short, but muscular.

It has been calculated that there are in Ayr-
shire upwards of 60,000 head of cattle, of which,
more than half are dairy-cows.

In Lanarkshire, celebrated for the rearing of
calves, the Ayrshire cattle, which are chiefly in
request, acquire more weight and size, and are
heavier in the fore-quarters than those reared in
the latter county ; they are superior in grazing
qualities, and not much deteriorated as milkers.
Much butter and cheese ai'e manufactured along
the banks of the Clyde, chiefly for the supply of
Glasgow, Edinburgh, and other large towns, which
receive, also, great quantities of the delicate veal
which is reared and fed in the district of Strath-
haven, along the borders of Ayrshire. The fattening
of calves for the market is an important business
in Lanarkshire, or Clydesdale; and numbers of
newly-dropped calves are regularly bought up from
the farmers of the adjacent districts, in order to
be prepared for the butcher. The mode of feeding
them is very simple : milk is the cliief article of
their diet; and of this the calves requhe a suffi-
cient supply from first to last ; added to this, they
must be kept in a well-aired place, neither too hot
nor too cold, and freely supplied with dry litter.
It is usual to exclude the light, at all events to a
great degree, and to put a lump of chalk within
their reach, which they are fond of licldng. Thus
fed, calves, in the course of eight or nine weeks,
often attain to a very large size, — viz., eighteen
to twenty-six stones, exclusive of the offal ; far
heavier weights have occurred, and that mthout
any deterioration in the delicacy and richness of
the flesh. This mode of feeding upon milk alone,
at first, appears to be expensive ; but it is not so,
when all things are taken into consideration ; for,
at the age of nine or ten weeks, a calf, originally
purchased for eight shillings, will realize seven or
eight pounds. For four, or even six weeks, the
milk of .one cow is sufficient, — indeed, half the

quantity for the first fortnight; but afterwards it
\rill consume the greater portion of the milk of
two moderate cows ; but, then, it requires neither
oilcake nor linseed, nor any other food. Usually,
however, the calves are not kept beyond the age
of six weeks, and -will then sell for five or six
pounds each : the milk of the cow is then ready
for a successor. In this manner, a relay of calves
may be prepared for the markets from early spring
to the end of summer, — a plan more advantageous
than that of over-feeding one to a useless degree
of corpulence.

In Lanarkshire, many black cattle are fed in
the upland grazing tracts of the eastern portion ;
they are usually turned into the pastures in the
autumn, after the coarse grass is made into hay,
which is to supply them during the depth of
winter. In the spring they are sold off, and
taken by the drovers into the pastures of England,
&c., a fresh relay being purchased for the next
autumn and winter grazing.

In the Lothians, and south-eastern parts of
Scotland, many cattle are kept, both for the pur-
poses of the dairy-fanner and the grazier. The
breeds are various ; for the dairy, the Ayrsliire and
the Roxburgh cow are in great request, the latter
being a cross between the Durham or Holdemess
short-horned bull and a kyloe cow. In some
parts the pastm-age will support the large and
heavy short-horns, in their purity. In the neigh-
bourhood of Jedburgh, Kelso, A'C, a great quantity
of veal is fattened for the market. Black cattle,
short-horned bullocks, in fact, cattle of several
breeds and mLxtures, are fed in the pasture-lands, or
stalled during the winter on hay, straw, and turnips.

The influence of the pastoral or agricultural
societies generally tends to the extension of the
improved short-horns, from Dm-ham, &c., the
value of which is fully appreciated, and by means
of which decided modifications of the older races
are in progress.

This portion of Scotland contains much fine
land, devoted both to tillage and pasture; and
every branch of agriculture is carried on with
intelligence and activity. In the neighbourhood
of Edinburgh, large dairies are kejit for the supply
of the city with milk : many of these establish-
ments are excellently managed. The cows are
fed upon fresh grains from an ale-brewery, half a
bushel being given to each cow twice a day, and
also two feeds of grass or turnips ; or, when they can
be procured, tares, and similar articles of green
fodder. A little salt is supplied with each meal,
as it promotes digestion and preserves the animal's
health. A warm infusion of the sjjroutings of
malt, in which a due quantity of salt is dissolved,
is by many given tmce a day. One bushel of
malt \rill make sufficient of this infusion (boiling
water being used) for forty cows at one time.

Some give an alternate meal of steamed potatoes
and fresh turnips ; but others prefer giving the
potatoes raw, as they tend to the production of
•milk. Potatoes boiled till they dissolve in the
water, and given with salt, are found to enrich
the milk. At the commencement of the turnip
season, it is the plan of some to give less of the
infusion of malt-sproutings as drink, and to sub-
stitute distillers' grouts, or "draff," in order to
ensure the quality of the milk.

Some dairymen change their stock, or the
greater part of it, every year, fattening off, or
selling the cows, as soon as they become dry; and
purchasing others which have recently calved, to
take their place, thereby ensuring an uninter-
rupted supply of milk througliout the year. It is
not from these establishments that the buttermilk
used in Edinburgh (as it is throughout Scotland
generally) is sent out, but from the dauy-farms of
the country around.

We may now turn to the polled or hornless
races of cattle, of which Galloway furnishes us
with a breed remarkable for many excellences.

We have already said that we do not regard
the polled cattle as distinct from the honied
breeds, with which in general form, contour, and
qualities, they closely agree. We see little essen-
tial difference between the polled cattle of Galloway
and those of Argj'leshire, or Arran, — in every re-
spect they are black cattle, or kyloes, only destitute
of honis. If, then, we arrange the polled breeds
under a separate head, it is more for the sake of
convenience than of absolute propriety.

The Polled Stock of Cattle. — The semi-
wild cattle of Chatelherault Park, in Lanarkshire,
the descendants of an ancient race, are mostly,
if not always polled, — and probably the present
polled black cattle of Galloway may be derived
from the same ancestry.

Formerly, few polled cattle were to be seen in
this district of Scotland ; but within the last cen-
tury the breed has greatly prevailed, and it is highly
valued. Occasionally, cattle make their appearance
with very minute or rudimentary horns, attached,
however, to the skin merely, and not sheathing a
bony core, indications of a tendency to the acqui-
sition of these natural weapons ; and were the
point to be followed up by the breeder, these
might be soon restored. The breeder, however, is
interested in keeping his polled Galloways pure ;
they are in great request by the grazier, they
are of considerable size, fatten readily, accumula-
ting flesh on the best parts ; they are less \vild than
the homed black cattle, and less quarrelsome, and
under certain cu'cumstances, as on ship-board, may
be packed somewhat closer than the others.

A well-bred Galloway ox is of admirable form :
all is close and compact ; the barrel is romided
and ribbed home to the hip-bones ; the chest is
deep, the shoulders thick and broad ; the neck
short and tluck ; the head clean ; the back
straight and broad ; the limbs short, but ex-
tremely muscular ; the skin moderate, but mel-
low, and well covered with long soft hair, — that on
the ears, which are large, is peculiarly rough and
long.

GALLOWAV OX.

In the bull, the head is hea^7, the neek thick,
and boldly erected above ; the frontal crest or ridge
is elevated and covered with long hair ; and the
general form is robust, vfith great depth of chest
and roundness of barrel.

The cow is much lighter, but j'et presents
those points which attract the regard of the grazier.
As a milker she is inferior ; for though her milk is
rich, it is deficient in quantity, and on the average
will u(it amount to more than six or eight quarts
per day, during the summer months, after which
it rapidly diminishes. This inferiority as it re-
spects milk is of little importance to the Galloway
farmer, his chief pursuit being the rearing of graz-
ing stock ; consequently, as a rule, he never kills
his calves, but looks to profit from them at a future
day. These are generally dropped at the latter
part of winter, or very early in spring, and are per-
mitted access to the mother, at certain times daily,
as long as she continues in milk. For the first
five months the dairy-maid and the calf, morning
and evenmg, divide the contents of the udder
pretty equally between them ; after this period,
when the calf begins to gi'aze, its allowance is di-
minished, till, the cow drying, this supply is of
course stopped altogether. During the winter the
young animal is housed at night, and fed upon hay,
turnips, and potatoes, with a liberal hand.

Of the calves bred, a few of the most promis-
ing females only are resei-ved as breeders, — the
other females are rendered sterile ; heifers in this
condition fatten with great rapidity, arrive veiy
early at maturity, and as their meat is deemed pe-
culiarly delicate, sell for good prices. Some of
these heifers have attained to singular weights for
their stature, — one of great beauty, called the
Queen of the Scots, fed in Norfolk, and exhibited
at the Smithfield cattle show, a few years since,
weighed one hundred and ninety stones, of eight
pounds to the stone. She stood five feet two
inches at the shoulder, and was a model.

]\Iany thousands of jjolled cattle are sent from
Galloway eveiy year to the south, and rapidly fat-
ten in pastures but little more luxm-iant than those
on which they were reared, although it must be
confessed, that there are in Galloway, fine tracts
both of grass and white clover. It is chiefly in
Norfolk and Suffolk that the polled Galloways are
fed for the London markets, they are pm'chased by
the drovers, or jobbers, at the various cattle fairs in
the district, often in large numbers, and are then
sent onwards in droves of two or three hundred,
preceded by a man called the topsman, who makes
arrangements for their rest at different stations,
and takes care that sufficient grass, hay, or turnips
are provided for them. In about three weeks they
arrive in Norfolk, the travelling expenses amount-
ing to about twenty-four shillings a head in summer,
and thbty-four or thirty-five shillings in winter.

The average cost of a stirk in his second year, is
from three to four pounds ; in the third year, sLx
or seven pounds ; and of oxen in the fomth year,
ten, eleven, or twelve pounds, taken by the lot.
Hence it is apparent that a jobber who purchases,
six or eight hundred head of cattle, (whether he
pay in bills, or cash) involves himself in a serious
undertaking ; if he clears from three to five shil-
lings a head, he is amply remimerated, but should
the markets in Norfolk or Suffolk be low, he must
sell at a loss, and may thus be rained ; moreover,
he must expecL some casualties on the road, and
these must be taken into the account.

Besides these large speculators, there are
others who travel from fair to fair, and purchase
cattle, varying according to the extent of their
means, from twenty to a hundred head ; these
they resell, or drive over the borders to Carlisle,
in hopes of disposing of them to advantage at the
cattle fairs. If successful, they return liome to
make fresh purchases, and soon set off again for
the English borders. Thus the stock of the Gal-
loway breeders is continually changing hands,
twenty-five, or perhaps tliirty thousand head of
cattle being thus annually transferred to the Eng-
lish pasture-lands.

In Dumfries, the largest cattle market in the
south of Scotland is held, and here vast numbers
of polled black cattle are bought and sold.

A very fine polled breed of cattle has long ex-
isted m Angus (Forfarshire) and the adjacent parts
of Ivincardinesliire. This breed is closely allied
to, or perhaps is really identical with that of Gal-
loway, and is equally celebrated for its quietness of
disposition, its tendency to fatten, and its fitness
for stall-feeding. These cattle are, however, more
apt to be somewhat marked with white than the
Galloway, they generally rmi larger, are longer in
the leg, thinner on the shoulder, and flatter in the
side ; on the whole, perhaps, they ai-e not equal to
the Galloways in the fineness of the meat ; never-
theless, some beasts of extraordinary quality have
been exhibited and gained prizes, both at the shows
of the Highland Society of Perth, and those of
Smithfield.

There is considerable difference both in the
climate and in the treatment to which the Gallo-
way and Angus doddies are resjJectively subject.
In Galloway, the climate is generally moist, and
after the first winter the cattle are kept in the pas-
tures, and supplied with hay only during the seve-
rities of the season. In Forfarshire, on the con-
trary, which is a great tuniip comity, the cattle
are wintered in straw-yards, and supplied with
turnips as well as dry fodder, and grazed on dry
pastures during the summer. Hence, perhaps,
the superiority of size in the Angus cattle to the
Galloways, their sleeker coat, and their gene-
rally better condition, when sold off to the drover ;

iiovertlieless, when driven to the south, they do
not quite so well answer the expectations of the
grazier or the butcher ; — probably they thrive best
iu their own district, to the soil and climate of
which they are peculiarly adapted, and to which
they owe their characteristics. Still, however, they
remunerate the grazier, and at the fairs of Brechin
and Forfor great numbers are purchased by the
Euglish dealers,

In this district many calves are fattened for the
butcher, and great care is taken in rearing them ;
a cow often gives suck to two calves — her own and
a stranger ; and in this case they are allowed to
drain her udder (one on each side) three times a
day : when these are weaned, two other calves
supply their place. The first set are weaned and
ready for grass early iu May, the second set early
in August. After this, a single calf, destined for
the butcher, is put to the cow ; and thus, five
calves are suckled ; the four first being usually in-
tended for stock. Such, at least, is the plan fol-
lowed by some of the large breeders, who have
extensive cow-houses, and eveiy convenience for
attending to cattle, and who cany on the business
with spirit. Among these, Mr. Youatt particu-
larizes Mr. Watson, of Keillor, as a gentleman
whose judicious efforts in the rearing and improve-
ment of this breed were crowned with marked
success. We are informed that this gentleman
obtained more than one himdred prizes, besides
several valualde pieces of plate ; and that he raised
the Keillor breed to the highest possible grade of
excellence At the same time Mr. Youatt acltnow-

ledges, that "the Angus polled cattle generally are
not of that superior quality and value which an ac-
count of the Keillor breed would seem to indicate,
or, what is the case with many other breeds, they
are exceedingly valualile in their own climate, and
on their own soil, but they do not answer the
somewhat unreasonable expectations of their pur-
chasers when driven to the south."

Leaving Scotland for England, we shall find
that the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk present
us with polled breeds of cattle, not originals of the
two counties respectively, but the result of the in-
troduction of the polled cattle of Scotland.

Formerly, it appears that the Norfolk cattle
were of the middle-horned breed, somewhat resem-
bling the Devons ; but this breed gi-adually gave
way before the Galloways, of which Norfolk was one
of the chief feeding districts for the London mar-
kets. It was rational that the farmers, seeing the
superior value of the latter, should endeavour to
naturalize them ; and this they not only accom-
plished, but, in process of time, then- old stock
laecame almost entu'ely superseded. Yet the Nor-
folk polled cattle have departed from the pure
Galloway type ; and this is what might have been
anticipated. Change of soil and climate, perhaps,
with other causes, have produced their effects ; and
though the characteristics of the Galloway breed
are not lost, they are greatly modified. The cows
are, perhaps, somewhat improved as milkei's, but
the cattle generally stand higher on the limbs than
do the Galloways, and are flatter in the ribs and
thinner iu the chine ; they are taller, but not so

KORFOLS' BULL AND COW.

SUFFOLK COW.

heavy for their stature ; they do not feed so
rapidly, nor is the meat so fine in grain. Some
are black, but most are of a red tint, often more
or less varied with white. It must be confessed,
however, that ^vith regard to the excellence of
these cattle there is great difference; perhaps
the regular accession of pm-e Galloways militates
generally against any veiy e.xtensive efforts by way
of then- improvement: yet it is certain that where
their cultivation has been properly attended to,
great success has been the result. Another point
which tells against them, is the introduction and
spread of the Durham and Yorkshii-e short-horns ;
nor must we overlook the Devon breed, which
by many landed proprietors in Norfolk is higlily
esteemed. It is by Devon oxen that the farm-
labour in Norfolk is performed, as far, at least, as
these animals are employed ; and Devon cows are
much used for the purpose of the dairy.

In Suffolk a breed of polled cattle, Imomi by
the name of Suffolk duns, has been long cele-
brated ; though the dun colour is now by no means
a common character ; indeed it is not preferred ;
for with late improvements other colom-s, as red,
red and white, brindled, and yellowish or creamy
white, have almost abolished the dun. There can
be little doubt but that the polled Suffolk cattle
owe their origin to the Galloways ; not that they
are of the pm^e strain of the Galloways : on the
contrary, they are the result of interbreedings
■vrith them ; and their chief qualifications ai'e as
milkers, rather than feeders ; although, in this
latter respect, even the lean cows when di'ied show

no little of the properties of their Galloway pro-
genitors. A good Suffolk milking cow is lean and
spare, with a light thin head, a clean neck, and
little dewlap ; slender, but short limbs ; a heavy
and well-ribbed carcass, a large udder, and swollen
milk-veius. Generally the hip-bones are high and
prominent, the loins narrow, and the chine hol-
low. There is in all this nothing of the true
Galloway contour, and where the points charac-
teristic of this breed prevail, though but in an
inferior degree, the animal is fitter for the feeder
than the dairyman.

Few cattle excel the Suffolk as milkers ; a
good cow, in the plenitude of her milk, will often
yield six gallons a day ; some have even yielded
eight : nor is the milk destitute of richness, espe-
cially when the animals have good pasturage. Mr.
Culley, who says that the best butter and worst
cheese are made in Suffolk, gives the following
summary as the yearly produce of one of these
cows, which, "like all other deep milkers, are very
lean, very plain, and very big-bellied." He quotes
Mr. Young as his authority :

Three firkins of butler (one firkin ^ cwt.) 4 16

Three quarters of a wey of cheese .... 1 4

A hog 1 0

A calf 0 10

He adds, that the weight of this breed of cattle is,
on an average, about fifty stones.

Mr. Parkinson has a different calculation : he

considers the quantity of butter as amounting to
one hundred and eighty four lbs. ; which, at one
shilling per lb., will return 9/. 4s. : a hog, 21.;
the calf, 15s. ; and the skim-milk cheese from
2Z. 5s. to 2Z. 15s. Total about Ul. 13s.

Perhaps the medium between these two state-
ments approximates to the tmth. Mr. Youatt
says that fifty thousand firkins of butter are sent
to London each year from Suffolk ; but we
do not know on what grounds he makes his
estimate.

With respect to Suffolk cheese, it ia, as
Bloomfield says, " the well-known butt of many a
flinty joke."

" If drought o'ertalve it faster than the knife.
Most fair it bids for stubborn len{2[th of life ;
And, MVe the oaltcn shelf whereon 't is laid,
Mocks the weak efforts of the bending blade j
Or in the hog-trough rests, in perfect spite,
Too big to swallow, and too hard to bite."

The Suffolk dairy-farmers in general pay but
little attention to then- breed of cattle ; or, rather,
are actuated by no sound principles. They usually
kill the bulls in their fourth year, irrespective of
their intrinsic excellence ; and the valuable and
the worthless share the same fate : consequently,
should the progeny of any particular bull exhibit
more than ordinarily good qualities, the chance is,
that no advantage can be taken of the discovery,
the sire ha\'ing been, slaughtered before it was
made. Besides, the bull is in perfection from liis
fourth to his seventh year ; and this is an im-
portant consideration. The heifers also are bred
from at too early an age, before the system is
fairly matured ; in consequence of which their
growth is stopped, or their constitution enfeebled.
Indeed, unless the cows display more than
ordinary qualities as milkers, it is not unusual
to fatten tliem for the butcher, even at four
years of age ; a plan which surely cannot be
commended.

When dried, the Suffolk polled cow acquires
a good condition mth considerable rapidity, and
fattens to forty or forty-five stones ; the meat is
of good quality — that, indeed, of the ox very su-
perior.

Besides the polled cattle we have here noticed,
varieties destitute of horns occur, which confessedly
belong to a homed race, and must not be consi-
dered as distinct. For instance, there are polled
Devonshire cattle, or rials, as they are termed,
which, in all points, the horns excepted, exhibit
the characters of that breeil. There are polled
cattle of the short-homed or Yorkshire breed : the
fact is, as we have before intimated, there are
polled cattle of most breeds ; the absence of horns
is a mere accidental defect, rendered hereditaiy
by the interbreeding of the cattle thus deficient ;
but these cattle, nevertheless, often exhibit a ten-
dency to the development of their natural horns,

or, indeed, show more than rudiments of them :
so that it would be easy to extract a horned from
a polled stock. Hence, then, we regard the dis-
tinction between polled cattle and others as arbi-
trary, or to be made only for convenience, unless
there are other grounds of separation.

Vast numbers of pure Galloways, and many
Welsh and Irish cattle, are fed in Suffolk : short-
horns have been also introduced, and some Devons
are also to be seen. Norfolk and Suffolk are both
great turnip counties.

We may now turn to the breed of cattle known
mider the title of short-horns, a breed which, irre-
spective of the form or length of the horns, has
good claims to be regarded as constituting a dis-
tinct variety, and which, by the judicious exertions
of various cultivators, has been elevated to a state
of high perfection.

The Short-Iiqrned Breed. — This breed, called
by many the Dutch breed, and believed to be ori-
ginally from Holland, has been long knowni in the
counti^ of Durham and York, where the cows
are held in high reputation as milkers ; but the
oxen were indilferent feeders, their skin red, coarse
in the offal, ill-formed, and produced meat of an
inferior quality. How great is the change which
the breeder's pains and care have effected ! In
no strain of cattle is this more palpable ; for now,
while their milking properties are preserved, the
tendency to fatten is brought to a very high ratio ;
and these qualities are combined with size, a mag-
nificent figure, the production of beef most beau-
tifully grained, and of the highest excellence.
Qualities, indeed, hitherto considered as incom-
patible with each other, meet together in the im-
proved short-horns of Holdemess or Teeswater
celebrity. In Mr. CuUey's time (" Obs. on Live
Stock," 4th edit., 1807) we find, from his o'^vii
statement, the great improvement which had taken
place in this breed. He obsen^es, that these cattle
differ from others '-in the shortness of their horns,
and being wider and thicker in their form and
mould, feeding, consequently, to the most weight;
in affording by much the greatest quantity of tal-
low when fattened ; in having very thin hides,
with much less hair upon them than any other
breeds, .Aldemeys excepted. But the most essen-
tial difference consists in the quantity of milk
which they give beyond any other breed. The
great quantity of milk, thinness of their hides,
and little hair, is probably the reason why they
are tenderer than the other kinds, Aldemeys ex-
cepted. It is said of this kind, and, I suppose,
very justly, tliat they eat more food than any of
the other breeds ; nor shall we wonder at this
when we consider tliat they excel in these three
valuable particulai-s, — viz., in affording the greatest
quantity of beef, tallow, and milk. Their colours
are much varied ; but the generality are red and

SHORT-tlOBN

vhite mixed, or what the breeders call flecked :
■when properly mixed the colour is very pleasing
and agreeable." Much in Mr. Culley's time re-
mained to be done ; but he says, " In a journey
through Lincolnshire, I was happy to find that
many sensible breeders had improved their breed
of short-homed cattle (since my visiting that fine
countiy ten years before) by good bulls and heifers,
brought from the counties of Durham and York,
on both sides of the Tees, where the best are con-
fessedly bred. In another excursion, in 1789, I

met with a Mr. Tindale, of , near Sleaford,

who had the best breed of cattle which I ever saw
in that county, and perhaps inferior to few in
any part of the kingdom. I was shown an ox,
near Lincoln, of this breed, that for tiiie form and
nice handling exceeded any bullock I ever remem-
ber to have seen."

With respect to the milking properties of
these cattle, the same writer states that there are
instances of cows giving thirty-six quarts of milk
per day, and of forty-eight firkins of butter being
made from a dairy of twelve cows during the season ;
but the general quantity is twenty-four quarts of
milk per day, and three firkins of butter, from a cow.

The improvement in the short-horns, which
commenced on the banks of the Tees, under the
superintendence of spirited individuals, not only
continued progressive, but extended its influence
around. By what crosses the Teeswater strain
became established it is scarcely possible to say ;
there is, we believe, some reason for thinking
tliat one was with the semi-wild white breed, and

another with choice cattle imported directly from
Holland. Be this as it may, the Teeswater stock
became celebrated, though still not perfect, the
oxen being often extravagantly large, and, some-
times, npt tnie in their proportions. We hear of
an ox bred by Mr. ]\Iilbauk, which, when slaugh-
tered, at five years old, weighed (the four quarters)
150 stones, of fourteen pounds to the stone, pro-
ducing sixteen stones of tallow, — and of a cow,
killed at the age of twelve years, w'hich weighed
upwards of 110 stones. It was reserved for Mr. C.
CoUings to accomplish the perfection of the Tees-
water breed, already so excellent. It was by acci-
dent that this experienced breeder became pos-
sessed of a young bull (a calf when Mr. Ceilings
purchased him), in which he discovered qualities
adapted, as he thought, and as it proved, to elevate
the strain. This bull he named Hubback ; he was
smaller than the generality of the Teeswater cattle,
of excellent contom-, and with an extraordinary
propensity to fatten, insomuch that his utility as a
bull was limited to a short period. From this bull
descended a renowned stock ; he was the sire of the
dam of the celebrated bull Foljambe, and Foljambe
was the sire both of the sire and dam of Favourite,
the sire of the " Durham Ox," which, in Fe-
bruaiy 1801, was sold for public exhibition. In
improving his breed Mr. C. Collings had recourse
to a single cross with the polled Galloway ; he
then bred back to the short-horns, and the result
was a stock called the Alloy, at first in contempt,
but afterwards by way of distinction. His cross
was between a short-homed bull, called Boling-

broke, and a beautiful red Galloway cow, wluch
produced a bull-calf; this, in due time, was the
sire of a bull-calf by a pure short-horned cow called
Johaima ; this latter bull-calf again became the
sire of the cow Lady, by a pure short-hora cow,
which was tlie dam also of the noted bull Favourite.

Thus was the Alloy stock founded. Of the esti-
mation in which this stock was held some idea
may be formed when we state, that, by public auc-
tion, the cow Lady, at the age of fourteen, sold for
two hundred and six: guineas ; a daughter of the
same cow, called Countess, at nine years old, for
four hundred guineas ; another daughter, Laura,
at four years old, for two hundred and ten guineas;
a son, Major, three years old, for two hundred
guineas ; another, George, still a calf, for one
hundred and thirty guineas.

Mr. Bailey, in his " Survey of Durham," gives
a return of the sale of part of Mr. C. Collings's
stock, in October 1810, with the names of the pur-
chasers. Omitting the latter, we maybe permitted
to give a transcript of the catalogue, which is far
from being destitute of interest:

Cherry . . ,
Kate . . . . .
Peeress
Countess ,
Celina . . ,
Johanna .
Lady . .

Cathlene ,

Laura
Lily . .
Daisy

Cora.. ..
Beauty.,

Red Rose

Flora ..
Miss Peg
Magdalei

Old Cherry . .

Cherry

Lady

Countess . . . .
Johanna . . . .
Old Phoenii..

Daughter of d.
of Phoenix

Lady

Daisy

Old Daisy . .

Countess . . . .
Miss Wash-
ington
Eliza

Heifer by

Washington

Sire.

Favourite.. .

Comet

Favourite. . .

Cupid

Favourite.. .

Grandson of

Boiingbroke

Washington.,

Favourite ....

Comet

Grandson of

Favourite
Favourite. . . .
Marsh

Comet

S. of Favourite
Comet . . .

Mayduke
Comet . .

Petrarch
Comet . .

Mayduke
Comet . .

170
400
200
130
206

210
410
140

Comet

Yarborough ....

Major

Mayduke

Petrarch

Northumberland

Alfred

Duke

Alexander ....

Ossian

Harold

Phoenix ....

Lady

Cherry

Old Venus . .

Venus

Duchess ....

Cora

Magdalene ..
Red Rose ....

Sire.

Favourite. . . .
Comet

Favourite ....
Comet

Favourite

Windsor ....

200

atj5

BULL CALVES UNDER ONE YEAR OLD.

Ketton

Young Favourite

Gurse

Sir Dimple ....

Narcissus,

Albion

Cecil

Cherry. .
Countess
Lady ..
Daisy ..
Flora ..
Beauty . .
Peeres's

Dam.

Sire.

Price.
Guiluu.

Phffibe

D. by Favourite

Comet ....

105

Yount; Duchess .

» »

183

Young Laura . .

Laura

101

Lucy

(1 by Washington

„

13-2

Charlotte

Cathlene ....

139

Johanna

808

HEIFER CALVES UNDER ONE YEAR OLD.

Name.

Dam.

Sire.

Price.
Gumeu.

Lucilla

Calista

White Rose

Ruby

Cowslip

Laura

Cora

Lily

Red Rose

Comet

Yarborough ....
Comet

106
50

75
50

_?£

306

In September, 1818, Mr. Robert Collings's
stock was sold off, and realized prices equal to
those obtained by Mr. Charles Collings (his
brother).

Cue 2 year oM Cow sold for 331 guineas.
One 4 year old Cow sold for 300 guineas.
One 5 year old Cow sold for 370 guineas.
One 4 year old Bull-calf sold for 270 guineas.
One 4 year old Bull sold for 621 guineas.

Besides these successful breeders, others of scarcely
less note appeared in the field, and to the result
of their labours the general elevation of the pre-
sent race of short-horns is o\^ing ; nor have they
degenerated in the hands of their successors.
There are at the present time, gentlemen who
engage with great spirit in this patriotic work,
and whose respective stocks have gained great and
deserved celebrity.

There is in the present improved short-homs,
a union of many qualities, once deemed incom-
patible : early maturity, quick feeding, and that
to a great weight, an abundance of inside fat,
and meat of a fine grain, while the cows are
plentiful and steady milkers, and fatten rapidly
when dried ; these are the cliaracteristics of the
breed. Many improvers, it is tioie, look rather to
the grazing properties of these cattle, and forget
their value for the dairy; they esteem them in
proportion to their early arri\'iug at maturity, and

'"^.--^

Wi &w

SHOUT-HORN

their aptitude to fatten ; and selecting tlieir breed-
ing stock with such views, the milking properties
of the cows become in reality diminished. But
this is to develop one e.x^cellency at the expense
of another, and that without necessity ; for in this
breed, as has been abundantly proved, both quahties
can e.xist, not of course at the same time, for the
milking cow does not fatten mitil dried, but in
subjection one to the other. If indeed the milk
yielded by the improved short-homs be somewhat
less in quantity than that given by the old imim-
proved strain, it is of far richer quality, and returns
more butter in proportion. Nearly four gallons of
EOilk have been yielded, morning and evening,
even by the highest bred short-homs, and some
have even given more ; and these very cattle have
proved, after having been dried and fattened, admi-
rable in the carcass. To the dairy-farmer, there-
fore, the short-homs are as valuable as to the gra-
zier ; and indeed it is with cows of an improved
short-horn breed, from Yorkshire or Durham, that
the great dairies for the supply of London with
milk are stocked. The Yorkshire cow indeed has
always been a favourite with the London daii7men ;
but formerly, when diy, she fattened slowly, con-
sumed nmch food, and therefore sold to a disad-
vantage : but the improved breed fattens with sur-
prising rapidity, and whether the dairyman keep
his cows one year or three, and then sells them,
or feeds them, for the butcher, they return a
profit.

The short-lioms of Holderness, and, indeed,
pf Yorkshire generally, owe their modern im-

provement to judicious crossings, and especially to
the influence of the Teeswater and Alloy strains.
It must not, however, be supposed that the old
breed is universally improved; on the contraiy,
many of the dairy-farmers give the rough breed
the preference, partly from prejudice, and partly
because the milking properties of the improved
breed have been more or less sacrificed to the de-
velopment of a constitutional tendency to the
accumulation of fat. Mr. Youatt, referring to this
subject, well observes, " Experience has gradually
established the fact, that it is prudent to sacrifice
a sniall portion of the milk to assist in feeding,
when the cow is too old to continue in the dairy,
or when, as in the neighbourhood of large towns,
her seiTices as a dairy cow are dispensed ivith at
an early age. This cross being judiciously ma-
naged, the diminution of milk is so small, and
the tendency to fatten so great, that the opinion
of Mr. Sale is correct, — " I have always found in
my stock, that the best milkers, when dried for
feeding, make the most fat in the least time.'
This is a doctrine which wll be better understood
and universally acknowledged by and by, for
many of the improvers of the short-horns have
but half done justice to their excellent stock. He
would deserve well of his country who, with skill
and means sufficient, would devote himself to the
illustration of this point."

It is a remarkable fact, that the short-homed
cow improves both in the quantity and quality of
her milk as she grows older; that is, a cow of six
years of age is superior, as a milker, to one of two

DURHAM OX.

or three years of age ; and her milk \wll jdelcl
more butter in proportion. The milk of a single
cow, on which the experiment was made, retm-ned
373 lbs. of butter, in the space of thirty-two weeks;
the lowest weekly amount being seven lbs., the
highest, sixteen. Her milk, during the time,
averaged nearly twenty quarts per day; her food
was grass and cut clover until the turnip season ;
but the pasture was not of first-rate quality. With
abimdant proofs of the value of the short-horns
as mOkers, it is the breeder's interest not to
neglect this point, which is compatible with every
property he can desire.

The weight to which some of the improved
short-homshave been fed is astonishing. The " Dur-
ham Ox," when slaughtered.was 165 imp. St. 131bs.
the four quarters, besides 3'ielding 11 st. 2 lbs. of
tallow; the hide weighed 10 st. '2 lbs. His age
was eleven 3'ears. Many high-fed oxen, at three
or four yeai-s of age, weigh from one hundred to
one hundred and twenty stone the four quarters,
and some much more.

One of the most extraordinaiy oxen of the
pure short-horn breed, was an animal fed in Lin-
colnshire by Lord Yarborough, and exhibited
under the erroneous appellation of the "Lincoln-
shire Ox" ; he measured five feet six inches in
height at the shoulders, eleven feet ten inches to
the root of the tail, eleven feet one inch in girth,
and three feet tliree inches across the hips,
shoulders, and middle of the back. His breast
was only fom'teen inches from the groimd. The
depth of the fore quartere, and tlie comparatively

shortness of the limbs, are characteristics of this
high-bred strain.

The short-horns are in the present day every
where spreading, and their value is generally ap-
preciated ; it may reasonably be expected that in
a few years they will either supersede or greatly
modify the old breeds of most of the English
gi'azing and breeding districts. Crosses between
the Durham bull and Devonshire cows have
proved in all respects admirable ; their quaUty of
flesh, aptitude to fatten, and milking properties
being first-rate, while, at the same time, they ex-
ceed the pure Devons in size.

There is in Lincolnshire a breed of short-
horns, well known in the London markets as
"Dutch cattle," or " Lincolns," which present us
■«ith none, or but few, of the characteristics of the
high-bred Durham or Holderness breeds ; they
m-e large-boned, coarse, and hea^-y in the head ;
with the limbs high, and the loins and hips wide :
the meat is coarse-gramed, and the fat not well
laid on. The cows, as milkers, are moderate ;
they are mostly white and red ; but a dim variety
is also to be seen, which was introduced by Sir C .
Buck, of Hanby Grange, about the middle of the
last centuiy. This dun stock appears to be of
mixed origin.

We must not suppose that no improvements
have been effected in the coarse Lincolnshire
breed ; on the contraiy, several successful attempts
have been made, and particularly by crosses with
the Durham, by means of which the size of the
bone, and the imgainly form, were materially

altered for tlie better; while a dispositiou to fatten
more rapidly also resulted. These crossed Lin-
colns are, therefore, far more valuable than those
of the old strain, but still are deficient in the fine-
ness of the grain of the meat.

Besides these, there is an improved breed
called the " Tumills," from the name of its
founder, Captain Tuniill, of Eeesby-on the-Wold.
Whether he effected his object by crossing ■with
some other breed, or simply by a judicious selec-
tion of the native stock, is not well known ; but,
certainly, he was very successful, and produced an
animal, lighter in the head, finer in the form, far
less bony, less high on the limbs, fuller in the
breast, and round in the barrel. Their general
contour is good, and they evince a propensity to
fatten rapidly. Some of the Lincolnshire farm-
ers still prize and cultivate this breed, which has
excellent grazing qualities, the oxen soon becom-
ing ripe for the market, especially when put up
for stall-feeding, a plan which seems to suit them
admirably. They are generally bought at the age
of three years, in a lean state, by the jobbers or
the graziers, and are ready for the butcher in the
com^se of the ensuing summer or autumn.

Lincolnshire, besides its own breed, presents
us with various others ; many Irish cattle are fed
there, as well as cattle from the north, and also
from Yorkshire and Durham ; destined mostly for
London. The farmers, who look to dairy qualities,
have mixed breeds of almost every description ;
which answer their pm^pose very well, being, in
general, good milkers.

Under the head of short-horns, will range the
Nonnandy, Guernsey, or Alderney cattle, which,
though originally from the French continent, are
now naturalized in our island. These cattle pre-
vail in Hampshire, especially near the coast ; but
inland are crossed with other breeds, and, perhaps,
most successfully with the Devons, both as re-
spects milking and feeding qualities.

The Alderney cattle are angular, and awk-
wardly shaped, — of small size, thin-necked, small
boned, with high shoulders, hollow behind, short
in the rump, -n-ith pendent bellies, and a voracious
appetite. The cows yield only a small portion of
milk, but it is of the most extraordinaiy riclmess ;
and, on this account, they are often kept in the
parks and pleasure-grounds of the opulent, where,
we must confess, they are both useful and even
ornamental. Their gentleness, their diminutive
size, end even their singidar contour, together with
the excellence of their milk, render them favour-
ites, where no remunerating return for their keep
is expected or desired. We own that we admire
them ; but, perhaps, some old associations influence
our feelings. In proportion to the quantity of
milk, the butter it yields is astonishing ; a single
cow has been known to give nineteen pounds of

butter weekly for several successive weeks. This,
of course, is a very rare and remarkable occur-
rence; the average is from six to eight or nine
pounds weekly, dviring the season, supposing the
cow to be first-rate of her kind.

Meagre as the Alderney cow is when in milk,
and unlikely as she may appear in the eyes of the
grazier, it is nevertheless a fact, that, when dried,
she fattens with great rapidity. This property in
the ox is veiy valuable, and though fat Alderney
cattle are not often seen in the London market,
some have been occasionally exhibited at the
Smithfield Cattle Show; one exhibited in 1802
by the Duke of Bedford weighed (the four quarters)
95 st. 3 lbs., exclusive of inside fat, which was
17 St. 3 lbs., Smithfield weight (8 lbs. to the
stone).

The Alderney cattle are generally of a mingled
white and sandy-red, or fawn colour; the latter
being mostly disposed in large, abnipt patches.

Here we close om- account of the main breeds
and varieties of the British Ox, — as far, at least,
as they are definite. The fact is, that most of
our breeds are progressively changing ; the decline
of the improved long-horns, and the sudden eleva-
tion of the Durham and Yorkshire short-homs,
are points of singular importance and interest;
nor is the intrasion of the short-horns into every
county destitute of palpable results ; changes are
going on, breeds are becoming modified, new
varieties arising, and fresh intercrossings taking
place eveiy day. In many, perhaps in most,
instances, judgment and experience preside ; and
the multiplication of agiicultural societies and
similar institutions, for the adjudication of prizes
for cattle, prove the interest taken by the great
landowiiers in the improvement of our breeds of
cattle; or, rather, of the res nistica generally.
We fancy, however (and it is pei'haps but a fancy),
that more attention is paid to the grazier's than
to the dairy-farmer's cattle, and that cattle com-
bining the almost opposite properties of milkers
and feeders are taken less into consideration than
their great importance merits, at least as far as
the foiTner quality is concerned. Taking the
Smithfield Cattle Show as an example, it appears
to us that, there, the feeder's art only is regarded ;
fineness of bone, symmetry, excessive fat acquired
upon a stated diet, and eaily ripeness, seem to be
considered as the main objects. Other institutions
of a similai' character follow in the wake ; but
may not, and are not, the genuine milking cattle —
the cottager's most sei-viceable animals, the small
farmer's or the cheese or butter dairyman's stock —
regarded with less interest ? Does not the park
or stall-fed steer of the great lando^vner take a
higher rank than the cow — however well-bred and
beautiful, and however fitted for the grazier when
i dry — of the dairyman ? Is not too exclusive an

^^n^^^

DERNEV CuW.

atteution giveu to the Leasts of the feeder ? We
think it is ; and, if so, may ^ve not expect a de-
generacy in our milking cattle, and live to heai-
comjilaints tliat all our- celebrated cheeses are not
equal to what they were formerly ? Has a prize
yet been given for the cow which diu'ing the
season has returned the greatest weight of prime
cheese or butter, and when dry made well-fatted
and fine-gi"ained beef for the butcher, in a fair
space of time '? Few such piizes, as far as we can
learn, have been declared. Happily, each party
understands its own interests, and acts accord-
ingly ; soil, climate, and old habits and customs,
are ever influential. Yet, as we have said, modifi-
cations go on, almost insensibly ; and the vamited
breeds of to-day may be superseded before the
close of another centmy. Of the cattle least liable
to such a change are the middle-honis of North
Devon, Wales, and Scotland ; though other breeds
may intmde upon their pasture-grounds, it will be
long before they lose their chai-acteristics. Of
ancient lineage, they are likely to keep up the
strain uncontaminated; and though interbred with
in other districts, they will still maintain their
footing in their native strongholds. The causes
which have tended to their preservation will, to a
certain degree, continue then- influence ; and it
may even be then- destiny to modify the short-
horns. " Omnium versatm' m-na, seriiis, ocyus."

We may here say a few words respecting the
mode of judging of the weight of the cattle while
standing in the stall or market. Some men, by
practice and experience, are so expert in this cal-

culation, that they are seldom more than a few
pounds out in their speculation ; they know the
breed and its qualities : and taking into considera-
tion the stature and fatness of a given animal, will
arrive at a very accurate conclusion. Hundreds
of beasts are thus purchased by the test of the eye
and hand alone. In the " Penny Cyclopaedia" we
have the following directions : —

"When an ox is fat, his weight may be very
nearly guessed by measuring his girth immediately
behind the fore legs, and the length from the tip
of the shoulder to the perpendicular line which
touches the hinder parts, or to a wall against which
the animal is backed. The square of the gii-th in
inches and decimals is multiplied by the length,
and the product multiplied by the decimal -238.
This gives the weight of the four quarters in stones
of fourteen lbs. This rule is fovmded on the sup-
position that there is a certain proportion between
the net weight of the quarters and that of a cylin-
der, the circumference of which is Uie girth and
the axis the length taken as above. The propor-
tion has been ascertained by obsei-vatiou and
repeated comparison. The measurement will, at
all events, indicate the proportional increase
during the period of fattening."

Few farmers, we suspect, 'nill have recourse to
this method. WTien the live weight can be ascer-
taiued, the rest is easy ; for experience has showii
the proportion between the saleable quarters and
the offal, in different states of fatness ; and tables
have been constmcted, by which the net weight is
1'ou.ad by mere inspection. Miiltiplpng the live

■weight by 0,605 gives a near approximation to the
neat dead weight in an ox moderately fat, and of
good breed.

The average dead weight of bullocks, taking
numbers together, ranges from 80 to 85 stones,
Smithfleld weight (that is 8 lbs. to the stone); and
of calves, 144 lbs. So that if London be yearly
supplied with 200,000 carcasses of beef, each car-

cass weighing about 82 stones, or 656 lbs., the
number of pounds consumed, including bone, will
amount to 131,200,000; and supposing the num-
ber of calves at 30,000, averaging 144 lbs. each,
the total weight will amount to 4,320,000 lbs. : so
that in veal and beef alone, setting aside mutton,
lamb, pigs, poultrj', game, cm-ed provisions, fish,
&c., the total amounts to 135,520,0001bs.

CHAPTER VI.

Having thus detailed the principal breeds or va-
rieties of the British Ox, we may now proceed to
some obsen'ations relative to the management or
treatment of homed cattle ; a subject of great im-
portance, inasmuch as their health, the quantity
and quality of milk yielded, and their quick ripen-
ing for the butcher are involved in it. The sim-
plest and perhaps the most economical mode of
feeding cattle is by grazing them in fields or on
commons, or uncultivated pastures ; additional
food and shelter being supplied during the winter.
Butthere must be a fitness of the cattle for the land.
It ought to be borne in mind, that a cow of large
size, and liigh breed, would starve, or become a
miserable object on poor, or peaty land, where one
of the small native kind, hardy and active, would
manage to keep herself in tolerable condition.
Hence, the cottager, or small dairj--farmer, in rude
uncultivated districts, will do wrong to exchange his
hardy cows for others accustomed to a rich pas-
turage : he would find the hope of deriving from
them the quantity of milk they yielded in their
own grounds delusive ; for though his range of
pasturage might be very extensive, yet it would
affoi-d such cattle nothing like sufficient nutriment,
and the very act of rambling about to pickup what
they could, would only increase their bad condi-
tion. Cottagers often keep two or three cows,
which they usually turn out to feed on the grass, in
lanes and by-roads, attended during the day by a
boy, and driven home at night ; they eke oiit the
sustenance of these animals by cutting and carry-
ing the grass of banks, or by collecting the grass
of garden lawns, mowed by the gardener; and
by purchasing, for a trifle, the grains of per-
sons who brew their own malt-hquor. Occca-
sionally, within a few miles of London, we
have seen such cows in tolerable condition ;
but _ in general their quantum of diet is irregu-
lar, and their angular points, and tight-bound
hide, destitute of a due layer of subcutaneous cel-
lular tissue, bespeaks an impoverished system. Is
it profitable for a cottager— that is, a labourer —
to keep cows ? A wa-iter in the " Penny Cyclopte-
dia" says, " A cottager, with two or three acres
(query, from half an acre to an acre) of moderate
land, may keep a cow, and thus add much to his
eammgs as a labourer. For this purpose, he will

require a small portion of permanent grass,
fenced off', to allow the cow to take exercise, which
is necessary for her health. Her food must be
raised in regular succession, and cut for her. The
earliest green food is rj^e, then tares, then clover ;
which may be made to succeed each other so as to
give an ample supply. Cabbages, beet-root, pars-
nips, potatoes, and tui-uips will continue the supply
dming winter; and the dung and urine of the
cow, carefully collected, \vill be sufficient to keep
the land in condition. This system, lately intro-
duced into some parts of Ireland, has already
greatly improved the conchtion of the industrious
poor." In fact, according to this plan, the cot-
tager must pursue a modified system of stall-
feeding ; and if he can devote a few hours daily to
his land, and possesses the requisite knowledge,
he will doubtless gain considerably. In the neigh-
bourhood of large towns he will find a ready sale
for his milk at the rate of fourpence per quart ; he
will also have a calf yearly for disposal ; and may
also keep a few hogs. We think, however, that
on this system of green crops and roots, if the land
be good, three or four cows may be well kept on
thi'ee acres, with the addition of a little hay,
grains, brewers' wash, &c A cottager, with the
whole of his time, or nearly so, at his own disposal,
will, if industrious, thus comfortably maintain
himself and his family. "A cow is old and un-
profitable when she reaches the age of twelve or
fourteen years : she should then be sold, and a
young one purchased. If the cottager have the
means of rearing a cow calf to succeed the old
mother, he will do well ; if not, he must lay
by a portion of the cow's produce every year, to
raise the diff'erence between the value of a young
cow and an old one. The savings-banks are ad-
mirable institutions for tliis pui-pose ; a few shil-
lings laid by when the produce of the cow is
greatest, will soon amount to the sum required to
exchange an old one for a younger."

The cow, as we have said, should be suited to
the pasturage ; but on the plan of stall-feeding, or
feeding on cut green food in a small enclosure,
the cottager may keep a superior animal ; which,
properly fed on succulent diet, will yield a con-
siderable quantity of milk, and, when aged, sell
for a good price. 'Generally speaking, a cow may

be milked to within a month of her calving, I
which should occur in April or May. She should
then be suffered to become dry ; otherwise, when
she calves, her new milk will be deficient both in
quantity and quality. The calf should have the
first milk, which uatm'e has intended to clear the
intestines of a glutinous substance, which is always
present in the new-bom animal.

Besides plenty of succulent green food, the
milch cow requires good water, and that which has
been for some time exposed to the air is the best ;
cleanliness also is indispensable ; a little rock salt
to lick may be occasionally allowed, or a little salt
given, as conducive to health. At the time of
calving, or rather after calving, a little warm
■water, with some barley or bean-meal mixed with
it, will be gladly received ; but drenches and me-
dicines should be avoided. Indeed, when a cow is
allowed to take proper exercise in the open air,
and has a snug shelter or house to resort to in case
of stormy weather, heavy rain, or cold, she will
generally keep in good health, and recover easily
after calving. We suppose the food to be given
regularly, and in moderate quantities at a time.
Occasionally, cows are apt to show symptoms of
jaundice, the result of some disturbance in the
function of the Uver; the eyes and even the skin
assume a yellowish tint, and the animal is languid,
and ceases to feed with an appetite. An aperient
draught, composed of half-a-pound of Glauber salts,
an ounce of ginger, and two ounces of treacle, with
two quarts of boiling water poured over them, may
be given slowly and gently when milk-warm, and
repeated every other day. The cow should be
kept from chilly winds, and, if it be mnter, have
the loins covered with a cloth, and be confined in
her shed. This plan will generally prove success-
ful in a short time. We would, however, recom-
mend the cottager to get rid of a sickly cow as
soon as possible ; for should she have some chronic
disease, her milk will not only diminish in quan-
tity, but be bad in quality ; and she may die sud-
denly, and thus prove a great loss ; whereas,
though he may lose by selling her, he will find his
fu'st loss the least in the end. A staring coat, a
tight skin, loss of appetite, difficulty of breathing,
a husky cough, and general leanness, are indica-
tions of disease in the hmgs or liver, or both ;
and the sooner she is parted with the better.

It is a common custom to breed from heifers at
too early an age ; this is to spoil the cow. The
heifer should not be under two years old when
taken to the bull ; and even then it is as well to
let her go dry sooner than older cows ; indeed, if
she be younger, this is imperative ; for the tax
upon the immature animal by the calf she has
borne, and the drainage of the milk from the sys-
tem subsequent!}', tend to arrest her growth and
due development. A young heifer, moreover,
cannot be expected to produce a fine calf.

The above observations apply more particularly
to the poor industrious cottager, who, with small
means at command, wishes to keep a cow on the
best plan : he has no extent of grazing land ;
i;ommons generally afford but scanty food, and are
for the most part overstocked ; besides, he may
not have the opportunity of availing himself of a
common ; and the plan of road-side and by-lane
grazing cannot be commended, even on the
ground of the habits of idleness entailed upon
the boy who spends his day in watching the ani-
mal, and driving her from one spot to another, or
from ditch to ditch, where the bank holds out a
prospect of a tolerable supply. But if the cottager
can rent a small piece of ground, and has time to
cultivate it himself, so as to make it produce
greater crops of rye, tares, clover, lucem, cab-
bages, beet-root, potatoes, and turnips, to be raised
in succession and cut for his cow, confined in a,
cow-house, except while taldng exercise in her little
paddock, or perhaps a small orchard, he may cer-
tainly make it answer his purpose. If near a large
town, he will have a certain sale for all his milk.
His own family will need a supply ; but from this
the cream may be taken, and sold to advantage.
He may find it advantageous to make butter ;
which, as fresh butter sells, ought to bring in a
return of ten or twelve pounds per annum, leaving
the buttermilk for the use of the family, the
rearing of the calf, and the fattening of a hog.
After all, however, the affirmative to the question,
whether it is profitable for the cottager to keep a
cow, will depend on the contingencies of locaUty;
the spare time he has on his hands ; the assistance
his famOy can render him ; the facilities of dis-
posing the produce to advantage ; and the amount
of primary outlay he must necessarily encounter;
together with the rent of the ground. Where a
cottager depends solely on a small piece of laud
for the support of himself and his family, and for
the payment of rent, then indeed his cow is of the
utmost importance, if managed with any thing like
regularity on a judicious system. It must always
be recollected, that cows on poor, but extensive,
pasturage give but little milk ; that no considera-
ble produce can be expected, be the cow what she
may, unless she is supplied with a sufficiency of
good succulent food ; and that when a man owns
only a small plot of ground, tliis can only be pro-
duced by a well-ordered system of crops in rota-
tion. " If (says a writer) a labourer, who has
an allotment of half an acre of good Ught land
would entirely devote it to raise food for a cow,
his wife and children cutting the food, and tending
the cow in a small yard with a shed, or in any cow-
stall, he would find that he had much greater clear
profit than if he had sown his land eveiy year with
wheat, and had always a good crop — which last
supposition is impossible ; there would be no
better stimulus to industry than to let a piece of

land for tliis purpose to every man who could pur-
chase a cow, and feed it by soiling.''

We may here add, that the green food should
be cut twelve or twenty hours before it is given
to the cattle, and not wet with dew or rain :
it should be supplied at inten'als, and in modera-
tion ; as horned cattle are apt to eat voraciously,
and the fresh green food is liable to feraient in
the paunch, endangering the animal's life from
the gases evolved, which distend the abdomen
prodigiously. It is^ but lately that we saw a fine
cow which died from this cause : she was left safe in
her paddock in the evening, but during the night
she contrived to get at some clover, or luceni, in an
adjacent enclosure, of which she ate voraciously;
in the morning she was found dead, and swollen.

In the neighbourhood of London, where a pro-
digious supply of milk is demanded, vast numbers
of cows, all (or almost all) short-homs, are kept
upon the principle of soiling, or stall-feeding, for
the sake of their valuable produce. We allude to
those large establishments in which four or five
hundred cows are kept, and where most of the
retail dealers in milk obtain the measure they
require. There are, indeed, numerous smaller
establishments around London, in which the pro-
prietor, who retails the milk on his own account,
keeps from six to twenty, or five and twenty cows ;
and as he has to compete vrith the retailers who
purchase their stock at the great establishments,
he seldom resorts to the modes of adulteration,
which are commonly practised by the ordinary re-
tailers : not that a little water may not be added,
but if this be all, the purchaser in London may be
well contented. It is calculated that upwards of
twelve thousand cows are kept for the supply of
London and its increasing environs ; and as the
amount of milk returned by these cattle is mostly
retailed by pennyworths, or two-pennyworths,
morning and evening, we shall readily conclude
that the retailers' occupation is one of no little
labour. That it is pi'ofitable we may conclude
from the fact that "milk- walks" are not unfre-
quently advertised for sale; but whether the profit
be tnily fair or just may admit of question. Cer-
tain it is that the milk leaves the great dairy in its
purity ; but what admixtures it may afterwards
undergo may require the analysis of the chymist
to detei-mine.

Mr. Youatt (whose name we have often men-
tioned, and to whom we pay a tribute of respect
for his extensive acquirements and his private
worth) says, in his agreeable style, "the name of
new milk has something very pleasant about it,
but it is an article which rarely makes its appear-
ance at the brealtfast or tea-table of the citizen.
That which is got from the cow at night is put
by until the morning ; the cream is skimmed off,
and then, a little water being added, it is sold to
the public as the morning's milk. This is the

practice of most, or aU of the little daii7men who
keep their half-dozen cows ; and if this were all,
and with these people it is nearly all, the public
must not complain. The milk may be lowered by
the wai-m water, but the lowering system is not
carried to any great extent; for there is a pride
among them that their milk shall be better than
that of the merchants on a yet smaller scale, who
purchase the article from the great dairies ; and
so it generally is. The milk goes from the yard
of the great daiiy into the possession of the itine-
rant ^dealers perfectly pure ; what is done with it
aftei-^vards; and to what degree it is lowered and
sophisticated, is known only to these retail mer-
chants."

Before we enter upon the treatment of the
stalled cows, in these great dairies : those, for ex-
ample, of Mr. Flight, formerly Mr. Laycock, Mr.
Rhodes, and others, we may be jiermitted to sketch
a picture of the interior of one of these extensive
establishments, of which many who live in London
have, perhaps, never heard.

We must, then, suppose ourselves at Islington,
" tellus raccarum ferax," between two and three
in the morning, whence, proceeding towards High-
buiy, we arrive at a gateway signalised by an in-
scription, as "■ LaycocJc's Dairy and Cattle Layer.i."
Entering this gateway we soon find ourselves sur-
rouiiJed by buildings spread over a vast extent of
ground, and consisting not onh' of barns, sheds,
and granaries, but comprising also many others
devoted to various purposes. We cannot, how-
ever, fail to notice a large range of cow-sheds, or,
rather, a large -building, within which are com-
prised six ranges of sheds, parallel with each
other; and running nearly north and south. Along
both sides of eveiy shed, are stalls, each stall
being adapted for the reception of two cows ; and
the whole is so arranged as to afford proper accom-
modation for sixty-four cows in each shed. The
length of each shed is about one hundred and forty
feet, and its breadth twenty-four feet. Down the
centre runs a drain, to cany off the water and
refuse, and thus to keep the stalls clean. At the
upper end of each stall is a trough, sujiplied with
water from large elevated tanks, and having also
a receptacle for food. An upright post is placed
at each of the upper corners of the stall, to which
the cow is fastened by a ring connected with a
chain jjassing round her neck. Adjacent to this
building is a plot of ground called the " dung-
shoot," on which the refuse and clearing of the
cow-sheds are empitied at stated times in the day ;
a store of valuable manure being thus collected,
for the removal of which a direct cart-way from the
open road affords every convenience.

Leaving these sheds, we pass through the
other buildings of the establishment, which extend
over an area of sixteen acres ; and here we shall
quote an admirable description, dra^\Ti up from

notes taken on the spot, which we sliould in vain
attempt to improve : —

" Much of the appearance of a farm-yard now
presents itself, fowls roaming about in one part,
and pigs housed in anotlier, all being reared and
fattened at a trifling expense. Of the four or five
hundred cows kept in the dairy, many vary greatly
in the supply of milk which they afford, according
to their age, the state of their health, the season
of the year, etc. ; and the demand for milk, on the
part of customers, is also slightly variable. From
these circumstances it often results that the daily
supply of milk may be more than equal to the de-
mand ; and the overplus, as well as the butteiTuilk
resulting from the butter made at the dairy, is
then profitably used as food for swine.

" The pigs, which are very numerous, are kept
in well-constructed jaiggeries, presenting none of
that dirty appearance which disfigures pigsties in
common farm-yards. Adjacent to the piggeries is
a mixing room, in which the milk destined for the
pigs is mixed with such solid food as may be given
to them. The mixture is effected in large wooden
vessels, from which the food is conveyed to the
piggeries.

" Not far from the piggeries are several work-
shops for operations connected ^^^th the establish-
ment. One is a wheelwright's shop, for repairing
the numerous carts and vehicles employed ; a se-
cond is a smith's shop, for the repair and adjust-
ment of iron-work ; a third is a shoeing-shop, for
shoeing oxen emplo3'ed in tlie team.

" For the better understanding the use of many
parts of tliis establishment, it maj' be desirable to
observe, that the proprietor, Mr. Flight (Mr. Lay-
cock has been dead several years), is a cow-farmer
as well as a cow-keeper ; that is, he not only keeps
the cows for the sake of their milk, but grows the
food on which they are, in a great measure, fed.
He possesses two or three very extensive farms, at
some distance from London, where the hay, tur-
nips, mangel-wurzel, and other articles of cattle-
food, are grown in sufficient abundance for the
wants of the dairy. This extensive plan of opera-
tions is productive of much advantage ; for while,
on the one hand, the farms supply food to the dairy,
the dairy supphes manure to the farms. The
farm implements, too, can be repaired at the
workshops connected with the dairy ; and the oxen
employed in teams, at the farms, are shod by the
proprietor's own men. For these, and various other
reasons, a constant intercoui'se is maintained be-
tween the dairy and the farms, one of which is at
Enfield.

" Near the buildings just spoken of there is a
tank for kyanizing wood intended for palings,
stakes, posts, gates, &c. ; and adjacent to tliis is a
kitchen-garden. From this point, extending to
the boundary of the premises on the west, are the

buildings called cattle-layers, unconnected with
the dairy or milk-department of the establish-
ment, but devoted to the reception of cattle for a
few hours previous to their arrival at Smithfield
market. The layers are veiy extensive sheds,
bounded by walls at the back and ends, roofed
with tiles, supported by pillars, some iron and
some wood, and open in front. A rack runs along
the back of each shed, in which the food for tbe
cattle is placed. Tanks of -nater, supplied by pipes
and cocks from three or four pumps, placed in
diff'erent parts of the premises, are conveniently
placed for affording drink for the cattle. The
ground is covered with clean straw ; and the cattle,
during the short time they are kept here, have
considerable space of open ground in which to
roam about, gates being placed at the diff'erent
openings to prevent the cattle in one layer from
mingling with those in another. The number of
cattle which could be contained in these layers
would amount to several thousands ; but nearly
two thousand can be properly and conveniently
received at one time.

" When we turn from Upper Street, Islington,
into what is called the Livei-pool Road, and pro-
ceed onwards for a considerable distance, we come
to the western botmdary of Laycock's establish-
ment ; and within this boundaiy is the principal
part of the cattle-layers. In order to keep this
part of the establishment distinct from the dairy,
the cattle enter and leave the layers by a gate, in
the Liverpool Road, far distant from the dairy-
entrance in the Islington Road. Northward of the
cattle-layers is a tract of ground occupied by sheep-
pens, in which five thousand sheep, on their way
to Smithfield, may be received.

" Returning thence to the dauy-entrance we
pass a plot of ground in which are four very large
grain-pits. One of the most important articles of
food for the cows, in the large London dairies, is
the grains or spirit-malt resulting from the process
of brewing. The proprietor of this establishment
contracts with one of the great porter-breweries
for the purchase of the refuse gi-ains ; and these
grains brought from the breweiy, in wagons be-
longing to the cowkeeper, are deposited in large
brick-built pits ; or, rather, a portion of the supply
is thus deposited to equalize the stock on hand,
because they are procurable in greater quantities
from the brewers in spring and autumn, than in
the other seasons. The grains are firmly trodden
down in the pits, and covered with a thick layer
of moist earth, to keep out the rain and frost in
winter, and the heat m summer. JMr. Youatt,
speaking of the general custom of the London
dairies, mth respect to this article of food, says,
' A cow consumes about a bushel of these grains
daily, the cost of which is from fourpence to five-
pence, exclusive of carriage and presenation. The

grains are, if possible, thrown into the pit while
wami, aud iu a state of fermentatiou, and they
soon turn sour : but they ai-e not liked by cattle
the worse on that account ; and the air, being per-
fectly excluded, the fermentation cannot run on to
puti'efaction. The dair^iuen say that the slow and
slight degree of fermentation, which goes on, tends
to the greater development of the saccharine and
nutritive principle ; and they will have on hand
as large a stock as they can afford, and not open
the pits till they are compelled. It is not uncom-
mon for two years to pass before a pit of grains is
touched ; and it is said that some have lain nine
years, and been perfectly good at the expiration
of that period.'

" Between the grain-beds and the milking-
sheds are various buildings devoted to different
purposes. One is a mill-room, for grinding aud
ci-ushiug the dry food occasionally given to the
cows, such as beans, &c. The mills and crushing-
machines ai'e worked b}' a horse, who tramps his
never-ending circular path in a room beneath.
Other buildings are employed as granaries, aud as
receptacles for the food eaten by the cows. When
turnips or mangel-wurzel are at the proper sea-
son to be used as food, each cow will eat half a
himdi-ed weight per day, besides a bushel of grains
aud a small quantity of other food ; so that the
quantity required, by the whole dairy, amounts to
several tons weight per day.

" Another chister of buildings is appropriated
as an hosjjital. Among several hundred cows it
cannot but happen that some will be occasionally
on the sick list ; aud for their accommodation
about a dozeu neatly-eonstnicted stalls or boxes — ■
we certainly must not call them sheds — are set
apart. Each stall is fitted up as comfortably as
possible for the invalid ; and the uecessarj' tackle
is at hand for securing the animal when any opera-
tion is to be performed. A veterinaiy surgeon is
attached to the establishment, under whom is
placed, not only the management of the cows in
the hospital, but the general cai-e and health of all
those belonging to the dairy. The average value
of a cow is, we believe, about twenty pounds ; so
that the whole constitute a property well worthy
of careful supervision.

" Besides tlie six milking-sheds before alluded
to, there are two or three others, situated not far
distant, aud under different roofs. These are, to
a greater or less extent occupied, according to the
number of the cows in the dairy, which varies at
different seasons. One shed, more lofty than the
rest, is devoted to the reception of those cows who
are no longer being milked, but are under process
of fattening for the London market. This is a
very remarkable feature in these estabUshmeuts ;
instead of keeping a cow as long as milk may be
di-awn from her, there is a minunum of supply,

below which tlie cow is not deemed to yield what
is required of her. The cows are thus very fre-
quently changed ; tliey are bought for the daily
when they are in good milldng condition, milked for
a certain length of time, taken to the fattening-shed
while comparatively yomig, and sold in Smithfleld
at a price which renders this plan more profitable
than the retention of a milch cow till she is old.
Considerable diversity of system prevails in this
respect; for it is not until experiments on a large
scale can be made, that the most profitable ma-
nagement of a cow can be determined. The
expense of purchasing the cow, of feeding her
during her continuance in the dairy, and of fat-
tening her for market, as well as the produce of
the dairy and of tlie fattened cow, all vary with
the circumstances under which the cowkeeper con-
ducts his establishment, aud with the locality in
which he is situated; and these diversities give
rise to the different systems observed in diflerent
dairies. When it is determined to fatten a cow
for market, she is fed on grains, clover, chaff, oil-
cake, and, in some instances, boiled linseed. Oil-
cake is the residue obtained after expressing the oil
from rape and linseed ; it is, in fact, the seed after
the greater portion of the oil has been removed
from it, and has been found to possess a remai'kable
fattening quality, when given to cows."

We may here add, that each cow is allowed a
portion of salt, given either with the grains, or
mingled witJi the hay when it is made up into
ricks, a jilan which not only secures it from be-
coming mouldy, but renders it more grateful and
nutritious to the cattle. It should never be for-
gotten, that salt is essential to the health of
cattle. Wild cattle regularly visit the salt-licks in
North America ; and in South America the herds
absolutely require to have the harrero, — for so is
called a saline or nitrous earth, which the herds of
horned and other cattle seek with avidity, aud with-
out which they fail, and die in the course of four
months. From the twenty-seventh degree of south
latitude to the Malovine Islands, the horned cattle,
as well as other animals, have no need of the har-
rero, because the waters and the pasture grounds
are sufficiently salt; but northward beyond this lati-
tude the harrero is necessary ; and the plains which
do not contain it do not feed either the horee,
the ass, the mule, the ox, the goat, or the sheep.
Such is Azara's statement, and we believe it to be
generally correct.

To return to Laycock's daily: — " It mil
be seen from the above description, that the
establishment embraces several different depart-
ments, but the most prominent of these is
that by which families are supplied with milk.
Milk is one of the few articles of consumption
which is almost invariably taken to the customer,
and not sent for by the customer to the sellers ;

ta !«»<'

o-?

and the retail sellers, with their brightly polished
cans, decked round the edge with a whole regi-
ment of little cans and measures, are welcome
contributors to the breakfast-table. It has been
recently obsei"ved, " the cry of ' Milk ! ' or the
rattle of the milk-pail, will never cease to be
heard in our streets. There can be no reservoirs
of milk, no pipes tlirough which it flows into the
houses. The more extensive the great capital be-
comes, the more active must be the individual to
carry about this article of food. The old ciy was,
'Any milk here?' and it was sometimes mingled
■with the soimd of ' Fresh cheese and cream 1 ' It
then passed into, ' Milk ! maids below ! ' which
was finally shortened into ' Mio ! ' which some wag
interpreted into, ' Mi-eau' {demi-eau), half water.
But it must still be cried, whatever be the cry.
The supply of milk to the metropolis is, perhaps,
one of the most beautiful combinations of industry
we have. The days are long since past when
Finsbury had its pleasant groves, and Clerkenwell
was a village, and there were green pastures in
Holbom, and St. Pancras boasted only a little
church standing in meadows, and St. Martin's was
literally ' in the fields.' Slowly, but surely, does
the baked clay stride over the clover and the but-
tercup ; and yet eveiy family in London may be
supplied with milk by eight o'clock eveiy morning
at their owti doors." (" London," No. VIII, " Street
Noises," p. 137.) These itinerant milk dealers,
as already stated, are of two classes, viz., those
who keep cows and retail the produce, and those
who purchase milk from the large dairies, such as
Laycock's. In this latter mode of dealing, the
purchaser agrees to give so much per gallon, and
to milk the cows necessary to produce the required
quantity. The milkers, therefore, whom we see
at the daily are not, generally speaking, attached
to the establishment, but are either the purchasers
of the milk, or are sent by the purchasers. As
the cows do not always yield an equal quantity of
milk, the milkers may sometimes take more, at
other times less, than the stipulated quantity ; and,
in order to adjust the quantity, each milker takes
the milk which she has dra^vn to the " measuring
room," where it is measured. If the quantity be
more than agreed on, a portion is emptied into a
store vessel in the measuring room ; whereas, if it
be less, the requisite quantity is added from the
store vessel. A clerk and dairy-woman are in
attendance to superintend these arrangements.
The morning's milking commences at three o'clock,
and in an hour, or an hour and a half, the whole pro-
cess is finished, the number of milkmaids (mostly
Welsh) bearing some convenient proportion to that
of the cows. The scene is interesting, and even
picturesque. The second milking commences at
about twelve o'clock, and is carried on in the same
orderly way. Of tlie large quantity of milk thus

obtained, the greater portion leaves the dairy
within an hour, and is soon afterwards cried in the
streets, or at the doors of the retailer's customers.

After the milking is concluded, the sheds are
cleaned with great care, and the cows supplied
with food, and otherwise treated according to the
season.

" It has been estimated that about twelve
thousand cows are necessary for the supply of
London and its environs vn\h milk, and that,
taking the average quantity yielded by each cow
throughout the year at nine quarts per day, the
total quantity is about forty million quarts per
annum. Considering that this milk is usually sold
by the retail dealers at four pence per quart, after
much of the cream is removed from it, that this
cream is sold at three shillings per quart, and that
a good deal of water is mi.xed with the milk by
some retailers, it has been calculated that at least
sixpence per quart is paid by the consumer for the
real pure milk. This gives, fotJiie value of the
milk consumed in the metropolis, an annual sum
very little short of one million sterling. Since,
from various causes, the daily' supply of milk at
the great dairies is liable to fluctuation, while, at
the same time, it is necessary that the supply should
not be lower than the demand, it follows, that
there is often a superfluous quantity of milk after
all the dealers are supplied. To turn this milk to
a profitable account, a dairy, or butter room, is at-
tached to the establishment. At Laycock's, this
room is near to the measuring room ; it is fitted
up with the various vessels and implements for
making butter; all, as may be supposed, scrupu-
lously clean. The higher families in London use
a great deal of cream, instead of mUk: and large
shallow vessels are also kept in this room for
forming cream from the milk. The quantity of
butter made here ^vithin a given time varies with
the fluctuation in the supply of milk ; but a ready
market is found for all of it. The butter-milk
and skim-milk ai'e profitably employed as food for
s-svine in the piggeries ; so that the whole produce
is brought into requisition.

" The greater part of the observations made
respecting Laycock's dairy, may, with a little modi-
fication, be applied to another large and well-
knomi establishment, at Islington; viz., that of
the Messrs. Rhodes. Here, as at the other, several
hundi'ed cows are kept, principally for the supply
of retail dealers. The supei-fluous mUk is skimmed
for cream, or is made into butter; and the cows,
when diy, are fattened for the market. There
are slight dilferences in the daily management,
according to the ^dew which each proprietor may
take of his own interest, — such as the arrange-
ment and fitting up of the cow-sheds, the mode of
supplying water, the degree of liberty of move-
ment given to the cows between the hom-s of milk-

ing, and the general system of feeding; but the
main featui'es of the establishments bear a good
deal of resemblance."

In Messrs. Rhodes's establishment, for example,
the cows are never untied while they are retained
as milkers; some have stood in the stall for more
than two years ; they have water standing in cis-
terns before them, and these cisterns have each a
wooden cover, which is put on while the cows are
eating theii' grains, in order to prevent their drink-
ing at that time, and tainting the water by drop-
ping any of the grains into it. On the contraiy,
at Laycock's dairy, the cows are turned out once
every day to drink from troughs in the yard ; and
they remain out from half an hour to three hours,
depending on the weather and the season of the
year. Moreover, from the end of June imtil
Michaelmas, they are turned into fields or en-
closures, from six in the morning until twelve or
one ; and again from two o'clock in the afternoon
to about three o'clock the following morning, when
they are stalled for milking. On these two sys-
tems, Mr. Youatt obsei-ves, " We can readily con-
ceive that, from the want of exercise and conse-
quent cutaneous perspiration, Ehodes' cows may
give a somewhat greater quantity of milk than
Laycock's ; but, on the other hand, when we think
of an animal tied in the corner of a stall for
twelve, or eighteen, or twenty-four months together,
we cannot help associating the idea of disease, or
a tendency to disease at least, with such an un-
natural state of things ; the feet and the digestive
system would particularly suffer, and we should
suspect a little vitiation of all the secretions, and
some deterioration in the quality of the milk. We
should like to know the comparative state of the
health of the animals in the two establishments.
The inclination of our opinion would be strongly
in favom' of Laycock's plan."

During the "joint-stock" mania, which pro-
mised to supply the public with eveiy thing thi-ough
the medium of " companies," the article of milk
was not overlooked. A large " Metropolitan Dairy "
was established ; but it utterly failed as a specula-
tion, and passed into private hands. The same
may be said of the " Caledonian Joint-Stock
Dairy," at Edinburgh. This was a noble building :
from an entrance saloon, the visitor passed into the
great byre, or cow-house, divided by cast-iron pil-
lars and partitions into stalls for two hundred cows.
The byre was thirty feet high, and from its centre
rose a large dome, for the purpose of light and
ventilation. The drinking- troughs were of stone,
and supplied with water by pipes. Beneath the
byre was a range of arched vaults for the reception
of the litter and refuse. This establishment came
ultimately into private hands. The fact is, that,
to conduct a lai'ge dairy establishment, knowledge
and experience are required; and one uncontrolled

proprietor can work out plans, the importance of
which he understands, in which, were he acting
under a committee, he might be thwarted; be-
sides, acting for himself, and responsible to no
one, he acts decidedly and interestedly.

In all dairy establishments, ventilation and
cleanliness are indispensable; and if butter is
made, the daii-y proper, or butter-room, should be
as near the cow-house as possible, as the milk suf-
fers more or less considerably from being agitated,
or too much cooled, before it is set for the cream
to rise. The milk should be brought from the
cows, without bemg exposed to the outer air, before
it is set to cream ; which should be in vessels ar-
ranged on a stone slab, below the level of the
ground ; the apartment being sunk to the depth
of three or four feet, and kept perfectly dry. The
air may be admitted through perforated zinc plates,
or woven-wire windows, placed opposite to each
other, having shutters which may be opened or
closed according to the temperature and state of
the weather. Glazed windows may be added, and
should be open, excepting in veiy hot or very cold
weather. 'The situation should be diy, and well
shielded from the north, east, and south.

Dairies m natural or artificial caves, which
occur in some countries, with springs of water at
hand, are admirable for coolness and uniformity
of temperature ; but in England we must not
look for such advantages ; nor are they needed.
A verandah round a dairy is veiy useful ; it shades
the sun in summer, and is a protection against the
cold and damp in winter. There should be a
washhouse, with every convenience for hot water,
for scalding the dairy utensils, and for warming
milk ; and if cheese be made as well as butter, a
chuming-room, with presses, and a cheese-room
are also needed.

" In Switzerland and in Holland the cow-
house and dairy often have a veiy neat appearance,
within a short distance from the principal resi-
dence. The plan in both countries is very similar ;
the style of the roof is the chief difference. In the
common daiiy-farms of Holland the farmer
and his family live under the same roof with the
cows. In the Netherlands, especially in North
Holland, or Friesland, a cow-house is as clean as
any dwelling-house, and the family often assemble
and take their meals in it. The following descrip-
tion of a cow-house and dairy, under one roof,
combines all that is useful, with considerable neat-
ness internally and externally : — " It is a building
about sixty feet long, by thirty wide, with a veran-
dah running round three sides of it. The dwelling
is not here attached as it usually is in common
(Dutch) dairies, and the building is not suiTounded
by a fai-m-yard. These are the only circumstances
in which it differs from that of a common peasant's.
The daiiy-room is sunk below the level of the

suil, and is paved with bricks ; the sides are
covered with Dutch tiles, and the arched roof with
hard cement. The cow-house, like all in Holland,
has a broad passage in the middle-, and the cows
stand with their heads towards this passage, which
is paved with clinkers, or bWcka, set on edge.
Their tails are towards the- wall, along which runs
a broad gutter, sunk sLx or eight inches beloW the
level of tlie place on which the oows stand. This
gutter slopes towards a sink co-vered with an iron
grate, wliich communicates, by a broad arched
drain, with a vaulted tank, into which all the liquid
flows. The gutter is washed twice a day bei'oi-e
the cows are milked. The cows stand or lie on
a sloping brick floor, and have but a small quantity
of litter allowed them, which is removed every
day, and carried to the dung-heap,- or the pigsties,
to be more fidly converted into manure. Wlien
the litter is removed, the bricks are swept clean,
and in summer they are washed with water. In
Holland the cows' tails are kept up by a cord tied
to the end of them, wliich passes over a puUy with
a weight at the other end, as we see (used to see)
practised -with horses that have been nicked ; thus
they carmot hit themselves or the person who
milks them. (We do not see any thing in this
practice veiy commendable.) The manner in which
the cows are fastened is worthy of notice : — Two
slight pillars of strong wood are placed perpendi-
culaidy, about two feet distant from each other, so
that the cow can readily pass her head between
them ; on each of these is an iron ring, that runs
freely up and down, and has a hook in its circum-
ference ; two small chains pass from these hooks
to a leathern strap which buckles round the neck of
the cow. Thus the cow can rise and lie down,
and move forward to take her food, which is placed
in a low manger between the two pillars ; but she
cannot strike her neighboiu- with her horns. The
mangers, or troughs, are of wood, or of bricks ce-
mented together, and are kept as clean as all the
rest of the cow-house." The food is brought in
carts, which are driven at once between the cows,
whose mangers are thus conveniently supplied ;
what is not wanted is stored above, and when
wanted is readily thrown down before the cows.
By this plan mnch trouble is saved, and one man
can attend to many animals. From November
till May the cows never leave the cow-house. In
summer, when they are out, if they are in adjacent
pastui'es, they are diiven home to be milked ; but
if the pastures are far off, which is sometimes the
case, they are milked there, and the millt is
brought home in boats : but this is not thought so
good for the butter, which is then always churned
from the u-lwle milk, without taking the cream
rise. The finest and best-flavoured butter is
always made from the cream as fresh as possible ;
and to make it rise well the milk should be set as

soon as it is drawn, and agitated as little as pos-
sible. The greatest quantity is seldom obtained
when the quality is the finest. When great atten-
tion is paid to the quality, the milk is skimmed
about six hours after it is set, and the cream then
taken off' is churned by itself. The next skim-
ming makes inferior butter. It is, in fact, essen-
tial that the dairy should be as near the cow-house
as possible. In Holland the milk is carried in
brass vessels, exquisitely clean.

The Subjoined plans will convey a clear idea
of the Dutch cow-house and daily, above described.

GROUND PLAX.

AAA, passage through the cow-house and
dairy, ten feet wide, paved with bricks, set on edge,
or Dutch clinkers. Tlie food is brought along this
jiassage in a small cart, and distributed to the
cows. B, part of the passage above mentioned,
closed in with doors, and forming a vestibule to
the daily, c, tlie dairy-room, in which only milk,
cream, and butter are kept ; it is smik three feet
under the level of the cow-house, and covei-ed with
a brick arch ; it has one latticed >vindow, and
several ventilators, on a level with the place on
which the milk vessels are set. d, the room where
the uteusOs are scalded, and where cheese is
made ; in one comer is a fireplace, with a large
kettle or a copper set. e, stairs to go up to the
cheese-room m, and the loft N. f, calf-pens, in
which the calves are tied up to fatten, so that they
cannot turn to lick themselves ; there is a small
trough with pounded chalk and salt in each pen.
G, the place for the cows, without partitions, each
cow being tied to two posts by two small chains
and two iron rings which run on the posts ; the
chains are fastened to abroad leathern strap, which
is buckled round the neck of each cow. h h, two
sinks, or drains, with iron gratings over them, to
catch the fluid refuse from the gutters i i, which
run along each side of the cow-house, k, the tank
for the refuse, vaulted over, ^vith a door, i,, to clean
it out, and a pump to pump up the liquid manure.
0 0, in 'this section are places where the green
food or roots are deposited for the day's con-
sumption.

With respect to the fluid manure, of which
the Dutch and Flemish are socareful, it is generally
wasted by the dairy-farmers of England. Yet, as
a manure for gardens, &c., it is very valuable ; and
in Belgium would return, by contract, an average
of £'2 per cow by the year; four hundred cows
woidd thus produce £800 per annum in this
manm'e alone ; good interest for the outlay of
constructing the vaulted tanks for its reception.

Such is the general outline of the plan of stall-
feeding milch cows. The system may be carried on
by the cottager with a small plot of ground and one
cow ; and it is so, more or less thoroughly, by the
large daii^jTuen, who supply London and other popu-
lous townis or cities with milk ; as well as by the far-
mers of Holland and Belgium where farms are
small, where great attention is paid to agriculture,
and where manm'e is extremely valuable. In Eng-
land, however, within the last few years, compara-
tively speaking, the system of stall-feeding has been
adapted to the process of fattening cattle, which
goes on without interniption throughout the win-
ter as well as the summer, so that fat beasts, even
the most highly fatted, grace the markets at
Christmas, and attract a crowd around the butcher's
decorated shop. Generally speaking, the practice
of stalling milch cattle is Uttle practised in our

island, or only partially, and at certain seasons of
the year ; but the practice of stall-feeding oxen for
the butcher is extensively oaiTied on, and the stall
fed ox is now an expression familiar to our ears,
and well understood ; whereas, in fonner times,
vaunted as " the roast beef of England " may be,
all the beasts killed in the dead winter months
were miserably thin ; and salt beef was the or-
dinaiy fare, even of the most opulent, from No-
vember to May.

We have explained the management of the
mUch cattle in Laycock's and Rhodes's dairies, and,
as a parallel to the picture^ we may describe the
general plan followed by some of the great distil-
lers and brewers about London, with respect to
stall-feeding oxen for the markets. We may take,
as an example. Booth's extensive distillery at
Brentford, where many hundred oxen are annually
fattened, while the utmost order, cleanliness, and
regularity prevail.

The building for this purpose, attached to the
distillery, is 210 feet long, and 180 feet wide;
the side walls are about 10 feet in height ;
there are twenty windows on each side, and eight
at each end ; these are not glazed, but can be
closed up or set open at pleasure; in the roof,
however, there are glazed skylights, so that were
every window closed the place would be amply
lighted. Beneath the roof, which forms one ridge,
is an ample hayloft, supported by numerous cast-
iron and wooden pillars; while around the whole
building a passage six feet in width is carried, and
a similar passage runs between eveiy two rows of
oxen. The wliole building will contain three hun-
dred and twenty-three oxen ; but it must not be
supposed that the stalls are always filled ; the
stalls are double, about seven feet and a half wide,
and ten feet in depth, from the manger to the
drain or gutter behind the cattle. The gutters ai'e
all inclined, so as readily to throw the contents
into the larger drains into which they merge. The
mangers extend along the whole length of each
row of cattle; these are for the wash, or fluid food;
but each ox has, besides, a distinct manger, into
which the grains, and other solid food, are put,
when these are not mixed with the wash, or the
refuse of fermented liquor.

This wash is kept in a large elevated tank, in
a different part of the premises : from this tank
pipes convey the contents to the long mangers;
that which supplies each having its own tap, so
that any single range may be filled irrespective of
the others. The wash thus stored up is very nu-
tritious, as it contains the finer particles of the
ground malt, and the greater portion of the barley-
meal, used in the mashing-process. The gi-ains
are preserved in pits, lined with brick set in ce-
ment : they are trodden down, and covered with
earth or road-stuff, in order to exclude the air and

keep them of a unifoitii temperature. Each pit
is about twelve feet square and twelve in depth.

With respect to the treatment of these oxen
in their stalls, their food is given in definite
quantities, as ascertained by experience ; no green,
succulent food, so essential to milch cows, is given,
nor any hay uncut ; but little oilcake is used, for
it is found that rorigh clover chaff, mixed with the
wash, will fatten with considerable expedition, and
that, to any extent. Litter is very sparingly used,
but gi'eat attention is paid to cleanliness.

Mr. Youatt calculates, that 6,000 or 7,000 head
of cattle are thus fattened in and about London,
within the precincts of various brewers' and distil-
lers' establishments.

That the practice of stall-feeding, under the
circumstances above detailed, is very judicious and
economical, cannot be doubted ; but whether under
very different circumstances it is so, admits of
inquiry.

When cattle feed in enclosed and rich pastui'es,
though they may thrive well, yet there is a tho-
rough waste of their manure, and more grass land
must be preserved untouched by the plough, than
otherwise need be. An advocate for stalling says,
" their dung falling in heaps on the grass, does
more harm than good. The urine, indeed, ferti-
lizes the soil, in wet weather, when it is diluted ;
but in diy weather, it only bums up the grass. If
we calcidate what would be the amount of manure
collected, if the cattle were kept in yards or sta-
bles, and fed with food cut for them, and brought
there, and also the loss of grass by treading in the
pastures, we shall have no doubt, whether the ad-
ditional labour of cutting the grass and bringing it
home daUy, is not amply repaid by the saving.
But if we also take into the account the variety of
artificial grasses, pulse, and roots, which may be
grown with advantage on land unfit for peiTnanent
grass, and the quantity of arable land which may
thus, be kept in the highest state of cultivatiim, we
shall be convinced that the practice of these coun-
tries where the cattle are kept constantly at home,
is well worthy of imitation. It maj' be of use to the
health of the animals to be allowed to take a few
hoiu's' air and exercise, in a pasture near the sta-
ble ; but there is no advantage in having any
grass-crop there ; on the contrary', the barer of
grass the crop is, the better. They will relish
their food better when they are taken in, after a
few hours' fasting. A bite of fresh short grass
might, on the contrary, give them a dislike to their
staler food, '\^^len cut grass is given to the cattle
in then- stalls, it is best to let it lie in a heap for
twelve hours at least, before it is given them It
heats slightly, and the peculiar odour of some plants
which oxen and cows are not fond of, being mixed
with that of the more fragrant, the whole is eaten
without waste. Experience has shown that many

plants which cattle refuse in the field, where they
have a choice, possess nutritious qualities when
eaten mixed with others in the form of hay.
There are few deleterious plants in good grass
land or water meadows, and these are readily
distinguished and weeded out. The quantity and
the quality of the dung of cattle stalled and well
fed is so remarkable, that its value makes a con-
siderable deduction from that of the food given ;
especially of green food, such as clover, lucern,
tares, and every kind of leguminous plant : we
shall not be far wrong if we set it at one-fourth.
This supposes a sufficient quantity of straw for
litter, and a collection of the liquid parts, in pro-
per reservoirs or tanks. In order to make the
feeding of cattle advantageous, the buildings must
be conveniently placed, with respect to the fields
from which the food can be brought. Moveable
sheds with temporary yards, which can be erected
in different parts of a large farm, according as dif-
ferent fields are in gi-ass or roots, are a great sa\'ing
of carriage, both in the bringing food to the cattle
and carrying the dung on the land. A clay bottom
should be selected, in a diy and rather high spot
if possible. But if permanent buildings for cat-
tle, constructed of rough materials and thatched
with straw, were erected in the centre of about
forty acres of arable land, in different parts of a
large farm, it would probably be a great saving in
the end," A due supply of water, and of rock
salt to lick, are very essential, and a free use of
the currycomb or rough straw-whisp, is advan-
tageous both in point of cleanliness and health.

On the other hand it must be confessed that
on large farms the system of soiling or stalling
cattle is very expensive, and the more so in pro-
jiortion to the extent of the farm ; the labour of
bringiug'in the cut food is greatly increased, and
the time of the men is we may say almost wasted,
in consequence of the distance of the fields in
which the green fodder is grown. In fact, there
is an expenditure of tlie time both of men and
horses, day after day, to which most farmers would
decidedly object. It is true that many straw-yards
and cattle-sheds might be conveniently scattered
over a large farm ; but to this plan tliere are seve-
ral objections ; they cannot lie all equ.ally under
the eye of the farmer ; they involve in their con-
struction, considerable outlay, and even then, un-
less at great expense, must be destitute of tanks
for the fluid manm'e : tlie plan involves the ne-
cessity of keeping more men and horses or labour-
ing steers, than would othenrise be necessary, and
consequently of more carts, barrows, and similar
implements, items which tell when a fanner ba-
lances his accounts. Balancing these expenses
against the manure retmiied. and the greater ex-
tent of crops (be they what they may, as wheat,
beans, or auj' of the artificial grasses) wliich he

can raise for profit in the market, an agricultu-
ralist may soon decide as to whetlier on his farm,
the plan is ad\'isable or the contrary. We should
say that if he has the facility of purchasing manure
in large towns, at a moderate price, and at times
when men, horses, and carts can he most conveni-
entlj' spared, he -nill not find the system of soiling
the most profitable. We are not now alluding to
the plan of keepuig cattle dm-ing the mnter in
straw-yards and sheds, or cow-houses, when they
require both shelter and a supply of food, which
the grazing land cannot yield ; nor to the stalling
of oxen for high feeding, and cousequentlj', for
sale at high prices ; nor to the cottager's plan of
soiling his cow on the produce of less than a
single acre ; but to the plan of soiling throughout
the year a great number of cattle on a fann of
great extent. Tlie advantages of this system
must then be determined by the nature of the
soil and its products, the views and designs of the
cultivator, and the facilities he has of purchasing
manure. Some manure he will have on his own
faiTu ; he must stable his workmg horses or oxen,
and a great proportion of their food will be lucem,
tares, clover, &c. Here, then, in manure, he will
have some return ; hut the experiment, on a large
scale, ma}' not bear a proportionate degree of ad-
vantage. In Holland, Flanders, and otlier coun-
tries, from the size and produce of the farms,
soiling becomes more or less a matter of necessity.
In England it has not yet been adopted as a ge-
neral farming system ; but who can prophecy what
it may be ? In no country are the climate and
soil more fitted for producing a succession of green
crops and nutritious roots than in England and
Ireland ; and the small dairy-faraier would, in
most cases, find soiling his most economical plan,
both as regards his land and his cattle. Let him
sow rye and winter barley eaiiy in autumn, so as
to come in for cutting when spring is tolerably
advanced : some sown later, with winter tares and
the young clover which has not been cropped in
autumn, will succeed. Then come the artificial
grasses, so-\vn at proper inteiTals, clover and spring
tares, lucem, and sainfoin. Mangel-wurzel, or
heet, turnips, swedes, potatoes, straw-chaflf, hay,
,&c., serve for winter provender. On this plan
■he may keep more cows than he otherwise could
do; and also two or four oxen (saleable at an im-
proved price in a few years) to perform the ordi-
uaiy labours of the fann.

But. fls we have said, stall-feeding is now
practised with a \iew more particularly to the
rapid and heavy fattening of beasts for the mar-
ket, We have alluded to the system pursued by
the great brewers and distillers about London ;
here, however, it is to the opulent feeders and
breeders, the o^vners of large estates, or extensive
graziers, that we now refer, — to those who send

their prize-cattle to the different exhibitions in
which the testimonial of merit is awarded to each
candidate, in degree, by the most competent judges.
We must not suppose that it is at Christmas only
the results of their skill are to be seen. We are,
at that time (in and about the metropolis) gratified
witli proofs of what can be done, and of the high
pitch to which they have brought the feeding qua-
lities of their oxen, and of Ihe excellence of their
plan of fattening ; but other cattle, finely fed, yet
not prize cattle, leave their stalls, during the course
of the autumn and winter, for the London market,
a market in which cattle of all grades and breeds,
from the stalled Dm-ham ox to the lean Irish cow,
meet as on common ground.

In stall-feeding for the market, without judg-
ment, experience, and attention, there will be a
loss, not a profit, on the part of the feeder ; and
this mainly depends upon the proportion of the
food to the health}' digestion of the animal, and its
according increase in weight. Too much as well
as too little food may be given ; and, moreover,
the property of that food has to be taken into con-
sideration ; for a truss of well-made clover, or sain-
foin hay, will contain far more nutriment than the
same weight of hay of inferior quality, and which,
in the end, will be found the most expensive.

If an animal be underfed, though it may con-
tinue in health, and even keep up its flesh, it will
not fatten ; on the contrai-y, if more than what the
digestive organs can fairly manage be given (and
an animal may be induced to take it), derangement
of health may be anticipated. Yet the food should
be ample ; that is, its quantity should be such as
shall be proved by experiment to produce the
greatest progressive increase of flesh : this point
being ascertained, the food should be carefully
weighed, and no more given daily than what is
needful.

A well-regulated mixture, or alternation of diet,
is also essential. An ox will not fatten kindly on
one article of food, however excellent it may be in
quality, or well adjusted as to quantity : the food
should be given, moreover, at definite intervals,
with strict punctuality. A little gentle exercise
daily, in a yard or bare paddock, is veiy useful:
it improves the appetite and tone of the digestive
organs ; it renders sleep more refreshing ; and the
invigorating Untainted air, acting through the me-
dium of the lungs, gives a renewed imjietus to the
circulation. It is useless to say that exposure to
cold winds and driring sleets should be guarded
against ; for every one must be aware that a stall-
fed beast is not fitted for sudden exposure to incle-
ment weather.

Green succulent fodder, excepting occasionally
and in limited quantities, is seldom given : sac-
charine roots are more largely used, but they are
not given alone, being too watery, although they

are excellent when mixed with dry food, such as
cut straw, cut hay, and clover, lucern, or sainfoin
hay ; to these are usually added oilcake, and even
com ground or bruised, such as barley, of which
the nutritive qualities are very great.

In this mode of fattening cattle, double stalls
are the best ; for experience proves that all our
domestic animals are more quiet and happy when
they have a companion of their own species than
when solitary. Of all our domestic animals the cat
only is not gregarious by nature ; the dog, the
Horse, the ass, the sheep, the goat, and the ox are
eminently gregarious ; nor can we interfere vnth
this innate disjjosition to associate with their fel-
lows without producing restlessness. The dog,
though he makes his master liis friend, pays his
compliments to his fellow -dogs as he rambles
abroad ; the solitary horse in his paddock stretches
his neck over the hedge or palings to greet his
fellows on the road, and hails with joy the arrival
of a companion ; in the stable, if he have no other
friend, he will form an association with the dog or
the cat, or any living thing which has a fellow-
feeling with him. It is from the impulse of this
deeply-rooted instinct that sheep follow their leader,
and leap the wall after him in succession. So
with regard to the ox : essentially gregarious by
nature, the impulse, like that of a migratory bird
for departing at the appointed season, is dominant,
and ought not, imder good management, to be
checked. The indulgence is to the benefit of the
feeder ; for the beast, contented with its com-
panion, is neither fretful nor melancholy, and
therefore feeds cheerfully and heajtUy, ignorant
of its destiny.

There is a point at which a beast, already fat,
ceases to pay, by liis increase, for food and attend-
ance ; the animal ought then to be sold, and another
should be put into his place. But what indicates
this point? This, — viz., the trifling increase of
weight made weekly in comparison with the amount
of food consumed, on which food a lean beast

Mr. Youatt says, a little before Christmas the fat
beasts, to supply beef of unusual quality, come in.
" They are sent from every part ; from Norfolk
and Lincoln, Leicestershire and Northampton,
Sussex, the western and midland counties, and
from the stall-yards more in the neighbourhood of
the metropolis. Christmas having passed, the
Norfolk cattle, comprising all sorts, but amonc
them home-breds and Galloways, throng to tlie
market ; and their numbers, compared with those
of other districts, increase as the spring advances."
From calculation of the respective numbers
from the different districts, at different seasons of
the year, the same writer has ascertained, that, " on
the average, in February, March, and AprU, there
is an arrival of 16,000 Noifolks, nearly all staU-
fed cattle ; while, from the north, including chiefly
Leicester and Northampton, there come but 000.
In May, June, and July, he fomid the Norfolk
cattle to increase to 17,800, and those from the
north to rise from 600 to 3,675. In Jul}', August,
and September, the grass-fed cattle begin to pour in.
The earliest are from the marshes of Essex ; and
therefore the beasts from the centre and midland
districts rise to 5,350, while those from Norfolk
strangely decrease to 580. Some Leicesters, how-
ever, soon become ripe, and quickly follow ; long
droves from Northamptonshire and Lincoln are
not far bellind ; and the northern cattle, iu the
preceding quarter 4,675, rise to 16,340. In Octo-
ber, November, and the early part of December,
the grass-fed beasts still continue to occupy the
market, and no less than 33,000 have been found
to arrive from Leicester, Northamptonshire, etc.;
while the supplies from the marshes and the mid-
land counties still partially keep up, and may be
estimated at 6,400, besides 2,380 Norfolks. The
grass-season is now past, and dependence begins
to be placed on stall-feeding ; and therefore, as
obsen'ed, the northern cattle suddenly fall to 600,
and the Norfolks rise to 16,000."

This statement does not talse into account the

would thrive very rapidly. This point attained, carcasses sent by railway to wholesale carcass-

there is a loss in keeping the animal ; with this
loss, and that not of small amount, the feeder
must be content who fattens an animal to an extra-
ordinary degree of ripeness for competition at one
of the exhibitions. He must, in fact, pay for his
triumph ; nor is he to be condemned for showing
to what a pitch of perfection he has brought his
cattle and his system of feeding. It is at Christmas
that the display of the carcasses of these over-
fatted beasts, in the large butchers' shops of the
metropolis, takes place, attractmg often a crowd of
wondering observers.

With respect to the order iu which the Smith-
field market is supplied with cattle, which are sent
thither from every part of the kingdom, but in
larger numbers from some districts than others,

butchers ; nor does it allow for the results of rapid
and incessant communication, by means of steam-
vessels, with different parts of our coast. Besides,
our market now receives considerable numbers of
cattle from Holland and Belgium, &c. ; and also
cured provisions, of which a great proportion con-
sists of beef.

Of the extent of the importations of cattle
from abroad, and of the great number of carcasses
sent b}' railroad to London, the following modified
extracts from the public jovu-naJs Tvill convey some
idea : —

Api-il 13, 1846: Smithfield. — Since Monday
last the arrivals of foreign stock in the j^ort of
London have been considerably on the increase,
and of improved quality. They have atoounted to

a -i

93 THE

can raise for profit in the market, an agricultu-
ralist may soon decide as to whether on his farm,
the plan is advisable or the contrarj'. We should
say that if he has the facility of purchasing manure
in" large towns, at a moderate price, and at times
when men, horses, and carts can be most conveni-
ently spared, he will not find the system of soiling
the most profitable. We are not now alluding to
the plan of keeping cattle during the winter in
straw-yards and sheds, fir cow-houses, when they
require both shelter and a supply of food, wliich
the grazing land cannot yield ; nor to the stalling
of oxen for high feeding, and consciiuently, for
sale at high prices ; nor to the cottager's plan of
soiling his cow on the produce of less than a
single acre ; but to the plan of soiling throughout
the year a great number of cattle on a farm of
great extent. The advantages of tliis system
must then be determined by the nature of the
soil and its product-s, the views and designs of the
cultivator, and the fa«-ilities he has of purchasing
manure. Sonic maimre he will have on his own
fann ; he must stable his working horses or oxen,
and a great proportion of their food will be lucem,
tares, clover, &c. Here, then, in manure, he will
have some return ; but the experiment, on a large
scale, may not bear a proportionate degree of ad-
vantage. In Holliin<l, Flanders, and other coim-
tries, from the size and produce of the farms,
soiling becomes more or less a matter of necessity.
In Englanil it has not yet licen adopted as a ge-
neral farming system ; but who can pniphccy what
it may be? In no countr)- are tlie climate and
soil more fitted for producing a succession of green
crops and nutritious root.s than in England and
Ireland ; and the small dairi--fanner would, in
most cases, find soiling his most economical plan,
both as regards his land and his cattle. Let him
sow rre and winter barley early in autumn, so as
to come in for cutting when spring is tolerablj*
advanced : some sown later, with winter tares mid
the young clover which ha.s not been cropped in
autumn, will succeed. Then come tlie artificial
grasses, sown at proper intenals, clover and spring
tares, lucem, and sainfoin. Mangel-wureel, or
beet, turnips, swedes, potatoes, straw-chaff, hay,
Ac, serve for winter provender. On this plan
he may keep more cows than he othenrise could
do ; and also two or four oxen (saleable at an im-
proved price in a few years) to perform the ordi-
nary labours of the farm.

But, as we have said, stall-feeding is now
practised with a view more particularly to the
rapid and heavy fattening of beasts for the mar-
ket. We have alluded to the system pursued by
the great brewei-s and distillers about London ;
here, however, it is to the opulent feedere and
breeders, the owners of large estates, or extensive
graziers, that we now refer,— to those who send

tlieir iiri -cattle to the different exhibitions in
which th *slimoniid of merit is awarded to each
candidat< n degree, by the most competent judges.
We mus vDt suppo>e that it is at Christmas only
the resul of ilu ir >kill are to be seen. We are,
at that ti » (in and about the metropolis) gratified
with proi of what can be done, and of the high
pitch to dch they have brought, the feeding qua-
lities of uir oxen, and of llie e.xcellence of their
plan of f leniug; but other cattle, finely fed, yet
not prize Ulle, leave their stalls, during the course
of the ail nin luid winter, for the London market,
a niarkei l whicli cattle of all grades and breeds,
from tilt- called Durham ox to the lean Irish cow,
meet iLs . common ground.

In st|-feeding for the market, without judg-
ment, c.jriencc, and attention, there will be a
loss, nut profit, on the part of ilie feeder ; and
tliis nittiy dejiends upon the proportion of the
food to It healthy digestion of the animal, and it^
accordinfacrease in weight. Too much as well
as too lie food may be given; and, moreover,
the ppipj^ of that food has to be taken into con-
sideniiid; for a truss of well-made clover, or sain-
foin liu\ yill cotituiu far more nutriment than the
same «< ht of hay of inferior quality, and wliich,
iu tin- I , will be found the most exj)cnsive.

If u ininiid be underfed, though it may con-
tinue in 3alih, and even keep up its flesh, it will
not fatti ; on ilie contrary, if more llian what the
dige!-ti\iirgaiis cmi fairly manage be given (and
an aniinniay be induced to take it), derangement
of hcallljiay In- anticipated. Yet the food should
' be anipb that is, its quantity should be such as
I shall bi proved by experiment to produce the
^,'rcali-t rogressive iiicrea.se of flesh: lliis point
beiuo 11 3rtaiued, the food should be carefully
weiglu-d and nci more given daily tliau what is
' needful.

I A w> -regulated mixture, or alternation of diet,
is al^i < 3ntial. An ox will not fatten kindly on
oiir iirti (if f(rfid, however excellent it may be in
, quality, well adjusted as to quantity : tlie food
should given, moreover, at definite intenals,
'with slit punctuality. A little gentle exercise
daily, iia yard or bare paddock, is very useful:
it iiuiii-. s the appetite and tone of the digestive
organs ; renders sleep more refreshing ; and the
invigoraiig tintainted air, acting through the me-
dimu of (8 lungs, gives a renewed imj>etus to the
circulatit. It is useless to say tliat exposure to
I cold wini and dri\ing sleets shoidd be guarded
against : or every one must be aware that a stall-
fed bea-ife not fitted for sudden exposure to incle-
ment wf«er.

(ireJsucculent fodder, excepting occasionally

and in iaiied quantities, is seldom given : sac-

' chariue lots are more largely used, but they are

, not give] Uone, being too watery, although they

.^"

fllJ

i(4t«»«

• • _i ^ ^

• •• ■ •

»=^

loi

Recently, London has received considerable
quantities of preserved meat from Russia. One
vessel, the "Marquis of Chandos," from Taganrog,
brought into St. Catherine's Dock 24,822 pack-
ages ; each package was enclosed in a tin case, and
its contents weighed from 8 to 10 poimds ; the total,
therefore (which was consigned to a house in Lon-
don), must, at the lowest calculation, have amounted
to 198,576 poimds. Formerly it was the practice in
Russia, as it is in South America, to destroy the
cattle merely for the profit that could be realized
in England from the tallow, hides, and hones ; but
the abolition of the duty on salted provisions has
materially changed affairs, and we may expect
that the London market will receive* large sup-
plies of cured beef from Russia, and that of good
quality.

The statistics into which we have thus entered
■will serve to show the increase in the importation
of live stock from the continent into England ; the
average amount of country-killed meat sent to
Newgate and Leadenhall ; and the number of
homed cattle weekly driven into Smithfield ; as
well as the quantities of salt provisions imported.
In all these jmrticulars, relative to the great intro-
duction of country-killed meat, foreign cattle, and
foreign cured provisions into London (and other
large toviTis and seaports), we cannot but feel that a
great change has taken place within the last few
years ; and it is easier to see the causes than to
tell to what extent it may be carried. Railroads,
steam-vessels, and the opening of our ports have,
indeed, brought about many alterations, and will
bring others. Nor is it only from foreign ports
that the rapid transport of cattle (their introduction
being duty free) takes place ; by the same means
great numbers are imported from Ireland and
Scotland, and in good condition, instead of being
worn and wasted by a tedious and boisterous
voyage as was too often the case formerly. We
leai-n that from the port of Aberdeen, during the
last twelve yeare, there have been shipped 99,891
head of fat cattle, weighing, in the aggregate,
nearly fifty thousand tons. When to this we add
shipments from the ports of Peterhead, Fraser-
burg. Banff, and Inverness, we shall have an aggre-
gate of nearly a quarter of a milliim of prime animals
exported from the north of Scotland to London in
twelve years. It is worthy of remark, too, that
although the opening of our ports for the admission
of foreign cattle had, perhaps, at first, the effect of
slightly diminishing the exports from Aberdeen,
the returns for the last three years show an extra-
ordinary increase ; and we believe that the cattle
dealers, generally, admit that the prices during
that period have been of the most remunerating
kind. When, indeed, we consider the increasing
population of Great Britain generallj', and the
rapidly progressive extension of the capital in all

directions, we cannot for a moment entertain the
idea that any arrivals of foreign cattle, though the
numbers should be far greater than what they are
at present, will interfere with the interests of the
breeder or dealer within the limits of our owii
shores.

To revert to the sales of cattle at Smithfield,
we may obsene, that all the cattle sent there are
consigned to salesmen, who, whatever the}' may
do covertly, are prohibited we believe by law from
bujdng or selling on their o^vn account. The
grazier has, in fact, little or nothing to do person-
ally in the business. He trusts to his salesman,
who is acquainted exactly with the state of the
market, and knows all the butchers, dealers, or
contractors who frequent the sales. He is well
enabled to anticipate fluctuations in price ; he can
see at a glance the characters of the cattle in-
tmsted to him ; and he can tell at once what lots
will find the readiest market, and return the high-
est price. It is his interest to do the best for his
employer, and to take eveiy fair advantage of the
state of the market in his behalf. The grazier
could not act so well for himself were he to try on
the spot ; nay, he might even lose his money, wliich
he is sm'e of by employing an accredited salesman.

How many a wear}' mile have the droves of
cattle from distant districts (those excepted which
are sent by steam-vessels or railroads) to tra-
vel, before they reach the salesman in London !
Long is the way from the Highlands of Scot-
land to the Great City on the Thames ; — yet
this distance have the droves of kv'loes to travel,
under the guidance of a set of men well known
as drovers, shrewd, hardy, weatherbeaten men,
who make this their business, and in whom im-
plicit confidence is placed. Not that one set of
drovers go tkrough the whole journey. The High-
land drovers usually sell their cattle in the Low-
lands, or within the English borders, and return
home ; and the English drovers, who now take
charge of them, continue the route till near Lon-
don, when, suiTendering their charge to others,
they retrace their steps, to repeat in due time their
labours.

•' If," says a writer on this subject,* " we could
exhibit, as in a picture gallery, some of the various
characters who are gathered together, with their
flocks and herds, at the fairs of merr}' England
and trysts of Scotland, the reader would acknow-
ledge that scarcel}' any occupation could pro-
duce so many specimens of the human form of
strildug and picturesque aspect. The drovers are
divided into several classes, but each offers rich
subjects for the painter; and if we were to include
not only those whose business it is to diive the
live stock to the mai-kets and fairs, but also those
who breed and rear it, what varied and animated

* Penny Majazine, No. 736.

102

forms of life might be summoned around us.
There is the shepherd of the South Do'wns and
Salisbury Plains ; his congeners of the Lowlands
and Highlands of Scotland ; and the lassie that
herds her parents' small flock in some romantic
mountain-spot, that kindly puts forth a few blades
of grass on which her hardy black-faced charge
live, till the time arrives for their journey south-
ward ; the Highlander, wrapped in his tartan,
folloT\-ing his kyloes in the same direction : and
the drover, who is familiar only with Smithfield,
and the great roads in the suburbs of London.
Nor must we forget the old topsman, who has truly
the air of a dweller out of doors ; but its savage
wildness is a stranger to his features, which are
noble and manly, with a free and piercing glance,
and when the stock is selling well, lighted by a
smirk, which seems to express some contempt for
the southrons, though he has no objection to their
siller.

"According to Sir Walter Scott, the Highlanders
excel all others as herdsmen ; but their peculiar
characteristics are lost, or of little value, when the
herd is exchanged for the flock. ' The Highlanders, '
he remarks, ' are masters of this difficult trade of
driving, which seems to suit them as well as the
trade of war. It affords exercise for all their
habits of patient endurance, and active exertion.
They are required to know perfectly the drove-
roads which lie over the wildest tracks of the
country, and to avoid, as much as possible, the
highways, wliich distress the feet of the bullocks ;
and the turnpikes, which annoy the spirit of the
drover : whereas, on the broad green or grey
track which leads across the pathless moor, the
herd not only move at ease and without taxation,
but, if they mind their business, may pick up a
moiithful of food by the way. At night the drovers
usually sleep along with their cattle, let the
weather be what it will ; and many of tliese hardy
men do not once rest under a roof from Lochaber
to Lincolnsliire. They are paid very highly, for
the trust reposed is of the last importance ; as it
depends upon their prudence, vigilance, and ho-
nesty, whether the cattle reach the final market in
good order, and afford a profit to the grazier. But
as they maintain themselves at their own expense,
they are especially economical in that particular.
At the period we speak of, a Highland drover was
victualled for his long and tiresome journey with a
few handfuls of oatmeal and two or three onions,
renewed from time to time, and a ram's honi filled
■Aith whiskey, which he used regularly, but
sparingly, eveiy night and morning. His dirk, or
she7ie dim (black knife), so worn as to be concealed
by the arm, or under the plaid, was his only
weapon, excepting the cudgel with which he di-
rected the movements of the cattle A Highlander
was never so happy as on these occasions. There

was a variety in the whole journey which exercised
the Kelt's natural curiosity and love of motion :
there were the constant change of place and scene,
the petty adventures incidental to the traffic, and
the intercourse with the various farmers, traders,
and graziers, intermingled with occasional merry-
makings, not the less acceptable to Donald that
they were void of expense : and there was the con-
sciousness of superior skill ; for the Highlander, a
cliild among flocks, is a prince amongst herds ; and
his natm-al habits induce him to "disdain the shep-
herd's slothful life," so that he feels himself
nowhere more at home than when following a
gallant drove of his counti-y cattle in the character
of their guardian."

" In No. 90 of the ' Quarterly Review,' there
is an interesting notice of a drover poet, com-
monly called Rob Donn (i. e.. Brown Robert). He
wrote in Gaelic, and the reviewer treats him as one
of the time sons of song.

" Allan Cunningham has given us a picture of
the collected riches of a mountain country, — viz.,
its cattle, being assembled for their journey to the
south. ' The hills and valleys of the interior High-
lands, which, in rougher times, sent out, under a
Graham or a Cameron, bands of armed men, now
in the season pour forth the herds of cattle which
they rear for the eager markets of England, where
a savoury mouthful is ever welcome. The cattle
which form the drove are gathered together on a
set day, and at an appointed place, the foot of a
mountain, the side of a lake, or near a castle in the
neighbourhood of a village, or, more likely still, a
battle-field ; herdsmen are selected to conduct the
different portions into which the herd is divided,
while over all a confidential person, a sort of chief,
topsman as he is called in the Lowlands, presides,
who directs all the movements, makes all the bar-
gains, and is responsible to the owners for the
profits. This person, the topsman, gives the
order, a signal generally, when to move or lialt ;
he is always busy, now in the front and then in the
rear, and is consulted by his subordinates in all
difficulties. He knows the safest roads over the
wildest tracks ; Shapfell is as well luiown to him as
Schehallion ; he prefers the greensward way, which
is pleasant to the hoof of his charge alid affords
them a mouthful, to the hard and dusty public
road, which distresses the feet of his cattle and
affords little in the way of food. English parties
on their way to the north, to look at the wild deer
and wild hills, and trace the scenes of Scott or of
Ossian, are often startled by a drove emerging
from a glen, or rounding the base of a mountain,
coming lowmg along, urged or directed by their
drivers, who, wallet on back and staff in hand, are
conducting them to the south. These topsmen
are now generally paid for their labour and trust,
but in days not yet distant the Highland proprietor

103

accompanied his drove to the south, and with his
profit in his sporran, returned to the mountains.'
" The English countr}' drover who meets the
drovers from Scotland, is to this day much the
same sort of man as he was fifty years ago, and
his calling is one of the few which the sweeping
influences of modem improvements have hitherto
but little affected ; railroads do not materially af-
fect his trade, at least he professes he cannot per-
ceive any difference. The cattle he drives have
improved to a degree almost beyond belief, and as
he surve3's the different members of his drove in
advance of himself, he cannot see one represent-
ative of his old friends the Craven, and other such
coarse ungainly animals as it fell to his lot to
drive some four or five and fifty years ago. The
roads he travels have partaken of the general
and beneficial improvements of the present cen-
tury; but to his mind these are a disadvantage
rather than a gain. Formerly he often crossed
wide tracts of uncultivated waste-land, and heaths
of some miles extent, where the timid rabbit, the
fleeter hare, and their joint enemy the fox, occa-
sionally afforded him and his almost human
companion, his dog, some sport. The cattle or
sheep under his charge formed picturesque
groups on these wide tracts, and nature displayed
her beauties around him : the golden blossoms
of the prickly furze, the delicate blue-bell, the
deep green of some and the silvery appearance
of other members of that beautiful class of
plants, the fern tribe ; never seen to so much
advantage, or with such feelings of pleasure and
delight, as when planted on a barren heath by the
hand of nature, and contrasting with the yellow
sand-banks or parched and stunted gi'ass that
feebly strives to show itself amidst the carpet of
purple heather that nearly covers the whole ex-
panse, backed by the hills over which he toiled in
the summer-heat some four or five days before.
Amid such scenes as these, perhaps lighted up by a
bright morning sun, and the heavy dewdrops looking
like crystals showered over the surrounding objects,
he left the secluded hamlet, by eventide had sup-
plied his beasts with fodder, and taken his place on
the village green, discussing local news with the old,
or watching the merry-making of the young, retiring
early to his rest, and closing his eyes while the
village youths, untired by the labours of the day,
rang a peal from the bells of the village church.
In scenes like these, so peculiarly English, and ca-
pable of supplying the painter or poet with subjects
or themes, did the drover pass his life. It might
be that, like Peter Bell, nature never found the
way into his heart, and that

* At noon when by the forest's edge
He lay, beneath the branches high,
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart ; he never felt
The witchery of the soft Wue sky.

A prim
A yello
And it

,se by a riv
' pr mrose m

r'« brim
1.S to hii

Wordsworth.

will therefore follov

Perhaps so : — and we

him in the actual business of the day. The
drover, then, calls on the graziers who have cattle
or sheep to send to market or fair ; and when he
has collected a sufficient number he proceeds on
his journey, which, however interesting, is, we will
suppose, from long familiarity passed unregarded,
except an occasional remark on passing some well-
cultivated piece of ground which he knew forty
years back a barren waste, where nobody thought
of growing mangel-wurzel or cow-cabbage. His
journey varies from one hundred miles a week,
more or less as the case may be, and within six or
eight miles of London he surrenders his charge
to the care of another man, and returns home to
perform the same services over again, accompanied
by his faithful dog, whose family he not unfre-
quently carries on either side of him, in the ample
pockets of his smock-frock.

"The drover who takes from the country drover
the charge of the herd or flock, resides in the
suburbs of London, at a convenient distance to
afford food or pasture to the numerous droves that
arrive weekly for the supply of the metropolis.
He is paid for sheep at so much per score, and
cattle per head ; and his business is to drive the
cattle into the market, and to wait until they are
sold and paid for. The average rate for cattle is
ninepence per head, and reckoning that in Smith ■
field one hundred and sixty thousand are annually
sold, a sum of £5,000 a year is paid to this class
of drovers; allowing for about five hundred head
per week, which are brought by steam, — droves
occasionally taken to market by country drovers
themselves, — and a certain number which are
foddered and driven to market, either from their
own fields, or the layers at Islington. There are
also above a million and a half of sheep driven
into Smithfield yearly, for which the drovers are
paid a considerable sum.

" The drover is liable for any damage or accident
that may happen to the stock, until sold and de-
livered to a drover that may be called a butcher's
drover, for he only drives from the market to the
shop or slaughter-house of the purchaser. The
cattle generally arrive in the suburbs on the Sun-
day morning, where the master-drover and his men
are ready to receive them. These men he pays
about ten shillings per day, and they have besides
the chance on their return of driving purchases
for butchers who live along the road, of which
they generally avail themselves. After resting
the remainder of the day and night, the drover is
up and stirring at a very eai-ly hom- on Monday,
as his drove must be at market by five, where the

104

salesman is ready to receive them, and they are
tied up according to his direction. If there is not
room for this, they are formed into off-droves, con-
sisting of circles of cattle with their heads toward
the centre of the ring. This is not effected with-
out severe blows, and other cruel punishments ;
indeed the scene is one of great bi-utiJity, and
need not be detailed. Dming the dark nights of
winter the drovers are furnished with torches; and
the flashing of these, the shouts of the men, the
lowing of the beasts, the tremulous cries of the
sheep, and the rattling of sticks on the heads and
bodies of the animals, combine to produce a scene
of wild confusion. By the dawn of day, however,
the poor animals, tired and sore, are terrified into
maiutaining the required position for the conve-
nience of the purchasers to examine them. The
butcher now arrives, chooses such as suit his
pui-pose, and, after chaffering with the salesman
for some time, the bargain is struck. The sales-
man then takes out a pair of scissors, cuts a small
portion of hair off the nimp as a mark, and the
jjurcbaser repairs with him to the bankers to make
the payment. 'Ihe suburban drover is now told
the beasts are paid for; on which he takes a knife
from his pocket, and cuts off all the loose hair
from the tail, placing his distinguishing mark on
the animals \Yith a piece of red ochre. The town-
drover seldom drives for any but butchers and
other drovers. Some of them do not leave the
market at all, but merely drive sheep in and out
of the pens. Like the last class of drovers, they
are licensed by the clerk of the market, pursuant
to rules and regulations made by the city authori-
ties. The licence must be renewed annually to
entitle the holder to wear his badge, without
which he could not stand in the market or drive
cattle or sheep in the cities of London or West-
minster and the suburbs. The charge for a
renewal of the licence is five shillings, and in it
the person of the drover is minutely described,
with pai'ticulars respecting his age, trade, height,
coniple.xion, residence, colour of hair and eyes.
When a drover is fined for ill-using cattle or sheep
it is endorsed on his licence ; which in that case
is not renewed without some trouble, and pro-
ducing securities for future good behaviour." It
must be confessed, however, that the difficulty of
extricating the terrified beasts, when sold, from
the dense throng of others which fill the allotted
space, too often leads to acts of ruthless barbarity:
the men lose their temper, and shower blows on
the most sensitive parts of the poor animal, as the
hoofs, roots of the homs, and nose, till, mad-
dened with agony and rage, it rushes forward, not
unfrequently committing serious mischief As
may be easily conceived, a visit to Smithfield on
a crowded market-day is not unattended by danger.
The greatest number of the cattle sent to

Smithfield are purchased by the great carcass-
butchers, from whom the smaller retail butchers
buy their needful supplies.

The convenience of resting-grounds or cattle-
layers for the droves, about the outskirts of Lon-
don, need not be insisted on. We have already
alluded to Laycock's establishment at Islington.
In this, the cattle are supplied with fodder at a
stipulated price, one shilling the night per head ;
besides which the manure is the property of the
owner of the layer, and also the milk given by the
cows (for numbers of milch cattle are brought up
from the country) during their sojourn, the office
of milking being performed by liis own people.
This latter is a great advantage to a person who
keeps an extensive dairy as well as a cattle-layer,
inasmuch as he has an opportunity of testing the
milking qualities of the animals before they go to
market, and of regulating his pm'chases accord-
ingly : he has, in fact, the best of the herd at his
command.

When we consider the comparatively small
space occupied by Smithfield market (once a field
extending outside of the city walls, but now a spot
imbedded in the heart of London), and the conse-
quent confusion and danger arising evei-y Monday
and Friday from the number of cattle forced into
its area, terrified by blows and the novelty of their
situation, we may wonder that no better and more
aptly arranged market has been established, con-
stituting one of the many improvements of Lon-
don, during the present day. The fact is, that,
in the year 1833, a spirited and opulent individual,
Mr. Perkins, at an outlay of £100,000 erected
and opened a noble cattle-market in the Lower
Eoad at Islington. It occupied an area of twenty-
two acres, and no expense was spared to make it
convenient for the purpose. Sheds, pens, troughs,
drainage, general arrangement, comfort for the
cattle, facilities for the purchasers, were all com-
bined. The arrangements rendered disorder and
confusion impossible ; every possible want was
foreseen : a market- tavern, stables, sheds, and
even shops, were planned, as were also abattoirs
or slaughtering-houses closely adjacent. But the
well-designed experiment (which ought to have
been successful) failed : and why ? Old habits,
invetei'ate custom, and perhaps interested opposi-
tion, rendered the scheme abortive; and Smithfield,
with its confusion, its dangers, and its almost in-
evitable barbarities, maintains its ground. A
writer on this subject says, " Remonstrate with
the grazier and the butcher ; tell them of the
impropriety of driving sheep and bullocks through
crowded streets, exposing passengers to danger as
well as the cattle to injury, and causing detriment
to shops ; they will answer, — that is all very true,
but that Smithfield has a venerable name, and
that cattle of evei-y kind are brought to it from all

105

quarters of the Idngdom : that the man with a
few pounds iu his pocket has a chance of suiting
himself, as well as he who comes to lay out hun-
dreds : that the market-place occupies a kind of
centre near the General Post-office and old esta-
blished places of business, and is, therefore, very
favourably situated for the prompt transaction of
business ; and that to remove it would run the
risk of splitting the one universally supplied mar-
ket into many. There is some reason ill these
statements ; mere attachment to old habits, or
the mere power of monopoly on the part of the
corporation of the city of Loudon, cquld not of
themselves have prevented the removal of Smith-
field market." What effect the railroads are
destined to have on Smithfield yet remains to
be seen. May we not expect that the amount of
country-lulled meat brought to Loudon, especially
during the colder months of the year, will tend at
least to abate its more glaring nuisances ; and
those, moreover, of the slaughter-houses in some of
the most crowded parts of the metropolis;

We have, in the foregoing pages, alluded to
the ti7Sts or cattle fairs of Scotland ; and we may
add that these are not markets appointed by pub-
lic authority, but by concert among the dealer's,
on a notice from the drovers or purchasers from
the south or interior of Scotland (sometimes we
believe made at the churches), that they are ready
to purchase on a certain day at some appointed
place. At the ti-ysts thus concerted (many in
May and during the summer), the sellers and
buyers meet and bargain for the cattle. It would
appear, however, that there are trysts held at
customary terms, on the same plan as our English
cattle-markets ; and of these several are held
annually about four miles from Falkirk, Stirling-
shire. The following sketch of the October
Falkirk tryst, 1846, from the "Glasgow Chronicle,"
will give a picture of their importance, and serve
as a specimen of the extent of business then
transacted : — " The third and last of our great
markets commenced on Monday. It was easy to
predict from the state of prices at the September
tryst, and the rise that has subsequently taken
place in the price of sheep in all the principal
districts throughout the country, that this our
concluding and influential market would exhibit a
rise. Last week a great many dealers passed to
the north, eager to avail themselves at once of top
lots, and the encouraging prospect afforded by the
late results of sales in England. We understand
that a great many sheep thus changed hands, and
of course never appeared at Falkirk. Perhaps
more than the usual number of buyers from the
south arrived on Saturday and Sunday ; and eveiy-
thing wore the aspect of a keen competition. On
Monday forenoon, the Stenhouse moor was early
filled with a splendid array of flocks, and despite

the heavy rain they appeared in tolerable condi-
tion. The day cleared up towards ten o'clock,
when sales became a rapid business. From
eleven o'clock till four p.m. the road from the
ti-yst to Falkirk (about four miles) continued one
dense mass of droves ; and we do not recollect
that such quickness of sale has characterized any
tryst for the last twenty years. On Tuesday the
usual cattle supply was on the ground, and these
in general may be said to have been in fine order,
though but few fat cattle were offered for sale
An advance, in the same proportion as that which
took place on sheep, may be noted on this species
of stock ; and we may state that some of the best
lots were purchased by dealers from the south
before reaching the. giarket. On the whole, the
sale may be said to have been a brisk one ; and
when we left the grounds the stock was nearly all
sold off. Of horses the supply was not so numer-
ous as/ we have seen, and very high prices were
asked for all kinds of serviceable animals. This
had the eS'ecfof retarding sales in the early pai-t
of the day. A. fair amount of business was, how-
ever, ultimately transacted, though at prices not
considered favourable to the buyer. Indeed
many experienced dealers consider that horse-
flesh has reached its maximum. Two-year-old
colts were selling at from £35 to £40." Of the
cattle purchased at these trysts great numbers
are driven to Norfolk and Suffolk for fattening,
and other comities take their share. It is thus
then that we receive black cattle from the north of
Scotland; — but we must not forget that cattle
from all parts and of all breeds, from Wales,
Hereford, Devonshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Sussex,
Lincohisliire, and other counties, find their way to
London. The system already described upon
which the drover acts, is everywhere pretty much
the same : he must be a man of trust and probity.
The great thoroughfares through which cattle take
their way to London, are by the great northern
road over Highgate Hill, and through Islington ;
by the eastern outlet of the city, — viz., the White-
chapel road ; and the western road, through
Uxbridge, from Wiltshire, Herefordshire, Glouces-
tershire, &c. From Devonshire and the south-
western counties the road approaches Loudon
through Woking, Weybridge, and Kingston. The
majority of the droves, however, excepting those
from the east, strike off towards Islington, for the
rest which the cattle-layers there afford them, before
the Monday market at Smithfield.

With respect to the principal cattle fairs of
England, little need be said. At these markets
for the sale of live stock, at which the cattle of
the surrounding district destined by their owners
for sale are congregated, beasts of all sorts and
qualities are to be seen : bulls and cows, heifers,
oxen, and even calves. But it is universally the

/^\

lOi THE

salesman is ready to receive them, and they are
tied up according to bis direction. If there is not
room for this, they are formed into off-droves, con-
sisting of circles of cattle with their heads toward
the centre of the ring. This is not effected with-
out severe blows, and other cruel punishments ;
indeed the scene is one of great brutidity, and
need not be detailed. During tlie dark nights of
winter the drovers are furnished with torches; and
the flashing of these, the shouts of the men, the
lowing of the beasts, the treniulous cries of the
sheep, and the rattling of sticks on the heads and
bodies of the animals, combine to produce a scene
of wild confusion. By the dawn of day, however,
the poor animals, tired and sore, are terrified into
maintaining the re(iuired position for the conve-
nience of the purchasers to examine them. The
butcher now arrives, chooses such as suit his
purpose, and, after chaffering with the salesman
for some time, the bargain is struck. The sales-
man then takes out a pair of scissors, cuts a small
portion of hair off the nunp as a mark, and the
purchaser repairs with him to the bankers to make
the payment. '1 he suburban drover is now told
the beasts are paid for ; on which he takes a knife
from his pocket, and cuts off all the loose hair !
from the tail, placing his distinguishing mark on I
the animals with a piece of red ochre. The town- I
drover seldom drives for any but butchers and
other drovere. Some of them do not leave the
market at all, but merely drive sheep in and out
of the pens. Like the last class of drovers, they
are licensed by the clerk of the market, pursuant
to rules and regulations made by the city authori-
ties. The licence must be renewed annually to
entitle the holder to wear his badge, witJiout
which he could not stand in the market or drive
cattle or sheep in the cities of London or West-
minster and the suburbs. The charge for a
renewal of the licence is five shillings, and in it
the person of the drover is minutely described,
with paiticulars respecting his age, trade, height,
complexion, residence, colour of hair and eyes.
"When a drover is fined for ill-using cattle or sheep
it is endorsed on his licence ; which in that case
is not renewed without some trouble, and pro-
ducuig securities for future good behaviour." It
must be confessed, however, that the difficulty of
extricating the terrified beasts, when sold, from
the dense throng of others which fill the allotted
space, too often leads to acts of ruthless barbaiity :
the men lose their temper, and shower h\ovrs on
the most sensitive parts of the poor animal, as the
hoofs, roots of the bonis, and nose, till, mad-
dened with agony and rage, it rushes forward, not
unfrequently committing serious mischief. As
may be easily conceived, a visit to Smithfield on
a crowded market-day is not unattended by danger.
The greatest number of the cattle" sent to

Sniithf 1 are purchased by the great carcass-
butchei from whom the smaller retail butchere
buy tli( needful supplies.

Th' oiivt nieiice of resting-groimds or cattle-
Inyers I tln' iliuves, about the outskirts of Lon-
don, in . not be insisted on. We have already
alluded o Laycock's establishment at Islington.
In this ■he cuttle are supplied with fodder at a
slipiilui jiriic, one shilling the night per head ;
besides hich the manure is the property of the
owner > the layer, and also the milk given by the
cows (1 nunil>ers of milch cattle are brought up
from tl country) during their sojourn, the office
of mill <g being performed by liis own people.
This liier is a great advantage to a person who
keeps , extensive dairy as well as a cattle-layer,
inasniU' as he has an opportunity of testing the
milkin)|ualilies of the animals before they go to
markti and of regulating his purchases accord-
ingly : 9 has, in fact, the best of the herd at his
comniii ,

^^'l 1 we consider the comparatively small
space 1 upied by Smithfield market (once a field
extend j outside of the city walls, but now a spot
iuibciidl in the heart of London), and the conse-
quent c tfusion and danger arising every Monday
and Fi ay from the number of cattle forced into
it.s art , leiTifitd by blows and the novelty of their
situiiti' we may wonder that no better and more
aptly ;i uiged market has been established, con-
stituiii one of the many improvements of Lon-
don, d ing the present day. The fact is, that,
in the ar I ^H.'), a spirited and opulent uidividual,
Mr. I'ltins, at an outlay of 1*100,000 erected
and ojied a noble cattle-market in the Lower
Koad ii Islington. It occupied an area of twenty-
two acn, and no expense was spared to make it
convenat for the purpose. Sheds, pens, troughs,
draina; general arrangement, comfort for the
cattle, cilities for the purchasers, were all com-
bined. The arrangements rendered disorder and
confus I impossible ; every possible want was
foreset ; a market-tavern, stables, sheds, and
even sips, were plaimed, as were also abattoirs
or slaujitering-houses closely adjacent. But the
well-dcgned experiment (which ought to have
been sicessful) failed: and why? Old habits,
invetei'e custom, and perhaps interested opposi-
tion, njered the scheme abortive; and Smithfield,
with iteonfusion, its dangers, and its almost in-
evitabl«barbarities, maintains its ground. A
writer h this subject says, " Remonstrate with
the giiier and the butcher ; tell them of the
improiBty of driving sheep and bullocks through
crowdiJfetreets, exposing passengers to danger as
well aa^e cattle to injury, and causing detriment
to sho]^ they will answer. — that is all verj' true,
but tld Smithfield has a venerable name, and
that ca e of every kind are brought to it from all

i..-l

Ml Ik W>*^ MU < •

107

able period on food entirely destitute of azote ; it is
true that even carnivorous animals can live for a cer-
tain time upon food entirely destitute of azote, but in
that case the excretions become altered ; and it may
be further observed that several vegetable and ani-
mal substances destitute of azote are highly nutri-
tious, provided at the same time azote can be supplied
from some other element containing it, though in
small proportion. It would seem, however, that ve-
getable aliments acquire an accession of azote in the
digestive organs, though probably at the expense of
some part of the system. The nutritive properties
of animal and vegetable oils or fats are well known,
but still they do not contain azote as one of their
primary or elementary principles.

The proximate principles in which azote, with
oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, occur, are, first,
fibrin, which constitutes the chief part of the sub-
stance of muscles, especially those of adult ani-
mals, together with a principle called os)na^o?ne, to
which meat owes its sapid flavour when dressed.
Osmazome, however, is not a simple substance, but
contains several salts or alkalies in combination
with hydrochloric and lactic acid. In the muscles
of young and white-fleshed animals, as veal, little
osmazome but a great proportion of gelatine is pre-
sent ; the gravy of veal, unlike that of beef, easily
gelatinizes. In the muscles of dark-fleshed game,
whether furred or feathered, osmazome (and there-
fore flavour) is prevalent.

Secondly, albumen (the white of an egg being
an example). This principle forms the constituent
part of oysters, mussels, and similai' shellfish. It
occurs in the green feculoe of plants in general ;
and abounds in the fniit of Hibiscus esculentus,
used in Sicily to thicken soups, and in the bark of
elm (ulmus campestris).

Thirdly, gelatin. — Gelatin exists in the skin,
tendons, ligaments, the swimming bladder of the
sturgeon and other fishes. Isinglass, for e.xample,
is gelatin. It differs in its qualities from albu-
men ; it does not coagulate, is slowly soluble in
water, and produces a tremulous jell}'. Its nu-
tritious qualities are veiy considerable : but we
question whether it is quite so digestible as it is
usually considered to be. This observation applies
to the albuminous oyster or shellfish. Albumen,
be it observed, coagulates at a temperature of
165° Fahr., and becomes curdled or solidified by
acids and the gastric juice. Milk is curdled by
rennet, though not by boiling.

Fourthly, mucus. — -This is an animal 'secretion
(especially on certain membranes termed mucous
membranes), which differs both from albumen and
gelatin. Unlike the former it is not coagulable
by heat, and unlike the latter it is not precipi-
tated by vegetable astringents.

With regai-d to the vegetable principles which
come under this list, we may first notice gluten,

which contains from fourteen to twenty per cent ot
azote. Gluten is met with associated with starch
in the seeds of the cereal plants known as grain,
in many other seeds and fniits, and in the green and
sappy parts of plants which yield feculae. Sepa-
rated from the other principles with which it is
generally combined, gluten is moist, white, soft,
and glutinous ; but when dry, becomes hard, grey,
with a somewhat glossy conchoidal fracture. Bird-
lime is impure gluten. In the seeds of legumi-
nous plants, as peas, beans, &c., a substance closely
allied to gluten exists, it is termed legumen, and
also vegeto-animal substance.

Gluten exists in the leaves of most edible
plants, as the cabbage, lucem, sainfoin, &c.
When in combination with saccharine matter, and
in a fluid condition, the fluid thus impregnated is
capable of undergoing a vinous fermentation ; in-
deed in the conversion of wheat-flour to bread, a
sort of fermentation takes place evolving alcohol.

Gluten in its natural states of combination
with starch, fat, sugar, oil, is extremely nutritious;
take wheat, barley, peas, and other edible pulse,
as examples. Besides gluten there is a principle
in oily seeds, in many dry plants and their ela-
borated juices, which, whent triurated with water,
produces an emulsion, termed emulsin, vegeta-
ble albumen, vegetable casein, or amygdalin. How
far this substance differs from gluten, does not ap-
pear to be definitely ascertained. Some chemists
regard it as identical with the casern of milk, and
others are of opinion that it cannot be distinguished
from animal albumen. The nutritious qualities of
the seeds containing it, such as rape, &c., are well
known.

The proximate principles which consist of
oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon aj-e as follow : —

Grum. — This exists in all vegetables, more or
less, and in some abundantly ; it oozes sponta-
neously from the bark of many trees, as the cherry,
the plum, and the acacia. It abounds in many
roots, as the carrot, the parsnip, &c., and in many
fruits, as the gooseberry, the currant, &c.; miited
with agreeable vegetable acids. Pure gum is en-
tirely soluble in water, forming mucilage ; but it is
insoluble in alcohol. In its fluid state it is the
nutriment of plants, and circulates largely through
the leaves of many, as the lime. We have alluded
to the nutritive qualities of gum in its pure state,
but when in its natural state, combined with other
principles, it adds greatly to the value of vegeta-
bles as aliment.

Sugar, or the saccharine principle. — This is
veiy abundant in many vegetables, as the sugar-
cane, the beet, the caiTOt; in various finits, as
the gi'ape, the melon, the fig ; in some gum-
resinous extracts, as manna. It gives sweetness
to the nectai' of flowers, and is contained in honey,
which is nectar that has undfci'gone some process

108

in the stomach of the bee. It is found in the milk
of animals ; and it is produced, by a depraved action
of the digestive and assimilating organs, in that al-
most incurable disease termed diabetes mellitus.

Starch and sugar are mutually convertible into
each other. Sugar is the principle by which seeds
are enabled to germinate rapidly, thus forming
from the starch their own nutriment. This is
familiarly exemplified in the process of malting, —
■which is, first, the forced germination of barley ;
and then, at a certain point, drying it in a kiln,
whereby its \itality is destroyed. Many seeds
containing starch, and therefore insipid, maj^ be
made agreeable and wholesome by steeping them
in water till they begin to germinate, when the
starch is converted into sugar. The Burmese, by
this process, transform the seed of the cotton-plant
into a grateful article of diet. In the ripening of
many, as those of the banana, a remarkable trans-
formation of starch into sugar takes place. The
sago-palms, when about to flower, have the starch
in their lofty stems all converted into sugar ; they
must be, therefore, cut down when the flower first
begins to show itself, otherwise the sago they con-
tain would be altogether lost. A sweet liquid
from flowering palms (once in a state of starch) is
dra^^Ti, and fermented into toddy, or palm-wine.

On the contraiy, many seeds, as the common
pea, which contain saccharine matter before they
are ripe, have, as they ripen, this saccharine matter
converted into starch ; and, when they germinate,
this starch is reconverted into sugar.

Among the grasses of our meadows, many, at
an early stage of their growth, have the stems
very sacchai-ine ; but this sweetness is lost at a
later period, and the stems are insipid. This loss
of saccharine matter diminishes their nutriment :
hence it is an error to cut grass for hay when too
ripe ; for though, after it is stacked, it may be re-
stored to a proper condition by the fermentation
that then occurs, yet this is not unattended with
risk, nor is the hay so savoury and acceptable.

In many trees, as the birch, the sugar-maple,
and others, the starch in spring is converted by
the ascending sap into a saccharine fluid ; and
from that of the maple concentrated sugar is ob-
tained in America ; while in England the sap of
the birch is often fermented into a sort of wine.

Sugars may be divided into several kinds,
according to the plant from which they are ob-
tained. Some are capable of crystallization, and
others are not. Sugar of both these kinds exists
in the sugar-cane ; the latter constituting what is
known under the tei-ms treacle or molasses. Some
sugars are susceptible of fermentation; others,
however, are not so. The sugar of manna is
neither crystallizable nor capable of fermentation.
Honey is capable of fermentation, and yields the
old Celtic beverage railed mead or methedin.

With respect to the sugar of milk, though it does
not naturally crystallize, it may be converted into
granular sugar by the action of dilute sulphuric
acid, and is then, though not previously, suscepti-
ble of fermentation.

Starch. — Starchi chernically considered, differs
from sugar and from gum only in the greater pro-
portion of carbon which it contains; and, byre-,
moval of this superabundance of carbon, it is
converted into one or other of the above principles.
This change occurs in plants during their flower-
ing, and in grains during their germination, as well
as in the stomach during the process of digestion.
In combination with gluten, or wheaten flour for
example, starch is capable of undergoing fermenta-
tion ; and this takes place during the process of
converting the flour to bread, while it is in the state
of dough. The precise nature of the action which
goes on is not well understood ; but the digest!
bility of the flour is thereby increased, and its fitness
as an article of food consequently improved.

Starch abounds in all the cereal grains, but in
the greatest purity in rice, millet, barley', maize,
&o. ; in wheat it is combined with gluten ; with
saccharine matter in oats and some leguminous
seeds ; with mucilage in potatoes, rye, and Windsor
beans. In other vegetables it is differently com-
bined, producing aliments various in degree of nutri-
ment and digestibility. All seeds or roots yielding
starch in abundance are termed farinaceous.

Starch is digestible and nutritious, but requires
other principles to be taken in conjunction with it;
with milk, sugar, eggs, &c., it constitutes one of
the most wholesome and acceptable of aliments,
and fattens rapidly.

Oily or Fatty Matters. — These principles are
met with both in animal and in vegetable bodies ;
and they occur in a variety of forms, fi'om fluid
to soft, and to hard or concrete ; but they cannot
be mistaken. Unlike as these matters are to gum,
sugar, and starch, yet their constituent ele-
ments are the same, excepting that they con-
tain a larger proportion of hydrogen ; and during
digestion in the stomach the most dissimilar are
brought into more intimate relationship than might
have been anticipated. Sugar and starch are both
susceptible of fermentation, during which they pai-t
mth a portion of their carbon, which, uniting with
oxygen, is evolved in the form of carbonic acid
gas. From starch in fermentation, when a certain
quantity of carbon is dissipated, sugar is the re-
sult:— a portion of carbon and oxygen being taken,
the hydrogen remaining undiminished, alcohol is
the product. This, in the words of Dr. Prout, is
an oleaginous body of a iceak* kind, — composed,

* " When we speak of a strong compound, we mean that its
constituent supermolecules are like those of strong cane-sugar ;
less complicated than the supeiTQolecules of a ireak principle, like

those of the sugar of honey The sugar of honey is more easily

decomposed than the sugar of the cauc." — Puodt.

100

like oils, of oleflant gas and water ; and tluis tlie
analogy is complete, foi' all farinaceous and sac-
charine aliments undergo changes m the digestive
organs similar to what occurs in fermentation,
hefore they can be assimilated in the system, —
namel)', conversion into oil.

" Tliough," says Dr. Prout, " the proportions of
the dilTereut ingredients of the chyle, as ulti-
mately formed, are liable to be varied according
to the nature of the food, yet, whatever the nature
of the food may be, the general composition and
character of the chyle always remain the same. The
stomach must, therefore, be endowed with a power
or faculty, the agency of which is to secure this uni-
form composition of the chyle by appropriate
action upon such materials as circumstances may
bring within its reach. Two, indeed, of the chief
mateiials from which the chyle is formed, the
albuminous and the oleaginous principles, may be
considered to be already fitted for the purposes of
the animal economy, without undergoing any essen-
tial change in their comjJosition. But the saccha-
rine class of elements, which form a veiy large
pait of the food of all animals (except of those
subsisting entirely on flesh), are by no means
adapted for such speedy assimilation. Indeed,
one or more essential changes must take place in
saccharine aliments previously to their conversion
either into the albuminous or into the oleaginous
principles. Most probably, under ordinary cir-
■ cumstances, these essential changes are altogether
chemical ; that is to say, these changes are such
as do take place, or, rather, as would take place,
if the elements of the substances thus changed in
the stomach could, out of the body, be so collo-
cated as to bring into action the affinities neces-
sary for the changes produced in the stomach.
Thus, as we know, the saccharine principle spon-
taneously becomes alcohol, which, as has been
stated, is an oleaginous body of a weak kind.
When, therefore, in the stomach, it is requisite
that sugar be converted into oil, it is probable that
the sugar passes through precisely the same series
of changes it undergoes out of the body during its
conversion into alcohol. We cannot trace the
conversion of sugar into albumen, because we are
ignorant of the relative composition and of the laws
which regulate the changes of these two substances.
The origin of the azote in the albumen is likewise
unknown to us at present; though, in all ordinaiy
cases, it seems to be appropriated from some ex-
ternal source. That the oleaginous principle may
be converted into most if not into all the matters
necessary for the existence of animal bodies, seems
to be proved by the well-lcnown fact, that the life
of an animal may be prolonged by the absorption
of the oleaginous matter contained within its own
body."

Thus, then, do animals fed on farinaceous and

saccharine vegetables acquire, at least, a large pro-
portion of their fat; but oleaginous matters are in
themselves highly nutritious, " being already fitted
for the purposes of the animal economy, without
undergoing any essential change in their compo-
sition;" yet, as oils are insoluble in water,
they are not available for the support of the
body till this immiscibility be overcome. Hence
they are apt to oppress the stomach during the
early stages of digestion, if taken alone, without
b^ing mingled with substances which facilitate
their union with water. When this is accom-
plished, they are easily assimilated. Thus oil or fat,
blended with farinaceous matters, or, as it is natu-
rally, with milk (butter), -becomes yei'y nutritive ;
and thus the butter, which might disorder the
stomach if S:Wallowed alone, is grateful when spread
upon bread or mingled with potato-meal.

We may here observe that the too copious use
of saccharine matters, or of saccharine vegetables,
may in certain cases. prove, hurtful ; for " the de-
rangement, or partial suspension, of the conversion
of the saccharine principle (in man) into the albu-
minous or oleaginous, not only constitutes a for-
midable specigsof dyspepsia, butthe-unassimilated
saccharijie ^ niatter passing through the kidneys,
gives occasion to the disease termed diabetes/' In
certain forms of disease, oxalic acid (poisonous
acid of sugar) is produced and detected in the
blood; and the production of lactic acid from the
same source, forms, when in e.xcess, one of the most
troublesome kinds of acidity of the stomach.

Without alluding to water as an alimentary
principle, which consists of oxygen and hydrogen
alone, we may here conclude our obseiwations on
the proximate elements of alimeutaiy substances
and their elementary constituents. Of the vai-ious
condiments and stimulants, acids, Ac, we need
here say nothing ; there is. however, one article, —
namely, common salt, which, from its existence
in the blood, and its importance in the animal
economy, requires some notice ; and it is neces-
sary, in order to show this, to enter to a cer-
tain extent into the process of digestion, that is,
into a short explanation of the solvent or reducing
powers of the stomach, and the means by which
the solution of aliments, and their combination
into a fluid mass termed chyme, in the stomach,
is effected. This operation is by the agency of
a fluid termed the gastric juice, poured out of
glands chiefly in the pyloric portion of the sto-
mach,— the fourth stomach, or abomasum, in ni-
minant animals. The aliment then, having been
duly masticated to a proper consistence and mingled
with saliva, is conveyed into the stomach, and
brought under the action of the fluid there se-
creted. By the agency of this secretion, and
perhaps some other energy exerted by the stomacli,
the food is converted into a more or less fluid

108 THE

in the stomach of the hee. It is found in tlie milk
of animals ; and it is produced, by a depraved ai'tinn
of the digestive and jt-isimilating organs, in that al-
most incuralile disease termed diaibrles viellitiis.

Starch aud sugar are mutually convertible into
each other. Sugar is the principle bv which seeds
are enabled to germinate niiiidly, thus forming
from the starch their owni nutriment. This is
familiarly exemplified in the process of malting.—
which is, first, the forced germination of barley ;
and then, at a certain point, drying it in a kiln,
whereby its vitality is destroyed. Many seeds
containing starch, and therefore insipid, may be
made agreeable and wholesome by steeping them
in watt'r till they begin to germinate, when the
starch is converted into sugar. The 13unnese, by
this process, transform the seed of the cotton-plant
into a grateful article of diet. In the ri]ieniiig of
many, as those c)f the tiimaua, a remarkable trans-
formation of starch into sugar takes place. The
sago-palms, when about to Hower. liave the starch
in their lofty stems all converted into sugar : they
nmst be, therefore, cut down when the tlower first
begins to show itself, otherwise the siigo they con-
tain would be altogether lost. A sweet liipiid
from dowering palms (onc« in a state of starch) is
drawn, and fermented into toddy, ©r palm-wine.

On tlje contrary, many seeds, as the common
pea, which contain saccharine matter before they
are ripe, have, as they ripen, this saccharine matter
converted into starch ; and, when they germinate,
this starch is reconverted into sugar.

Among the grasses of our meadows, many, at
an early stage of their growth, have the stems
very saccharine ; but this sweetness is lost at a
later period, and the stems are insipid. This loss
of saccharine matter diminishes their nutriment :
hence it is an error to cut grass for hay when too
ripe ; for though, after it is slacked, it may be re-
stored to a proper condition by the fermentation
that then occurs, yet this is not unattended with
risk, nor is the hay so savoury and acceptable.

Sugars may be divided into several kinds,
according to the plant from wliich they are ob-
tained. Some are capable of crrstallization, and
others are not. Sugar of both these kinds exists
in the sugar-cane ; the latter constituting what is
known under the terms treacle or molasses. Some
sugai-s are susceptible of fermentation ; others,
however, are not so. The sugar of manna is
neither crystallizable nor capable of fermentation.^
Honey is capable of fermentation, and yields ll
old Celtic beverage ral'cd mead or metheg]

With isp.-.t to the sugar of milk, though it does
not n irally ( rysudlize, it may be converted into
gnini ^ sugar by the action of dilute sulphuric
acid, d i> then, though not previously, suscepti-
ble ol Tineiitution.

S tIi. — ^ Starch, chenftically considered, differs
from gar and from gum only in the greater pro-
portii of CMrbon which it contains ; and, by re-
niovajf tills superabundance of carbon, it is
convt )d into onoorotherof the above principles.
This ange occurs in plants during their flower-
ing, !i I in gniiiis during their germination, as well
as in e stomach during the process of digestion.
In CI bination with gluten, or wheaten flour for
(•Mini), stanh i^ capable of undergoing fermenta-
tion . id this takes place during the process of
cmivi fig the flour to bread, while it is in the state
of (Ini J. 'I be ]M-ecise nature of the action which
goi> is not well understwd ; Imt the digesti
bility the tlour is thereby increased, and its fitness
as an ticb- of food consequently improved.

S th abiMinds in all the cereal grains, but in
the i^'ittest purity in rice, millet, barley, maize,
(ti-. : 'wheat it is combined with gluten; with
saci'li: ne matter in oats and some leguminous
see.U villi mucilage in potatoes, rye. and Windsor
bean- In other vegetables it is differently corn-
bin. .I roduciiig aliments various in degree of nutri-
ment d (li^'.slibility. All seeds or roots yielding
sturilii abiinilance are termed farinaceous.

Sich is digestible and nutritious, but requires
other inciples to be taken in conjunction with it;
with i|k, sugar, eggs, Ac, it constitutes one of
the nik wholesome and acceptable of aliments,
and fii|)ns rapidly.

ifM or I'liity Matten. — These principles are
nut wfc both ill animal and in vegetable bodL
and il^ occur in a variety of forms, fron
to sofitod to hard or concrete ; but thj
be mi ilcen. Unlike as these raattec
sugar, fcnd starch, yet their
meiit- ire the same, exceptii
tain 11 rger proportion of,
djopst-i in the stomac])
bn^uj;! into more in^
have l«i anticij
susc<|ifcle
with iij»g
o.vygeij
gas.

quantil
suit:
the
th^^^^^

' ■,'.'<» UMI 111

pniic]|iW. tik.
r uf boor)- u more (*«aii>

tut-- ' • '"•'

Ill

nations or forms. This seems to be the view of i
Professor Lyou Playfair, who thus states his opi- j
nion : " First, I am clearly of opinion, that in the
present state of our knowledge no applicahle process j
is known by which malt can be rendered unfit for j
the pui-jiose of distilling, and yet useful for feeding
cattle ; but, at the same time, I conceive that such
a process could be discovered by investigation.

" Second, a careful consideration of the subject
has led me to the conclusion that the boon (of semi-
malting barley) would not be so great as fiu-mers
at present believe. Barley, in the act of germi-
nating, loses a certain amount both of the consti-
tuents wliich form the flesh, and those which form
the fat, of the animal. These are partly converted
into carbonic acid and ammonia, which pass into
the air m the form of gas, and are, therefore, lost to
the farmer. The former is the jjrincipal loss ; for
the ammonia arising from the destruction of the
flesh-forming principle is developed at the latter
end of the process. A given weight of barley is,
therefore, of greater nutritious value, both as re-
gards the production of muscle and fat, than the
same weight converted into malt. The starch in
the barley, during the act of germination, has
passed partly into a kind of sugar, which, being
soluble, and more easily digested, will pass more
rapidly into fat. The advantage of malt as food
is, I apprehend, founded on its easy digestibility;
in fact, in a practical point of view, j-ou might
conceive it to be barley half digested. But there
are other plans of rendering food easilj' digestible
without destroying part of its nutritious qualities,
as is done in the act of malting, and such o erations
are familiar to farmers. I conceive, then, that barley
loses part of its nutritious qualities in passing into
malt ; and that, as there are other modes of aiding
the digestibility of an aliment, the boon of allowing
its use for the pm'jjoses of feeding cattle is not so
great as to warrant government endangering part
of the revenue by granting such a boon.'

Professor Thompson, from his semi-malting or
infusing e.xjjerimeuts, comes to the same conclu-
sion, and says, " I do not think that malt is a
better food for cattle than barley."

Let us now see what another great chemist and
physiologist says upon the same subject. Professor
Graham, of the University College, London, thus
expresses his \'iews : "I can find no evidence that
cattle have ever been fed exclusively on malt, for
fattening or any other purpose, or that malt has
ever formed a large proportion of the food of cattle.
The high price of malt might preclude its being
used for such a purpose in this comitry ; but in
Germany, where the manufacture and use of malt
are subject to no restriction, it is 7iot employed for
fattening cattle, as I have been assured by Pro-
fessor Liebig. In the process of malting barley
a loss of nutritive substance takes place, which is

estimated by the same chemist at from five to
seven per cent. The starch of the grain is saccha-
rized, and rendered soluble, which is also the first
step in the digestion of unmalted grain. Although
less nutritive, malt may, therefore, be more diges-
tible by cattle than the original unmalted grain, even
when the latter is softened by grinding and mash-
ing in hot water. It is well known that the infu-
sion of malt, or sweet wort, acts as an aperient on
man and cattle, and caimot be used largely as nu-
triment. Malt acts in the same way upon cattle,
and this has been found practically to keep within
nai-row limits the proportion which it may be al-
lowed to form of their food. But in a small pro-
portion it has been pretty generally observed to be
beneficial both to horses and black cattle in certain
conditions of health ; still, it is to be observed, rather
as a condiment than as the staple of their food.

" Coarse sugar, or molasses, might, I believe, be
substituted for malt with the same beneficial effects.
" It is a common opinion that fixed oils prevent
the fermentation of worts ; and that, consequently,
malt might be made unsuitable for brewing by
mixing linseed oil with it, an addition which would
not injm^e the malt as food for cattle. Compa-
rative experiments which I have made on the fer-
mentation of malt alone, and of malt-meal which
was previously mixed with a fomlh of its weight of
linseed oil, showed that fermentation takes place
in the latter case, although it proceeded more slowly
than in the former; and that the presence of oil
reduced the product of alcohol to a small extent ;
the malt alone yielding seven per cent, more alco-
hol than the same weight of malt mixed with oil.
"Ground linseed, or linseed meal, is, I find,
more effective than oil in checking fermentation.
The addition of one-foui'th of that substance to
malt occasioning a loss of alcohol amotmting to
fourteen per cent. Linseed meal, also, when
mixed with ground malt, renders it wholly unsuit-
able for mashing, as that operation must be con-
ducted, in ordiuai-y brewing, by making the liquid
thick, so that the sweet wort drains away from the
grains only pai'tially and very slowly. If malt
should be issued to the farmers for the purpose of
fattening cattle duty free, I would, therefore, suggest
that it be ground and mixed with linseed meal
rather than linseed oil.

" It would, perhaps, be a greater advantage to
the agricultural interest to allow molasses to be
introduced duty free, on condition that it should
be mixed, when landed, with a considerable pro-
portion of linseed meal, which would prevent its
being used for fermentation, or for any other piu'-
pose except as food for cattle."

We have here nothing to do with the financial
question involved : the point to be decided
is, whether barley or malt present the greatest
staple of nutriment for cattle ? We say, unhesi-

112

tatingly, simple barley, ground to accommodate^ it
to the active powers of the stomach. It contains
ill itself both the flesh-making principle (gluten)
and the fat-making principle (starch or sugar) in
great abundance ; and to convert the starch into
sugar by mashing, and abstract the saccharine re-
sult, is to deprive it of a portion of its intrinsic
value. It is true that linseed ■ meal, mixed with
mashed barley (we speak not now of excise ques-
tions), will give it all that it has lost in the
mashing ; but this is really to pay extra for what •
might have been better, oras well, dispensed with; -
we, therefore, place barley before malt ; but, query,
can the feeder afford barley? that is, will the
price of his fattened oxen remunerate him for
outlay in this species of grain ? This must alto-
gether depend on circumstances, and is- somewhat
out of our province. ' '

With respect to pulse, such as beans, peas,
&c., abounding in gluten or legumen, and other
nutritive principles, we need not enter into
any details ; we must not, howev^, omit to ob-
serve, that the pods of the carob-tree (ceratonia
siliqua) have been much recommended as food
for cattte, add wilh no doubt, pi-ove advantageous,
especially as they may be now introduced, dttty
free, from the south of Europe and the shores
of the Mediterranean gen«rally, especially the
Levant. This leguminous plant (an evergreen) is
almost the only tree that grows at Malta, re-
lieving the barren aspect of the white stone
enclosures by its dark foliage. The pods contain,
besides the beans, a sweet nutritious pulp, which
is a common article of food in the countriete
where the tree grows naturally. The pulp is iiot
unlike manna, both in taste and consistence, and
is sometimes used as sugar to preserve other sub-
stances. This plant is called kharoob by the
Arabs, and algaroba by the Spaniards, who use
the pods in feeding horses after the pulp is ex-
pressed. They contain impure sugar, gluten,
gum, lignin, and other principles which render
them very nutritious ; they have been in request
from a very ancient period, and are, probably,
" the husks that the swine did eat;" in fact, they
are eagerly devoured by cattle at the present day
in Palestine and Egypt. To what extent these
pods have been employed as food for cattle in
England we cannot tell ; but there is every reason
to believe that their introduction would be bene-
ficial both to the merchant and the farmer. They
would counterbalance the failure of the turnip-
crop, and moderate the price of oilcake ; two very
important objects, independent of their intrinsic
value.

Oilcake is composed of the crushed seeds (lin-
seed) of the flax plant (linum usitatissimum), and
contains condensed mucilage, some oil, starch, &c.;
it is the residuum of linseed from which the oil

has been expressed. Great quantities of this seed
are imported from Russia ; but it comes likewise
from Prussia, Holland, Italy, Tm-key, America, and
also from India. The Indian linseed yields a
larger quantity of oil than the Russian, but the
plant itself is dwarfish. The importation of lin-
seed into the United Kingdom, for the purpose
both of sowing (especially in Ireland) and of
crushing, amounts annually to about four millions
of bushels; in 1837 the amount was 3,3-21,089
bushels ; but, besides^' this, there is a very ex-
tensive importation of oilcake, which, notwith-
standing the quantity that is home-made, meets
with a good market.

Oil is also -expressed from the seed of the
rape (brassica napus), and of the cole or colza
(brassica campestris), and the residue, in the form
of a hard cake, containing starch and mucilage,
known as rape-cake, is used on the continent for
the feeding of cattle, as linseed cake is in England.
Rape-cake is valuable as a manure, and for that
purpose is imported in large quantities. When
ground into powder, and drilled with the seed on
light poor lands, it supplies nourishment to the
young plants, and greatly accelerates their growth.
In Flanders it is much used, mixed with the fluid
refuse of the cattle-stalls, as a manure for flax-
land.

The cultivation of rape and cole, on hea-s'y clay
soils, as spring food, is greatly recommended ; both
plants are hardy, and resist the winter's frost.
The same observations apply to other varieties of
the cabbage, some of which yield an enormous
weight of food ; and though they impoverish the
ground, yet their substance, in all well-regulated
farming establishments, is restored to the ground
in the shape of manure ; indeed, it is asserted by
many experienced agriculturists, that in this re-
spect the cabbage is superior to the turnip. When
given to cattle, cabbages should be sliced in the
same manner as turnips or beet-root. When
milch cows are fed with them all the decayed
leaves should be carefully removed, as they com-
municate an unpleasant flavour both to the milk
and the butter. Oxen fatten well on cabbages and
oilcake, increasing rapidly in flesh.

In England, where the cultivation of the cab-
bage on a large scale, as food for cattle, is by no
means so general, even on the soils best adapted
for the purpose, as might be expected, those sorts
which have a large close head are preferred ; but
in France, where labour is abundant and forage
scarce, the large branching sorts are thought more
profitable, because they yield a succession of leaves,
fresh ones springing when the old ones are re-
moved. Of these cabbages, the thousand-headed
sort, the large cabbage of Poitou, and the tall cab-
bage called chou cavalier, the stem of which is
often six feet high, giving off large broad leaves,

without any cTose head, are most in request. On
good and rather stitf loam, well manured, tiie
cabbage thrives best, and its leaves then acquire a
great proportion of nutritive matter, insomuch
that no vegetable produces so great a mass of va-
luable food for cattle on the same spaj;e of ground ;
and when it is considered that the different sorts
can be cultivated in rotation, so as to succeed each
other, their importance becomes augmented.

We need scarcely say that the turnips (bras-
sica rapa) hold a prominent rank among the articles
used as food far cattle. The roots of this consist
of a large mass of cellular tissue in which starch
and sugar are deposited ; but they also contain a
large quantity of water, the pro[-Ortions of the in-
gredients in 11)0 parts of turnips being, according
to Dr. Lyon Playfair, as follow: —

TValcr 89

UnrtZulized niaUers, as Slarch anJ Sugar &

Albumen I

Inorganic matter 1

100

The regular cultivation of turnips, on a large scale,
was originally introduced from Flanders into Nor-
folk little more than two centuries ago ; in the
course of a century afterwards, it extended over the
north of England and the south of Scotland,
though for a long time the cultivation was carried
on only by a few discerning individuals ; in pro-
cess of time, however, the value of the turnip crop
became universally appreciated, and its cultivation
general. Several varieties of turnips are now
known to agriculturalists, produced from tbe Bras-
sica rapa by cultivation ; but the Swedish turnip,
or Ruta-baga, is a variety of the Brassica campes-
tris.

As a culinary root for the table the tiu'uip has
been long prized, and many varieties have been
raised ; but it is those of a larger kind than the
kitchen-garden sorts, which now form so important
a part of the improved systems of agriculture on
all light soils. They are to a great e.\tent the
foundation of good systems of cropping ; they sup-
ply the manure required for the subsequent crop,
while, at the same time, the ploughings, hoeings,
and stirrings which they require, subserve the good
of the land by the clearance of weeds.

Whether turnips be sown broadcast, or in the
row plan (and the latter is the preferable way, at
least we think so), the land requires preparation
and manure. For this purpose, especially on light
lands, bone-dust has been found very efficacious,
and the more so if the farmer can add to it (as he
ought) a fair quantum of cowhouse manure. But
within the last few years, another manure has been
introduced — we allude to (/ua)io (that is, the long-
collected rejectamenta of penguins, and other birds,
which tenant various rocks or promontories in the
Southern O^ean). This is no novelty. It was

VOL. I.

known to the ancient Peruvians. During the reign
of the lucas. the destruction or annoyance of the
birds during their breeding season, and, indeed, at
all times, the wanton disturbance of the bird i, were
visited with severe punishiuonts ; nay, according
to Garcilasso de la Vega, with dea;h. This writer
alludes more particularly to a tract of coiust exceed-
ing two leagues in length, between Arequipa and
Tarapaca, divided into islands respectively under
the care of superintendents. In the old world,
however, the value of tlris manure was appreciated
from the earliest ages ; not indeed that the birils
were fish devourers, for they were pigeons ; and in
Persia from the days of olden time have tiiese
birds been kept for the sake of their dung, so es-
sential to the growth of the melon ; indeed, the
Scriptural expression, relative to the value of a cer-
tain measure of" dove's dung," during the famine
in Samaria (2 Kings vi. Ho), evidently refei-s to
the use of this article in raising crops of vegetables
essential to the health of the natives of Western
Asia. (See Pict. Bible. )

Since the discovery of guano in the islands of
the Pacific Ocean, vast stores of this manure have
been found on islands situated on the west coast
of Southern Africa, that from Ichaboe being of the
richest quality : this island we believe is now quite
exhausted, but it occurs on rocky headlands, and
unmolested islands, where sea fowl breed in con-
gregated thousands, so that supplies continue still
to arrive in our ports. Guano differs considerably
in its constituents according to age, purity, and
various other circumstances. Its analysis, there-
fore, as published by different chemists, offers an
according range of variation, but the follow-ing are
the component parts of the most valuable speci-
mens,— viz. urate of ammonia, oxalate of ammonia,
oxalate of lime, phosphate of ammonia and magne-
sia, of lime and of soda, sulphate of potass and of
soda, muriate of ammonia and of soda, alumina, and
a waxy or fatty matter in small quantities.

From its richness in ammoniacal salts, it
claims the first position among animal manures.
These s;ilts, according to Von Martins, " act very
favourably on vegetation. They abstract from the
air its carbonic acid, and it is through its means
that those various proximate principles are formed,
as starch, mucus, resin, lignin, &c., which constitute
the body of the plant. With the exception of the
oxalate and phosphate of lime, nearly all the salts
are soluble in water. The urate of ammonia is
not so, but then iii the atmosphere it undergoes a
decomposition, by which carbonate of ammonia is
formed, which is equally soluble with the rest of
the sails, and is taken up by plants, and contributes
very much to their nutrition.

" The ease with which these salts are decomposed
by the air and rendered partly volatile, will partly
account for the fact, that plants, manured with

114

guano, genevall}' present early in the morning ac-
cumulations of dew on the points of their leaves.
The guano absorbs the surrounding air, and also
the vapour that may be in it, which is especially
serviceable to plants, and this is why guano is so
valuable a manure in dry and barren regions."

Compared with dove-cote manure, its fertilizing
power has been estimatedat from three to four times
greater ; and it is reckoned to be five times stronger
than night soil. In the cultivation of turnips,
guano has been found by repeated experiments to be
superior either to bone dust or farm manure ; it is
used at the rate of from three to five hundred weight
per acre, distributed on the drills, with the best
effect both as regards amount of produce and early
and vigorous growth. We are not, however, about
to enter into any details respecting the culture of
turnips ; we refer to them only as forming an im-
portant part of the food of cattle, insomuch that a
failure in the crops, generall3',cainiot but be regarded
as a serious calamity.

" It may be considered (says an authority on
this subject) that the most advantageous mode of
consuming turnips is to draw them and cut tliem
iu slices in the field, there to be consumed in
troughs by sheep, to whom corn or oil-cake, as well
as hay, is regularly given.

" When the crop of turnips is abundant, part of
them may be stored for the cattle' in the 3'ard or
fatting stalls, and for the milch cows and heifers.
They will require nothing but good straw if they
have plenty of turnips, and no hay need be used
unless it be for the horses ; and even they will
thrive well on Swedish turnips and straw, with
a small quantity of oats. Turnips are often left in
the field all winter, which greatly deteriorates them.
If they cannot be fed off before Christmas they
should be taken up with the tops on, and set close
together, covered with the tops, on a piece of grass
in some dry spot. They will thus be quite suffi-
ciently protected from tlie frost : or the tops may
be cut otf, within an inch of the crown of the root,
and the turnips be then stored iu long clamps five
feet wide and four feet high, sloped like the roof of
a house, and covered with straw and earth, in
which state they will keep till they are wanted.
It is advantageous to have different varieties of
turnips which will come to perfection ni succession ;
and it is useful to sow some at different times for
this purpose."

Among other vegetables useful as food for cat-
tle, the beet tribe claim notice. The root of the
field-beet, mangold wurzel, or mangel worzel
(Beta altissima), which was long known in Ger-
many, was introduced at the close of the last cen-
tury it is said by Dr. Lettsom, a physician of
great eminence, and is now very extensively culti-
vated.. The common red beet (Beta vulgaris) is
cultivated in gardens for the sake of its delicate

root ; but there is another species, the chard beet
(Beta cycla), inferior in the size of its root, but
remarkable for the thickness and size of its leaves,
which are yellow, white, green, or crimson, in dif-
ferent varieties. On the continent these leaves
are used in soups, and the ribs are stewed ; in
England the leaves are sometimes substituted for
spinach, but they are held in little estimation ; yet
cattle are extremely fond of them, and the plant,
which is very luxuriant, might be cultivated with
advantage, as field produce, in rows ; the more so,
as it is an excellent substitute for fallow on light
good loams.

If sown in May in drills two feet wide, and
thinned out to the distance of a foot from plant to
plant, in rows, they will produce an abundance of
leaves, which may be gathered in August and Sep-
tember; these, a central bunch being left on each
plant, are rapidly renewed, affording a succession
of food. These plants do not sensibly exhaust the
soil, and, what is more, the leaves add much to the
milk of cows, without imparling to it that disagree-
able flavour which it is apt to acquire when the
cattle are fed upon cabbages or turnips, and which
is owing in some measure to the rapidity with
which these latter run into the putrefactive fer-
mentation. The leaves of the chard-beet when
steamed with bran, chaff, or refuse grain, form a
very good food for pigs, and also for bullocks put up
to fatten.

With respect to field-beet or mangold wurzel,
its root is too well known to need any description,
nor need we comment on its culture, which is most
successfully carried on in deep sandy loams made
rich by repeated manuring. The sowing time is
May, and the roots should be taken up and stored
for winter use towards the close of autumn ; the
top as well as the tap root being removed, and the
earth scraped carefully away. They may be packed
iu the bam or root-house, in layers alternating with
layers of straw ; the whole mass being then well
covered and defended from the frost. Or they may
be put into trenches, having a good layer of straw
at the bottom and on the sides, till they rise iu a
ridged pile three feet above the level of the ground,
the whole being then covered with straw, and a thick
outerlayer of the earth dug out of the trench ;
around the mound a drainage gutter with free out-
lets must be dug, in order that no water may soak
into the interior of the mouud. When the roots
are required for use, the mound must be opened at
one end, and after the requisite quantity is extract-
ed, the opening carefully covered up as before. In
either of these two modes they may be kept till
spring.

There are few crops more valuable as winter
food for cattle than the beet or mangold wurzel.
Swedish turnips (or Euta baga) exceed them in
the quantity of nourishment, weight for weight ;

115

but on light aud well uiauureJ soils the produce of
the beet per acre is much greater. According to
Einliof and Thaer, eighteen tons of mangold wur-
zel are equal to fifteen tons of ruta baga, or seven
and lialf tons of potatoes, or three and half tons of
good meadow bay, each quantity containing the
same nourishment ; but the roots may be grown
upon less than an acre, whereas it will take two or
three acres of good meadow land to produce the
equivalent quantity of hay. Of all these root-crops,
it appears that the least exhausting to the land is
that of the beet. The mangold wurzel is admira-
ble for bullocks given with dry food, but cows fed
too largely on it are said to become too fat and to
lose their milk ; under some circumstances, how-
ever, this very circumstance would prove an advan-
tage, especially when it is desirable to dry and fat-
ten off cows, aud prepare them as soon as possible
for the butcher. A white variety of the beet is
cultivated in France for the extraction of sugar
from its juice.

The carrot (Daucus carota), of which there are
many vai'ieties, affords a valuable root for the food
of cattle. In England the large orange carrots
are most frequently raised in the fields for winter
consumption, but on the continent large white and
yellow sorts are more esteemed. In Belgium it is
common to sow the white carrots in spring amongst
barley which is reaped early ; as soon as the bar-
ley is cut, the land is cleared of weeds and stubble,
and liquid manure is poured over its surface. The
carrots which were scarcely visible, and the tops of
which were cut off in reaping, now shoot up, and
where they require are thinned by hoeing. At the
end of autumn the crop is carefully forked up, and
the ground prepared for some other crop. Where
hay is scarce, carrots form a veiy economical sub-
stitute ; they must be kept in dry root-houses or in
trenches. From twenty to forty pounds of carrots
with a small quantity of oats is a sufficient allow-
ance for a worldug horse for twenty -four hours;
these roots, however, when cut and steamed are
rendered more nutritious. Parsnips are also
treated in the same way, aud also potatoes.

From these roots we may turn to the artificial
grasses (as they are commonly but erroneously
called), of which several are of the highest im-
portance to the cattle-keeper. Among these lucern
( Medicago sativa) is pre-eminent. This plant, one
of the leguminous femily, was in high repute in
ancient times, and is spoken of with great com-
mendations by the writers on agricultural topics ;
nor has it lost its celebrity in the present day, and
wherever husbandry has made progress it is largely
cultivated, granting the soil and the climate to be
suitable. Where these are favourable luceni
grows with astonishing rapidity and luxuriance ;
but as it will not bear extreme frost, nor flourish
on a poor cold wet soil, nor yet on sterile stony

ground, the farmer must e.xercise discretion. l)eep
rich loam which has been previously trenched and
well manured, is rather light, and thorouglily
drained, is the best; and the produce of every such
acre will be astonishing. Its growth is singularly
rapid ; that of clover is not to be compared to it :
a tuft of lucern will rise to a foot above the surface,
after being mown, in the time that clover will rise
only a few inches. It lasts from eight to twelve
years, striking its roots deep into the soil, where
they are out of the reach of drought ; and in the
most parched and sultry weather, when the herbage
around languishes or withers for want of moisture,
the lucern rises fresh, green, and vigorous. Its
great bane is a wet subsoil ; this must be dry and
rich, and the surface must be clear of weeds.
Land, on which two successive crops of turnips
have been raised, and which have been fed off wiih
sheep, when well prepared gives a good return of
lucern. In the month of March the sowing should
take place. A small quantity of barley, perhaps a
bushel to the acre, should be diulled into the
g-ound, and at the same time from thirty to forty
pounds of the lucern seed sown broad-cast ; the
ground must be now harrowed and lightly rolled,
so as to lay it flat and even, without water furrows.

When the crop appears it must be well weeded,
otherwise there is a great probability that it will
fail. When the barley is reaped, the stubble
should be eradicated either by the hoe or the
harrow ; at least this is a good practice, especially
if the plants of lucern be strong. In a short time
it may be cut as fodder, but sheep should not be
depastured on it, as they bite too close to the root.
It should always be cut as soon as the flower is
formed, and also cleared of weeds.

The second year will generally bring in an
early crop, and it may be cut four or five times
during the season ; the ground being each time
weeded or cleared by means of a sort of harrow.

The cottager, with a small plot of ground, will
do well to sow lucern in rows, and cut at regular
intervals a portion for his cow, using the hoe for
the purpose of keeping the ground clear from
weeds.

Of all green fodder, both for horned cattle and
horses, lucern is perhaps the best. Horses fed
upon it, with the addition of a little corn, will keep
up their strength and condition under hard labour.
Cows thrive upon it, and return a full supply of
milk ; but lucern must not be given to cows or
oxen in too large quantities at a time, — it must
not be given when wet with rain or dew : and the
best plan is to keep it for twenty-four hours after
it is cut, in order that the juices may be evapo-
rated to some extent under a partial fermentation;
a process which, while it adds to the nutritive
qualities of the herb, renders it less liable to in-
flate the stomach of the cattle, or, as the farmer

H 2

116

■VV'ould say, produce "hoove," tliat is distention of
the stomach from gas.

Lucern is not easily made into hay ; it is too
succulent to dry rapidly, and a sho\Yer of rain,
in its half dry state is almost sure to spoil it, as
the stem is quickly soaked with moisture, which
does not readily evaporate ; yet, in favourable
seasons, a heavy crop of good hay may be obtained,
the produce of an acre being nearly double that of
clover.

Sainfoin (Hedysarum ouobrichis) is another
leguminous plant of great value ; unlike lucern,
however, it prefers a calcareous or chalky soil to
a deep, rich loam, and flourishes where the latter
would perish. Its root is strong and fibrous, and
strikes deep into the stony soil, finding moisture
even in the driest seasons ; but a wet, cold, heavy
subsoil is very detrimental to the health of this
plant, and causes the roots to perish ; and, as in
the case of the lucern, it decays when choked up
by dank weeds or grass. .A crop of sainfoin on a
fit soil, and properlyjpigrtiftged with occasional top-
dressings of ashes atid -manure, will last for eight
or nine years, giving yearly(.sev_eral cuttings of
green fodder or two of hay. ' ■ Sainfoin is usually
sown in the spring, in a thin crop of barley or oats,
the same general plan being pursued with respect
to its cultivation as with lucern ; and the farmer
must not expect to see it in full luxuriance till the
second year. .'

Sainfoin hay should be made, if possible, in
diy hot weather, so that all the juices of the plant
may be evaporated before the stack be made. This
is important, for if any moisture be left the whole
is apt to become mouldy ; indeed it is, recom-
mended that in precarious weather it be carried
green (if not wet with showers or dsw) uiider
cover, and stacked in alternate, layers, with good,
dry straw. By this means it will impart some of
its fragrance to the straw, and lose none of its nu-
tritive qualities. The same observation applies
both to lucern or clover. Sainfoin hay is extremely
relished by cattle, and if well made is very nutri-
tious ; nor is it less acceptable in*its green state,
and this, perhaps, is the most advantageous way in
which it can be used. "'

Clover (Trifolium) is another important plant,
of which several species are cultivated, some being
perennial, as the Dutch clover (Trifolium repens),
the cow-grass clover (Trifolium medium), the lesser
yellow trefoil (Trifolium minus); some biennial, as
the common red or brown clover (Trifolium pra-
tense): and some animal, as the French clover
(Trifolium incarnatum).

It is the red or brown clover which is generally
cultivated, both as green fodder and as hay for
cattle ; this is usually sown with barley or oats,
but sometimes among wheat or rye, in the spring.
In Norfolk it is the practice to sow it with barley ;

in Scotland it is often sown with wheat ; and in
Belgium with rye. But this depends on the sys-
tem of rotations adopted in different countries.

The first crop of clover is generally mown and
made into hay. During this process care must be
taken lest the tender leaves of the plant be broken
off in drying ; consequently, the swarth should not
be tossed up and shaken about, as is done with
common meadow ha}', but merely turned over
and exposed to the sun and air; and then, when
all moisture is evaporated, carefully stacked up.
Should the clover, unfortunately, become soaked
with rain, nay, even if the rain should continue,
the farmer must wait until fine dry weather re-
turns, and completes the process of drying ; if this
is not effected the hay will certainly become
musty. But however spoiled in appearance, if it be
at last fairly stacked in a dry state, with salt
scattered in, it will be acceptable to the cattle in
winter, and even nutritious. A writer sa3's, that
" A very good method in those seasons when a
continuance of dry weather cannot be reckoned
upon, particularly w'hen the second crop is cut in
September, is to take advantage of two or three
dry days to cut the clover, and turn it as soon as
the dew is completely dried off the upper side ;
the next day do the same, and in the evening,
carry the green diy clover, and lay it in alternate
layers with sweet straw, so as to form a moderately
sized stack. A fermentation will soon arise, but
the dry straw will prevent all danger from too
much heating, and, acquiring the flavour of the
clover, will be e'aten with avidity by the cattle.
To those, who make clover hay for the use of their
own stock in winter, we recommend this as far
preferable to the common method, even when there
is less danger from the weather. In northern cli-
mates it would probably save the crop two years
out of three."

Many farmers are in the habit of sowing rye-
grass (Lolium perenne) in a small proportion with
clover, especially on lands which have been re-
peatedly cropped with the latter, and therefore
somewhat exhausted. The plan is very excellent,
for when the mixed crop is cut and made into hay,
the young rye-grass will prove a good corrective to
the heating qualities of the clover. It is true that
pure clover-hay is preferred in and about London,
where it is extensively used cut into chaff, and
mixed with oats, beans, &c., and given to hard-
working horses. With respect to horned cattle,
green clover with tares and other artificial grasses
is largely given ; and if the succession of crops is
well managed, a supply of green fodder may be
obtainfrd from May to the end of November.

The French clover (Trifolium incarnatum) has
been introduced from the south of France only with-
in the last few years. This plant is a valuable addi-
tion to our list of artificial grasses, and when sown

117

ill the spring it rapidly arrives at perfection. One
of its principal uses is as early food for ewes and
lambs; for this purpose it is sown in autumn, alter
harvest, the stubble land being harrowed so as to
raise the mould. On this the clover-ssed is sown at
the rate of 18 or '^0 lbs. an acre, the rolled in well.
It springs up and stands the winter well ; and on
the return of spring appears in luxuriance. It
makes e.xcelleut hay, and may be cleared otf the
ground in good time to plough the land and clean
it for turnips. ' It may be mixed with rye-grass ;
but from its rapid aud vigorous growth is not well
adapted for sowing with a crop of corn ; indeed it
is doubtful whether this should be done with any
clover.

Tares or vetches (Vicia sativa), of which there
are several varieties, constitute a very important
green crop, thriving best on heavy soils, and yield-
ing a profitable return. One sort is much more
hardy than the other, and will stand the sjverest
winter: this may be sown in the autumn for early
spring fodder, the more tender sort in March, aud
it will come in three or four weeks after the for-
mer. A good farmer will aim at a succession of
green crops, and tares may be sown from spring
till August, for winter use. If the farmer has
more tares than he absolutely needs, he may make
them into excellent hay should the weather jier-
mit ; or depasture slieep upon thera, cutting the
fodder aud securing it in proper racks, that it may
not be trodden underfoot and wasted. A succes-
sion of tares and brown clover may be kejit up from
May to November. Tares require the land to be
well manured ; but they become an excellent sub-
stitute for a summer fallow on heavy soils, and thus
amply repay the outlaj' in labour and manure ex-
jiended upon them.

Such are the roots and artificial grasses on
which cattle are fed ; we here say nothing of the or-
dinary grasses of the meadow, nor of common hay,
straw, chaff, or grains, for with these all are fami-
liar. In supplying cattle with artificial fresh-cut
grasses, lucerii, sainfoin, clover, itc care must be
taken, and we repeat our injunction that they be cut
in as dry a state as possible, and left for twenty-four
hours to undergo partial fermentation before being
given to the cattle ; and even then they should be
■ allowed only in moderate quantities at a time, other-
wise the animals are apt to become hooven or hoven,
owing to the evolution of cai-buretted hydrogen in
the jiauuch ; indeed, we have known cows, which
had been previouslj' feeding on a rather scanty
grass pasturage, thus affected after being turned
upon a rich aftennath. Of all the artificial grasses,
none is more apt to render cattle hoven than lu-
cern rashly given; they are apt to gorge them-
selves ; whereas, if a small portion o/.ly be allowed
from time to time, they masticate it more thorough-
ly, rendering it much more readily digestible, and

consequently better adapted for yielding to the assi-
milating organs the principles of nutrition. The
cow will thus retain her health, and yield more aud
richer milk. Many practical farmers consider lu-
cern, at all times, too stimulating for milch cows ;
they aver that, if largely used, it deteriorates the
milk, and is apt to produce eruptions about the
thighs and abdomen, from which exudes an acrid
humour, producing foul incrustations, loss of hair,
and irritation of the skin, together with great debi-
lity and loss of appetite and milk. This disease,
termed by the French rafle, or jet de la lucerne,
may be removed by a change of diet, cleanliness,
and exercise ; the water should be soft and pure,
with a little flour mixed with it; and the food, if
green, sprinkled with a little salt.

Some have objected to mangold wurzel for milch
cattle, but we doubt whether on sufficient grounds;
for it is often the sudden change from one diet to
another, without variation, and not the article of
diet itself, that is injurious. When mangold wur-
zel is given with a proper proportion of hay, it has
been proved by experiment to be very salutaiy;
but if the statement in the " Farmers' Journal " for
1814, is to be relied upon, it has, when given
alone, produced a partial paralysis and a loss of milk ;
but in the instances narrated it appears that the
cows were suddenly transferred to this diet without
any admixture. Half a bushel of sliced mangold
wm'zel, morning and evening, mth a good allow-
ance of sweet hay in the intermediate portion of
the day, has been tried, and found to keep cows
not onlv in health, but in the finest milking con-
dition. That there is nothing deleterious in this
root appears from its analysis : — a thousand pai'ts
contain about 50 of sugar, 2'2 of mucilage, -2 of
starch, 6 of extract, 35 of woody fibre or lignin,
and 885 of water. Next to mangold wurzel, many
farmers regard parsnips as the most valuable root;
indeed, in some districts, and particularly in Jersey,
this root is largely used, both for milch cows and
for fattening oxen. They are best when steamed,
as are also potatoes ; indeed, cut straw or chaff
{not the husk of grain, which is most dangerous,
and scarcely if at all digestible) forms a much
more nutritous food when steamed and given warm
than in its crude condition. On steamed roots,
steamed chaff, and a little hay, many large fai--
mers keep not only milch cows, but oxen aud
working horses, at least during the winter. We
are talking of stall-fed cattle, and not of such as are
depastured in the fields, though, where the fields
are eaten bare, a regular allowance of food on the
same principles is necessaiy. A discreet allow-
ance of green fodder, cut grass, mangold wm-zel
sliced, turnips sliced, steamed roots aud hay. or
cut straw and brewer's grains, clover, chaff, and oil-
cake, or linseed boiled or unboiled, form the stajile
articles of the diet cf cattle; and the proportion in

118

ubich any of tliese is to be given, depends on the
condition of the animals, and -whether they are
milch cattle or cattle for fattening. When oats
are given they should be always bruised, as they
are very difficult of digestion, and often produce
serious mischief, remaining unchanged in the ali-
mentary canal.

Previously to stall-feeding cattle, it is advisable
to keep them for a short time on a bare pasture.
By this plan tHe stomach acquires tone and vigour,
the appetite is healthily increased, and the animals
feed with a greater relish, and fatten more rapidly.
During their feeding the healthy tone of the
stomach should be maintained, and the diet in
proportion to the ease of good digestion, which
should always " wait on appetite."

In the treatment of cattle, whether in the field
or in the stall, good clean water is essential.
Where no good water is otherwise accessible, it is
better to sink wells, and pump the water into stone
troughs, than to allow the animals to drink from a
muddy, filthy pond, full of putrescent animal and
vegetable matters which generate many diseases.
Such water injures the quality of the milk, and
disorders the digestive organs. These evil effects
are often attributed to the grass, whereas the cause is
in the water and not in the pasturage. It is noto-
rious that cows pastured in districts where marshes
and stagnant pools abound, into which the drainage
of the land is carried, are subject to that scourge
of cattle known as " Red Water," and also to se-
vere diarrhcea.

Cattle in their pastures drink at will, and
usually take from 12 to 18 or 20 gallons in the
course of twenty-four hours ; but, when stall-fed,
it is necessary to supply them twice or three times
a day, according to the nature of their food. If
fed on dry pirovender, they require water more fre-
quently than when eating succulent herbage or
juicy roots ; and neglect in this point is one of the
causes of various inflammatory diseases which often
make their appearance to the loss of the feeder.
With a due supply of pure water, cleanliness, the
free ajjplication of the currycomb, ventilation,
and a little gentle exercise daily in a bare en-
closure, are very important concomitants. A hot,
close, undrained cow house, into which pigs, fowls,
ducks, &o., have free access, is a disgraceful
spectacle.

The management of milch cows is a simple af-
fair. It is on good old natural pastures that they
maintain the best health, return the most milk,
and select the herbage best suited to their appe-
tite ; but when housed or stalled, the great rule is
not to overtax their digestive powers, while a suffi-
ciency of food is supplied, and that wholesome and
of more than one sort. If overfed, the cow will
have some difiiculty in bringing forth her calf; her
udder will sympathize with the derangement of
the stomach, and the vital functions will be all
in disorder. Good sense and a little experience
must be brought into operation. The same re-
marks apply to cattle fattened in the stall for the
butcher.

CHAPTER VIII.

In entering upon the subject of the diseases of
cattle, our plan will be to render it acceptable to
the farmer or grazier who pretends to no anato-
mical knowledge, but yet is glad of some advice
by which to be guided in the treatment of the more
ordinary cases of malady which demand his atten-
tion. He cannot always have instant recourse to
a veterinai-y surgeon, and in slight disorders may
not deem it needful, though we must say we doubt
the soundness of his policy. It is by the veteri-
naiy surgeon only that all operations must be per-
formed : and in cases of sevei'e accidents his skill
must be called into requisition. Nothing is more
to be reprobated than the practice, unhappily still
too general, of applying to a farrier, ignorant alike
of anatomy, physiology, and the symptoms of dis-
ease ; or to a druggist, who is in the habit of com-
pounding drenches of various nostrums (many
worse than useless), when the lives of cattle are at
stake. This practice is the more inexcusable, when
professed and well-educated veterinary practitioners
are within call of the farmer, — and of such few

towns or rural districts are now destitute. It is
not, however, for the veterinary surgeon that we
now write ; it is, as we have said, for the farmer,
and that by way of guide and advice.

The ox, like the human sulyect, is liable to
numerous maladies, arising from different causes ;
— to fever, to inflammatory affections of the brain,
lungs, liver, intestines, and other organs ; to paraly-
sis, and other diseases connected immediately with
the nervous system; to various chronic diseases,
and to sadden derangement of the complicated
digestive apparatus from improper food. To these
classes of diseases others might be added, setting
aside injuries from external causes which are con-
stantly happening.

Before entering into these more fully, a few
preliminaries relative to the constitutional tempe-
rament of the domestic ox may not be out of place ;
it is indeed a point that demands our notice.

Comparing the ox with the horse, neither the
nervous nor the arterial system of the former exhi
bits the same energy as that of the latter. The brain

119

of the ox is small ; the nervous energies are soon
exhausted, "nor are they so easilj' recruited by rest,
as in the horse : the ox will not endure severe
labour, especially if hurried, and will frequently
sink down with exhaustion ; in illness it is sooner
prostrated than the horse, and more subject to
paralytic weakness. The chest, moreover, has
less volume, and the free j'lay of the lungs is more
frequently oppressed by the distension of the
stomach, which, with the abdominal viscera, occupy
more room in proportion, as being of comparatively
predominant importance. The ox, indeed, is ex-
pressly formed for giving milk and flesh as the
food of man ; and though this animal has been
employed in labour from the eai'liest times, it was
for slow labour, with frequent intervals of rest.

The pulse of the ox is quicker than that of the
horse, ranging from fifty to sixty in a state of
health ; in the horse it is under forty. In cattle,
near the time of calving, the pulse often rises to
eighty or eighty-five, and in milch cows is always
quicker than in oxen. The arteries generally,
those arising from the heart immediately, being
excepted, are comparativel}' much smaller than in
the horse ; while, on the contrary, the veins are
far larger, and indeed the whole venous system is
more developed, and especially so in good milch
cows, in which the subcutaneous abdominal vein (or
milk vein), is taken as a criterion of their qualities

It is not always an easy thing to feel the arte-
rial pulse in cattle ; this may, however, be gene-
rally effected at one of the following arteries: —
The suiiiiaxillary, a branch of the carotid which
dips under the angle of the lower jaw ; the tempo-
ral arterij running up between the eye and ear;
or the anterior auricular artery, which supplies the
anterior muscles of the ear. The pulsation of the
heart itself may be tried by placing the hand on
the left side of the chest, a little within and behind
the elbow. The warmth or unnatural coldness of
the ears, and the heat of the blood at the roots of
the horns, are points to be attended to in conjunction
with the pulse.

When blood is abstracted from cattle, the ex-
ternal jugular vein is that commonly selected for
the lancet ; it is very apparent, running along the
side of the throat from the angle of the lower jaw.
A skilful operator will use a strong broad-shouldered
lancet, but the farmer contents himself with the
fleam, which in his hands is more certain and safe ;
but, whether the lancet or the fleam be employed,
the neck should not be strapped or corded round, as
the pressure being alike on both sides of the neck,
impede the return of the blood from the head ;
firm pressure of the fingers a little below the spot
where the puncture of the vein is to be made, will
suffice to render it prominent. Occasionally, in
affections of the mouth or nasal organs, a flow of
blood is obtained from the vessels of the palate by

free incisions on the latter ; and sometimes certain
veins of the limbs (the cephalic of the fore limb,
the saphena of the hind limb) are selected. In in-
flammatory diseases, prompt and efficient bleeding
is indispensable ; and this should be carried so far
at once as to affect the circulation, and thereby, if
possible, arrest the course of the disease. Timid
bleeding, rendering its repetition needful, is to be
eschewed ; but at the same time attention should be
paid to the age, constitution, and vigour of the
animal In an aged cow which has had numerous
calves less loss of blood will suffice than in a young
one whose constitution is unimpaired, or an ox in
full vigour. From the latter, two gallons of blood
may be extracted, while from the first half the
quantity will probably suffice. To bleeding, aperi-
ent medicine should be added ; and in this we can
scarcely ever do wrong, for cattle bear aperients,
especially with a little carminative to excite the
action of the stomachs, better than the horse, in
whom thej' sometimes produce dangerous irritation
of the alimentary canal

It is to the inflammatory diseases of cattle,
which demand prompt measures carried out with
boldness yet discretion, that we shall first direct
our attention.

SIMPLE FEVEK.

Cattle, especially in swampy lands, are sub-
ject to attacks of fever ; this is sometimes pure or
idiopathic, and occasionally assumes an intermit-
tent form ; but if suffered to proceed, some vital
organ, predisposed to take inflammation, becomes
as it were the centre of irritation, and the case
may terminate fatally.

In simple fever the animal is languid and dull,
it refuses food, the hide loses its mellowness, the
flanks heave, the horn is hot at its base, and the
pulse is hard and quick. In a day or two the ani-
mal seems better, but after a brief interval the
symptoms return with increased violence, the
breathing becomes more laborious, rumination
ceases though the animal often lies down, but this
is from weakness, and the mouth is dry and hot.
Mischief is now coming on, and, most probably, iu
the form of inflammation of the lungs.

This disease is, perhaps, the most prevalent in
autumn, when cattle are exposed in damp lands,
and heavy cold fogs set in at night, or partial frosts
which crisp the grass, yet luxuriant though harsh.
It may arise from miasmatous exhalations, or from
water putrescent with decomposed leaves or other
vegetable matters. At the beginning of the dis-
ease, the judicious farmer will remove the animal,
and take away some blood, giving afterwards a
cathartic dose, composed of from eight to twelve
ounces of Epsom salts (sulphate of magnesia), two
or three ounces of sulphur, two drachms of pow-
dered ginger, the whole mixed in a quart of warm
water; half a pint of linseed oil may be added.

120

-il

Tlie diet must be reduced aud mashes given, with
repetitions of the cordial purgative, till the animal
regains its wonted cheerfulness, and eveiy symptom
has disappeared.

It not unfrequently happens that fever, ap-
pearing at first in a slight and simple form, sud-
denly puts Qua decidedly iiijiammatoru character;
or, on the contrary, assumes a low ti/phoul form,
in which, as in the human subject, the vital ener-
gies give way under the process of what is not
unaptly termed a secretly consuming fire.

i;;flammatory fever.

This disease, called black quarter, quarter-ill,
evil-joint, blood-sticking, and other meaningless
names, is often prevalent in certain districts and
during certain years, occasions extensive mor-
tality. Young cattle are the most commonly seized,
their habit being more disposed to plethora than
aged subjects. Sometimes the disease appeal's to
be epidemic, or at least attacks whole herds turned
imprudently from spare diet upon luxuriant pas-
tures, subjected to wet cold nights, while the blood
vessels are receiving an inordinate addition of the
vital fluid from the assimilating system. ..j.. .

So rapidly does this fever come on, that the
slight precursor febrile symptoms are often unno-
ticed ; and so quick is its course that there is little
time, or none, to have recourse to remedies. Gene-
rally, however, the ordinary symptoms of simple
fever may be noticed, but these all at once assume
a most aggravated form ; the animal labours under
a general venous congestion, and dies a mass of
putridity.

The first stage of this disease is highly inflam-
matory. The pulse is quick, hard, and strong; the
eyes are inflamed and protruding ; the tongue is
dry and parched ; the breathing laboured and quick,
with deeper inspirations at intervals ; the head is
stretched forth, the neck at full extent, and an
agitated expression marks the countenance ; the
appetite is gone, and of course rumination sus-
pended. This is the first, or perhaps, in reality,
the second stage ; at all events it is the first no-
ticed, and these symptoms are apparent^ though in
particular cases some may hs more marked than
others. What is now to be (Lone — and promptitude
must attend every eflbrt? Let these things be done :
Bleed, aiming at once for all, and bleed freely, even
to fainting ; then give active aperients ; and if ne-
cessary bleed again, but now with caution, and not
within six or eight hours after the first operation ;
for the strength of the animal, and the state of its
exhaustion, are points to be kept in mind ; but re-
course must be had to a second aud copious bleed-
ing unless a decided improvement has already ma-
nifested itself. Sedatives should succeed the brisk
aperients : half a drachm or a diachm of digitalis
(foxglove leaves properly dried and powdered^ one

drachm of tartarized antimony, and four drachms
of nitre, mixed in any demulcent liquid, may be
given twice a day. A seton of black hellebore
should be insei'ted into the dewlap. Should the
disease continue, the animal utters low distressing
moaiis, and is generally unconscious of surrounding
objects ; it will stiiud gasping, but without change
of jiosture, for a considerable time ; and when it
attempts to move it staggers and reels, and the hind
quarters seem affected with a partial paralysis ; the
loins are so tender that the slightest pressure pro-
duces pain ; and swellings anse on the shoulders,
back, aud limbs, which, when pressed, make a
crackling noise. These swellings arise from an
effusion of some gas into the cellular tissue, the
consequence of a putrescent state of the blood.
Debility now rapidly increases, and the animal
drops ; perhaps it rises again, but it again falls
prostrate, and after making vain attempts to reco-
ver its limbs, sinks into a comatose state, and dies.
Sloughing ulcers, in this stage, often spread over
the abdonen, the limbs, aud othi^r pai'ts; the
mouth, muzzle, and tongue are ulcerated; a sa-
nious offensive fluid drops from the mouth and
nose ; and the alvine excretions are extremely
fetid, and mixed or streaked with blood. In this
state the poor beast may continue two or even
three days, till relieved by death. Farmers call
these ulcerations and their concomitants, black
quarter ; and the paralytic state of the limbs, quar-
ter evil, or joint-murrain.

If the decease be not checked in its inflamma-
toiy stage, the chance of saving the animal when
congestion of eveiy organ, brain, lungs, heart, liver,
intestines, kc, from the violent excess of arterial
action has commenced, is veiy precarious. The
first object will be to relieve the congestion under
which the vital powers of the system succumb ;
if previous bleeding has been neglected there is
no rocnn for hesitation, for weak as the animal may
appear the system must be relieved ; but if the
animal has been freely bled and purged, the ques-
tion will arise how far will it be prudent to
abstract more blood. As a general rule, blood
should be taken, and the state of the pulse should
be watched : if it become softer there is still
hope ; but if it fail, and become more and more
indistinct, the flow of blood should be stopped.
Active aperients should be administered, begin-
ning with a pound dose of Epsom salts, succeeded
by half-pound doses at intervals, until the bowels
are acted upon. Nor shoidd injections be neg-
lected in aid of the medicine. These may consist
of half-a-poimd of common salt, aud a little oil,
in four quarts of water or thin gruel. The swell-
ings of the limbs and loins should be fomented
with hot water, and the fetid sloughing ulcers
washed repeatedly during the day '^^ith a solution
of chloride of lime (half-an-ounce of the chloride

121

in a gallon of water) ; the miizzle and tongue
sliould be similarly treated. Some pi-actitiouers
recommend tliat a pint of this solution be gently
homed down into the stomach, perhaps more
than once ; for if there be hoove, or distension
of that organ by gas, this solution mil combine
with it, prevent its farther formation, and correct
the fcetor, wliich is often almost unbearable.

After these remedies, and supposing the bowels
to have been well cleared, mashes of thick gruel
should be offered, or even gently poiu'ed do\vn the
gullet.

If the ulcers cleanse, the swellings disappear,
and the animal beguis to eat, — indications of
incipient recoveiy, tonics may be given, but not
previously. One or two drachms of gentian
(pulv. gentianas ), and half-a-drachni of ginger,
mixed with gruel and half-a-pint of good ale, may
be given twice or thrice a day. The curative
process of the ulcers will be promoted by dress-
ings of tincture of aloes. The seton, however,
should be continued for two or three weeks.

It is easier to prevent the attack of this for-
midable disease than to cure it. Cattle, and
young cattle especially, should not be suddenly
put into rich pastures ; they should be previously
purged, and introduced by degrees, being occa-
sionallj' removed into a bare pasture, where, with-
out gorging to repletion, the}^ may digest at leisure
what they have taken. Too much water is dan-
gerous, especially if taken when the animal is from
any cause overheated. Putrescent j)onds, turf-pits,
and the like, are to be avoided, as the water is
no.tious even if taken in moderation. Yoimg
growing cattle should not be too highly fed.
There is no occasion to stan-e them ; but there
is a medium which good sense will dictate. The
stock, moreover, should be daily inspected ; and
should any suspicious sj'mptoms appear, — any
shivering, any heaving of the flanks, any diffi-
culty of respiration, any dulness or redness of
the eyes, — a purgative, and the loss of a little
blood, may stop the approaching mischief.

TYPHUS FEVEE.

Inflammatoiy fever in cattle of aU ages, but
more partievilarly in adult beasts, sometimes as-
sumes a low, lingering, typhoid fonn. The gait
is staggering, the appetite is gone ; dian-hcea suc-
ceeds moderate doses of medicine, or comes on
spontaneously. Tumours appear on the limbs,
back, udder, &c., and ulcerate, and the breath is
fetid. This disease is most prevalent in the spring
and autumn ; especially on mai'shy lands, subject
to miasmatous exhalations. It is sometimes epi-
demic, and fatal to a great extent, sweeping away
numbers of valuable cattle. Occasionally it is
accompanied by a catarrh, but mostly by diaiThcea
or dysenteiy, the indication of inflammation or

congestion of the mucous membrane of the in-
testines. The same decided treatment which we
have described in inflammatory fever, must be
adopted : the lancet must be used boldly. The pur-
gative of salts, &c., should be given, and its action
kept up by six or eight ounce doses of sulphur.
If the dysenteiy be violent, calomel and opium
will be found useful, in doses of thirty or forty
grains of the former, and a drachm of the latter,
mLxed in thick gruel : emollient injections should
be administered, and castor oil given in doses of a
pint. The irritation of the intestines must be
allayed, and their healthy and vigorous action
induced. A seton of hellebore should be inserted
in the dewlap ; and the general treatment be
conducted as we have detailed in inflammatory
fever.

CATAERH, OE HOOSE ; EPIDEMIC CATAKRH, OB INFLU-
ENZA ; AND MALIGNANT CATARRH, OR MURRAIN.

Catarrh, or Hoose, consists in inflammation of
the lining membrane of the great nasal cavities,
spreading to the fauces, the glands of the throat,
and the laiynx and wind-pipe. It is mostly, per-
haps, in the spring and autumn that catai'rh
prevails ; it is caused by sudden changes of tem-
perature, as, for example, a change from a close,
over-heated, and crowded cowhouse to a bleak un-
sheltered pasture, duiing cold rain or stormy
easterly wind. Cattle heated by being overdriven,
and exposed to a cold cui'rent of air, ai'e apt to be
affected by it.

This disease commences by febiile symptoms :
the pulse is quick and hard ; the roots of tlie
horns ai'e hot ; the ears and head are droop-
ing ; the animal is dull, repeatedly coughs, and
neglects to feed. In a short time a discharge
from the nostrils takes place ; the animal swallows
with difficulty, and exhibits great debility. If
neglected, the disease insidiously pursues its
course, atrophy ensues, the lungs become affected,
and consumption supervenes. However slight
catarrh may appear at first, it should not be, as it
too often is, regarded with indifference. The cow
has a dischai'ge from the nose, her milk decreases,
she coughs, her flanks heave, she loses flesh ; and
perhaps, when it is too late, the fai-mer takes tlie
alarm, and sends for the veterinarian.

The treatment of this disease, if taken in time,
is simple. Blood must be abstracted (the animal
having been placed under shelter and apart), and
this must be followed by saline aperients, salts
and ginger, in whey or gimel ; after which doses of
nitre (nitrate of potass) may be given two or three
times a day in giaiel. The dose may be from two
to four drachms. Nitre will allay inflammation,
and act upon the kidneys. Giiiel, waiTU bran
mashes, with a little grass or good hay, constitute
the best diet. If the difficulty in swallowing is

1-42

considerable, a seton iu the dewlap should not be
omitted ; or the throat may be blistered (though
not readily) by rubbing the skin with the common
blister ointment, or a liniment consisting of an
ounce of the powdered blisterfly, two ounces of oil
of turpentine, and six ounces of common oil.

Catarrh is sometimes epidemic, spreading over
whole districts, and assuming a very virulent and
dangerous form. At the commencement the fever
is very severe, the respiratory passages are greatly
inflamed, there is a distressing hoose, and the
aspect is agitated. Sometimes the bowels are
confined ; but sometimes diarrhoea comes on, and
is very troublesome. If not checked, a stage of
debility supervenes, the fever assumes a typhoid
form, crackling air-filled tumours in the cellular
tissue show themselves about the head, loins, and
limbs ; the breath becomes fetid, the animal stag-
gers, its coat is staring, its flesh wastes away, the
discharge from the nostrils is sanious, and death
ends the scene.

During the febrile stage, bleeding freely and
promptly, with a repetition of the bleeding if ue-
cessaiy, together with active aperients and seda-
tives (digitalis, tartarized antimony, and nitre), as
recommended in infla^mmatory fever, Avarm mashes
and injections, must be resorted to. But in the
stage of debility little can be done. Doses of ni-
trous ether (two or three drai'hms) and laudanum
(half an ounce), mixed in giTiel, may perhaps be
serviceable. Should the fever pass off, and simple
weakness only remain, tonics, such as gentian and
ginger, may be given.

Catarrh sometimes appears in the form of a
malignant epidemic, sweeping away the cattle of
whole districts, and, in fact, spreading over whole
countries. Such was the dreadful murrain, about
the middle of the eighteenth century, which depopu-
lated the fields of England, and baffled all attempts
at cure. The disease began mth a violent febrile
attack, which rapidly assumed a typhoid form, and
ran on to gangrene. This murrain is said to have
been traced from Italy, through Fraiice, Germany,
and Holland, into England. In 174-5, more than
200,000 cattle perished in Holland. In 1747,
more than 40,000 cattle died in Nottinghamshire
and Leicestershire, and 30,000 died in Cheshire
in half a year. From the earliest ages, indeed, the
murrain has been known. It was by murrain that
the cattle of Egypt died, as narrated in Exodus.
Homer describes a similar pestilence, during the
siege of Troy, which extended its intluenee to man.
It is noticed by various Greek and Roman writers,
and described at length, by Vii-gil, in his Georgics,
Book III. From time to time it has appeared
during what are called the middle ages, and has
continued to break out at intervals, in different
kingdoms of Europe, almost to oiu' day.

The precursory symptoms of this murrain

were those of catarrh in an aggravated form, and
increasing in violence till the typhoid state came
on, with ulcerations in the mouth, swelling of the
glands of the throat, a thin fetid discharge from
the nostrils, air-filled or emphj-sematous-tumours
on different parts of the limbs and body, or even
an almost universal emphysema of the whole cel-
lular tissue, which, on pressing the skin, was mani-
fest by the crackling sound. Sometimes the beasts
dropped and died instantly ; sometimes, from in-
flammation of the brain, they became delirious and
mad with fury, and died exhausted if not at once
destroyed.

Few, comparatively, recovered ; some, however,
when every hope seemed lost, began rapidly to im-
prove, and were ultimately restored to health.

On dissection after death the fourth stomach
and intestines were generally found highly in-
flamed, often gangrenous or ulcerated. The lungs
were gorged with blood, and the bronchial tubes
and windpipe filled with purulent matter ; the
brain often exhibited traces of inflammation, and
the cellular tissue was emphysematous ; the body
ran rapidly into a horrible state of decomposition.

Of the remedies tried, some most absurd,
childish, and superstitious, we need say nothing,
as none were found to avail ; and the legislature
appointed inspectors to Aasit the farms throughout
the country, and see that the infected beasts were
destroyed and instantly buried ; half the value of
the animals being allowed in compensation on
duly authorized certificates. This was a wise and
energetic measurjs, for though the disease was un-
questionably epidemic, it appeared to be also con-
tagious; and it was on this supposition that the
wholesale destruction of tlie infected was ordered.
In many instances, indeed, where the diseased
were promptly Idlled and buried, the rest of the
stock on the farm escaped. It is true that many
farmers availed themselves of this law, and the ig-
norance of the overseers or judges, to get rid of
worn out old beasts, or of such as lingered under
other ailments, claiming the remunei'ation for their
destruction : this, was however, after all, a minor
evil and of little import.

INFLAMMATION OF THE LARYNX AND WINDPIPE.

Besides the catarrhal affections described, cat"
tie are subject to inflammation of the lining mem"
brane of the larynx and windpipe, often extending
through the bronchial tubes. This is a formidable
disease, sometimes apparently epidemic, but more
frequently the result of sudden atmospheric changes
in cold damp situations. The disease commences
with the usual symptoms of fever, shivering, loss
of appetite, a quickened pulse, and a laboured,
husky, wheezing respiration, to which succeeds
great debility. The least pressure along the
throat evidently gives great pain, the animal

123

moves its head stiffly and with difficulty, and
cannot swallow without a marked effor* the drinks
administered.

On examination after death, the lining mem-
brane of the lar3aix and bronchife show the results
of violent inflammation in ulcerated patches and
gangrene, the gullet being also more or less in-
volved in the disease. The windpipe is generally
filled with puioilent matter ; and if the disease has
e.xtended to the bronchial tubes, the same appear-
ances are there also presented ; but these tubes
ai'e often choked up with parasitic worms of the
genus Jilaria, and they appear also in the wndpipe.
In bronchitis of the horse, a species of the worm
strongylus equimis in like manner is foimd to
throng the bronchial tubes. It is not easy to ac-
count for the presence of these worms, unless we
suppose their minute eggs to be taken in mth the
air or food, and pass through the lacteals into the
blood, which carries them through the circulation,
till at length they find a nidus appropriate for
theh development ; but there is still this diffi-
culty,— whence came the eggs into the air or
among the food ? The worms, as it would appear,
are exclusively the inmates of living creatures :
how do they spread? bow do they extend their
colonies ? This is not the place ibr siieculation.
In laiyngitis, that is, inflammation of the laiyux
not extending down the windpipe, recourse must
be bad very promptly to bleeding, smart aperients,
blisters, and a seton of hellebore. If the disease
runs on, suffocation ensues ; but, should this catas-
trojjhe threaten, tracheotomy must be performed ;
that is, the trachea must be opened, and respii'a-
tiun caiTied on tln'ough a tube or canula. No
one but an experienced veterinaiy surgeon can
perform the operation, or should attempt it. If
the disease extend to the trachea or windpipe, the
same treatment is necessary.

In bronchitis, or inflammation of the branches
of the windpipe which ramify through the lungs,
the S3Tnptoms are a cough, which becomes more
and more husky and wheezing ; a rapid and la-
borious breathing ; the flanks heaving; the belly
tucked up ; the hide staring ; the sldn hide-
bound ; an anxious restless expression ; a disin-
clination to move; an increase of the painful
cough, and a hurriedness of respii-ation, on taking
a few steps. The animal wastes away, and dies a
skeleton, often by suffcication ; the au'-tubes being
blocked up by the thickening of the lining mem-
brane, by mucus, and by worms.

To this disease young cattle ai'e peculiaily
subject ; and we need not say that it is one of a
most destructive nature. The great object at the
commencement of the attack is to subdue the
inflammation by bleeding, active aperients, and
sedatives ; if these means prove unsuccessful
there is little hope. When the tubes are thickened.

clogged with mucus, and womis, what can be done?
Could the irritating parasites be removed there
would be a chance of recovery. Spirit of tur-
pentine promises at least occasional success. In
calves labouring under hoose and the irritation of
bronchial worms, spirit of turpentine has been
found efficacious, and might be in older cattle.
Mr. Dickens recommends, in cases of hoose or
cough in calves, the bronchial tubes of which are
filled with minute worms, the following draught,
repeated at intervals of a week or ten days : —

Linseed oil, 1 oz.
Oil of turpentine, 4 oz.
Oil of can-awavs, 20 drops.
M"ix.

A contributor to the " Veterinarian" has found
the following mLxtiu'e very successful, viz. : —

Spirit of turpentine, 6 oz.
Tinctui'e of opium, 1 oz.
Balsam of sulphur, 1 oz.

^™"^M of each 1 drachm.
Ginger, J

The dose of spirit of tm-pentine for grown-up
cattle may extend from two to four ounces, vrith
as much linseed oil, a few drops of caraway, and
a little gruel.

The rationale is as follows : the turpentine, so
peculiarly destnictive to worms, is taken up into
the system, enters into eveiy part of the circula-
tion, and is recognizable both iu the urine and
breath. It is thus brought into contact vrith the
worms, whom it immediately destroys; their hold
being loosened, they are then easily expelled from
the larynx by the cough, and the bad symptoms
will gradually abate. The dose may be repeated
eveiy other day, or twice in the week.

INFLAMMATION OF THE LUNGS, OE PNEUMONIA.

With the bronchial disease, previously de-
scribed, there is generally an attendant inflamma-
tion or congestion of the lungs (that is of their
cellular- substance) to a greater or less extent;
but sometimes pneumonia manifests itself inde-
pendently and in an acute foim. It is generally
the result of over-driving cattle when in an imfit
state from fat to travel hard or work long. The
disease commonly makes its appearance within a
day or two from the exciting cause of it, and is
characterized by dulness, a frequent cough, a
dro-ping of the head, and a heaving of the flanks,
to which the animal often turns its head ; the
horns, ears, and legs are cold, the pulse is small
and quick, but sometimes not quicker than usual.
Eespiration is evidently painful ; this, the frequent
act of turning the head to the sides expressively
indicates ; but the cough is not so frequent as in
bronchitis. Frequently the animal grinds the
teeth, and utters short groans. The cattle
generally stand, sometimes lie do-svn, and this is

124

■ THE OX.

always the case with calves. The smallness of
the pulse, arising from congestion of the cellular
tissue of the lungs, should not deter us from
bleeding, nor from cautiously repeating the ab-
straction of blood if necessary. In the horse,
when labouring under inflammation of the lungs,
aperient medicines are dangerous ; but in horned
cattle this is not the case, and brisk medicines
may be administered with advantage, assisted by
injections. The sides should be. blistered or fired
by the cautery, and setons of hellebore inserted
into the dewlap. Bran mashes and gruel may be
given, and the animal on recovering must be kept
low, and onlj' allowed by degrees to return to its
ordinary diet. Acute pneumonia sometimes ap-
pears as an ejiidemic, and rapidly jiasses through
its stages, mostly ending fatally. In this disease
the symptoms of ordinary pneumonia are all
aggravated. The muzzle is dry, the mouth is hot,
the flanks heave, there is excessive thirst, the
coat is rough, the hind limbs are feeble, and the
alvine excretions are either hard and black, or
liquid, dark, and fetid ; soon the sjiine exhibits
signs of tenderness, especially over the lumbal-
region, there is harsh grinding of the teeth,
moaning, violent lieaving of the flanks, and a con-
vulsive cough ; the eyes are wild, the expression
is agitated, the nostrils open and close as if with a
spasmodic effort, sometimes tumours appear on
the skin, and occasional shivering is succeeded by
violent sweating ; alternately the back becomes
arched, the belly contracted, the pupils of the eyes
dilate, stupor comes on, and the beast falls and
dies. After death the lungs are found on exami-
nation to be gorged with black blood, often
offensive and putrescent ; in some parts they appear
hepatized or solidified like liver ; sometimes tuber-
cles filled with purulent matter are present ; the
pleura, or investing membrane of the lungs, is
thickened ; and the heart and diaphragm exhibit
the ravages of inflammatory action. Generally
the fourth stomach is inflamed, and the maniplus
filled with hardened material. From the horribly
putrescent state of the gorged blood in the lungs,
this disease has been called gangrenous inflamma-
tion of those organs, but the term is incorrect.
This disease, at various times, has appeared in
different parts of the continent, in Germany,
France, Denmark, &c. ; in England it is also
known, and is often the cause of great mortality.
It is only at the commenceme.ift of this fearful
malady that there is much chance of doing good.
A free use of the lancet is imperative ; bleeding
must be pushed to its utmost extent, and smart
aperients with injections must succeed; these
having acted, sedatives, as nitre, digitalis and
emetic tartar combined, may be given at re^nilar
intervals. Some veterinary surgeons recommend
as a purgative two scruples of the po^vder of croton

seeds, to be followed up by salts and the injection
pump. (No farmers sliould be without the enema-
pump of Read's invention, or at least a simple
apparatus, always at hand.) Setons in the dewlap,
and firing the sides, or blisters should not be
omitted. Should the inflammatory symptoms
yield, care and a cautious diet will be all that is
ordinarily needed, unless the debility be such as
to render tonic draughts advisable.

The following observations by Mr. Lord, in the
" Veterinarian "for July, 1 841 , are very interesting :
" In the latter end of last Ajiril," he writes, " the
Earl of Kingston sent for me, and told me that
his cows were dying veiy fast from some disease
that had been in his farms for the last year, and
which his steward believed to be incurable. After
a minute examination I found the symptoms as
follows : — pulse in almost nil that were affected
from 93 to 1'20, but very small; horns, ears, and
legs cold ; the animals heaving violently at the
flank, and grunting as if in great pain, also
grinding the teeth. With the stethoscope I could
discern the bronchial respiration in some, and the
mucous rale in others.

"Treahnent. — In the early stage I bled,
largely, notv.ithstanding that the pulse was sriiall,
as I consider this arises from pulmonai-y ccnges-
tion, which bleeding removes. I next fired and
blistered the sides, and gave Khile hellebore half
a drachm, morning and night, as long as they
could bear it, and changing it then for tartarized
antimony and nitre, keeping the bowels open by
occasional laxatm^s. "\^'ith this treatment I cured
four out of five of the beasts which the steward
and attendants considered as sm-e to die, and I
have more recovering.

" A gentleman who lives near me, and who
had lost seventeen cows with it, had tried a great
many remedies, and not saved a patient. He
asked me to look at the last two of Ms stock,
and which were ill with a similar disease, telling
me, at the same time, I might try any experiment
I ^^^s]led on them, as he knew they would not
recover. To his astonishment, with the above
treatment, I had them well in ten days." '

The success which attended the mode of treat-
ment in these cases is very encouraging, and
ought to be home in mind. With respect to the
use of the stethoscope in detecting the condition
of the heart, lungs, and other internal organs, v.'e
must explicitly state that it is of the highest
importance to the veterinary surgeon, as well as
to the physician ; but it reqidres an experienced
ear and habitual practice with it, to derive positive
information from its application ; we therefore
doubt whether in the hands of the farmer or
grazier it would be of much practical sei-vice,
unless he devoted himself to the study of the
healtliy actiju of the heai't, lun^s, ic, and made

125

ii series of comparative observations on the sounds
they commiuiicate to the ear, and the sounds
which the same organs convey in diiTerent con-
ditions of disease. This is part of the study of
the modern veterinary surgeon.

PLEUEITIS, OK INFLAMMATION OF THE INVESTING
MEMBR.\NE OF THE LUNGS AND THE LINING
MEMBR.\NE OF THE CAVITY OF THE CHEST.

Although in acute pneumonia the pleura
covering the cellular mass of the lungs is gene-
rally involved in the inflammation, yet inflammation
confined to the pleura itself -is not of imcommon
occurrence. ]\Iany causes conduce to this afl'ection ;
e.xposure to keen draughts of wind, a wet couch,
over-exertion, blows on the si8e, lying all night on
tli3 frozen ground unsheltered from the weather, —
these and the like may indude the disease. ''

In pleuritis tlie shivering tits come on with
great frequency and violence, during which the
shoulders quiver ; and this latter symptom occurs
even when there is no general shivering. The
breathing is quick, short, and abrupt, like rapid
panting ; there is a short but painful cough, there
are twitchings and a wavy motion of the skin of
the sides, and the animal shrinks as if from pain
when the latter are pressed. The flanks are
tucked up, and the expression of the countenance
is distressed ; if the disease go on, it usually
terminates in the effusion of serum, not unmixed
with coagulated lymph in the chest (in fact a
dropsy of the chest), which oppresses the lungs,
jDrevents their action, and destroys life. In
pneumonia w'e obsen^ed that the lungs were gorged
with black piutrescent blood ; in this disease they
are smothered in ^vater, which fills the cavity
enclosing them. The treatment of pleuritis is
however the same as pneumonia. The lancet is
the anchor-sheet of hope, assisted by aperients,
blisters, setons, and low diet.

Occasionally pleuritis changes its acute for a
chronic form, and the animal Imgers on, becoming
emaciated and weak, with a dry cough, tenderness
of the sides and loins, and difficulty of resjjiration,
as in asthma, accompanied by a short groan and a
drawing down of the angles of the lips, with a
heaving of the sides. The animal at length dies,
wasted away to a mere skeleton. On examination,
the lungs are found more or less extensively ad-
herent to the sides of the chest, bound by firm
bands, the result of inflammation ; there is gene-
rally fluid, also, in the chest, and in the pericar-
dium. Where the pleura of the chest and lungs
do not adhere, the membrane is thickened and has
its texture changed. In these cases there is no
hope of cure. An animal, indeed, may live and
enjoy life, when, after acute pleuritis, adhesions
exist between the kmgs and chest ; but then all
inflammatory action is subdued. Oil the contrary,

in these cases it goes on like a smouldering fire,
sometimes apparently extinguished, but again re-
turning; new adhesions succeeding to those pre-
viously fnniii'd, till the lungs can no longer per-
form their functions.

In animals which have died from pleuritis, we
have often observed the pleura of the chest appear
as if veiy minutely granulated. We remember
once, in the human subject, seeing the pleura
studded with calcareous patches of some thick-
ness ; and a similar deposit /sometimes occurs in
cattle.

CONSUMPTION, OR PHTHISIS.

Neglected catarrh, or inflammation of the
lungs, often produces tubercles in the lungs, which,
increasing in size and running together, at length
suppurate, foraiiug abscesses in the substance of
those organs. The progress of consumption is
insidious : in the human being life continues even
when a great jiortion of some of the lobes of the
lungs is wasted away by ulceration. The hollow,
distressing cough, the hectic flush, the overbright
eye, the expectoration of puiaflent matter, often
mixed with blood, foretel the result ; but if a suf-
ficient quantity of the lungs is left for respira-
tion, unless some larger blood-vessel or tubercle
burst and produce sudden suffocation, the patient
lingers on.

In the ox the same thing occurs. We have
seen extensive tubercles in the lungs of oxen,
killed in good condition for the market ; and the
fact has often surprised us : but on considering
that the progress of the tubercles is at first slow,
that they do not for a long time interfere with the
functional duties of the lungs, that the animal
reposes at ease in a stall or yard, fattening, not-
withstanding the tuberculous affection of the lungs;
so that, most probably, the rapid increase of the
disease resulted from the long journey to London,,
during which respiration was necessarily hurried,
and a larger quantity of blood sent through the
lungs, while time was ' not allowed before the
butcher's stroke for the wasting of the body ; — on
considering these points our surprise diminished.

We have said that neglected catarrh, or in-
flammation of the lungs, often produces phtlii-
sis ; and such is the fact : but we suspect that
there must be in such cases a predisposition
to this scrofulous affection. Often, indeed,
phthisis manifests itself without any previous
definite symptoms. Minute tubercles have ex-
isted dormant in the lungs, perhaps, for years,
nay, perhaps, even from birth ; but some exciting
cause not to be clearly appreciated or detected, — a
trifling cold, a hurried walk, a sudden chill after
perspiration, damp garments, or some trifling
neglect, is followed by dull pain in the chest, a
hollow peculiar cough, uneasiness in lying on one

12(i

side or the other, and other symptoms, which go
on for months, or years, till some additional cause
accelerates the progress of the disorganization,
when copious purulent expectoration, hectic night
sweats, debility, severe diarrhoea, and emaciation,
end in death. If these observations apjjly di-
rectly to our fellow-creatures, so they do to the
dumb binite. During the progress of consump-
tion in the human subject, the appetite is often
undiminished, though digestion is slow and diffi-
cult ; and the mind is not only clear, but roused
to intense activity. In the ox, the appetite sel-
dom fails much, — the animal is lively; nay, in
cows, the sexual desires' sefem not only unalsated
but increased ; but the animal is subject to abor-
tion. During pregnancy the symptoms of con-
sumption are generally much mitigated ; the
great curreiit of blood is directed elsewhere for an
especial object; but, after delivery, the disease goes
on with accelerated rapidity. -In cattle, besides the
hollow cough, there are purulent and sometimes
bloody discharges from the mouth and nostrils, and
irrepressible diarrhoea ; the sldn is evidently very
painful when pressed: the cellular tissue beneath
is either inflamed or becoming disorganized ; the
surface of the skin is dry ai^d scaly, and some
writers affirm that it v,-il\ even creak as the ani-
mal moves feebly along. In the human subject
we have more than once seen the cellular tissue,
to a large extent, not only beneath the skin,
but between the muscles of the chest and limbs,
dissolved into puinilent matter.

We have adverted to the fact that in some
constitutions there is a predisposition to phthisis ;
this predisp(isition is hereditaiy ; the offspring of
consumptive parents are liable to consumption.
This fact should be deeply considered by the
breeder of cattle. The calf of a consumptive cow
may grow up to be a beautiful heifer; she may
even breed; but soon after she generally mani-
fests symptoms of the disease, which runs a rapid
course. Mr. Youatt says, that he has known two
dairies almost destro^'ed by this hereditary taint.
No breeder or dairj^-farmer would wish for a feeble
stock liable to be carried off. To breed from
such a stock, and thereby extend, as it were, tlie
empire of the disease, is not only for the farmer to
do a personal injustice himself, but the community
at large. The best plan to be taken with cattle
which show the primary symptoms of phtliisis
(indicated by an inward hollow cough, low and
gurgling) is, to feed them as quickly as possible
for the butcher, — in a short time this will be too
late. It often happens, at the commencement of
the disease, that the animal rallies ; there is an
evident improvement ; from some cause the pro-
gress of' the disease is temporarily suspended : let
not the farmer hope for ultimate recovery ; the
beast will now fatten, perhaps, as well, with care,

as if uo misclrief had begim in the lungs ; let
him fatten the animal without delay, and thus
secure himself from loss.

When phthisis is fairly confirmed, medical
treatment is of no avail ; but, in the incipient
stage, blisters, sedatives, and cautious bleeding,
with a seton on the side, or in the dewlap, may
arrest for some time its further progress. The
animal, moreover, should be housed in a com-
fortable and well-ventilated stable, apart from
other cattle, and not exposed to the north or
easterly \vinds ; it should never be hrn'ried or
alarmed ; the litter shouJd be always kept diy,
and the skin often cm-rycombed, in order to excite
the action of the cutaneous vessels.

With respect to the use of iodine in incipient
phthisis, some practitioners speak very highly.
Mr. Youatt says, that though he will not affirm
that he has discovered a specific for consumption
in cattle, yet he has saved some that would other-
wise have perished. He would urge on prac-
titioners the study of the symptoms of phthisis,
and attention to the inward, feeble, painful, hoarse,
gurgling cough, of consumption ; and as soon as
they are assured that this termination of catarrh,
or pneumonia, or pileurisy, begins — that tuber-
cles liave formed, and have, perhaps, begun to
suppurate — let them have recom-se to the iodine
in the form of the iodide of potass, given in
a small mash in doses of three grains, morning
and evening, at the commencement of the dis-
order, and gradually increased to six or eight
grains. To this should be added proper attention
to comfort, yet not too much nursing, and free
access to succulent not stimulating food. The
medicine should be continued not only until the
general condition of the beast begins to improve,
but until the character of the cough has been
essentially changed.

INFLAMMATION OF THE HEART AND PEEICAHDIUM.

In the horse, an animal called to violent and
continued muscular exertion, to the toils of the
chase and the course, inflammation of the heart is
by no means of uncommon occurrence ; but in the
ox it rarely occm-s as a disease j^er se; the symp-
toms cannot be mistaken, the pulse is full and
very strong, and the heart may be seen and felt
violently pulsating against the left side of the
chest ; and each stroke may be heard, even at a
distance.

Copious bleeding through a large orifice, even
to fainting, and repeated if the symptoms are not
decidedly suppressed, with smart aperients, are
the only means on which any dependence is to be
placed.

Inflammation of the pericardium, or sac en-
veloping the heart, occurs occasionally from extra-
neous causes. Cattle have sometimes a strange

127

propeusit}- to swallow shai-p-poiuted substances, as
pieces of wire, large needles, nails, &c. ; and these
articles, wliicli, when accidentally taken into the
stomach of other animals, work out their way ex-
ternally, generally without much injury, take in
cattle a more dangerous course. A few yeai's
since we saw a child, on the upper part of
whose abdomen a singular conical tumour ap-
peared, and w^hich revealed to the touch the pre-
sence, immediately below the skin, of a hard aud
apparently sharp substance, the nature of which
we could not conjecture. A very slight incision
with a lancet served to expose the point: of a
needle; we applied a pair of small forceps, and
drew out a needle upwards of an inch and a half
in length. This needle, which was black, must
have been swallowed, and have worked its way
through the coats of the stomach and the mus-
cular parietes of the abdomen ; yet it did not
appear that the child had ever manifested any
symptoms of illness or fever ; nor was it till the
needle came to the skin, and there caused a prick-
ing pain, that any thing was discovered.

In cattle such substances often, perhaps mostly,
work their w'ay into the pericardium, producing
inflammation, aud either extensive ulceration or
dropsy of the chest. Several cases of this kind
are on record in which pieces of wire, lai'ge pins,
and needles, have been discovei'ed after death
sticking in the pericardium. The symptoms in
these cases are obscm'e, till effusion in the chest
is detected by the ear or the use of the stetho-
scope. We need not say that no directions for
medical treatment in such cases can be given.

INFLAMMATION OF THE LIVEB, OR HEPATITIS.

Acute inflammation of the liver does not
appear to be a very common disease in cattle, and
occurs mostly in such as are stall-fed on high diet,
and debaiTed from due exercise. The symptoms
of this disease are not always veiy determinate.
There is generally a yellowness of the eyes and
skin, indicative of a cessation of action in the
liver, which no longer separates the bile from the
blood. Considerable fever exists, indicated by
drjTiess of the muzzle, heat of the mouth, and
a quickened pulse ; the abdomen, especially on the
right side, is tiimid, and pressure gives decided
jiain ; the animal often turns its head round, and
endeavours to lean the muzzle against it. The
bowels are generally constipated; but this con-
dition often alternates \vith violent purging. IMr.
Brown, in the " Veterinarian," remarks, that a
diminution in the milk of the milch cow is one of
the first symptoms, and that the cream drawn
from it presents a ropy appearance, 'and has a
saltish taste. As the disease progresses the
aspect of the animal becomes dull and depressed,
and the appetite impaired ; the animal loses its

ordinary activity, its gait is stiffened or staggering,
with a halt on one or more of the limbs. The
eyes are dull, and the transparent cornea some-
times becomes opaque ; the nose is alternately dry
and moist ; the mucous membranes, the nasal
secretions, and the sltin, are yellow.

In protracted cases, when the animal begins
to recover, " a yellow scurf rises from the skin,
which gives the hair the appearance of being
dusted with turmeric." Rumination is either
wholly or partially suspended, the secretion of
milk is limited, and inflammation usually appears
in one or more quarters of the udder. Tumours
not unfrequently appear in different parts of the
body, and, on bursting, discharge a fetid matter.

In some cases the respiration is at first fre-
quent, and aocampanied with a short painful cough;
but in most instances it is not much disturbed.
The bowels are generally obstinately constipated,
with occasional intermissions of diarrhoea ; but some
cases occur in which the animal is attacked by
violent purging, the alvine excretions being co-
pious, dark, and fetid. During the progress of
the disease the pulse varies considerably in its
character, but is usually feeble.

The treatment recommended is moderate bleed-
ing in the early stages of the disease, which it may
be often necessary to repeat ; after this one drachm
of calomel, suspended in''thick gmel, with half a
drachm of opium, and two drachms of ginger,
may be given. In the course of six or eight
houi'S after this, an aperient, composed of eight
ounces of Epsom salts, foiu- ounces of sulphm', and
half a pint of linseed oil, \vith giiiel, may be
administered, and repeated in twelve or eighteen
hours if the prior dose has taken no effect. " In
severe cases a blister may be applied to the right
side, and a drachm of calomel, half a drachm of
opium, two drachms of gentian, one of ginger,
aud two of nitre, administered in gruel twice
a day."

In cases where diarrhcea occurs from the com-
mencement, the aperient dose should be either
entirely omitted or given in only half the quan-
tity; but the calomel and opium, &c., repeated
morning and evening. In all cases the diet should
be restricted and simple, and as little stimulating
as possible.

Active inflammation of the liver may yield to
a ceitain extent, and ultimately merge into a
chronic form ; the liver now becomes pretematu-
rally enlarged and hidurated, sometimes soft and
spong3^ ; it is often studded with tubercles of large
size filled with puralent matter. It is the nidus
of numerous hydatids ; and fluke-worms (distoma
hepaticum) inhabit cysts in its substance and
even the biliary ducts.

Chronic uiflammation, however, is not neces-
sarily the result of active inflammation ; it occurs

128

%Then no such inflammation has previously existed,
and it may continue for a considerable period
without any decided symptoms being manifest.
We have frequently seen decided indications of
chronic disease of the liver in animals slaughtered
for sale, and which were in good condition. This
disease may run on to a horrible extent before it
destroys life, though the animal may be meagre,
weak, dull, and hide-bound. Mr. Youatt narrates
a case in point : "A cow came up from the west
to Smithfield market, in the year 183-2 ; she was
in tolerable condition, yet not in such a state as to
afford a chance of her being bought by any re-
spectable butcher ; she was, therefore, set apart
for the sausage-makers, and to them she was sold.
She walked pretty well with the other cattle, and
had no indication of disease, except enlargement
of the belly, yellowness of the sldn, and her not
carrying so much flesh as the rest. On examina-
tion after death, the liver weighed no less than
137 lbs., and measured, from one lobe to aJiother,
more than a yard and a quarter. There was little
of the common appearance of inflammation ; but
it was evident that there were numei'ous hydatids ;
in fact, they occupied the larger portion of the
organ, and had hollowed it into cavities of greater
or smaller size. One cavity, nearly thirty inches
in circumference, presented, when opened, the
appearance of a honey-comb, all the cells of which
and the whole excavation were filled wth hyda-
tids, from the size of a sparrow's egg to that of a
swan ; there were nearly three hundred of them.
Some cysts were filled with blood, and others \vith
matter of a fibrous character, and others had large
fibrous cords extending from side to side. A few
portions presented nearly the character of healthy
liver ; but in general, where there were no hy-
datids, the substance resembled a deposit of matter
that had gradually hardened into cartilaginous
cells ; and the centre of the liver was perfectly
fibro-cartilaginous, without any trace of its original
structure. This disease had probably existed
during a long period, and had only interfered with
health by preventing her attaining the usual con-
dition of fatted cattle." It is e\'ident that the
small portion of sound liver secreted bile sulfi-
cient for the purposes of an imperfect state of
digestion and assimilation only, and not of that
healthy state necessary for an animal's thriving
properly.

The same observation is applicable to many
such instances, of which the following is an exani-
ple. It is related by Mr. Goodworth (" Veterina-
rian," June 1831), of a cow, the property of a neigh-
bour, that she had calved, and done well : " She
was milked twice a day, and appeared in good health,
for six weeks: when the maid going to milk her
in the morning found her very uneasy ,*-and evi-
dently ill. The oow was bled, and the messenger

sent to a druggist for medicine ; but although he
was absent only a few minutes, the cow was dead
on his return. On opening the body, all the abdo-
minal viscera were found in perfect health except
the right lobe of the liver, which was mucli eu;
larged ; and an incision being made in it, a quart
of matter, of the colour and consistency of cream,
escaped."

We learn from these facts how difficult it is to
predict with certainty respecting the existence of
chronic disease of these organs, the symptoms of
which are obscure. Yet it is one which annually
carries off' numbers of cattle ; some of which, at
least, might, by treatment in the early stage of the
malady, have been saved.

Mr. Brown details the symptoms as follows : —
" In chronic inflammation of the liver the beast is
commonly low in flesh, hide-bouud, the skin slightly
tinged with yellow from a scurf that gives the
hair a staring, dirty appearance : the eyes are dull,
and considerably sunk in the orbits, the ears droop-
ing, the countenance altogether dejected ; the ani-
mal feeds sparingly, is disinclined to walk, and
when made to move the operation is listlessly per-
formed. Although the animal is feeding in a suc-
culent pasture the bowels are often confined, and
the excrement is voided stiff, and glazed, probablj',
with dark-coloured bile ; but in other cases diarrhoea
commences. In either states of the bowels neat
cattle will often linger on a life of misery for many
months, until they are rendered useless by a dis-
ease which, probably, might have been relieved if
active treatment had been adopted early enough to
have arrested the morbid action."

With respect to the treatment, serviceable only
in the early stage of the disease, it must consist of
alterative doses of calomel comljined with a small
proportion of opium, and carried off by an oily
mixture. We are aware that an authority of weight,
viz. Mr. Youatt, objects to tlie use of calomel in
chronic inflammation of the liver, as often producing
" injurious effects," and recommends only gentle
purgatives combined with aromatics ; but where
the liver has assumed a morbid action, and altera-
tion of its substance is going on, we cannot expect
to see very decided effects result from such a plan.

It sometimes happens that when the liver be-
comes softened and spongy, a sudden and violent
hemorrhage from it takes place, causing death
almost instantly.

JAUNDICE, OR TELT.OWS.

Jaundice, to a greater or less extent, is the ac-
companiment of chronic inflammation of the liver ;
it arises from the obstruction to the passage of the
bile through the ducts, either from alteration of
the intimate structure of the liver, or from the
pressure of tubercles or tumours.

There is, however, another and very common

129

cause of jaundice, which in noticing the morbid af-
fections of the liver we cannot here omit to describe ;
■we allude to the obstruction of the biliary ducts by
gall-stones. It is astonishing how often gall-stones
are found in the gall-bladders of cattle : they vary
in size from a pin's head to a walnut, and as long
as they cause no obstniction, they neitlier incon-
venience the animals nor interfere with health.
But sometimes, nay very often, they enter the duct
which conveys the bile to the intestines (the cystic
duct) from the gall-bladder, which unites with
a larger common duct from the liver itself, before
entering the duodenum. When a gall-stone enters
the cystic duct, it soon becomes impacted ; it stops
the current of the bile ; spasmodic action of the mus-
cular fibres of the duct, occasioned by the irritation,
and accompanied by violent agony, succeeds ; the
skin and eyes become suifused with bile ; generally
in due time (longer or shorter according to the size
of the stone or calculus) the duct is dilated, and
the obstructing object passes into the larger com-
mon duct, along which, not, however, without
causing some obstruction, it proceeds till it comes to
its entrance into the intestine (duodenum). Here
again it meets with a fresh difficulty ; this en-
trance is surrounded by muscular fibres, which act
as a sort of valve, or rather as a constriction, yield-
ing freely to the pure bile, but contracting on the
irritation of a preternatural object. Before this
barrier is forced, spasmodic agony again takes
place ; at length the muscular fibres yield, and
the gall-stone passes into the intestine ; the pain
ceases, but it is some time before the jaundice
of the skin disappears. Unfortunately, when
this occurrence has once taken place it opens the
way for repetitions of the whole affair, and cal-
culi sometimes lodge in the ducts for a consider-
able time, producing confirmed jaundice. This
state of things cannot exist without producing
general derangement of the system ; the alimen-
tary canal is immediately affected ; loss of appe-
tite, constipation, thirst, a hard quick pulse, a
heaving of the Banks from increased and febrile
respiration, dulness, and loss of strength and
flesh, with yellowness of the skin, of the eyes, and
of every secretion, milk, urine, Ac, are prominent
symptoms. The skin becomes dry, and throws off
yellow mang3' scurf, and the hair becomes ragged,
and falls off in unsightly patches ; then, perhaps,
an uncontrollable diarrhoea comes on, under which
the poor beast may sink. It can scarcely be pos-
sible, with this state of affliirs, that the liver will
not become more or less inflamed ; and thus may
gall-stones produce a disease in that organ which
did not previously e.vist. Hence, then, while a
jaundiced state of the skin may result from chronic
inflammation of the liver, the obstruction of gall-
stones in the biliary ducts may not only produce
the same vellow suffusion, but even excite inflam-

mation, which perpetuates the jaundice. It is the
opinion of some writers, that the presence of fluke-
worms (distoma hepaticum) in the biliaiy ducts
will produce jaundice. We will not say that these
parasites may not occasionally produce it, but we
can say that of numbers, not a few, of ruminants
of every species, which it has been our lot to exa-
mine after death, not one was jaundiced when
fluke-worms alone were found in the liver or biliary
ducts; the same observation applies to hydatid.^
in the substance of the liver. Indeed we have
found fluke-worms in the liver of some of the best
fed and most healthy-looking sheep that were ever
slaughtei-ed by the butcher. It is a fact that the
liver of the finest codfish is infested by hundreds
of ccelelmintlious worms, coiled up in cells or crypts,
and which move and crawl for a long time after
being extricated from their nidus.

With respect to the treatment of jaundice :
Could we, as in the case of the human patient, be
informed as to the character and seat of the agony
the animal is undergoing during the passage of gall-
stones, we should have recourse to opium, seda-
tives, hot fomentations, and subsequent aperients;
but, as a general rule, the poor animal endures its
pain unnoticed, and the jaundiced appearance and
evident illness of the beast alone afford us indica-
tions of what it may have suffered.

In cases of jaundice, let the region of the
liver be well and carefully examined ; it is import-
ant to determine how far this organ is affected, if
possible ; under all circumstances (unless the ani-
mal be in a state of weakness and emaciation), the
abstraction of a small quantity of blood is advisable;
and if the animal suffers spasmodic pain, let an
opiate (an ounce of laudanum or a drachm of pulv.
opii, in gruel) be given ; follow this up, after a
few hours, by pm-gatives of Epsom salts, in six-
ounce doses with ginger, aided by copious injec-
tions. If there be no spasmodic pain, and the
usual symptoms of jaundice only appear, aperients,
mashes, and low diet may be successfid. Some
practitioners recommend aloes, Barbadoes soap,
and Venice turpentine ; but simple aperients are
more safe, and quite as efficacious. Should the
liver be swollen and tender, blisters, setons, and
perhaps even calomel (though it should never be
rashly administered), may be requisite, .\fter all,
jaundice is not one of the most tractable of diseases,
and when once confirmed will often bid defiance to
the efforts of the most skilful veterinarian. All
nostrums in this disease (and many there are in
vogue among the ignorant), as saffron, <tc., are
either absolutely inert or injmnous. Of the same
character aie some of the remedies for jaundice in
the human patient. One which came under our
personal cognizance in a certain part of Stafford-
sliii'e, not many years since, was as follows: .1 num-
ber of dew-worms stewed down in good stale ale,

130

the liquor to be strained, and a teacupful taken,
three or four times a day. Our jiatient preferred
this nostrum to our "stuff," as he called it, and
the animal lingered long till it died.

INFLAMMATION OF THE SPLEEN OE MELT.

The sj'mptoms of this disease are obscure ;
seldom perhaps is the spleen affected, independ-
entlj' of other organs, as the heart, lungs, and liver.
Yet pure inflammation and disorganization of the
spleen occasionally occurs ; hut all our knowledge
of this affection is derived from the authority of
others. Professor Volpi, clinical lecturer at the
Veterinaiy College, Milan, in a work published in
] 813, sa_ys, that " cattle are subject to a veiy acute
Idnd of inflammation of the spleen, which gene-
rally destroys them in three or four da3's ; it is not,
however, of a contagious nature, for it does not
attack any other species of animals, nor can it be
attributed to marsh miasuiata (the sui-geon will
remember the affection of the spleen connected
with ague in the human patient), because it some-
times happens in very dry situations. We gene-
rally subdue this formidable disease by free and
repeated bleedings, by giving nitre in a quantity
of from two to four ounces a day, to wliich we may
add two ounces of aloes, and six ounces of Glau-
ber salts." Mr. White ("Compendium, &c."), who
refers to this account, states, that " this disease
has often occurred in some rich meadows in Somer-
setshire, situated near a river by which they are
often inmidated (shall we not here call ague to
mind?). The disease was first noticed about six
years ago, during a continuance of very dry and
hot weather (putrescent exhalations then no doubt
prevailing). It was then attributed to contagion,
arising from the jiutrid carcass of a cow that had
been thrown into the river, and suffered to remain
in a shallow place until it became very offensive.
A great number of cows died that year, particularly
on that farm, near the place where the putrid
body had remained, and the disease has been oc-
curring from time to time ever since. In every
cow that has died they have found the spleen veiy
much enlarged, appearing as if it w'ere bursting
with very dark coloured fluid blood. This is the
only morbid appearance they had noticed, until I
■was desired to examine three cows that were then
lying dead of the disorder. I found the spleen as
they had described it ; also that two or three junts
of the dark fluid with which the spleen was dis-
tended had oozed through its investing membrane
into the stomach. The veins of the brain were
loaded, and there was a small quantity of extrava-
sated blood in one of the ventricles (of the brain).
One of them, a store cow, was slaughtered ; and in
her, the heart and lungs were not much altered, but
the brain and spleen were in the state before de-
scribed. In the otliers, the heart and lungs as

well as the spleen and brain were much inflamed.
It is remarkable that eveiy animal -which has been
attacked by this disease has died, except one, and
that one was bled until it became faint. Others
have been bled, but never, as far as I know, to
that extent."

We profess om'selves imable to lay down any
specific details respecting the diagnosis of this dis-
ease ; but if ■with certain symptoms a beast on a
farm dies, and dissection demonstrates disorganiza-
tion of the spleen, we may be pretty sure that
others similarly affected labour imder the same
complaint. We suspect the disease to be local as
to district, and connected with poisonous exhala-
tions or miasmata ; for -we know that in obstinate
cases of ague (in the human subject) the spleen
becomes enlarged and indurated to a great extent,
and though the ox may not show decided symptoms
of ague, (or though these symptoms may be over-
looked,) the cause which produces ague may operate
with its morbific euergj- upon the spleen. On this
disease we have no observations to make, and no
directions to give, excepting that where it is posi-
tively ascertained to prevail, bleeding, blisters,
setons, aperients, and afterwards tonics, but espe-
cially a change of pasture, appear to be the most
probable means of effecting good results. It is
greatly to be desired that all farmers, breeders, or
cattle-feeders would make it a rule that no beast
which died, except from accident, should be buried
until carefully examined by a professed veterinary
surgeon.

INFLAMM.^TION OF THE BKAIN, PHHENSY, MAD
STAGGERS OH SOUGH (PHRENITIS), AKD APOPLEXY.

Inflammation of the brain is a common disease
in cattle, resulting from plethora, high feeding,
over-driving, ill-usage ; it occm's most generallj' in
sultry weather, and in animals which have fed
upon a stimulating diet. The beast at the com-
mencement of the disease is dull, it hangs down
its head and seems oppressed with stujsor, the ac-
tion of the heart is gently increased, and the pulse
is hard and rapid, the pupils are dilated, and the
muzzle hot and dry ; gradually wild delirium
comes on, the eyes are inflamed, protruded, and
fierce, the animal is roused to fury, staggers about,
bellowing hideously, and as if actuated by a sudden
impulse, rushes at every living thing which may
catch its eye. After madly plunging, and rushing
with fm-ious energy, it suddenly falls and lies
awhile senseless, or perhaps struggling convul-
sively ; in a short time it regains its feet, and
again exliibits every symptom of fuiy ; again it falls,
and again rises, till at length it sinks comatose
and dies.

It is only at the commencement of the disease,
even if it wei-e possible without risk of human life

131

afterwards to attempt anything, that medical treat-
ment will generally avail.

Bleed from a free orifice, even to fainting ; and
give a quick purgative consisting of aloes, half an
ounce or one ounce, with half a pound of salts, and
water ; some recommend a scruple or half a drachm
of the powder of croton-nut, in water or gruel ; se-
tons of hellebore in the dewlap, are also advisable.
Occasionally cattle have been restored, even when
the attack of phrensy has come on ; but it is then
veiy difficult to secure a beast ; if however this be
effected, the lancet and active purgatives are the
only remedies to be trusted.

Apoplexy is a disease to which cattle are sub-
ject, and from the same causes as produce phrenitis ;
it is however far more sudden in its attack. It
consists in a violent rush of blood to the brain,
which gorges the vessels to the utmost, when the
animal falls, struggles perhaps for a short time
with great force, and then sinks into a kind of
stupor, and dies. Sometimes a vessel ruptures, and
effusion of blood on the surface of the brain takes
place. In some districts apoplexy is called blood-
striking, and the word is not unhappily applied.
In these cases, while life continues, the only
chance is in bleeding freely from a large orifice ;
should this iu a measure restore the animal to
itself, the same measures as iu inflammation of
the brain must be adopted.

Inflammation of the brain, when the, animal
becomes furious, is often mistaken for rabies, espe-
cially if any suspicion exist that a rabid dog has
been in the neighbourhood, or if a strange dog
has been seen about the farm or cow-house. It is
not easy to distinguish always between rabies and
phrensy. Mr. Youatt says, that a rabid ox will
plot mischief, and endeavour to lure his victims
mthin his reach ; while the phrensied ox rushes
blindly at every thing. In the former the saliva
and foam are discharged from the mouth iu greater
quantity than the latter.

The following is an admirable description of
rabies in the ox, from Mr. Youatt 's work on cattle,
which we transcribe, the rather, that though we have
seen this disease often in the dog, and dissected
the animal after death, we have never seen it in the
ox. We need scarcely say that rabies is produced
by the bite of some rabid animal, but mostly a dog ;
the disease generally appears about the expiration of
the fifth week, though the animal must not be consi-
dered free from danger until after double this num-
ber of months. At the commencement, " the beast
■nill appear dull, languid, feverish, scarcely grazing,
and idly ruminating. These may be the precui-sory
symptoir.s of many a different illness, and the pre-
vious circumstances alone could excite suspicion of
what is about to follow. The eyes become anxious,
protnided, red ; there is considerable discharge of
saliva, and to this succeeds a thirst that can

scarcely be quenched. There is no hydrophobia,
no dread of water, at any time. This is a circum-
stance which (tannot be too strongly impressed on
the mind, and which ma}' presen-e him from danger,
anxiety, and fear, who has to do with domesticated
animals of any kind, that all the constant and
characteristic dread of water is confined to the
human being. The horse, and the ox, and the
sheep, occasionally exhibit a momentary dislike to
fluids, but generally they will drink to the last,
and their desire of water is increased rallier than
diminished by the disease. The dog lias never a
dread of water. As in the dog, so also in the ox,
the disease, from some cause unknown, takes
two essentially different characters. The dog,
labouring under what some sportsmen call dumb
madness, is frequently harmless through every
stage of the complaint ; so in the ox the symptoms
that we have mentioned are succeeded by frequent
and pitiful lowings, a continual and painful attempt
to evacuate the faeces. Staggering and weakness
of the loins appear on the second or third day, and
these aflfectious are soon succeeded by palsy of the
hinder extremities. The animal sits on its haunches
maldng ineffectual attempts to rise, looking wofully
around it, eagerly plunging its muzzle into the
water, when placed within its reach, but it makes
no attempt to do mischief.

" At other times the early symptoms are suc-
ceeded by a dreadful state of excitation. The
animal is eager to do eveiy lund of mischief ; he
stands across the path, bellowing incessantly, and
tearing up the grovmd with his homs. In a few
cases the quiet and melancholy madness suddenly
changes into that of a ferocious character. There
is no cure now, no nostrums will avail here, and
the animal should be destroyed as soon as possible.
One circumstance should be carefully remembered,
the poison in all rabid animals seems to reside in
the saliva, and the saliva of an ox is as dangerous
as that of a dog. We inoculated a dog with the
saliva of a rabid bull, and it also became rabid and
died. Dr. Ashburner inoculated a fowl from the
saliva of a rabid cow, and two months aftei-wards
the fowl had a wild sti'ange appearance, and its
e3'es were bloodshot, it ran at the other fowls, and
became gradually paralytic and died."

Neither the milk of a cow laboming (unsus-
pectedly) under the precursory s3'mptoms of rabies
(and perhaps used by the family), nor the flesh of
a rabid animal, if eaten, can communicate this
disease. No pei-son, we presume, would kjiowingly
drink the one, or eat the other. It may however be
satisfactoiy to pereons who may paitake of milk,
drawn from a cow which in a few days dies rabid,
to be assured that they have nothing to apprehend.
A miscreant only would send the flesh to market ;
yet this, we are informed, has been done. If a
beast is known to be bitten by a rabid dog, the

I ij

132

wound must be carefully searched out, the hair cut
away, and lunar caustic introduced and brought
into contact with every part, and made to act tho-
roughly upon it. For this purpose, if requisite,
the wound must be enlarged, so that every crevice
and comer be probed and burnt by the caustic.
On the efficient application of the caustic the
animal's life depends ; but unfortuirately it often
happens that in an animal like the ox, thickly
covered with hair, some laceration or puncture
escapes notice ; a circumstance that must keep the
farmer on the alert for months.

That inflammation of the brain, occurring after
suspicious circumstances, should be mistaken for
rabies, is not surprising ; and the following case
communicated by Sir. Hayes to the " Veterinarian,"
vol. X., may not be uninteresting :

" On the 2ud of May, 1827, I was returning
from visiting a patient, when on coming to a place
called Huf Green, in the township of Ashley,
Cheshire, 1 was surprised at seeing about twelve
men chasing a cow, with long poles, ropes, &c.,
endeavouring to entangle her and throw her down
that they might kill her. She had calved about
two months before. She roared and tore about
most hideously. I inquired the cause of all this,
and was told that she began to be in this way in
the morning, but had shown symptoms of being
unwell a day or two before : that she had com-
pletely toni all the timber down in the inside of
the shippen (cow-house) that morning, and roared
and slavered most frightfully, running lier head
against every thing that came in her way ; also, that
there had been in the neighbourhood seven otlier
cows in the same way, within the previous six weeks,
all of which had been shot ; that tliere had been a
strange dog killed close by, which they thought
was rabid, and which they supposed had bitten
these cows. When the first cow began to be ill
they sent for a practitioner of Knutsford ; this gen-
tleman was of opinioia that the cow was rabid, and
ordered her to be destroyed, and wliieh order was
issued against the present cow. I waited till she
was got into the barn, tied down, and secured. I
then asked the owner if he would allow me to ex-
amine her, to which he consented. Tlie pulse was
so fluttering and quick that I could not count it ;
the pupils were exceedingly dilated ; the mouth
foaming ; the tongue protruding out of the mouth ;
and very quick and short respirations. The action
of the heart could be felt in every part of the body,
with such convulsive jerks as to shake the whole
frame so violently, that it might be seen and heard
at a considerable distance. I signified to the
owner a desire to try what I could do by the effects
of two or three days' treatment, and he readily
agreed I should do what I thought proper with
her. I immediately opened the jugular vein, and
let tlie blood flow till the strong action of the heart

ceased, and the people about me thought she was
dying. I then inserted a seton on each side of
her neck, from the poll to the parotid glands,
dressed the setons v\ith blister ointment, and
nibbed all the top of the head and neck with the
same. I gave her nitre, four drachms ; supertar-
trate of potass (cream of tartar), four drachms;
castor oil, six ounces ; tartarized antimony (tartar
emetic), a drachm and a half; carbonate of soda,
four drachms ; Glauber salts, eight ounces ; with
thi'ee drops of pnissic acid : this to be given three
times a day in gruel ; also, six quarts of gniel to
be honied down, three or four times a day. After
taking five doses she began to purge much black
and very offensive matter ; on the third day she
began to eat a little hay and mashes, and from
this time she recovered. Her owner kept her
three years, during which time she continued
healthy : she was at last sold to the butcher, after
being fattened. I attended four other cows,
directly after this, in the same neighbourhood,
they had the same symptoms as those I have just
described; all of them recovered."

A beast which has been dragged thi'ough an
attack of phrenitis, or of apoplexy, is liable to a
recurrence of the disease. We recommend as a
general rule, that after due preparation by purga-
tives, mashes, scanty fare, &c., it be fattened for
slaughter, or, if this be inconvenient, that as soon
as recovered it be disposed of for that pm-pose.

ENTJ5MTIS, OR- INFLAMMATION OF THE PERITONEUM
OR LINING MEMBRANE OF THE ABDOMEN AND
INVESTING MEMBRANE OF THE INTESTINES.

Enteritis, or inflammation of the bowels, as it
is commonly called, generally attacks cattle of
middle age and robust health, and may result
from sudden exposure to cold, or to drinking cold
water when overheated, to impure water, to mil-
dewed food, or to a diet generally too stimulating.
Occasionally it prevails in certain districts, as if
epidemic, occasioned probably by some acrid or
unwholesome j)lants, abundant in the localities on
which cattle feed ; the disease appears to be the
most prevalent in hot summers.

Enteritis comes on suddenly; the first symp-
toms are shivering, dulness, loss of appetite, dry-
ness of the muzzle, a rapid but small pulse, the
hair is rough, the loins tender, the abdomen
swelled on the left side, and incapable of enduring
pressure. The bowels are confined, the animal
moans, and often turns its head to the side ; if the
disease be not now checked, the hind limbs tremble
and show signs of deplorable weakness, the animal
staggers if it attempt to move, its flanks heave, the
head is stretched out, the eyes are red and betray
great anxiety, the moans indicative of intense suf-
fering increase in frequency, and the rapidity of the
small pulse is further accelerated. The bowels con-

TJiE. ox.

133

tinue obstinately coufined, the faeces are hard and
glazed with slime ; but occasionally liquid faeces are
forced with dreadful agony tlirough the indurated
mass obstructing the lower bowels; the mouth
foams ; the animal grinds its teeth ; the abdomen is
tucked up, though the swelling of the left side is still
prominent. The urine is thick, turbid, and ex-
hales an offensive penetrating odour. The animal
now- sinks, consciousness begins to fail, it rises up
again with a convulsive effort, but again sinks
down, the head is rolled about or raised onl}' to
come heavily to the ground, till the scene termi-
nates either in convulsions or in a state of torpor.

Dissection after death shows, very often, an
extent and violence of inflammation which are
truly astonishing. Not only are the subcutaneous
muscles of the abdomen in a state of congestion
but even putrescent, and the subcutaneous vessels
of the cellular tissue are gorged with black blood.
The abdomen is filled with a bloody effusion ; the
peritoneum is mora or less universally inflamed,
and black gangrenous patches appeal' in various
parts of the intestines ; the lining or mucous
membrane of the intestines is also inflamed and
ulcerated ; the liver is enlarged and softened ; the
lungs are in a state of congestion, and there is ef-
fusion both in the chest and pericardium. The
fourth stomach is highly inflamed, and diy hard
layers of food are found in the manyplus, while the
paunch is generally found distended with diy
vegetable matters. We do not say that all these
morbid appearances present themselves together ;
but ulceration, abdominal effusion, and congestion
of the lungs, are almost always present.

When enteritis, or inflammation of the bowels,
and especially the small intestines, is accompanied
by severe inflammation of the mucous lining of the
fomth stomach or abomasum, the French distin-
guish the disease by the name of gastro-enteritis.
But in gastro-enteritis it is chiefly the mucous
membrane of the portion of the intestine suc-
ceeding the stomach, viz. the duodenum, which is
inflamed.

AVith respect to the treatment in pure enteritis,
that is, inflammation of the peritoneum, it is very
clear that prompt and energetic measures alone
can be seniceable. Let not the smciUness of the
pulse deter from bleeding, blood should be taken
even till symptoms of fainting appear ; to this
should succeed purgatives, the first a full dose,
followed at mtervals by smaller doses, till the
bowels act freely ; these should be assisted by in-
jections. The abdomen should be fomented with
hot water, and blistered, and gruel and mashes
alone given. Anodynes, that is preparations of
opium, are very useful. Immediately after bleeding
an anodyne may be given, half an hour before the
aperient medicine ; it may simply consist of half an
ounce or au ounce of laudanum (tinct. opii), or

half a drachm of powdered opium (pulv. opii),
in gmel. The aperient may consist of nitre (four
drachms), cream of tartar (four drachms), castor oil
(six ounces), carbonate of soda (four drachms), and
Glauber or Epsom salts (eight ounces), in gniel.
The following is another foi-m of aperient, which
may be useful : — Barbadoes aloes (six drachms),
common salt (six ounces), ginger (two drachms),
water (one quart), tincture of opium (two or three
fluid drachms). If this aperient be used the
anodyne draught need not be given ; but in severe
cases we should prefer relieving the pain as soon
as possible. For this purpose we must tnist to
bleeding and opium, followed up by aperients and
injections.

Enteritis must be carefully distinguished from
Colic, -Khether flatulent or spasmodic; for though
the latter may end in inflammation, the pain in
the first instance results from another cause.
Though colic can scarcely be classed among in-
flammatory diseases, yet it will be useful to notice
it in the present place, in order that its symptoms
may be compared immediately with those of
enteritis.

COLIC, OR FRET.

We will first notice that variety to which the
name of Flatulent Colic is given.

Flatulent colic arises from the distention of
the alimentary canal with gas, owing to the fer-
mentation of the food. The abdomen swells ; the
animal moans with pain ; it is extremely restless,
continually getting up and lying down, and ever
and anon striking at the belly with the hind feet,
or with the horns. Gas is expelled at intervals
both from the mouth and bowels ; perhaps the
animal appears for a while relieved, but the pain
again commences ; often there is a rumbling noise,
caused by the passing of the gas from one part of
the bowels to another, or by the peristaltic action
altering the position of inflated portions. There
is no violent shivering succeeded by symptoms of
burning fever, though the pain may quicken the
pulse ; there is no prostration of strength ; and
dming the remission of pain the animal moves
fi-eelj'. The most effectual remedy for this dis-
ease consists in the chloride of lime, of whi(;h two
drachms may be mixed with a quart of waiTU
water, two drachms of powdered ginger, and twenty
drops of essence of peppermint. While the aro-
matics are grateful stimulants to the bowels, the
chloride of lime unites with the extricated
hydrogen gas, and causes the gi'eater portion
of it to disappear. The beast should be walked
about, but not violently driven, lest nipture or
entanglement of the mteslines take place, and the
animal be thus lost from want of common prudence.

It will be advisable now to give an aloetic
purgative, assisted by injections. Tliis may con-

134

sist of Barbailoes aloes (six drachms), common
salt (six ounces), ginger (three drachms), and tinc-
ture of opium (two or three fluid drachms), with a
quart of water. Accumulations of wnbruised oats
will often bring on violent colic, not unlikely to end
in inflammation.

Spasmodic colic is distinguished from the for-
mer bj' the absence of any great tumefaction and
tension of the abdomen ; it does not so much arise
from the presence of a large quantity of gas in the
bowels, as from acrid food and other irritating sub-
stances. The agony is accompanied by evident
spasms, which have their intermissions and again
return ; but little gas is expelled from the alimen-
tary canal ; the animal moans, paws the ground,
strikes at its side with hoof and horn, and, in its
excruciating pain, sometimes even lunges at its
attendant. This kind of colic, if it continues, is
apt to nui into inflammation ; and it is a point
which must be borne in mind. The first thing to
relieve the pain and spasm will be a dose of lauda-
num (one fluid ounce) with sulphuric ether (half
an ounce), in thin warm gruel ; shoidd it appear,
from the continuance of the pain, that any inflam-
mation has taken place, blood must be immediately
abstracted, and, whether or not this be done, aloetic
purgatives must be administered, assisted by in-
jectives.

Great attention must be paid on the recovery of
the animal to its diet, as the least irritating cause is
apt to bring back all the bad symptoms.

Spasmodic colic, if it continue, is known occa-
sionally to produce an entanglement of the bowels;
their wreathing peristaltic action is irregular: they
infold each other in their spasmodic disturbance,
and sometimes become knotted into loops and in-
tricate folds, among which a portion of the intes-
tine becomes tightly embraced, strangulation of the
bowel being thus effected. Inflammation now comes
on and death soon supervenes : there is no remedy.
This kind of strangulation or knot is mostly caused,
when it occurs, by brutal and improper treatment :
the animal in its agony is relentlessly driven about,
perhaps by a dog, the owner ignorantly supposing
that such violent exercise is serviceable ; the hur-
ried irregularity of the peristaltic action is thereby
increased, the spasmodic constriction of the muscu-
lar fibres of the bowels is more vehement, they in-
tertwine each other, the fatal noose is tightened,
perhaps the mesentery is ruptured, and death
ensues ; and all this might have been prevented.

Another result of continued spasmodic colic
is what is termed intwsusceptio ; — that is, one por-
tion of the bowels being perhaps spasmodically con-
tracted, is forced forward by the strong peristaltic
action of the intestines, and so runs into the succeed-
ing dflated portion, perhaps to a very considerable
extent ; often the peristaltic action of the intes-
tines is inverted, and in that case a lower portion

of the bowel is forced into the portion preceding it.
The latter, as far as we have obsened in animals, ap-
pears to occur the most commonly. The agony re-
sulting from this introsusceptiou, or infolding and
sliding of one portion of intestine into another, must
be horrible ; the mesenteiy is generally lacerated ;
inflammation comes on and the animal dies. The
symptoms indicative of this occurrence are indefi-
nite, and the same observation applies to strangu-
lation. But we may suspect the mischief from the
increase of pain and the inutility of medicines. If
any thing is likely to prove beneficial it must be
bleeding, conjoined with opium.

In our dissection of animals numerous examples
of introsuscejition have come under our notice, but
none in which the appearances of inflammation have
not been strongly marked ; in most cases, indeed,
rapidly as the disease must have been hurried to its
close, adhesion was found to have commenced be-
tween the enclosed and the enclosing portions ; the
peritoneal covering of both being in contact.* It
always, or almost always, appeared to us connected
with an inversion of the natural direction of the
peristaltic action ; that action by which the aliments
are carried through the windings of the intestinal
canal. In cattle introsusceptiou is of rare occur-
rence, though perhaps less so than is sujiposed.
In carnivorous animals, as we can personally tes-
tify, it is by no means imcommon.

It is astonishing what strange remedies are
sometimes given in colic, under the idea of extri-
cating the supposed knot, or forcing the passage of
the bowels obstracted, which the ignorant cow-leech
knows not how, but which he confidently asserts
he can set to rights. Some pour down the animal's
throat' a quantity of quicksilver, some use shot,
while some prefer a livingtrout. A pupil of Mr. Dick,
says Mr. Youatt, who takes the accomit from the
"Quarterly Journal of Agricidtiu-e," was consulted
respecting an ox labouring under constipation of
the bowels. The disease proved obstinate ; it re-
sisted every remedy ; and the case was abandoned
as utterly hopeless. At this stage of the business
the old-established leech of the district stepped in
and confidently engaged to set matters light. He
commenced with no less active a remedy than a
lively trout, transferred from the river to the
stomach of the patient, with the conviction that
his agent would thread his way through all the
mazes of the intestines, and he ascribed the failure
of so notable a dose to the previous mismanagement
of the Edinburgh student. All such remedies may
sei-ve to create a smile in the well infoi-med, but the
ignorant look at things in a different light ; they
know nothing, and therefore are easily imposed

• We may illustrate this by pushing up (not inverting) one
portion of the finger of a glove into the other, so that the blaclt
surfaces of the received and receiving portion are in conta(?t. 1 his
is done, not by inverting, but by rucking up one part into anotheTr
from a certain spot where the infolding begins.

J 35

upon by the most egregious quackery. In their
own ignorance they too often consider the most
ignorant cow-leecli the best, and they listen with
implicit faith to the dark saymgs of their oracle.

In some rare cases both strangulation and in-
trosusception have been found on the same subject.
In no instance, however, have we met with such an
occurrence in any animal whatever.

INFLAMMATION OF THE MUCOUS MEMBHANE OF THE
FOURTH STOMACH OR ABOMASUM AND OF THE
SMALL INTESTINES (GASTRITIS AND GASTRO-
ENTERITIS).

Inflammation of the abomasuni (gastritis), or
rather of its mucous membrane, is a most serious
disease, nor is it of very unfrequent occurrence ;
generally the inflammation is not limited to the
abomasuni, but extends through the duodenum.
This is the gastro-enteritis of authors. It appears
to be brought on in most instances by improper
food, by acrid plants, by bad water, by musty hay,
and other causes which are not easily ascertained.

The symptoms of this disease (for we need not
minutely distinguish between gastritis and gastro-
enteritis), are heariness, loss of appetite, dis-
turbed breathing, fever, a hot dry muzzle and
tongue ; sometimes diarrhoea, occasionally vomit-
ing ; and in milch cows either a cessation of the
milk or an alteration in its qualit_y ; it irritates or
even inflames the udder, and the milk when drawii
off' is thin, yellowish, and stringy with threads of
coagulum. Its smell is often off'ensive, and some-
times it has a reddish tinge, as if slightly coloui'ed
by blood.

According toM.Gelle, "among the mostconstant
symptoms of inflammation of the gastro-intestinal
mucous membrane is loss of appetite, with the arrest
of rumination. If the inflammation be intense the
tongue seems to be contracted, and is e\-idently
straighter and more rounded than is natm-al ; the
papillie which cover it become elevated and injected :
the tongue moreover is red towai'ds its point, and
also along its edges. In certain intense cases of
gastritis, and in some serious affections of the
paunch or of the abomasuni, the duodenum and
liver participate in the inflammation, and the
tongue is yellow or green. This colouring some-
times extends to all the visible mucous membranes.
Vomiting, when there has been primitive or se-
condary aff'ectiou of the stomachs, denotes almost
always a most intense inflammation, either, as is
most commonly the case, continued from the abo-
masum or pyloras, or also from the gullet itself.
Hence it is common in chronic gastro-enteritis
and rare in acute. Nevertheless, if one part of
the food is vomited and the other passes from the
abomasum into the duodenum, it may be presumed
that the seat of the inflammation exists principally
in the abomasum.

" The diminution and even the cessation of the
secretion of milk, constant in cows labouring under
gasti'itis, is only the result of the displacement of
the vital action of the secretoi-y organ in conse-
quence of the violent action which atUiclts the mu
cous membrane of the digestive organs. " In other
words, there is an immediate sympathy between
the udder and tiTie digesting stomach or aboma.sum ;
and the inflammatorj' condition of the mucous mem-
brane of the latter produces an immediate effect on
the foiTner, both as to the quantity and quality of
its secretion.

This disease, like all others of an inflammatoiy
type, varies in intensity. In mild cases a mode-
rate abstraction of blood, with purgatives of Epsom
salts and sulphur, with a little olive or castor oil,
will prove beneficial, the diet being confined
to gruel and mashes. In severer cases the bleed-
ing must be carried to its full extent, and even
repeated, followed by purgatives and doses of
opium or laudanum ; injections should also be
resorted to, and a seton in the dewlap may be
useful.

We cannot but remark that this disease is one
which the professed veterinary surgeon alone can
understand, and which he alone can treat. When
the farmer, then, sees his cow feverish, uneasy,
without appetite, perhaps sick, and finds the milk
changed from what it ought to be to a disgusting
secretion, which, if an honest man, he will not mis
with that of healthy cows, let him send for the
veterinai-y surgeon (not the cow-leech), and trust
the case into his hands. And here we may state
that one object we have ui view is to make the
farmer and cattle-keeper cautious, and distrustful
both of his own opinion and that of the village
oracle, half blacksmith half doctor, who is quite as
fit to attend the good man on his sick-bed, as he is
one of the animals in the yard or cow-house.

Let us now attend to another disease inti-
mately connected ^^^th inflammation of the mucous
membrane of the alimentaiy canal: we allude to
dysentery, which we cannot well notice without
taking diarrhcea also into consideration.

DYSENTERY AND DIAEBHffiA.

These two diseases are both characterized by ex-
cessive ahane evacuations ; and the latter disease, viz.
diarrhcea, which is simple purging, may mn on into \
the former. Dysentery we conceive to be always con-
nected vrith congestion or inflammation of the mu-
cous lining of the intestines, involving disturbance
of the functions of the liver and the true digesting
stomach. In trae dysentery we have fever, tender-
ness of the loins and abdomen, frequent and perhaps
bloody purging accompanied by tenesmus and
spasms, as in colic. Dysentery is often the con-
comitant of other disorders ; but here we speak of
dysenteiy as an acute disease p^r se, occsisionally

136

merging into a chronic fonn, and too often result-
ing in death.

Ti-ue dysentery begins with shivering, suc-
ceeded by decided febrile symptoms and pain in
the bowels, \rith mucous alvine evacuations, loss of
appetite, and nausea ; tenesmus and niuco-sangui-
nolent purging succeed, not without pain ; the
pulse is hard, small, and frequent ; the tongue drj';
the urine scanty ; prostration of the strength ra-
pidly comes on, and the pulse becomes feeble ; the
tongue is covered with a brown fur ; offensive and
dark-coloured alvine evacuations now occur, the
body is emaciated ; the limbs totter, they become
spasmodically contracted, torpor and death ensue.
Sometimes, after a degree of apparent convales-
cence, the disease returns and assumes a chronic
foiTU ; the food, mixed with mucus and blood,
passes through the bowels only half digested ; the
pulse is feeble ; there is great emaciation of the
frame, dropsy ensues, and the animal dies worn
out. On examination after death the mucous mem-
brane of the bowels, but especially of the large in-
testines, is found to be inflamed, ulcerated, or
gangrenous ; in chronic cases the peritoneum par-
ticipates in the inflammation, and adhesions and
effusion of serum are the result. In the first in-
flammatory attack of dysentery the abstraction of
blood is required, and this must be followed by
opium and calomel (a drachm of each) in thick
gruel, repeated in a day or two if necessary, with
mashes in the inteiTal. No green or succulent
food must be allowed ; and the animal should be
well housed and littered. There may be occasion
to repeat the opium and calomel three or four
times, or even oftener, till the bowels begin to
act naturally, when oleaginous aperients may be
given.

Diarrhcea or purging may arise from various
causes, and may mostly be regarded as an effort of
nature to get rid of some irritating matter in the
alimentary canal. This cannot be called a disease.
But diarrhoea often assumes a veiy severe and ob-
stinate character and nms at last into dysentery.
It commences with a frequent and abundant eva-
cuation of fcetid matter, o\^-ing perhaps to a sudden
change from dry to green food, to impure water,
or to some particular state of the atmosphere ; in
a short time the purging becomes more severe, and
the evacuations become mucous ; the animal suffers
severe griping pain, rapidly loses flesh, and at
length wastes away to a skeleton. Milch cows and
calves are more subject to the disease than oxen.
The cow ceases to yield her usual supply of milk ;
she appears cheerful, eats and drinks ; but the
diarrhoea or scom'ing is incessant, and at last she
dies. . On examination after death the lining
membrane of the fourth stomach or abomasum will
generally be found much thickened and pallid,
with effusion of serum between it and the muscular

coat; and these appearances extend to a greater or
less degree through the alimeutaiy canal. There
is not unfrequently effusion also in the cavity of
the abdomen, and that to a considerable extent.

It is evident that in these cases the disease
begins in a low inflammation, or state of irritabi-
lity of the mucous membranes ; and all attempts
to check its progress by astringents and aromatics
will be useless, unless the healthy condition of the
mucous membranes be first restored. In the com-
mencement of the disease, as soon as its obstinate
character is revealed, the abstraction of a small
quantity of blood maj' be serviceable, and a dose
of chalk, mercuiy, and opium may be given daily
in the follovsing proportions : — Chalk, one ounce ;
opium, one drachm ; calomel, half a drachm ; gin-
ger, two drachms. These may be mixed in thick
gruel. Some recommend the addition of three or
four drachms of catechu ; but we fear that power-
ful astringents may rather produce mischief than
benefit. Indeed, if the above prescription acts in
restoring the healthy condition of the mucous mem-
brane, it may be necessary to give castor oil occa-
sionally, in doses of a pint, with ten grains of
powdered opium. The diet should consist of good
sound hay, given in small quantities, and a hand-
ful or two of wheat-flour may be stirred up in the
water. After all, this kind of diarrhoea is not easily
subdued, and too often wears down the animal,
which dies emaciated and dropsical.

In some diseases, as pneumonia, the occurrence
of diarrhcea may be regarded as favourable ; but
in other diseases, as consumption, it is one of the
sjTnptoms of approaching dissolution : it may be
moderated perhaps by astringents, as chalk, one
ounce ; powdered catechu, two drachms ; powdered
allspice, two drachms; powdered caraway -seeds,
half an omtce. Let all these ingredients, except
the chalk, be simmered in half a pint of water ;
then add the finely-powdered chalk, mixed in half
a pint of ale. To this a small quantity of opium
may be added if the purging be accompanied by
griping pains.

In simple but acute diarrhoea, before it assumes
a dysenteric form, an oleaginous purgative, in
order to remove the cause of the irritation of the
bowels, may jDrecede the mixture of chalk, opium,
calomel, and ginger; this latter medicine may then
be repeated twice a day, or only once if the purging
be not violent. If given twice a day half a drachm
of the opium will suffice with each dose. Should
febrile symptoms make their appearance, indicative
of mischief m the mucous lining of the alimentary
canal, bleeding may be followed by the chalk, ca-
lomel, and opium, as above directed. Injections
of starch with laudanum, or gruel, or linseed tea
(infusion of linseed) with laudanum (half an ounce)
will be serviceable in acting as emollients and se-
datives, and should not be neglected.

137

INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS.

The kidneys in the ox are of large size, and,
unlike those of the sheep, lobulated in structure ;
that is, they consist of numerous distinct lobules
united together. These organs are subject to seve-
ral affections, as red water, gravel, calculus, and
also pure inflammation. Acute inflammation of
the kidneys may be produced by blows on the
loins, by violent muscular exertion, by exposure to
cold, and by had or musty food.

The first symptoms are, a frequent desire to
void urine, accompanied by a straining effort,
which causes the ejection of small quantities only
(strangm-y), a tenderness and heat on the loins,
dulness, loss of appetite, and fever. In a few
days these symptoms increase, and the mine, in-
stead of being limpid, is tinged with blood; streaks
of pure coagulated blood also appear in it. The
homs and ears are cold, the muzzle diy, the pulse
hard and quick, the breathing accelerated. Severe
dysentery or diarrhcea now comes on, with violent
straining ; the alvine excretions are scanty and
fcetid : at length they cease, though the straining
continues as severe as before. The animal moans
heavily from intense pain ; its back becomes bowed
as it stands crouching ; the difficulty of passing the
mnne increases, and at length total suppression
ensues. The animal trembles, breaks out into
sweats, and utters distressing groans; the hind
limbs become paralysed, the pulse sinks, and the
poor beast falls to rise no more.

After death the inflammation of the kidneys is
found to extend to the large intestines, and in
cows often to the utenis, and the blood is strongly
tainted with mine. The treatment in such cases
must be prompt and decided. The first thing to
be done is the abstraction of blood, and that in no
stinted quantitj' ; the loins must be fomented with
hot water for a considerable time, and afterwards
covered with a large mustard-poultice, or rubbed
with an irritating ointment composed of one
drachm of tartaiized antimony and five or six of
lard. This will produce pustules, and great irri-
tation of the skin : blister-ointment, from the well-
known effects of the cantharis on the urinary organs,
is inadmissible. Pm'gatives must be administered,
and emollient injections of gruel, or linseed infu-
sion, and laudanum. The food should consist of
bran-mashes and gruel. The purgatives to be
selected are oleaginous, as castor or linseed oil :
they must be persevered in until the bowels are
fairly unloaded and their action is natural.

During the inflammatoiy symptoms no diuretic
medicines certainly should be given ; they vill only
stimulate fruitlessly or injuriously the inflamed
kidneys, which will soon begin to act naturally
when the inflammation is subdued. In the " Ve-
terinarian" for 1840, however, Mr. Rush recom-

mends the following draught, at first twice and
afterwards once a day : — " Oil of juniper, half an
ounce ; oil of tui-pentine, one ounce ; tincture of
opium, one ounce; linseed -tea, a pint." This
mixture, he states, proved beneficial in some cases
which he treated for several days without any
amendment. The draughts appeared to cause an
increase of the discharge of blood at first ; but af-
tenvards it began to abate, and diminished daily.
This medicine may be useful when the discharge
of blood continues after the pain and stranguiy
have been subdued ; but we should prefer tiying
laudanum and linseed-tea alone. Some practi-
tioners, under these circumstances, recommend
astringents ; as two drachms of powdered catechu
three drachms of alum, half a drachm of opium
and two drachms of ginger, which are to be sim-
mered, in half a pint of water, for a few minutes ;
to this decoction must be added a pint of ale to
form a drench, wliich may be repeated in a day or
two. That this mixture will act as an astringent
cannot be doubted ; but we question its effects on
the kidneys.

BLAIN OB GLOSS-ANTHRAX, INFLAMMATION OF THE
TONGUE AND TARTS ADJACENT.

The '"causes of this disease are veiy obscure
Some attribute it to the eating of certain acrid
plants, as various species of ranimculus, &c. ; but
on doubtful grounds. It sometimes appears as an
epidemic ; and in its latter stage it has been
proved to be contagious. Its attack is generally
sudden, and variable as to severity ; but the affec-
tion not unfrequently runs on to gangi'ene of the
tongue and parts adjacent, accompanied with ma-
lignant typhus, and the animal dies a miserable
object.

At the commencement of blain the animal
exhibits the ordinaiy febrile symptoms, v,-iih dul-
ness and the refusal of food. A discharge of saliva
from the mouth now appears and rapidly increases :
it is at first limpid, but, as the disease gains
gromid, it becomes punilent, blood}', and extremely
fcetid. The inflammation now extends itself; the
head and throat swell, often to an alarming de-
gree ; the phai-ynx, or back of the cavity of the
mouth, partakes of this congestion and intumes-
cence, to the obstruction of breathing ; and some-
times this is carried to such an extent that suffo-
cation is the result. In cases wiiere this event
does not take place large ulcers break out around
the tongue and beneath it, and gangrene spreads
its destnictive ravages ; a state of low typhus
accompanies tliis disorganization, and the animal
perishes.

If the mouth of a beast labouring under this
disease be examined, the tongue will appear to be
singularly elevated and swollen ; miderneath it
and around its sides appear numerous large vesi-

138

oles or bladders, varying in colour from red to a
dark livid hue. Sometimes these vesicles appear
even on the upper part of the tongue : they burst
and form deep ulcerations ; and as they burst
others appear in their turn, till, at last, the tongue
and parts adjacent are covered with viralent ulcers.
The sides of the tongue become gangrenous ; inci-
sions into it neither produce pain nor bring blood :
the disease has now ran its fatal coui'se.

The appearances on dissection, after death, are
ulceration and mortification of the tongue, inflam-
mation of the muscular and glandular mass between
the branches of the lower jaw, inflammation and
ulceration of the phaiynx, oesophagus, the paimch,
and abomasum, sometimes even accompanied by
patches of gangi'ene. The vegetable matter in the
paunch exhales an overwhelming foetid odour ;
that in the manyplus is dry and hard ; the small
intestines exhibit veiy often traces of high inflam-
mation, and the large intestines as frequently
manifest paljmble indications of the same morbid
action. It often happens that ulcers form about
the heels of the foot and between the clefts of the
hoofed toes, discharging a fcEtid matter.

At different times this disease appears as an
epidemic, both in our island and on the continent,
carrying off vast numbers of cattle ; though the
extent of the mortality has been most probably in-
creased by the ineffioacy of the modes of treatment
adopted. Mr. Youatt assures us that this disease
is contagious : it is not communicated by the
breath, but, like glanders in the horse, by actual
contact. The beasts must graze in the same field,
eat at the same manger, or drink at the same
trough ; and the saliva of the diseased beast must
be received on some abraded, or, at least, a mucous
surface. Hence it is requisite that the most strin-
gent precautions be adopted and fully carried out.
instances are on record in which human beings
have been inoculated \nth this malady and died.
Mr. Youatt, who observes that many instances re-
lated have perhaps little foundation in truth, gives
the following as well authenticated : — " A man
held do'mi the tongue of an ox, with a silver spoon,
in order to examine the mouth, which had many
of the characteristic vesicles. He afterwards, and
without any great cai'e about cleaning it, ate some
broth with the same spoon. Not many days had
elapsed when his mouth felt sore, pustules ap-
peared on the side of the tongue, malignant fever
ensued, and he died. When this disease raged at
Nismes, in 1731, it was communicated, not only to
the human being, but to various species of domes-
ticated animals."

It is requisite therefore in attending cattle
labouring under the blain, to be careful that the
saliva of the animal, discharged from the mouth,
touch no sore or abraded part, nor lodge upon the
lips. Should such an accident occur, a slight ap-

I^lication of the lunar caustic to tlie spot will prove
a sufiicient security.

In the early stage this disease may be gene-
rally treated sviccessfuUy ; the mouth must be se-
cm-ed, the tongue and parts connected with it
examined, and every vesicle freely opened with a
lancet, so as to give free vent to the glairy fluid
they contain ; the mouth and tongue should then
be well washed with salt and water, and cleansed
as much as possible. If, however, the fluid of the
vesicles is at all offensive, as is likely to be the
case, if they appear dark or livid, a solution of
chloride of lime (two drachms to a quart of water)
should be applied very freely and frequently. After
this, smart purgatives should be given, and, if the
fever be higli, blood abstracted. If there be ulcers
about the feet they must be washed with a solution
of chloride of lime also, and dressed with tincture
of aloes and myrrh, or compound tincture of ben-
zoin (friar's balsam), both to be obtained at the
dniggist's. In unhealthy sluggish ulcers, a little
of the chloride (butyr) of antimony may be can
tiously applied.

Should the disease be in a more advanced
stage, the free lancing of the vesicles in the mouth
is to be thoroughly eiiected, and the lotion of chlo-
ride of lime applied copiously several times a day.
Physic must be given ; but whether blood should
be abstracted or not will now depend on the pulse
and the character which the fever assumes. If
sloughing of the. tongue has taken place, the same
j)lan must be followed out, the solution of the
chloride of lime being gradually strengthened ;
and should the ulcerations or sloughing parts show
a healthy surface, they may be washed with tincture
of myrrh. The animal should be supported upon
good giiiel, poured gently and slowly down the
gullet, if the beast refuse to take it : the horn,
however, is not often needed. It may be necessaiy
to give tonics also, as gentian and ginger, in doses
of two drachms each, mixed with gruel and half a
pint of good ale, twice a day.

In this disease many absurd and even disgust-
ing nostrums have been administered, and some
unsafe plans put into practice, to the disgrace of
those whose common sense ought to have taught
them better. That the village blacksmith, or cow-
leech, should boast his quack remedies and his
pretended skill, is not to be wondered at ; but
that he should impose upon persons who in all
other affairs show discernment, is indeed sui-pris-
ing. Perhaps, however, we do not make sufficient
allowance for human credulity, and forget that
there is as much pleasure " in being cheated as to
cheat."

From experiments which have been made it
would appear that the blain is one of those dis-
eases which seldom occur a second time in the
same individual. How far, when the epidemic is

139

spreading abroad, would it be advisable to inocu-
late for it, and then, watching the result, com-
mence the treatment of the disease, upon its first
appearance, wlieu it is easily manageable ? We are
not aware that an}' experiment, with this object in
view, has ever been made.

THEUSH, OR APHTHA OF THE MOUTH.

In many respects this disease bears a close
resemblance to blain : it commences with inflam-
mation of the mouth, attendant perhaps upon
some disease ; and in a short time the sides of the
tongue, and inside of the mouth generally, are
covered with small pustules which break and ulce-
rate. There is seldom much fever or loss of appe-
tite ; and a few aperient doses, with a lotion of
tincture of myrrh, alum, and water for the mouth,
will generally prove successful in the course of a
week or ten days. Sometimes, however, the ulce-
ration spreads alanningly, and the symptoms begin
to be formidable. If the pulse permit (for great
debility then comes on quickly) some blood must
be taken away, and the mouth well washed with a
solution of chloride of lime, and afterwards with
tincture of myrrh. Thrush is generally connected
with derangement of the digestive organs produced
by damaged food, foul water, and similar things ;
but sometimes it appears as an epidemic, especially
on the continent, where the disease assumes a more
dangerous form than in our island, the inflamma-
tion extending to the throat.

In catarrhal affections vesicles called barbs or
paps, of a red colour, sometimes appear in the
mouth, but oftener when its membranes are in-
flamed ; these the cow-leech will sometimes igno-
rantly remove bj' the scissors or hot iron, producing
unpleasant ulcers. In such slight cases a few-
doses of phj'sic are all that is required ; or, should
some degree of ulceration take place, an alum wash
is sufficient to heal them. These little blad-
ders often appear over the sublingual glands, the
orifices of which are enlarged and distended with
saliva.

We may here also observe that the submax-
illary and parotid glands are, from various causes,
subject to acute inflammation and swelling called
strangullion ; and sometimes abscesses are foiTned,
which become malignant, and are difficult to cure.
This is more especially the case with the parotid
gland (under the ear). In catarrh, and in ejiide-
mic diseases of a severe character, the parotid
glands are generally hot, swollen, and painful,
rendering the action of the lower jaw verj' difficult.
The swelled gland, moreover, presses upon the
adjacent blood-vessels, impeding the current of
blood.

Hot fomentations, frequently applied, are use-
ful ; and, when suppuration has commenced, it
should be encom-aged by hot poultices, and the

abscess freely opened as soon as the fluctuation of
the purulent matter is clearly distinguishable ; the
abscess will then generally fill up ; but if allowed
to burst of itself, ulcei's, often of a phagedenic
character, or apt to become gangrenous, will be
the result. For these ulcers washes of chloride of
lime must be used, and afterw^ards dressings of
tincture of aloes.

During the inflammatory stage there will be
considerable fever, rendering the abstraction of a
little blood advisable, with aperients and seda-
tives ; but when ulceration has commenced tonics
should be administered. The food should consist
of gruel and mashes requiring but little mastica-
tion. Contusions, and the blows of cattle-drivers,
merciless in the use of their sticks about the heads
of the poor beasts subjected to their barbarity, are
not unfrequeutly the cause of inflammation and
suppuration of the parotid gland ; but the disease
very often commences spontaneously, or is sym-
pathetic with general derangement of the system.

ACUTE EHEUMATISM.

Rheumatism is a disease to which homed cat-
tle are peculiarly subject, from exposure to wet
and cold, and the vicissitudes of the weather, more
especially in the early part of spring. Cows after
calving, and beasts in general in a weak state
from recent illness, if not shielded from piercing
cold, are extremely liable to this affection. It con-
sists of inflammation of the fascia of the muscles,
the ligaments of the joints, and the synovial mem-
branes. Sometimes the inflammation extends to
the chest, and involves the pericardium. Acute
rheumatism commences with fever and loss of ap-
petite; the animal moves stifflv, eveiy action being
painful ; the spine seems to have lost its elasticity ;
the loins are tender when pressed ; and the animal
is unwilling to stir. In this stage it is called by
farmers chine-felon, an expression which has no
definite meaning. In a short time the joints swell,
and cannot be bent without intense agony; they
are veiy hot, and often the veins around them
assume a varicose appearance : the disease is now
called joint-felon. Ulceration of the cartilages of
the joints frequently' supervenes ; the hind quaiters
become weak and contracted, or even palsied ; the
animal is no longer able to stand ; and, after lin-
gering for some weeks almost incapable of motion,
is relieved from miseiy by death.

Rheumatism appears in a chronic as well as in
an acute form, especially in old cattle which have
been worked har-d, and exposed to frequent altera-
tions of temperature, or in aged cows subjected to
damp or wet. In fine warm weather little appears
to indicate the existence of rheumatism, except
perhaps that some of the joints of the limbs are
swelled ; but in bitter weather, when keen east
or north-east winds prevail, or when sleet and

.n- :j»rT-.na ^nmsu

i^^ ^

141

tip of the tail, where the caudal bones terminate,
a little soft space, succeeded by a firm cartilagi-
nous and somewhat swollen portion, in which are
inserted the long hairs forming the tuft of the tail.
Now this little soft intermediate portion, between
the last caudal bone and the cartilaginous base on
which the long hairs grow, this part, which acts as
a flexible attachment of the whip-like brush to
the more solid portion above, is supposed to be
preteniatural, a disease, a softening or wasting of
tlie bones, and is the "tail-slip," the cause of all
the mischief. Acting on tliis idea, some cut the
end of the cow's tail off, others make incisions
along its under surface, and to add to the poor
creature's agony, rub salt, tar, and other detestable
things into the wound. Others add witchcraft to
aid these operations, and suppose that a twig of
mountain-ash or rowan bound on the end of the
tail, has a potent charm, and is as efficacious in its
way as the " so potent art" of Prospero. Some
again seek out a cat, not a " brindled cat," but a
black cat, and, having secured it, pass it three
times round the cow's bod}' ; the cat being thus
unceremoniously treated, mews, and scratches,
and stmggles '^■iolently, until at length she escapes
from the clutches of the mighty magicians, pos-
sessed, as they believe, by some one of tlie male-
volent emissaries of the prince of darkness, to
whose agency the cow owed her " tail-slip" and its
attendant consequences. Mr. Dick, of Edinburgh,
in the " Quarterly Journal of Agriculture," exposes
these absurdities \nth some effect, and he labours
to prove that this soft space is natural, and explains
the general sti-ucture and use of the tail in these
animals with great ingenuity ; but we much doubt
whether those whose ignorance and credulity are
so great as to lead them to such follies would
believe Mr. Dick's assertions, or understand his
arguments, even were they (which is not
likely) to read his paper. It is only with the
general diffusion of knowledge, which beginning
hke a small stream spreads wder and wider as it
pursues its course, and will spread till its waters
cover the earth, that these lingering relics of
superstition, by no means banished from the rural
and secluded parts of our island, will be utterly
exploded. Let fays and fairies. Puck, Oberon,
and Titania, and him, the dainty Ariel, bodied forth
from " airy nothing," by the poet's imagination,
gracefully act their parts in his pages, and let us
devoutly believe in them while we read ; but these
creations of fancy never entered the mind of the
village farrier-leech. He doctors his cattle by
knife, nostrums, and witchcraft, learned alike in
surgen-, physic, and magic ; and thus fortified,
" boldly undertakes tlie job." Who unless on
good authority would believe the following details,
they refer to a poor cow which laboured under
affection of the feet and swelling of the joints, and

which came under the notice of a friend of Mr.
Tait, of Portsay, who repeats the narrator's words :
" Soon after commenchig practice in this district,
I was particularly stnick witli the appearance of a
cow belonging to a cottar. On inquiring the cause
of the animal's apparent helplessness, my informant
stated to me that she had the crackles (tumours of
the joints, in consequence of neglected rheumatism,
often accompanied by ulceration of the cartilages),
but was now in a way of getting better, a man
having pared out the worm that uas the cause of
the awful complaint ; that the man knew tlie vei-y
spot where the worm lodged, and that he appeared
to have great experience, having travelled muth as
a hegr/ar. In fact he had sawn off two inches
from eacli claw of her feet. The cow was in a
woful plight, her joints enlarged, her muscles
shrunk, and her skin clinging to her bones."
After remonstrating with the cottar on his folly,
Mr. Tait's friend persuaded the man to remove
the beast to a suitable spot, so as to give her a
chance of recovery. In a short time she began to
be convalescent, and to move about a little, and
would have been restored in time, had not the
beggar removed a part of the bones of her feet,
along with his pretended worm. — Veterinarian,
August, 1834.

No comments are here needed.

With respect to the treatment of this species
of palsy, bleeding will be sen'iceable in the first
instance, followed by warm cordial purgatives, in
each dose of which there may be an ounce of
ginger, and half a pint of good ale. The bowels
must be kept freely relaxed ; this is most essential :
the animal should be comfortably housed, and well
littered ; and a rug or coarse blanket should be
thrown over the loins, which latter may be well
rublied occasionally \rith a stimulating embrocation,
as turpentine, olive oil, and hartshorn (or liq. am-
moniae); or blisters may be produced by thoroughly
rubbing in the blister ointment.* The food should
consist of giniel, ■with a little hay, and green fodder.
In three or four weeks, if all goes on well , recoveiy
mil take place.

Nux vomica, or its principle stiychnine. have
been recommended in these cases ; and in France,
the former has been given mth success, in ounce
doses. It is not a medicine to be used rashly, or
by any but a veterinary surgeon, in the treatment
of cattle.

In many animals, particularly in such as are
kept in confinement and fed high, epilepsy is a
frequent disease; but it is not of common occur-
rence among homed cattle, and indeed then it is

• One draclim of tartar emetic, with sis of lard, make a powerful
irritant, causing a pustular eruption of the skin, when properly
rubbed, and is useful in cases where blister ointment is inadmissible.

142

chiefly in young cattle that it takes place. Young
beasts in high condition, excited by overdriving, or
a sultiy state of the atmosphere, are the most
liable to be seized with it. It arises from a sud-
den detennination of blood to the head, the animal
suddenly staggers, reels and falls, the limbs are
convulsed, often violently, the flanks heave with
astonishing force, the jaws are clenched, the teeth
grind, the mouth foams with froth, and the faeces
and m-ine are discharged involuntarily. Sometimes
the animal bellows loudly, but this is not always
the case. The fit varies greatly in duration,
sometimes it is over iu half a minute, at other
times it may last for many minutes, the convulsions
gradually cease, the animal rises staggering and
bewildered, it gazes around, and gradually re-
coveiiug its faculties, commences its repast as
before. It is seldom that an animal which has
fallen in a fit of epilepsy has not a return of the
complaint, perhaps even during the same day, and
that more than once. The disease is in fact liable
to become habitual, the fits following each other
at shorter intervals, tUl in one of more than usual
severity the animal dies. Bleeding, active ape-
rients, and a restricted diet, are the only remedies,
■with a seton iu the dewlaj), or on the sides of the
neck. If by these measures, actively pushed, no
return of the convulsive fits occurs for several
weeks, the beast may be cautiously prepared for
the butcher.

CHOREA, OR ST. VITUs's DANCE.

Chorea is a frequent disease in young dogs,
and occurs either w-itli the distemper, or after it.
That singular affection of the limbs of the horse,
called string-halt, appears to be a species of chorea.
In homed cattle the disease is not known to occur.

TETANUS, OR LOCKED JAW.

This terrible malady is less common in the
ox than in the horse, but when it comes on it is
equally unmanageable. It is generally the effect
of severe punctured womids ; in working oxen it
may be jsrodnced by incautious shoeing, one or
more nails being rudely driven to the quick.
Long and severe travel will produce it, and it often
makes considerable ravages among the droves of
cattle, during their toilsome and exhausting jour-
ney from the north to the southern markets. Mr.
Youatt assm-es us, that tetanus stands at the head
of the list of those diseases which sweej) away the
greatest number of victims from the herds travel-
ling southwards. Unfortunately tetanus is generally
confirmed before its approach even is suspected ;
nay, it is not then always immediately discovered.
The animal stands in the field motionless, with its
head stretched out, and the neck rigid. At first per-
haps no notice is taken of this, but the animal still
continues, having scarcely stirred a yard from the
spot, but in the same fixed attitude ; its appearance

excites alarm, the muscles of the jaws are found to
be spasmodically contracted, and the jaw firmly set
or locked. What is to be done, must be done
promptly, for in a short time it will be too late to
attempt any thing. Blood must be taken in a full
stream, till symptoms of fainting manifest them-
selves, and the animal staggers. This may relax
the muscles, and the opportunity must be instantly
taken to give a powerfid aperient, as half a drachm
of the farina of croton-nut iu a little gmel ; this
medicine may be then followed up, if practicable,
by full doses of salts, a pound in solution with
ginger, and afterwards at due intervals (eveiy six
hours) by small doses. These medicines may be
assisted by copious and repeated mjections, con-
sisting of salts dissolved in five or six quarts of
water. Let the medicines be given slowly and
gradually, or they will pass into the paunch, and
jH'oduce no eff'ect, but by giving them gently and
gradually they pass into tlie fourth stomach.
When the bowels begin to act freely, then recourse
must be had to that powerful antispasmodic, opium.
A drachm or a drachm and a half of the powdered
opium, suspended in . gum- water, or linseed-tea,
may be given twice or three times a day. Still
the action of the bowels must be kept up by doses
of salts, sulphur, and ginger, and a seton may be
introduced into the dewlap. During this time the
back, loins, neck, and head, should be covered
with sheepskins, or thick rugs to induce perspi-
ration ; and the jaws and neck often rubbed with
a stimidating embrocation, as spirit of turpentine,
camphorated oil, ammonia, and laudanum. Some
persons have recommended the poiuing of cold
water over the body by means of buckets, the
stream being continued for a considerable time ;
but we doubt the benefit of such treatment.

We have drawn up a favourable case, we have
supposed the bleeding to have relaxed the muscles
of tbe jaws, and the purgatives to have operated
effectually.

But suppose the most profuse bleeding has not
caused the relaxation of the jaws ; it has been
repeated, but the spasmodic condition of the mus-
cles remains. The case is hopeless.

Suppose the medi(ines take no eff'ect. In this
case we may conjecture very safely that the draughts
have passed into the paunch, and remain there
inert. The m.ost direct method is to have recourse
to the stomach-pump, if it can be applied. The
tube must be passed down the gidlet, into the
paunch, or nimeu, and warm water be injected into
that compartment till it overflows ; the contents
will then either be discharged by the action of
vomiting, or they will pass through the third and
fourth stomach into the intestines, and the desired
purgative eff'ect will ensue. If the contents of the
stomach be rejected, the aperient medicines must
be again resorted to.

143

We are quite aware that all these plans are
more easily directed than put into practice. The
stoinach-pumjJ for cattle is not in the possession of
every fanner, the fleam is mislaid or lost, there are
no medicines to be obtained immediately, none
perhaps are kept on the farm, and the nearest
veterinaiy surgeon is absent : under these circum-
stances what is to be done ? Bleed, and bleed
freely, a shaqi penknife adroitly used will open
the jugular vein ; let injections and fermentations
be in the meantime prepared, and let some one be
sent off for the proper mediciues, or for the veteri-
nary practitioner, who, understanding the case,
will (or ought to) bring them with him. Let us
suppose that the beast recovers, the disease and
the remedies have given a shock to the system
not easily sm-mounted ; nay, a relapse may take
place, against which it is hopeless to contend.
What is the plan most advisable under all these
circumstances ? Cautious and gradual preparation
for the butcher. The food should be at first suited
to the animal's enfeebled frame ; gruel and mashes,
with a little ale occasionally added, a small quan-
tity of succulent green fodder may be also given
from time to time, but nothing requiring labom-ed
mastication ; for the very action of the muscles of
the jaws is apt to bring on sudden (Tamps and
spasms, indicative of the irritability of the nerves
which supply them. By slow degrees the diet may
be amended, and the animal at length restored to
good condition. After all it is an expensive and un-
satisfactory affair, and at whatever price the farmer
may sell the beast, he will not be remunerated.

RABIES, OR CANINE MADNESS.

We have stated enough respecting this horrible
disease in our description of the symptoms and
treatment of phrenitis. (Seepage 131.)

HOOVE, CHOKING, ETC.

We may now pass on to a consideration of cer-
tain casualties (for the term diseases is scarcely
applicable), as hoove, choking, and obstnictions, con-
nected with the digestive organs, which render a
description of them a requisite prelirainarv. At
the same time we shall not recapitulate the process
of itimination, which we have given as one of the
characteristics of an e.vtensive and veiy natural
order of the mammalia. ,

To commence, then, with a plain description
of the digestive organs of the ox, it may be ob-
served, that the pharynx or posterior part of the
mouth merges into the oesophagus or gullet, a tube
remarkable in this animal for the thieltness and
strength of its component tissues, and which runs
down the neck on the left side of the -windpipe,
and, entering the chest, passes close to the spine,
by the base of the heart, leaving the vense cavse to
the right, and the aorta to the left ; retiring from
the spine by degrees, it pursues its course to the

diaphragm, and passes through the opening between
the crura of that muscle in its course to the sto-
mach. After passing the diajjliragm it increases
in size until it assumes almost the form of a funnel,
and terminates in a canal which opens into all the
stomachs. The parietes of the gidlet or ceso-
phagus consist of an external coat of loose cellular
tissue, a simple expansible membrane ; to this
succeed two layers of muscles, the fibres of wliich
in the ox are spiral, but the fibres of one muscu-
lar coat wind their way round the tube in a con-
trary direction to those of the other. By this
arrangement the gullet is not only readily con-
tracted or elongated, in the act of grazing, swal-
lowing, &c., but it is more freely dilatable than it
would be if (as in the horse) one set of muscular
fibres were longitudinal and the other circular.

The inner or lining membrane of the gullet,
though extending from the phaiynx, loses its mu-
cous character, and becomes smooth and cuticular.
It lies in very nmnerous longitudinal jilaits, so as
to allow of room for dilation as the masticated food
passes along.

The oesophagus, as we have said, terminates in
a sort of canal, shoot, or gutter, common to the four
compartments of the stomach ; this canal is not a
simple tube, it is a singular reduplication not easily
described ; it is part and parcel of the several
stomachs; its roof is formed of a continuation of
the oesophagus, and its base of two muscular pil-
lars. " This canal varies in length fi'om two to
t^vice as many inches, and conducts to the entrance
into the mauyplus or third stomach. These mus-
cular pillars are duplicates of the roof of the first
and second stomachs (the rumen and the reticu-
lum), which lie immediately beneath. When they
are distended by the action of the muscles at their
two extremities, the edges become so closely fitted
to each other that fluids, descending from the
oesophagus with little force, pass over them and
enter the abomasum (fourth stomach) tlu'ough the
manyplus. Wlien they are relaxed the food de-
scends into the rumen or ascends from the reticu-
lum" (in iiiminatiou).

Mr. Spooner, of the Royal Veterinaiy College,
thus describes this canal, which to be clearly un-
derstood must be examined : — " There extends
from the base of the cesophagus a smooth passage
or canal over the reticulum and through the many-
plus into the fomth stomach. The base of this
passage is formed of two projecting muscularpillars,
the contractability of which, he believed, was un-
der the influence of the will ; so that when their
edges are brought together they form a distinct
channel, by means of which fluids pass on to the
abomasvun without entering either of tlie other
stomachs. Yet he could conceive that the act of
deglutition might be much altered by long depri-
vation of w'ater and considerable thirst, and, the

144

animal swallowing with more than usual effort,
that the stream may fall with so much force on
these pillars that they will be forced asunder, and
the fluid mil fall into the mmen." It would ap-
pear, in fact, that in the natural process of diges-
tion fluids pass at once into the ahomasum ; and
here we see the reason why it is that fluid medi-
cines, given to cattle, shoiild he allowed to trickle
do-mi, and not gulped at once, so as to force by the
effort the muscular jjillars of the canal, and so de-
scend into the rumen or paunch. Let this be
borne in mind on giving drenches to these ani-
mals ; and let the operation be gently and quietly
conducted. Professor Dick recommends that the
operator, standing on the right hand of the cow,
should pass his left arm under the cow's jaw, and
take hold of her left cheek with two of his fingers,
and then, with a horn or bottle, pour the liquid
into the right side of the mouth with Ins right
hand, giving both the tongue and jaws as much
liberty as jaossible. An assistant should steady
the head, and assist in keeping it moderately high
by taking hold of the horns. If our reader does
not fully comprehend the structure of the canal in
question, — and unless he examine it carefully we
will forgive him for not understanding a mere de-
scription,— let him at least trust to our assurance
that a hurried mode of giving medicine to cattle
will defeat the object in view. The violent gulpi
to get the volume of fluid down will send it into
the rumen, where it will be useless. Hence it is,
too, that balls, boluses, or medicines in a solid
form are unsuitable ; they are sure to pass into the
rumen (all solids do), and they are there lost.
From this survey of the oesophagus and the oeso-
phageau canal, we may now proceed to describe
the different stomachs. Of these the first is the
nimen or paunch. This is a large muscular reser-
voir, occupying, wlien naturally distended, three-
fourths of the cavity of the abdomen. It is an ob-
long sac, lying obliquely, and is divided internally
by reduplicatures or septa, of thick and muscular
structure, into two large compartments, which are
again subdivided by transversal bands. Of the two
primary divisions, one superior the other inferior,
the foraier occupies the left portion of the abdo-
men, extending over the flank ; the other sac occu-
pies the anterior portion of the abdomen, the mass
of intestines being interposed between it and the
right flank. Tlie nimen has three distinct coats.
The external coat is a continuation of the general
peritoneum. Beneath the peritoneum is a muscu-
lar layer of considerable thiclmess, especially where
its reduplicatures form the septa of its compart-
ments. (Double tripe, as it is called, when the
nimen is prepared for the table, is merely a portion
of these strong septa.) The lining membrane of
the rumen is cuticular, and not endowed Avith
much sensibility. It is generally covered, except

along the ridges of the muscular septa, w ith mul-
titudinous papillae, giving a mossy roughness to
the surface.

The second stomach is the reticulum or honey-
comb ; it is the smallest of all the stomachs, and
possesses great muscular power, being well adapted
for grasping and pressing the food. The coats are
of the same character as those of the rumen, with
tliis exception — that the muscular consists of two
layers, the fibres of one ninning longitudinally,
those of the other transversely. The lining cuti-
cular coat, moreover, assumes the form of a vast
number of pentagonal cells, like those of the honey-
comb, but much more shallow; in these cells the
mouths of numerous minute glands open, pouring
out a mucous fluid.

The third stomach is termed manyplus, many-
plies, manifold, and other names, in allusion to its
internal foliations. This stomach is a strong mus-
cular sac, with duplicates of the cuticular coat, each
duplicature containing within its cellular tissue
blood-vessels, and a thin but powerful layer of
muscular fibres.

This singular foliated lining is studded by nu-
merous follicular glands and little prominences of
a conical form, hive minute spires, some of which
are almost as firm and hard as honi. Tliis stomach
is evidently constructed for the retention of the
food, for the resolution of the finest fibres into
pulp between the rasp-like foliations, and its ulti-
mate preparation for the fourth or true digesting
stomach.

Tlie fourth chamber is termed the ahomasum;
it is somewhat conical in form, and lined by a soft
villous membrane, from which a mucous fluid and
also the gastric juice are secreted. The extent of
this membrane is increased by its being throwTi
into a number of longitudinal folds or puckers ;
one of these folds acts as a sort of valve at the ori-
fice between this stomach and the manyplus ; it
jields to the entrance of food, but opposes an effec-
tual obstruction to its return. Hence it is that
vomiting the contents of this stomach is a rare
occurrence in cattle, and can only be produced by
such violent spasmodic efforts as terminate in death.
The pyloric or lower orifice of this stomach, which
leads into the first portion of the intestinal canal
(the duodenujn) is embraced by circular fibres,
forming a sphincter muscle, which permits the
gradual transit of the digested aliments.

The annexed figure shows the stomachs laid
open, so as to display their internal stnicture.

The length of the intestinal canal in the ox is
very considerable, averaging from fifty to sixty
yards ; whereas in the horse its length is only
from tliirty to thirtj'-flve j^ards ; but in the latter
animal it is much more capacious, and the
caecum and colon are cellated, which is not the
case in the ox. The intestinal canal has three

145

(a) The oesophagus enlargiug as it approaches the stomach ; it
is laid open at ( b) the commencement of tlxe canal or gutter, which
communicates witli the several stomachs.

(d) The reticulum, with its honeycomb lining.

(e) The manyplus, exhibiting its rough internal foliations.

(f) The iibomasum, with its plicated villous lining.

(g) The duodenum, laid open at (h).

coats — an external peritoneal investment ; a mus-
cular coat, for the purpose of effecting that peristal-
tic action which is maintained along the canal during
the process of healthy digestion ; and an internal
mucous lining, tliickly studded with minute glands,
which pour out a lubricating secretion. Under the
action of purgatives this secretion becomes increased
in quantity and more aqueous in its character. The
intestines are all attached to a thin membranous
reduplication termed the mesenteiy, which binds
them to the spine. The mesentery is studded with
glands, through which the lacteals or nutrient
vessels mn, conveying the chyle into the thoracic
duct, which carries it almost directly to the right
cavities of the heart. Besides these there are
important arteries, veins, and nerves.

The duodenum, or first portion of the intesti-
nal canal, i^eceives, at the distance of ten or twelve
inches from the stomach, the secretion of two re-
markable viscera — the liver and the pancreas ;
that of the liver is termed bile, that of the pancreas
the pancreatic juice. These two secretions are
evidently essential to the formation of healthy
chyle.

The duodenum merges at a somewhat indefinite
point into the jejunum, and this again into a por-
tion called the ileum ; but between the two last
there is no marked distinction. The jejunum and
ileum constitute the border of the mesenteric ex-
pansion, and are disposed in the fomi of numerous
spiral convolutions ; their length is very great, in
order that the food as it passes may be drained of
all the chyle, for the principal absorption of chyle
takes place in this portion of the intestinal canal.
This remarkable coil occupies the right side of the

abdomen and the right flank ; and it is on this side
that the ox lies while ruminating, in order to give
full liberty to the stomach.

Tlie ileum, or concUiding portion of the small
intestines enters the large intestines between the
CEECum and the colon. The ea;cum is simple
in its structure, of an arched form, and about a
yard in length. It is not as in the horse puckered
by longitudinal bands into deep and numerous
cells, consequently it can contain only a compara-
tively small proportion of semidigested aliment.

The colon is of great length, measuring thirty-
three or thirty-four feet. It is simple, and not
puckered by bands as in the horse, but is convo-
luted in returning flexures, beautifully disposed.
From its simple structm-e there is no obstruction
to the passage of the food ; but this is compensated
for, by its length, and it is here that the last or yet
unabsorbed portions of chyle are taken into the
lacteals, the feculent matter alone remaining.

The colon merges into the last portion of the
intestines, called, from its straight coui'se, the
rectum ; it is of simple structure, and is guarded
at its termination by the usual sphincter muscle.

The subjoined cut will give an idea of the
arrangement of the intestinal canal in the ox.

(a) Duodenum. (b) Jejunum. (c) Ileum. (d) Cfecum.
(e) Colon. (f) Rectum. (g) Mesentery, with glands, lacteals,
nerves, and blood-vessels.

We might here enter much more profoundly
into the structure and functions of the alimentary
canal, were it consistent with our pbm, which will
not permit minute structural disquisitions.

From this outline we may proceed to a con-
sideration of those casualties connected more espe-
cially with the gullet and stomachs, whicli place
life in jeopai'dy, and too often produce fatal results.

OBSTRUCTION OF THE GULLET, OR CHOKING.

All roots given to cattle should be first cut
into small pieces ; carelessness in this point is
inexcusable. It is not because roots have been

given several times, witliout being chopped up, and
no evil consequences have ensued, that the farmer
or his senant maj' plume themselves on their se-
curity. If they neglect thia precaution they will
most surely rue it some day. One of the cows or
oxen, carelessly masticating, will swallow a large
portion of turnip or parsnip, or perhaps a w-hole
potato, and it will remain fixed in the gullet ;
firmly impacted sometimes at its commencement,
occasionally lower down, and often within a few
inches of the dilatation of the oesophagus, where it
joins the nimen. It may be felt externally, and
there can be little mistake about the matter.
What eiisues ? — difficulty of respiration ; violent
husking spasmodic action of the muscles of deglu-
tition ; repeated and violent contractions of the
abdominal muscles — all laboured efforts to expel
the impacted root ; the neck is strangely arched,
the nose poked forward ; mucus drips from the
mouth ; and the alvine evacuations are frequent,
perhaps involuntary. But this is not all ; if the
animal be not relieved it becomes hooven, that is,

. tlie stomach becomes distended wi;h gas, the dia-
phragm, and consequently the limgs. are oppressed,
and the animal is in imminent danger. Something
muH be done, and done promptly. The farmer
knows it : he secures the head of the beast ; puts
a balling-iron or some rude gag in the mouth, and
then forces down the handle of a cai-t-whip, a stiff
piece of cord, or a long stave, in order to drive tlie
obstructing object into the rumen. This ruds
treatment, it is true, sometimes succeeds ; but it
often hajipens that the gullet is frightfully lace-
rated, and the animal dies in consequence.

Now, in these cases, if the obstructing sub-
stance be at the commencement of the gullet, it
may often be withdrawn by the hand, the arm being
defended by the ordinary balling-iron. But if this
is impossible, the obstniction being too low down,
a probang nmst be used. Several very ingenious
insti"umeMts of this kind have been invented, some
with screws in the end to fix into the substance,
some with spring forceps to grasp it ; a wooden

■ gag being placed in the mouth and there secured,
having a perforation of sufficient extent to allow
the probang to pass through. These are, no doubt,
admirable instniments in the hands of the practised
veterinary surgeon, but we are not so sure that they
would prove successful in the hands of the farmer,
even if he possessed them. They require nicety
and practice in their management. The improve-
ments in the cattle probang are due to Dr. Monro,
Mr. Read, Mr. Simonds, and others ; and we shall
■perhaps be accused of an oversight if we neglect to
describe one or two of the most useful, not that
descriptions in these cases are of much utility. Let
us suppose a tube or catheter made of spiral wire,
■ covered with leather or India-rubber cloth, having
■a perforated bulb at the extremity: length four

feet and a half. To give this tube the requisite
firmness, it is fm-nished with a stylet of good
whalebone, which fits the tube as a sword does its
sheath ; to this there is a convenient handle. A
necessary appendage to this instrument is a gag,
like the letter 0, with handles, from which straps
go to the root of the horns so as to secure it in its
place. Through the orifice of the gag the probang
is introduced with gentle pressm'e against the
palate, it descends the oesophagus, and forces the
obstmction into the rumen. Let the stylet be
withdrawn, and the gas which inflates the rumen
escapes through the tube, the bulk of which, as we
have said, is perforated with numerous orifices like
a cullender. This is a most useful instniment ;
for in cases of hoove, that is, distention of the ru-
men with gas, it gives immediate vent to the con-
fined air, and instantl}' relieves the animal. It is
a simple cesophagus-tube and probang combined.
Mr. Read, taking this as his foundation, added a sort
of corkscrew to it for working into the obstructing
substance, which is thus secured and retracted.
The tube is somewhat larger and stronger than that
of the previously described probang, and the bulb
of superior size, though still fitted for passing down
the gullet. At the end of the stylet is a delicate
corkscrew, which, while the instrument is passed
down the oesophagus, is concealed within the bulb,
and there safely guarded, the stylet being duly
retracted and firmly secured by a contrivance for
that purpose. ^A'hen the bulb arrives at the ob-
structing bodj', the stylet is unfastened and pushed
forwards ; the corkscrew now passes through an
orifice, and of course presses with its point against
the impacted root. The stylet is now turned round
and round, so as to work the corkscrew into the
substance, and thus a fair purchase upon it is ob-
tained, or it is broken up into small pieces, which
readily pass into the rumen. Mr. Simonds has
invented a probang armed with a kind of forceps
for grasping the obstructing substance, of which the
following is a description : — The instrument con-
sists of an elastic hollow tube, through which passes
a flexible stylet, furnished at the top end with a
screw and handle, and at the other with a pair of
spring forceps. When used, the forceps are to
be withdrawTi within the goblet-like bulb of the
cathetei', and secured by the screw at the other
end. The instniment is introduced into the oeso-
phagus, and passed onwards until the bulb (opened
at the end) is brought into contact with the root.
The stylet has now to be pushed forward, the
spring forceps pass out from the bulb, and by a
little address and working in different ways, soon
grasp the object : when this is effected it is easily
ascertained, for when the stylet is withdrawn, if
the object is not grasped, the spring forceps are
closed and again retracted within the bulb. If the
root be grasped it may be readily extricated. The

ll-

difficulty iu the use of this instrument consists in
fixing the obstructing body in the forceps, and it is
often necessary to turn them in different directions
before this can be accomplished. The forceps
are serrated in their inner surface, and made
somewhat tapering, for the purpose of passing
readily between the root and the sides of the oeso-
phagus.

When a skilful veterinaiy surgeon is not on the
top with these or similar iustniments, a good com-
mon probang which will not laterate the gullet may
be readily made. A piece of stout cane between
four and five feet long must be procured, or a long
elastic peeled willow wand; this must be armed
at the extremity vnth a piece of sponge, or cork,
well secured, and covered tightly with soft leather,
so as to form an egg-shaped bulb, with the broad
end lowest. Lest this bulb, however Avell seoui^ed,
should by any chance slip, let both ends of a piece
of strong twine passed through it be wound
round the cane, and reach beyond the handle por-
tion. Whalebone may be used instead of cane,
but long strips of this are not always to be ob-
tained at the moment. The farmer, or cattle-feeder,
however, should always have a probang and an
cesophagus-tube in readiness.

In some cases the obstnicting substance has
been found to be so rigicUy impacted, that its re-
moval by any other means than by opening the
oesophagus is impossible. This operation can only
be attempted by a good anatomist. Sometimes it
is even necessary to puncture the distended ru-
men in the left flank for the pui-pose of letting out
the gas which threatens suffocation.

HOOVE, OR DISTENTION OF THE STOMACH FROM GAS.

When cattle, and especially such as have been
kept on scanty fare, are turned into rich pastures,
or stray by accident into fields of clover, luoera,
or the like, they are apt to eat ravenously and
take in a larger quantity of food than the powers
of digestion are capable of managing. The rumen
is overloaded; its contents, from the efiects of
waiTUth and moisture begin to ferment, and large
volumes of gas are rapidly evolved; the rumen
soon becomes awfully distended, even to bursting,
for the pillars of the resophagean canal are closed
tightly, and prevent the escape of the gas through
the oesophagus, and the more the rumen is dis-
tended, tlie more firmly is this canal closed. The
rumen now presses on the diaphragm: respiration
and the action of the heart are greatly impeded;
the whole body of the animal, especially the left
side, is blown up till the very skin seems about
to give way ; the tongue hangs from the mouth
dripping with spume: the eyes are bloodshot and
glazy; deep moans attest the torture of the poor
beast ; it crouches with its back bent up ; insensi-
bility comes on ; it staggers, it falls, it struggles

convulsively, and dies. We have known cows, well
at night, found dead in the morning from hoove,
having strayed into an enclosure of lucem or
clover.

The first object in these cases is to procure the
liberation of the gas (at first carburetted hydrogen,
but as the disease continues sulplmretted hydro-
gen), and this must be done promptly. The
cpsophagus-tube with its perforated bulb and stylet
must be introduced through the oesophagus into
the nimen, and the stylet withdra\vn : a quantity
of gas then escapes, the flanks sink, the breathing
is more easy, and the animal is relieved. But this
tube cannot be kept in the gullet for any great
length of time ; it must be withdrawn, and in the
meantime gas again accumulates. The tube may
again be introduced; and afterwards measures
must be taken to relieve the stomach effectually.
The stomach-pump nmst be resorted to, and
through its tube a quantity of warm water thromi
into the nimen, and pumped out again, until the
acid fermenting fluid is washed away, and perhaps
a considerable portion also of the coarsely masti-
cated contents besides ; after which the process of
rumination may go on, especially if the stomach be
roused by a pint of wai-m ale with a few teaspoon-
fuls of ginger.

Mr. Youatt recommends iu these cases, after
the first relief is obtained, that chloride of lime,
in the proportion of two drachms to two quarts of
water, should be thrown into the rumen by me.tns
of the stomach-pump (the horn will not answer,
for from the closure of the pillars to the oesopha-
gean canal, the fluid thus administered will pass
into the 3d and 4th stomach). The modus ope-
randi of this medicine is as follows : — Chlorine
has a stronger affinity for hydrogen than f()r lime,
potass, or soda, consequently it separates from the
lime, and uniting with the hydrogen forms mu-
riatic gas. This gas having a strong affinity for
water, is immediately absorbed by the fluid con-
tents of the stomach, arid quitting its gaseous for
a fluid state is reduced to a very small volume, iu
the foiTn of a weak muriatic acid, while the lime
is disengaged ; yet no mischief will arise either
from the corrosive acid or the caustic lime, for
there is an affinity between these again, so that
they combine and fonn an inert muriate of lime.

This, says Mr. Youatt, is " not mere theory,
but when brought to the test of priictice is found
to be verified in eveiT pai'ticular, hence has re-
sulted one of the most important improvements on
cattle medicine that modern times have produced."
Chloride of lime is, or ought to be, in the posses-
sion of eveiy farmer, and nl\Nays at hand. It may
be requisite to repeat this injection into the paunch
in the course of a couple of hours, should a fresh
evolution of gas take place.

It often happens that urgent cases of hoove

K 'i

148

occur at a distance from the farmhouse, or under
circumstances in which neither an cesophagus-
tuhe nor a stomach-pump are accessible, and some-
tliing must be done immediately. Let the farmer
mark the prominence of the left flank, and plunge
a sharp-pointed knife into the distended nimen
which there presents itself so conspicuously. Tliis
will be followed by a' rush of gas, steam, fluid, and
even portions of food. It is, however, necessai'y to
introduce a tube, for the wound will otherwise
close ; or if this be not attainable, the orifice must
be kept open by means of a smooth piece of stick,
or any other mode that suggests itself at the time,
until all the gas is liberated. In tliis operation
the danger does not arise from the wound of the
paunch, which is comparatively insensible, but
from other causes — viz. from a pimcture of the
spleen or kidney, or from the escape of the con-
tents of the stomach into the abdomen, and from
peritoneal inflammation. The spleen and Iddney
maybe avoided if the following rule be adhered to :
Let a line be drawn close along the spinal column
from the haunch bone to the last rib ; from the
ends of this line let two others of the same length
be drawn obliquely do^vu the flank, the whole
forming an equilateral triangle ; the lower apex of
this triangle is the most suitable spot for the
' incision.

Though sometimes successful, this is a rude
operation; as the stomach on the escape of the
gas sinks, it too often happens that both fluid and
solid matters are discharged through the incision
into the cavity of the abdomen, so that although
the animal is relieved for the time, it ultimately
sickens and dies. It is in fact only strong ne-
cessity that can justify the use of the knife ; the
proper instrument for performing this operation is
a trochar, similar to that used by surgeons for
tapping the human subject in cases of dropsy. It

■ consists of a steel stylet, terminating in three
shai-p-edged facets converging to a fine point. It
has a stout handle, and is sheathed in a silver
canula or closely fitting tube, from the lower end of
which the point of the instniment emerges, while
a rim or guard around its base prevents its slipping
into the abdomen. When the instrument is plunged
in, the steel stylet is ^vitlldrawn, and the canula
(four inches long) is left in the wound and secured
there as long as may be necessary ; it forms a con-
tinuous tube from the stomach to the outer surface
of the flank, and is long enough to allow of the
sinking of the ramen without danger of the escape
of its contents into the abdominal cavity. When

■ all danger is over, the canula may be removed and
the wound closed by firm adhesive plaister. Car-
miiiative aperients, as salts, ginger, and caraway
yiowder, may be given in order to clear the bowels,
ttnd diminish the chance of inflammation. Mashes
may then be allowed, but tlie animal must be re-
stricted for some time in its food.

In some districts it is the practice, we believe,
in cases of hoove, to throw pailfuls of cold water
over the animal ; the object is to produce sudden
shocks, during which the pfllars of the oesophageau
canal sometimes yield and allow the gas to escape ;
occasionally, however, the stomach gives way in-
stead of these muscular pillars, and the beast is
lost. Sucking calves occasionally become hooveu
from some accidental cause ; they are apt to suck
various objects, even each others' ears, drawing in
and swallowing a great quantity of air ; they may
be readily relieved by the introduction of a tube
or probang.

A most singular case of hoove is quoted by
Mr. Youatt fi-om one of the French periodicals
(Recueil de Med. Vet. 1820), which, as it may put
persons on their guard and lead them to examine
the mouth and oesophagus, even when the animal
is relieved by the trochar, we shall here repeat.
A cow which had been tmned into her pasture
in perfect health, was found in the course of the
morning labouring under great excitement, and
maldng frequent and violent efforts to vomit, and
then galloping over the field with her mouth half
open, and the saliva running from it as if she was
mad. Her e3'es were haggard and fixed and start-
ing from their orbits, and the nostiils were un-
usually dilated. When she stood still her back
was bowed, but presently she would stretch her-
self out and bound over the field. Her paunch
began speedily to swell, she moaned dreadfully,
and could not be still for a moment. The prac-
titioner not having a trochar with him, punctured
the rumen vtith a bistoury ; a vast quantity of gas
rushed violently out; the enlargement of the ab-
domen subsided, and she appeared to be perfectly
at ease. But presently the efforts to vomit re-
commenced, and the apertm'e into the paimch
being accidentally closed, she began rapidly to
swell again.

The practitioner now suspected that the cause
of all this mischief lay somewhere in the gullet or
the entrance into the first stomach. He carefully
examined along the whole extent of gullet in the
neck, but could not detect any obstiniction. He
then opened the mouth and raised the head in
order to introduce a flexible osier rod into the
gifllet, when the animal again maldng a sudden
and more violent etfort to vomit, he saw the tail
of a snake in the posterior part of her mouth ; he
seized it immediately ivith his right hand, and
steadying himself by laying firm hold of the honi
with his left hand, he drew it out. It was dead,
and measured three feet and eleven inches in
length ; there was no appearance of bite or wound
in it, but it was covered with a greenish
spume. The efforts to vomit immediately ceased,
the hoove disappeai-ed, the cow began to ruminate,
and quickly regained her appetite and spirits.

149

How the snake came into such a situation it is
scarcely possible to say, though it was doubtless
taken in alive.

DISTENTION OF THE RUMEN WITH FOOD.

It is not always easy to discriminate between
distention of the rmuen with food and hoove. In
both cases the abdomen and flanks are distended,
but in the former, the left flank feels hard and
firm, and is less protuberant than in hoove, and
these pai-ticulars being taken into consideration
with the character of the food recently swallowed,
wiU generally lead the farmer or practitioner to
form a correct opinion. Nevertheless the probang
and tube should be always used, lest there be
gas in the stomach, and even if there be none, the
instrument will serve to indicate the e.xteut to
wliich the nimen is tilled.

This disease generally occurs in stalled cattle
fed upon unboiled potatoes, uncrushed oats, and
other indigestible materials. It is termed by
farmers grain-sick, or maw-bound.

If the stomach be not reheved, inflammation
comes on and the animal dies, and in severe
cases prompt measures are necessary, for the pres-
sure on the diaphragm, and the consequent op-
pression of the heart and lungs, are soon followed
by insensibility and death.

At all times it is desu-able to know the exact
nature of the food swallowed, for this may require
some modification of the plan of relief to be pur-
sued; indeed, if the rumen be distended with hard
heavy materials as potatoes, an operation may be
imperatively demanded.

Should the case be not severe, the animal may
be made to move about; and a drench be given
composed of cainniuatives and aperients, followed
by other doses at intervals till the medicine ope-
rates : injections should be also administered, and it
may be advisable to take away some blood. After
the action of the aperients the process of rumina-
tion may be excited by cordials. In severer cases
the animal will not be able to move, and must
not be distui'bed ; indeed the difficulty of respi-
ration forbids any measui'es but those tending to
immediate relief. Supposing that the stomach
be distended by light materials, as wheat-chaff,
chopped straw, and the like, the contents may be
extricated by means of the stomach-pump,- a quan-
tity of water being first thrown in and then im-
mediately pumped out, when some of the matter
will be retimied \vith it: this process may be re-
peated. It may happen, however, that the tube
of the stomach-pump becomes stopped up by the
chaff, and the action of the machine impeded.
Under such circumstances success has followed the
injection of water into the rumen, until it begins
to react upon its contents and discharge them by
vomiting. When this ceases, cai'ininative aperiente

must be given, and repeated tiU the bowela,work
freely. The drenches must be aided by clysters.
The recovery of an animal in cases of this nature
is generally slow : it is long before the stomach
regains its tone, and a healthy appetite returns ;
this should be remembered with reference to the
diet, wliich ought to be restricted, and consist in
a great measm'e of gruel.

In cases when the stomach is gorged to the
full with solid hea^y food, as undigested potatoes,
unaltered gi'ain, and similar materials, which no
stomach-pmnp can remove or efforts in vomiting
throw off, while approaching dissolution threatens,
one plan is yet left, yiz. a bold operation. A free
incision of about five inches long must be made
thi'ough the left flank into the rumen ; a nish of
the more fluid contents will immediately take place,
and after the stream has subsided the operator must
introduce his hand and carefully remove all the
solid masses of food, and empty the paunch com-
pletely. Great care, however, must be taken that
no food escapes from the paunch into the abdomen,
and the wound must be sewed up. This is a dan-
gerous operation, less perhaps from the incision
into the rumen, which will bear severe treatment
\vith compai-ative impunity, than from the escape
of food into the abdomen, and the inflammation it
will necessaiily engender, which will certainly
prove fatal. In the " Veterinarian" for 1834, an in-
teresting case in point is related by Mr. Steel, of
Biggar, N.B. He was sent for to see a cow ap-
parently hooven, and in the utmost extremity. A
sui'geon had already punctured the rumen with a
trochar, but no gas escaped, and it became at once
evident that the stomach was tUstended with undi-
gested food ; she had overfed herself in clover pas-
ture. Both ilr. Steel and the surgeon who was pre-
sent concmTed in the necessity of an immediate ope-
ration, for it was evident that no time was to be lost.
" I made," says Mr. Steel, "an opening into the
stomach about five inches in length, when the con-
tents came nishing out in a large stream, and
continued doing so for some time; when it had
stopped coming of itself, I introduced my hand
and removed a great deal more of it. The quantity
of this undigested mass which was removed is
almost incredible. After being satisfied with what
I had removed, I stitched up the wound and had
the cow raised upon her feet ; and being afraid of
inflammation taldng place as the weather was very
hot, I drew a quantity of blood from her, gave a
pint of olive oil and eight omices of Epsom salts,
which acted veiy slightly next day. The second
day the cow required bleeding and a purgative.
On the third day, there being hai-d food in the
nunen, the point of a syiinge was introduced, and
the mass di\ided, and some tepid water injected
tlirough the woimd ; a dose of physic was again
given." Though this cow laboured at the time

150

vmder^a sevei'e catarrh, she ultimately recovered.
It is most advisable in these cases to relieve the
rumen at once of all matter therein collected ; the
wound should not be disturbed if possible, and
there is danger in injecting water, lest a portion
mixed with broken-down vegetable matters find its
way into the abdominal cavity.

After an operation of tliis kind, and indeed after
a simple puncture of the rumen by a trochar for tlie
escape of gas, an adhesion (from circumscribed in-
flammation) usually talies place between the portion
of the rumen whicli had been wounded and tlie lin-
ing of tlie flank in contact with it. In common lan-
guage, the stomach at that part sticks to the side.
If this adhesion be extensive, it will more or less
interfere with the act of rumination ; it may even
suspend rumination, producing what is called " loss
of cud." This, indeed, may result from the debi-
lity and over-stretcliing of the fibres of tlie rumen
during hoove, or the distention from food. Cor-
dial aperients and tonic medicines will, in the
latter case, be of service. Tliis affection, how-
ever, results from other causes, which we may
here notice.

I.OSS OF CUD.

Loss of cud not only proceeds from the causes
to which we have just alluded, but is often a
marked symptom in other complaints, and may be
taken as a sure evidence of disorder of the diges-
tive organs. In severe inflammatoiy diseases
rumination is generally suspended, as well as in
states of constitutional debility and prostration of
strengtli. In the former case the stomach will
recover its powers as the animal improves ; in the
latter case the restoration of the strength by tonics,
as gentian, is required, and cordials, with gentle
aperients, may be also given ; as four ounces of
salts, one ounce of powdered gentian, and half an
ounce of ginger, with a little ale and gruel, every
other morning.

Loss of cud is often produced by an accumula-
tion of dry or noxious vegetable matter between
the foliations of the third stomach or manyplus,
and to this affection we shall at once jiroceed.

RETENTION OF FOOD IN THE MANYPLUS, CALLED
CLUE, OR FARDEL-BOUND.

We have described the manyplus as a sac pro-
vided internally, with numerous foliations or dupli-
cations of its articular lining, covered with mul-
titudes of rough or hardened papilliB. In this
stomach the food undergoes its last preparation
for the abomasum, or tme digesting stomach : it
is situated between the liver and the right sac of
the rumen, so that, when over-distended, it will
press upon the former. Not unfrequently it may
prove an obstmction to the return of the'blood to
the heart.

As dissection after death proves, there are
few severe diseases, especially of an inflammatory
nature, as catarrh, enteritis, pleuritis, fever, &c.,
in which the manyplus is not affected ; generally
it contains between its duplicatures layers of com-
minuted vegetable matters tightly pressed, and as
dry as hardened oatcake. At other times it is full of
a soft pultaceous mass, emitting a putrescent and
most disgusting odour. In both these cases no
nutrient matter passes into the abomasum, the
door of communication being blocked up. Some-
times the duplicatures of the manyplus are found
to be gangrenous, and the abomasum in a state
of high inHammation.

But it is not only from sympathetic inflamma-
tion, and consequent loss of function, that the
manyplus is liable to suffer ; it is often the seat of
original disease, sometimes slow or chronic in its
course, sometimes rapidly tenuinating in death.

The causes of this disease are obscure. It has
been attributed to acrid plants ; to a sudden change
of diet, as from green fodder to hay, especially if
bad ; to coarse and fibrous food, whether green or
dry. Sometimes it rages in certain districts, and
produces great mortality.

As the causes are obscure so are the symptoms.
Cases have occurred in which the dried food must
have been lying in the manyplus for several weeks
(as was proved by the nature of the food) without
materially affecting the animal's health. At other
times an aninial, previously in perfect vigour, is
suddenly taken ill, and, in spite of all that can be
done, falls and dies. The following examples are
in point : —

An epidemic disease broke out among the cat-
tle at Bourbourg. A farmer had a valuable cow,
and was desirous of saving her ; he therefore sent
her to a distant and uninfected district, where she
could not by any possibility obtain vetches, which
had constituted her previous food. Here she re-
mained for six weeks, to all appearance well ; at
the end of the six weeks she was seized with the
prevalent malady, and died. On examination of
the stomachs, the third was found to be filled with
dry hard compacted vetches. How far this condi-
tion of the manyplus was connected with the fatal
disease which carried the animal off, we are not
able to say. The long continuani'e of dried vege-
table matter in the manyplus, taken weeks pre-
viously, is remarkable ; and we can only account
for it by supposing that the derangement was, for
a long time at least, confined to a portion of the
manyplus only, the other portion continuing the
performance of its duties.

Mr Cartwright, in the "Veterinarian," records
the following : "A drove of cattle, on their journey
from Anglesea to London, crossed Bangor Ferry,
all apparently in excellent health. They stopped
one night in a field near Bangor, and proceeded ;

191

hut had not gone far wlien one of them was taken
ill, and being unable to continue the journey was
slaughtered. A little farther on two other beasts
began to fail ; and when the herd arrived on the
borders of Shropshire, the malady was spreading
rapidly among them. They were dull and moan-
ing : they remained obstinately standing, refusing
to move along. Measures were instantly resorted
to ; they were bled, and purgative drenches were
administered ; but four of them presently died.
In two of these tlie manyplus was full, and clogged
with soft food; in the third the greater part of the
food was soft, but what was in the larger curva-
ture was hard and friable. In the fourth lieast
the manyplus was filled with hardened layers :
each layer was so dried that it would snap short,
and was moreover coxered witn a thin pellicle of
secretion, of a bluish colour, that could be sepa-
rated. The leaves of the stomach were of a pinkish
hue, and the blood-vessels injected. Among the
coutents of the stomach of each were found a num-
ber of small seeds of some unknown plant, to
which the disease was attributed. Four other
beasts were taken ill, and with difficulty recovered;
for although medicine in great quantities was
administered, it was eight or nine days before any
action of the bowels was effected."

Genei'ally speaking this disease comes on with
dulness, di-jmess of the muzzle, and protrusion of
the tongue ; the pulse is quick and hard ; the
membranes of the eyes and nostrils are bloodshot ;
the eyes are starting, the head is extended, the
limbs are tottering, and the animal is unwilling
to move. The bowels are constipated ; the urine
scanty, and either red or dark-coloured. In cows
the secretion of milk is either stopped, or the milk
is offensive both to taste and smell. As the dis-
ease gains ground the determination of blood to
the head becomes more manifest, the animal loses
consciousness, the abdomen swells, the frame trem-
bles, the eyes are glaiiy, the limbs become cold,
and the animal sinks torpid. Many or most of
these symptoms occur in other inflammatory dis-
eases, consequently the diagnosis is by no means
easy, nor are there any which enable the practi-
tioner to say whether the food in the manyplus is
divested of its juices, or is in a pultaceous state ;
yet these differences must result from separate
causes. In the first instance we must suppose a
violent contraction of the manyplus from some irri-
tation, producing a firm pressure of the commi-
nuted vegotable matter between the leaves of the
stomach, whicli latter, acting like a sci'ew-press,
forces out the juice and superadded moisture of
the mass, converting it into hard, diy, friable
layers, which may be cnished to powder. In the
second instance the inflammatoiy action of the
stomach must produce a sort of paralysis, or loss
of power, so that no action is exerted on the accu-

mulating pultaceous matter, which gradually be-
comes putrid. But it would appear that in some
part of the stomach the leaves may exert pres.-.ure,
while in another part there is loss of power.

With respect to the treatment of this disease,
when it occurs as a primaiy affection, much de-
pends on its severity : the abstraction of blood
will relieve the system; and this must be followed
by copious aperient draughts, poured gently down
the gullet, or slowly injected by the stomach-
pump, the tube of which must be introduced for
some distance into the cesophagus. The object is
to throw the medicine into the manyplus, and
thence into the abomasum, without its being forced
through the pillars of the cesophagean canal into
the paunch. A free operation of the medicine is
a favourable symptom. Some writers recommend
that a gentle stream of warm water, with a little
Epsom salts dissolved in it, be transmitted into
the manyplus, through the tube of the stomach-
pump, with the object either of diluting and carry-
ing forward the pultaceous mass, or, on the other
hand, of softening and breaking down the dry fri-
able layers, and washing them into the abomasum.
We doubt not that a perseverance in this plan
might be productive of benefit ; and certainly it
could produce no evil consequences. Should the
animal recover, the greatest caution relative to its
diet is requisite. This should consist only of bland
mashes and thin gruel, till the stomach is enabled
to take by degrees the most simple green food.

It appears to us that two diseases, termed
wood-evil and red-water, are mere modifications of
this affection of the stomach, or are symptomatic
of its existence ; and it is under this impression
that we here notice them. They certainly are in-
timately connected with debility and functional
derangement of the digestive organs ; and an ac-
cumulation of matter is always found in the
manyplus.

WOOD-EVII,, MOOR-ILL, OR PANTAS.

This disease is brought on in cattle by their
devouring the acrid buds of trees, by bad winter
provision, by impure water, and similar causes.
It comes on with febrile symptoms, heat of
the mouth, and quickness and hardness of the
pulse ; the coat is staring, the skin hide-bound ;
the e3'es and nostrils are bloodshot, the thirst is
great, and there is obstinate constipation of the
bowels. The beast loses flesh, and exhibits a ca-
pricious appetite ; it will pick up bones, sticks,
pieces of linen, &c., and grind them for a long
time in the mouth ; the filthiest puddle is pre-
ferred to clear water ; the urine is generally scanty ;
it is tinged red, and has a penetrating odour ; the
milk is affected and disgusting ; there is an in-
disposition to move, and the animal utters moans
indicative of internal pain ; the shouldei-s and

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153

ing fields one may be dangerous, the other safe ;
nay, a field safe during certain parts of the year,
may be dangerous during another. Atmospheric
influences may also have their effect ; for it some-
times appears as an epidemic of a malignant cha-
racter. Wliatever, in fact, affects the digestive
organs, including the liver, may give rise to attacks
of this often fatal malady.

As we have already said, red water must be
distinguished from inflammation of the kidneys,
which is often combined with enteritis. Tnie red
water commences with dulness, languor, and loss
of appetite ; rumination ceases ; the urine is at
first brownish, and then of brownish yellow, and
ultimately appears like dark porter : sometimes
there is great stranguary, but this is not an invari-
able symptom. The skin is of a dirty yellow ; the
eyes and uotrils are suffused with yellow, as is also
the little milk that the cow may yield : its taste
and odour are unpleasant. If blood be dra'mi the
serum which separates from the coagulum is of a
brownish yellow. The pulse is quick ; the animal
can scarcely be forced to move ; the loins are ten-
der, and show signs of weakness ; the ears and
limbs become cold. At first diarrhoea makes its
appearance, but only at first ; but this suddenly
stops, and is succeeded by obstinate constipa-
tion. The urine now becomes even still dai-ker ;
the disease may be teiTQed black water; the animal
now rapidly sinks and dies.

The duration of this disease, from its com-
mencement to its fatal termination, varies accord-
ing to circumstances : it may continue for weeks.

It is rai'ely, excepting in the early stage of the
disease, that the red water is cm'able. If the ani-
mal be robust, and the slightest febrile action pre-
sent, moderate bleeding mil be beneficial, but the
flow of blood should be stopped as soon as the
pulse is the least degree faltering. Some practi-
tioners dislike the abstraction of blood in this
malady, but we can see no danger if caution be
used ; and both Mr. Simonds of Tmckenham, and
Mr. Harrison of Ormsldrlv, who have had exten-
sive experience in its treatment, resort, unless
there be good reason for the contraiy, to this mode
of treatment. The next step is the administra-
tion of purgatives and injections. The pm-gative
draughts should be gently poured down the gullet,
or slowly tlu-o\\-n down by means of the patent
stomach-pump ; a good aperient drem-h may con-
sist of twelve or fourteen omices of Epsom salts,
four ounces of sulphm-, half an ounce of carbonate
of ammonia, and half an ounce of ginger, in thin
gruel or warm water.

After the first drench smaller doses should
succeed at intervals of six or eight hours, with a
repetition of tlie mjections, until the bowels act
freely. Mr. Harrison states that he has seen a
scrapie of calomel given in a pint of yeast produce

purging when other remedies have failed, the life
of the animal being thus saved when there was
little hope.

After the bowels have been well purged, tonics
and diuretics may be given : as a drachm of ginger,
a drachm of gentian (in powder), and an ounce of
spirit of nitrous ether in a little gniel twice a day
As the animal improves tlie sldn ^vill become
clear, the breathing easy, and appetite will return ;
still the urine from previous irritation of the kid-
neys may continue dark coloured or black. Under
these circumstances a few doses of oil of turpen-
tine and laudanum (of each one ounce) in linseed
tea may be given with advantage. Great atten-
tion must be paid to the diet, which should consist
of mashes, grael, linseed tea, and fresh vetches or
meadow-grass, but never in large quantities at a
time.

Such then is the mode of treatment for this
disease, for which in various parts of the country
some of the most absin-d remedies are in vogue.
Some place their faith on a handful of oatmeal
and salt fried until dai-k brown, and given in a
quart of cold buttermilk; others give salt and
milk, coal-ashes mingled with water, salt mLxed
with some of the animal's own blood, water thick-
ened with the clay of the beast's pasturage, and
some have a great opinion of brandy ; some trust
to bole armeniac, salt, and a decoction of nettles ;
others to alum and the juice of nettles, or wi-itLng-
paper boiled to pieces in skimmed milk. Mr.
Parkinson (whose ideas of medicine and anatomy
are certainly veiy extraordinary, to say the least)
recommends in his " Treatise on Live Stock," two
or three handfuls of nettles stewed in tliree quarts
of water until reduced to one quart ; this when cool
is to be given and followed up by another draught,
consisting of a pint of common salt dissolved in a
quart of chamber-lye. This he says is infallible ;
but he has kno-svn the disease cured by doses of
buttermilk and pig's dung, and also by a frog in a
quantity of cold water. Captain J. Henderson, in
his " Sm-vey of Caithness," recommends a frog or
a trout put alive down the animal's throat.

It would be scarcely perhaps worth while to
notice these puerile absurdities which only merit
contempt, were it not for two reasons : first, because
we desire to see them abolished, which \vill only
result from their uselessness and even mischievous
consequences being pointed out; secondly, because
it is not to this disease alone that the administra-
tion of similar- remedies is restricted. The cow-
leech's " good old" phai-macopoeia contains little
else but such nostrams. Take the following as a
cure for catarrh : — Balsam of sulphur, two ounces,
Barbadoes tar, one ounce, the yolks of two eggs.
These are to be iucmiMrated by beating in a basin,
then add ginger, aniseeds, cummin-seeds, elecam-
pane-root, gi-aius of paradise, and liquorice-root, of

154

each one ounce, in po'wder; salt of tai'tar, one
and a half ounce ; honey, four ounces ; mix together
and add by little at a time, continually stirring, one
quart of warm ale or gruel, if of gruel add a wine-
glass of gin or brandy. This is to be given luke-
warm. Some of the ingredients are inert, others
ai"e highly stimulating; the disease is of a most
inflammatoiy character. But what knows or cares
the cow-leech about that ? His nostrum is a spe-
cific; should the beast die, reasons "plenty as
blackberries" are ready on the " doctor's" lips to
prove that neglect on somebody's part (any one's
but his own) w'as the real cause of ill-success. The
common cordial drink of the cow-leech, given in-
discriminately, consists of two ounces of mixed
spice, one ounce of ginger, one ounce of aniseed,
one omice of long pepper, one ounce of diapente,
one ounce of giains of paradise, one ounce of fenu-
gi-eek, one ounce of turmeric, one ounce of mithri-
date, one ounce of galengal. and one ounce of car-
away seeds, in beer, ale, or gmel. If the huge
loimen of the cow were less sensitive aud irritable
than it is, or did the cow-leech know how to give
a draught so as to throw his execrable compositions
into the abomasum instead of the rumen, what
mischief would not ensue ! Well may this mixture
be called a felon drink ;* would that those who
give it had to take some of it themselves ! How-
ever we shall here quit the subject, hoping that
those who keep cattle will at least consult common
sense before they ti-ust to such nostnims, aud de-
sist from giving poisons in inflammatory diseases.
In taking a review of the three last diseases
to which we have adverted, viz. retention of vege-
table matter in the manj-plus, wood- evil or pantas,
and red water, we cannot but perceive that they
belong to the same generic gi'oup, and that they
are distinguished from each other more perhaps by
name than by any radical difference (except we
call that of degree so) or distinction of t}i3e. In
each state the treatment is the same as to prin-
ciple, varied ui minor points according to circum-
stances, and the judgment of the practitioner.

CONCRETIONS IN THE STOMACH AND MECHANICAL
OBSTKUCTIONS OF THE ALIMENTARY CANAL.

Cattle are veiy apt, urged by some morbid
condition of the stomach, to swallow various strange
articles, as linen, leather, pieces of iron, &c., and
such for example as handkerchiefs and other parts
of dress, shoes, gloves, scissors, pieces of wood,
bits of coal, aud the like. Numerous instances of
this nature are on record, and many farmers, no
doubt, could supply others from their own personal
experience.

Occasionally no mischief appears to result from
this mmatural act, but generally the presence of

• The farmer and cow-kech call numerous diseases, as rheuma-
tism, fever, palsy, &c., by the name oijelon.

these matters in the rumen produces irritation;
the due performance of rumination is interrupted,
the animal is dull, aperients have no beneficial
effect, it becomes woree, and at last dies, when, the
stomach being opened, the cause of the mischief is
discovered. Scissors and other sharp instruments
vrill sometimes work their way through the coats of
the rumen, and protrude between two of the rihs;
frequently they pierce the pericardium and cause
death. Large substances interfering with the ac-
tion of the rumen, while the animal still continues
to feed, conduce to the distention of that viscus,
and occasionally, on the performance of the opera-
tion of opening that sac, the source of the evil is
detected and removed.

It very often happens that bits of stick, iron,
or stone, taken into the stomach form the nucleus
of a large globular calculus consisting of the vari-
ous compounds of lime or silex, beautifullj' ar-
ranged in concentric layers. These concretions
are extremely firm and hard, and wiien saw^l into
two pieces the flat surface of each takes as glossy
a polish as marble. They vary in size ; we have
seen specimens of extraordinary magnitude. It is
in the nimen principally, if not exclusively, that
these calculi of the stomach are found, and their
presence is often imsuspected until after death.
Yet we cannot suppose that they produce no de-
rangement of the digestive organs, and we believe
that thej' are most commonly to be met with in
beasts that do not thrive well, and that manifest
irregularity of appetite. Whether they cause this,
or are themselves the results of some morbid ac-
tion continuing to exert an unfavourable influence,
may be a matter of opinion, but of one thing we
may be sm'e, they will not tend to the abatement
of the morbid condition of the stomach which con-
duced to their formation; the nile of action and
reaction maj' be reasonably suspected.

Cattle are prone to lick their own hides and
the hides of each other. The hair swallowed passes
into the stomach and becomes matted, by means
of the saliva and mucus, into balls ; a nail, a bit of
stick or a portion of fibrous vegetable matter,
sometimes, but not alwa^'s, constituting their nu-
cleus. These bird's-nest-like balls are found both
in the rumen and the abomasum. In the former
they are often mingled with vegetable matters,
with threads of cotton, linen or woollen, with par-
ticles of earth, straw, and other substances. In
the abomasum they consist exclusively of inter-
twined matted hair. How long these balls may
remain in the abomasum, aud what functional de-
rangements they may occasion, it is not easy to
say. Sometimes, however, these balls either pass
into the intestinal canal, or are formed there,
producing a fatal obstruction. The fiirmer drenches
the poor beast, but to no pm-pose, not perhaps
that the medicine fails in its office, but a mecha-

155

nical obstruction prevents its Jus operation ; this
only adds to the animal's agon}', and it dies worn
out bj' pain and perhaps infiaunnation. Could the
nature of the obstruction be ascei'tained some mea-
sures perhaps might be resorted to, and even
when circumstances lead to a suspicion of the real
state of the case, though it be suspicion only, no
harm can be done by acting as if it were confirmed.
Injections to a large extent of soap- water and oil
should be administered, and that repeatedly, and
a pint of linseed oil, with twenty grains of the
farina of croton-seed, or twenty drops of good
croton oil may be poured slowly down the gullet ;
tliis purgative with a little gruel may be repeated
eveiT eight or ten hours, till the obstruction be
forced. Should pain and fever render it desirable
blood must be taken away, and it may be neces-
sary to repeat the bleeding.

Balls of hair, however, are not the only me-
chanical obstructions of the alimentary canal. Balls
of hard undigested fibrous vegetable matters,
sometimes mingled witli hair, threads, and extrane-
ous articles, but by no means always so, are often
impacted in the lower bowels ; medicines give no
relief, and the animal sinks after enduring inde-
scribable agony. The same treatment must be
he repursued as that already described, and not
unfrequently the hand, if the substance be in the
rectum, will better remove the obstacle than any
medicine. This observation applies both to hair-
balls and to hardened foecal matter. Horses ai'e
very subject to this obstruction, and it occurs fre-
quently in cattle fed too much upon dry food.
Some recommend in these cases, besides purgative
medicines, injections of tobacco-water (an ounce of
tobacco infused in a gallon of boiling water), but
in the use of this injection great caution is requi-
site. We have kuo^^^l it prostrate the nen'ous
system even to dissolution. It may be tried as
an ultimate resource. We ai-e inclined to recom-
mend injections of oil, gruel, and laudanum (of the
last two ounces), in cases where the straining pro-
duces agony ; the opium may not only ease the
pain, but cause the muscular fibres of the lower
bowels to relax from their constriction, while it
will not interfere with the operation of the purga-
tive medicines.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE MESEXTEEIC GLANDS.

We have said that, in the mesentery, to which
the bowels are attached, there are numerous glan-
dular bodies through which the lacteals or nutrient
ducts pass in their course to the thoracic duct, or
great receptacle of the chyle. In the ox, as in the
human subject and other animals, these glands are
liable to enlargement; they are affected mth a
scrofulous disease, and in this condition arrest the
currents of nutrition, the abdomen swells greatly,
the limbs and frame become emaciated, the eyes

sunk, the membranes of the nose and mouth
pallid, the respiration hunied, the pulse quick,
and the prostration of strength extreme ; there is
often an unpleasant cough and other symptoms of
consumption which increase till the animal dies,
almost a skeleton. Sometimes tumours can be felt
liy ])assing the hand over the surface of the abdo-
men, but this is not always the case.

In such a disease little or nothing can be done.
Doses of mercury and opium, as two sci-uples of
calomel and half a drachm of powdered opium
given every' evening, with tonic draughts (gentian,
or infusion of cascarilla) during the day, may per-
haps mitigate the symptoms. To these remedies
occasional aperients may be added. Eight or ten
grains of iodide of potass, divided into two
doses, may be given daily in gruel, the quantity of
the iodide being gradually increased to ten
grains for each dose. If this be used, the mercury
and opium must be omitted. Warm stabling and
good food are of course essential. After all, little,
we repeat it, can be done ; the disease has ge-
nerally made great progress before it is sus-
pected, and it runs its course. Frequently it is
associated with a tuberculous state of the lungs,
and also vrith eulai'gements of the glands generally.

Though mature cattle are not exempt from
this malady, it occurs most commonly m young
weakly beasts, poorly fed and reared in low damp
situations. Let it be remembered that, as in
consumption, the tendency to it is hereditary. It
is, in fact, a form of consumption, the index of a
scrofulous diathesis.

Cattle sometimes partake of poisonous plants,
as the water-hemlock, the yew, and others, and
perish in consequence ; nor is it easy to determine
from the spnptoms alone that they are suffering
from such a cause. The animal is toi-pid, and
swells ; its thirst is excessive, but it refuses food ;
it grinds its teeth evidently from agony ; stamps,
paws the ground, strikes at its flanks, and some-
times rolls on the ground as if labouring under the
spasmodic pains of colic.

Occasionally the animal becomes infuriated, as
if agitated by frenzy ; this state of madness con-
tinues for a longer or shorter period, ending in
general palsy, toi-por, and death.

Examination of the body, in these cases, reveals
inflammation of the paunch and reticulated sto-
mach ; and often also of the abomasum and small
intestines ; while the mam-plus is filled with har-
dened vegetable matter. The cuticular coat peels
readily from off the musciJar coat of the rumen
and reticulum or honeycomb — the sign of com-
mencing disorganization ; and the abomasum is not
unfrequently ulcerated.

156

If it be ascertained that an aiiimal has fed on
noxious plants, instant recourse must be had to
the stomach pump ; the stomach must be deluged
■with water until the nimen overflows, and the con-
tents are rejected by vomiting. Nor \vill one
operation of the kind be sufficient, it must be re-
peated ; and aftenvards smajrt aperients, consisting
of salts, oil, and gruel, must be slowly poured or
injected down the oesophagus, and repeated every
six or eight hoiu's imtil the bowels are well
purged.

Supposing that there be a mere suspicion that
poison of this kind (known to be accessible) has
been taken, but that in reality the symptoms arise
from some distention of the rumen only, attended
by severe colic, still no harm will be done. The
rumen will be relieved, and the bowels emptied of
irritating matter ; and a cordial with a little opium
will complete the cure.

With respect to mineral poisons, it is not often
that they are accidentally swallowed by cattle.
Arsenic may indeed be given wilfully, and perhaps
a piece of bread-and-butter, sprinkled with arsenic
for the destniction of rats, may be left carelessly
in the way of cows and devoured ; but these are
rai'e cases. No one can tell the cause of the hor-
rible suffering endured by the poor animals ; they
die, and perhaps after death the presence of poison
is detected in the stomach. Let us, however,
suppose it to be known that arsenic has been swal-
lowed— what is to be done ? A quantity of lime-
water or of chalk and water must be injected into
the stomach, and, after remaming a few minutes,
pumped out, a fresh quantity being injected. This
may be repeated two or three times, and at last a
fresh quantity injected and left, in order to neu-
tralize the arsenic, if any remain in the stomach.
Aperients of salts and oil must then be given, and
their operation assisted by clysters of oil, salt, and
gruel.

Corrosive sublimate (bichloride of mercury, or
oxymuriate of mercury), though never given inter-
nally to cattle, is often rashly used by ignorant
persons as an external application to ulcers, mangy
spots, and other cutaneous affections. It is a most
dangerous remedj' ; for it will pass into the system
by absorption, and produce serious illness or even
death. The animals become dull, they cease to
ruminate ; frothy saliva drops copiously from the
mouth ; they moan, and move restlessly ; strike
at their flanks, and are tormented with violent
and often bloody purging. After death traces of
active inflammation appear in the intestines, and
in the rumen, honeycomb, and abomasum. In
this case the remedy will consist of the white of a
niunber.of eggs beaten up, and mixed with a little
gruel ; this mixture must be gently poured down
the gullet, and repeated every hour till the symp-
toms abate ; aperients may afterwards be adminis-

tered, and copious mjections of gruel. Too often'
however all remedies prove useless, frequently
there is no time to have recourse to them. Mr.
Youatt relates an instance in which several cows
thus perished : then- skin was mangy, a man freely
washed the disordered pai'ts with a strong solution
of corrosive sublimate, and before he had finished
dressing the last cow the first had expired, and
the rest followed in rotation, all being dead within
two hours from the application of the lotion. On
examination the intestines were found to be
ulcerated, and the different stomachs were highly
inflamed. " The gas which proceeded from the
abdomen was of so poisonous a character, that the
butcher who opened the animals, although warned
of the danger, yet exposing himself to the blast of
the gas as it escaped, had erysipelatous swelling
of the face and head, which threatened his life."

The various preparations of lead are poisonous,
and Mr. White records a very singular fact, rela-
tive to the fatal effects resulting from these pre-
parations, to cattle grazed in the neighbourhood
of lead-mines. " A veiy serious disease," he
obseiwes, " has at times occuiTed in the vicinity of
Mendip, and in those parts where the lead mines
are worked, which has proved very destnictive
not only to cattle, but also to horses, to dogs, and
even to poultiy. This disorder is termed mindering
by the inhabitants, and the animals so affected
are said to be mindered. I have been informed
by a respectable farmer at Wookey, who appears
to be well acquainted with the disorder, that he
has never known sheep affected by it. After
heavy rains the brook which flows through the
meadows of Wookey overflows its banks, and
covers some of the adjacent lands ; and these,
after the water has retired, have their grass so
impregnated "with lead as to be rendered poisonous ;
and it has been obsei^ved that those animals which
feed close to the stream or pick up the long grass
on the margin of the water are most quickly
affected ; it is said that the water also is poisonous.
It seems probable that the poison consists of the
carbonate of lead, wMch is sublimed in immense
quantities on smelting the ore, and is carried
through the atmosphere to a considerable distance
and deposited very extensively on the sm'face of
the hill. Dm-ing a heavy rain, tliis carbonate of
lead is washed down in great quantities into the
meadows and the brooks, and gradually subsiding,
imparts that poisonous quality to the grass that
has done so much injury. A dog has been kno-wn
to be mindered after picking a bone in a meadow
that has been thus poisoned. So far do the injurious
effects of the lead-mines extend, that the meadows
near Wookey-hole have been thus poisoned, though
the neai^est mine from which the metal could have
been derived, was situated near Priddy, a distance
of several miles. The disorder sometimes occurs-'

157

on different parts of the hill, and especially near
the smelting places, from which it has heen
thought that the deleterious matter consists of the
lead-ore itself, in a state of powder. But it is
known to unpart a sweet taste to the grass, wliich
the lead-ore, however Jiuely powdered, has not the
power of doing. It must therefore, I think, be a
carbonate of lead, or some saline compomid, but
how the latter can be formed, it may be difficult
to explain. If the lead-ore contains sulphur, then
a sulphate of lead may be sublimed, and diffused
to some distance, but I think it more probable
that it consists of a light powdery oxide of lead,
or a cai'bonate or super-carbonate. Sometimes
the disorder has occm-red close to the smelting
places. One farmer, the proprietor of a mine,
lost fifteen cattle by it, that broke down a fence
near the smelting place one night, and ate freely
of the grass roimd the banks. A respectable
and intelligent farmer of Wookey hole also lost
eight head of cattle at one time, in consequence of
his meadows being overflowed."

The progress of the effects of this poison is
variable, according to the quantity taken, some-
times the cattle perish in a few days, sometimes
the}' linger for weeks, sometimes even for months ;
but few ultimately recover.

The svmptoms, when urgent, ai'e great diffi-
culty of breathing, ■with a loud wheezing, to be
heard at a considerable distance, and threatening
suffocation, which sometimes takes place. Occa-
sionally, when the attack is not extremely violent,
the beast hngers for a week or two and dies from
inflammation of the lungs. Sometimes these
symptoms come on gi-adually, and terminate in
epilepsy ; the animal loses its appetite, the bowels
-are confined, the kidneys gradually cease their
secretion, the fits return more frequently and
endm-e for a longer time, till at length the animal
dies wasted to a skeleton.

With respect to the treatment of the animals,
•drenches of common salt and water, repeated
frequently till the bowels are rmloaded, assisted
by free injections of the same, are said to have
been occasionally successful ; a solution of Epsom
salts, combined with linseed-oil, is also recom-
mended, opium being given afterwards to allay
the irritation. We would suggest sciniple or
half drachm, or even drachm doses of calomel,
with two scruples or a drachm of opium twice a
•day, aperient medicines being given in the inten-al.

There is a well-known disease, resuUhig from
the absoi-ption of lead into the system, in the human
subject, called colica Pictonum. It terminates
in paralysis. We are not awai'e that similar cases
have ever occurred in cattle.

M. Barthe describes a disease in the joints
.and synovial bursoe of cattle and horses in the
-■neighbom-hood of copper-mines, which is attributed

to the exhalations from the metal during smelting.
In some cases the joints have anchylosed at least
to a great extent, and the synovial membranes
been more or less destroyed. In the neighbour-
hood of smeltuig establishments for zinc, as at
Liege, similar effects are said to have been
produced. We cannot say to what extent such
cases occur in England, it is reasonable, however,
to suppose that the same causes wiU produce the
same results.

We may now pass on to a consideration of
some of the more local and external diseases, or
injuries to which cattle are subject, the treatment
of which, by the ignorant cow-leech, often produces
irreparable mischief.

There are two diseases to which the horse is
subject, but, as there is reason to believe, not the
cow : we mean glanders and farcy : at least no well
authenticated cases are on record. One of the
symptoms of farcy in the horse, is inflammation
and thickening of the absorbents, especially at the
valves ; the absorbents have a corded feel, and
at greater or less distances along their course,
where the valves are situated, small tumours or
buttons arise, aiTesting tlie current of the fluid
contained. Farcy is a highly contagious disease,
and often accompanies glanders ; but though true
contagious farcy eitlier does not occiu: or very
rarely occurs in the ox, inflammation of the
absorbents is not uncommon.

INFLAiniATION OF THE ABSOEBENT VESSELS
OF THE SKIN.

As in farcy the absorbents are corded and
show buttons at the valves along their courae,
these buttons become hard and schiiTous, and some
sujjpurate, and degenerate into ulcers. This dis-
ease may be more or less extensive, and may result
from various causes, as from wounds rendered
foul and irritable by improper dressings, from
diseased hoofs, or ulcers of some of the joints of
the limbs. The absorbents running from these
woimds or ulcers become irritated and inflamed,
and the whole system sympathizes. As soon as
the ulcers heal, the active inflammation of the
absorbents subsides, though a thickening or
cording of their tissue may remain for a consider-
able period. During the stage of inflammation
the buttons often bui'st, and ulcerate, producing
considerable mischief. They are extremely difficult
to heal, but still there is no danger of contagion.

i\Ir. Youatt describes the cases of four oxen,
which at different times, respectively, duiiug the
coui'se of tliree years, were seized TOth what the
farmer to whom they belonged considered as
farcy : — cording of the absorbents, ^-ith fai-cj--buds
or buttons extended up the Hmbs from the
fetlock to the forearm ; some of the buds were
schirrous, others in a state of iflceration. In each

158

instance the animal laooured at the time under
a severe cough. Simple treatment, and the ap-
plication of the hot iron to the buttons, effected
restoration to health ; the wounds healed, and the
thickening of the absorbents subsided, the cough
at the same time disappearing.

In two months afterwards, the cough and
thickening of the absorbents returned, and the
same means were again resorted to, with the same
success.

Although these were believed to be cases of
fai'cy, and they certainly bore a close resemblance
to that disease, yet Mr. Youatt is decidedly of
opinion that it was in resemblance only that the
agreement consisted, and that when such cases
occur the farmer need not entertain serious
apprehension of the baleful disease known as
farcy breaking out in his herd.

DISEASES OF THE ETE AND EYELIDS.

The eye of the ox is very subject to injury
from blows, from thrusts with the prong of the
stable-fork, and from the horns of other cattle ;
sometimes the eye itself is destroyed, sometimes
bony tumours or exci'escences are formed on the ring
of the orbit, and sometimes the superciliary ridge
of the orbit is fractured. In these cases little can
be done, but they ought never to have occurred.
When the superciliary ridge is fractured, the
fractured portion must be readjusted as well as
possible, and secured by a bandage, and bleeding
and purgatives resorted to in order to allay fever
and inflammation. Bony excrescences may be
sometimes removed by means of a fine saw, the
root being afterwards slightly touched by the cau-
tery. In other cases their growth may be checked
and exfoliation produced bj' the application of tiie
cauteiy, at a low temperature, but afiiie saworchisel
is always preferable. These e.xcrescences not unfre-
queutly degenerate into a state of caries. The ani-
mal should be destroyed, and the sooner the better.

Ophthalmiaoften arises in cattle from injury to
the eye, or from the presence of irritating sub-
stances lodged beneath the eyelids. Sometimes
it proceeds from constitutional causes alone, and
returns periodically : indeed this form of ophthalmia
is hereditary, like consumption, and a radical cure
is almost hopeless. Ophthalmia arising from irri-
tating substances, or from blows, generally yields
to bleeding, to purgatives and fomentations, or the
goulard lotion (composed of the liq. plumbi super-
acetatis and water), with a little laudanum ; when
the active inflammation is subdued, a lotion of tlie
sulphate of zinc (white vitriol) may be used with
advantage. Periodical ophthalmia, though relieved
for a time, usually terminates in lilindness ; it
mightperhaps bo treated with good effect by small
doses of calomel and opium, repeated daily for a
short time, and by mercurial lotions; but when

the character of the disease is ascertained, the
farmer prefers preparing the beast for the slaugh-
ter-house ; and probably this is his best course.

Severe inflammation of the ej'es, with erup-
tions about the mouth, and swellings of the tongue
and throat, often occur in young cattle fed on wet
pastui'e-lands, especially if much wooded. Some-
times superficial ulcerations of the cornea make
their appearance, and if the case be rashly treated
blindness will ensue. It may be as well under
these circumstances to take away a little blood ;
gentle purgatives must be administered, and the
eyes fomented with warm water or a decoction of
poppy-heads ; some prefer cold evaporating lotions,
as cold water with a little spirit, the goulard
lotion, and afterwards a weak wash of sulphate of
zinc. Change of locality is essential, and while
the disease continues, the animal should be housed.

Cataract and amaurosis or gutta serena are
not unknown among cattle ; the latter, however, is
very rare. In the aqueous chamber of the eye of
the horse a small hair-like parasitic worm, nearly
an inch in length, has been occasionally discovered;
and we believe that in the eyes of horned cattle a
similar parasite has been known to occur, accom-
panied by the ordinary symptoms of ophthalmia.

The eyelids of cattle are frequently affected
with diseases, independent of the inflammation
which extends to them in cases of ophthalmia ;
the edges, along which the sebaceous glands open,
are sometimes subject to a pustular eruption and
ulceration ; in these cases the skin is often mangy,
and the animals are in wretched condition. Ape-
rients of sulphur, and alteratives, consisting of
one drachm of aethiops mineral (sulphate of mer-
cury), two drachms of nitre, and four of sulphur,
given every night, will be found useful ; the eye-
lids must be smeared with the ointment of nitrate
of mercury (ungt. hydrargri nitratis, p.l.), more
or less diluted with pure spermaceti ointment, or
pure olive oil, every night and morning, by means
of a camel-hair pencil (no iron must come in con-
tact with the preparation). The ointment of the
nitric-oxide of mercury (ung. hydr. nitric-oxyd. p.l.)
diluted in a similar way is also valuable. This is
essentially the golden ointment, so much in vogue.

Warts occasionally form on the eyelids and
prove troublesome; these may be removed by
means of a sharp pair of scissors, the places being
afterwards touched with lunar caustic. In weakly
or aged cattle, ill-fed and out of condition, an cede-
matous or dropsical swelling of the eyelids not
unfrequently occurs, the cellular tissue being puffed
up with serum, infiltrated into it ; the tumefaction
jnts upon pressure like dough. A restoration to
good liealth and strength is the only remedy.

In high fed and fattening oxen, on the contrary,
the eyelids are found to be puffed up by some gas,
which distends the cellular tissue : a slight scratch

159

with the point of a lancet will allow of the escape
of tlie gas, up .n pressure , liut it is better to let
the eyelids alone, and give a dose of physic.

The haw, or membrana nictitans, of the e3'es,
is sometimes found to be swelled, inflamed, and
even ulcerated from irritation ; and is not unfre-
quently enlarged and protruded in consequence.
Cooling mashes, as goulard lotion, with a little
laudanum, will diminish the inflammation, and
aftenvards the astringent solution of sulphate of
zinc (from two to four grains to an oun(« of pure
water) must be applied two or three times a day,
to the part itself, a camel-hair pencil being used
fur the purpose. This treatment, if persevered in,
will often eflect a cure. Where fungous excre-
scences sprout, they may be delicately touched by
the caustic. The haw should never be removed
if possible ; this moveable curtain cleanses and
defends the surface of the eye, and its loss is a
serious inconvenience. In some cases however
the veterinary surgeon may advise its excision,
and to him alone must the operation be intrusted.

FOUL IN THE FOOT, LOO, OR LOW.

The foot of the ox is extremely vascular ; the
bones of the toes are perforated by numerous veins
and arteries ; the veins are larger and more tor-
tuous than in the horse, and are very conspicuous
on the pasteiTi. It is from this vascularity that
sprains of the foot, to which from its bifid character
it is peculiarly liable, are so often followed in the
ox by serious consequences, or that accidental
wounds produce so much inflammation. Scarcely
a drove of cattle passes along the road among
which several of the oxen are not lame ; and it is
on the feet that the brutal drover ever and anon
strikes them to hurry them along, haply to their
slaughter. Often have we traced the course of a
herd of oxen by the blood-stains on the road ; the
feet are not only strained, the joints swelled and
inflamed, but the hoof is worn to the quick or
wounded by sharp flints, or thorns, or pieces of
fractured glass. Rest, fomentations, and dressings
of tar ointment for the hoof, will generally effect a
restoration ; but if the lameness be severe, bleed-
ing from the veins of the coronet, and that to a
considerable extent, is ahsolutely requisite ; for in
the joints of the toes inflammation sometimes in-
duces anchylosis. The veins may be opened by a
sharp scalpel or drawing-knife, by a lancet, or a
small fleam. Severe wounds of the toes, after
being well washed, may be dressed with Friar's
balsam on a pledget of lint, rag, or soft tow, bound
on by stout rollers or bandages.

Thorns, nails, pieces of glass, &c., remaining
unnoticed in the foot, between the toes, or on the
the sole, often produce unpleasant abscesses; and
inflammation of the parts within the hoof from
overdriving on hard roads will occasionally end in

the same result, especially if the horn be worn to
the quick. When oxen are pricked by a nail in
bad shoeing (we allude to working oxen), as is so
frequently the case in horses, abscesses and
sinuses will fonn; these are termed quitters, in
the horse, and are not easily managed.

When a travelled beast continues lame after
rest sufficient for the restoration of footsore cattle,
or when a beast begins to limp, the lameness ra-
pidly increasing, let it be secured and the foot
carefully examined. Suppose a nail or similar
substance be fomid driven into the sole, or any
part of the hoof, common sense will direct its ex-
traction, and its extraction will be probably fol-
lowed by a flow of purulent matter. Suppose
there be a punctiu-ed wound only, with inflamma-
tion and an abscess more or less deeply seated :
in both cases the hoof around the spot must be
neatly and cautiously pared down, and, as far as it
has separated from the parts beneath, removed ; let
the abscess be opened, and the purulent matter
have a free exit. A poultice of linseed meal may
be then applied and changed twice a day, and in a
few days, if all goes on well, and healthy healing
take place, a little butyr of antimony sprinkled
over the denuded part every day will induce a new
secretion of horn, while a simple bandage or a
pledget of soft tow bound over the whole will be a
suHicient dressing. If fungous granulations ap-
pear they may be levelled with a shai'p pair of
scissors or a knife, and touched with caustic.

If on examination of the foot of a lame animal
no wound appears, it will be necessary to try the
hoof in every part by a pair of pincers, and when
the pressure gives pain, indicated by the flinching
or shrinking of the animal, let the horn be there
shaved away and the abscess laid open.

Perhaps, however, suppuration has not com-
menced, but the inflammation is strong and ac-
tive ; under such circumstances the foot must be
well fomented and afterwards enveloped in a large
linseed-meal poultice; this will soften the horny
hoof, and promote the suppuration, while at the
same time it relieves the pain and inflammation.
In due time the abscess shows itself on the coro-
net, and must be opened by a lancet ; the direc-
tion of the sinus should be ascertained by a probe,
and the horn shaved away along its course so as to
lay it open; should there be several sinuses the
same plan must be resorted to with each. Poul-
tices must now be renew'ed until healthy granula-
tions appear, and every particle of loose or un-
sound horn must be removed ; butyr of antimony
may now be lightly applied, or the wound may be
dressed with Friar's balsam on lint ; this must be
renewed every day, and a bandage wrapped firmly
and evenly round the hoof.

Cattle, especially such as are fattening upon
stimulating food, are subject to inflammation,

160

cracks, soreness, fungous excrescences, and a fetid
discharge between the toes. If the disease be
neglected the inflammation extends ; in a few
days abscesses form and burst, and others succeed
until the foot becomes completely disorganized;
the animal in the mean time wears away, and be-
comes a miserable object ; the toes are now thrown
far apart, the bones become carious, sinuses extend
in all directions, and purulent matter is profusely
discharged. In this state the animal may linger
for several months until it dies worn out by pain
and exhaustion.

A common but brutal remedy in these cases is
to rub a tarred rope or horsehair line to and fro
between the hoofs, in order to remove the excre-
scence and stimulate the surface to secrete healthy
horn ; dressings of stimulant applications are
afterwards applied.

If the inflammation be high, bleeding from the
veins of the coronet and aperients are necessary.
A linseed-meal poultice may then be used, and re-
newed twice a day until suppuration has taken
place, and the sloughing ulcers assume a healthy
appearance. A little turpentine may be added
to the poultices. Fungous granulations must be
touched with the caustic, or sprinkled over with
verdigris or sugar of lead. In cases where there
is a foul foetid discharge, a lotion of a solution of
chloride of lime will prove serviceable. When the
ulcers are healthy they may be dressed with tinc-
ture of myrrh, or Friar's balsam. Stall-fed cattle
should be turned to grass.

Some practitioners recommend the application
of the following ointment as soon as the ulcers are
cleared by the poultice : viz. hogs-lard and turpen-
tine, of each four ounces ; melt together over the
fire, and as soon as removed from the fire stir in
.one ounce of blue vitriol very finely powdered, and
contnnie stirring till the ointment is cold.

Mr. Pottie, in the " Veterhiarian" (vol. viii.),
after describing this disease, which he aptly terms
foot-rot in the ox, and the dreadful state of disor-
ganization which often ensues, baffling every plan
of treatment, adds, — "All this, if the patient be
put under proper treatment from the heginning,
may be easily and certamly avoided. All the
practitioner has to do is to produce a slough of
considerable thickness and extent from between
the toes. There are several escharotics that will
do this, but some are too strong, and some too
weak ; the former excite an intolerable degree of
■pain (which the ox will not bear with the same
fortitude as the horse), the latter operate too
slowly, requiring several applications, and often
not producing mortification until an abscess has
formed, when the use of any caustic is of little
service'. I find the powdered sulphate of copper
answers the pui-pose better than any agent with
which I am acquainted. The foot in the first place

is well cleaned by washing with hot water and
soap : it is dried ; a pledget of tow is covered
on one side with common tar, and over this spread
a thick layer of sulphate of copper. The pledget
is then introduced between the toes placed in close
contact with the digital commissure, and retained
by attaching its ends to a ligature round the pas-
tern. From the moment the escharotic begins to
operate the internal process appears to be ar-
rested, but unless that portion of skin upon which
the application is laid sloughs away the disease
will be re-established. In many cases one dressing
is sufiicient to produce the sloughing, in others
two or three may be requisite. When the com-
missure is soft, yielding, and moist, one application
is in general enough ; others are necessary when
this part is hard and horny, for then the caustic
operates upon it with difficulty. The escharotic
loses its power in about forty-eight hours, and it
need not be removed sooner. At the end of this
time it will be seen whether or not another appli-
cation is necessary. More than three dressings I
have never had occasion to apply; the slough
comes away with the first, the second, or third ;
subsequently the sore is kept clean and washed
once or twice a day with the acetate of zinc or any
other astringent lotion. Nothing more is re-
quired. The slough once separated, the lameness
disappears, and the animal returns to her food and
yields her usual quantity of milk." That this
mode of proceeding will prove successful if put
into operation before abscesses have formed is un-
questionable, the escharotic destroys the diseased
jiart, it sloughs away, and new and healthy skin is
reproduced. It too often happens, however, that
abscesses have formed before the disease is at-
tended to ; their free opening for the exit of pent-
up matter, the removal of every unsound and de-
tached portion of honi, poultices, with or with-
out turpentine till the ulcers are cleared, all
sloughs removed, and healthy flesh is forming,
constitute the great plan of treatment. Tincture
of myrrh or Friar's balsam, with a little butyr of
antimony, as already stated, will complete the cure.

Whether the last described variety of " foul in
the foot" (or rather perhaps this real foul in the
foot) is contagious, is not ascertained ; it will at
all events be prudent to separate the diseased
beast from the rest of the herd.

One cause of this disease in cattle feeding on
low marshy grounds, appears to result from " the
combined operation of moisture and friction, by
means of the mud and dirt between the toes."

Mr. Parkinson in his work on " Live Stock"
gives the following mode of treatment, as eminently
successful in these cases ; the farmer who has
faith in it, may try it. He says, " My father's
method of curing (foul in the foot) was to cut up
a sod where the diseased foot had trodden, and

IGl

either turn it over, sward side downwards, or hang
it on a hedge, in that position. I am nnable to
account for this cure, to nie it is incomprehensible:
but in all the experiments I have tried, this
reniedj', so simple and cheap, has proved the best.
The first year I was at Slane we had many cattle
troubled with this complaint. I applied nothing
else but what may be called a charm, and they all
more readily recovered than when I used severer
applii;ations ; therefore in future I mean never to
have recourse to any remedy but the sod, though
probably rest is the greatest restorative."

DISEASES OF THE SKIN.

Cattle kept in wretched hovels or cow-houses,
or badly fed on unwholesome food during the win-
ter, are liable to mange. It is said that too
lu.vurious a diet will produce it, but we have never
known it result from such a cause : often, how-
ever, from neglect of cleanliness, and a scanty
pittance of innutritious food; It commences with
a violent itching, the tormented animal rubs itself
against posts, palings, gates, or the boles of trees ;
the hair about the neck, shoulders, and sides, is
soon worn off, and the skin is red, thickened,
and rises hi long ridges or creased folds. The cow
becomes dull, feeds little, loses flesh, and fails in
her milk. In some places a thick scurf appears,
in others sores or scabs, from frequent and violent
rubbings. Occasionally the surface of the skin
becomes covered with scabs, which peel off, and
are succeeded by foul ulcers. In the mean time
the animal is infested with lice ; they abound in
myriads, tormenting the miserable creature, and
combine with the disease of the skin to render it
an object of disgust and apprehension. Not only
are these parasites communicated to healthy cattle
in the same field, but the disease of the skin also ;
the slightest contact, or the circumstance of lying
on the same spot, are sufficient to cause the com-
munication either of the mange, or of the lice, or
of both.

Cattle infected with the mange should be kept
strictly apart from all others ; the first thing to be
done is to render the skin as free from scurf,
loose hairs, and dirt, as possible ; this may be done
by means of a wisp of straw, or the curry-comb,
then let a strong sulphur ointment be well rubbed
in with a hard brush.

The following ointment generally succeeds : —

Flowers of sulphur, one pound ; turpentine,
four ounces ; strong mercurial ointment, two
ounces ; and linseed oil, a pint. Warm the oil,
and mix the turpentine and sulphur with it, incor-
porating the whole well together ; afterwards add
the mercurial ointment, by rubbing the whole to-
gether in a large mortar, or by means of a stout
spatula on a slal).

This ointment must be carefully applied to

YOU t.

every part, and will soon begin to take effect. In
the mean time it will be well to give internally
six or eight ouni^es of sulphur, with a drachm or
even two of lethiops mineral, every third day.

Some persons employ tobacco- water as alotion in
this disease, but this is a dangerous remedy ; it causes
trembling, sweating, utter prostration of strength,
and sometimes even death. Others use a strong
solution of corrosive sublimate, a still more dan-
gerous application, and one which has caused the
death of cattle in numerous instances. We have
alluded to its effects when noticing poison. If this
deadly poison is deemed requisite in very inveterate
cases (and it is better in these cases to effect a
gradual than a rapid cure), the following prescrip-
tion is recommended : —

Hydrarg. pcr-cUorid ,^ ij.

Acid. Muriatic 5 ss.

Aquffl destillat B %vj.— M.

We purposely write the above prescription in this
manner, in order that it may be made up by no one
(the veterinary surgeon excepted) but a respectable
chemist. Before using it the animal must be well
washed with soap and water, by means of a hard
brush ; the lution may then be applied in small
quantities, and not at once, over an extensive sur-
face, lest mischief occur. We cannot, however,
conclude, without strongly advising the fai-mer to
have nothing to do with it himself, nor to allow it
to be applied by the cow leech. The veterinary
surgeon will avail himself of it, only when all other
means have failed, and knowing the danger will
act with due caution.

When cattle are infested with lice alone, these
may be destroyed by an ointment consisting of
four or five ounces of sulphur, four ounces of tur-
pentine, and twelve ounces of linseed oil. It is
said that the powder of stavesacre. mixed vrith lard
and train oil, will kill these parasites. It is gene-
rally believed that the mange in cattle, like the scab
in sheep, and the itch in the human subject, is im-
mediately caused by the presence of numbers of a.
peculiar species of mite (acarus), which produce mi-
nute pustules in the skin, within which they live
and multiply, and thus extend the disease from one
part to another: they are liny skin-burrowei-s.
tormenting the animal, and feeding on the serum
or water within the pustules, caused by their irri-
tating presence. Though this is true with respect
to the human subject and the sheep, we do not
know whether these minute parasites have beea
demonstrated in the skin of horned cattle.

WARBLES.

Warbles are tumours on the skin of cattle,
produced by the presence of the larvae or maggots
of a species of gad-fly, or breeze (QSstius Bovis,_

1G2

Clark; Hypoderma Bovis Latr.) a dipterous insect,
notorious iu ancient as well as in modem days, and
which the Romans, as Virgil states, termed asilus ;
the Greeks oestras.

The following account of this insect is given in
the " Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature" :—

" The gadfly of the ox has the chest of a dark
brown colour, with a yellow patch on the back, and
the abdomen has alternate rings of black and yel-
low. The appearance of this fly drives the cattle
mad with terror; they utter loud bellowings, gallop
over the fields,

' and scour llie plaiQ
In all llae bright severity of noon ;'

exhausting themselves with efforts to escape.

" The female of this insect is generally believed
to deposit her eggs, in the fatty and cellular part of
the skin of cattle, by means of a singular ovi-
positor, consisting of a homy tube shutting up iu
four pieces sliding within each other like a tele-
scope ; the terminal portion ends in five points,
which together constitute a borer. Of the five
points, three appear to be curved, the other two
are straight and shorter, ^y some the puncture
with this instrument is saicrfe cause temporary but
intense pain, an acrid secretion being, it is sup-
posed, instilled into the wound ; and it is from an
instinctive dread of the suffering it produces, as
they insist, that the herd are scattered by the fly
■when it makes its appearance. The a?strus ta-
randi, however, is an equal terror to the rein-
deer; and, according to Linnreus, this fly lays its
e"gs merely on, not in, the skin of that animal, the
grubs afterwards burrowing their way and causing
large tumours.

" Some naturaligfs consider that the puncture of
this fly does not occasion any pain, and that num-
bers of eggs are deposited in places on the hide,
from which the ox could have lashed off" the insect
with its tail ; and Reaumur says that he has seen
an ox flap away the ordinary flies collected upon a
part full of these tumours.

" On the contrary, Mr. Bracy Clark contends
that the gadfly does not pierce the skin with its
ovipositor at all, but merely glues it to the hairs,
and that afterwards the grub eats its way under
the skin, causing swelling and suppuration. It is
indeed difiicult to decide between such conflicting
opinions ; for it is almost impossible to bring the
matter to tlie test of personal observation. Reau-
mur, who supposes a puncture, though without
pain, to be made, says, ' Whenever I have suc-
ceeded in seeing these insects at work, they have
usually shown that they proceeded quite differently
from what I had imagined ; but unfortunately I
have never been able to see one of them pierce the
hide of .a cow under my eyes.' If then the gadfly
does not pierce the skin, or pierces it without giving
pain, to what are we to attribute the terror of

the herd? The same query equally applies to the
terror displayed by the reindeer, of which Linnseus
says, that ' though amongst a herd of five hundred
there were not above ten of these flies, every one
of the herd trembled, and kejrt pushing its neigh-
bour about ;' and that, ' when the fly touched any
part of their bodies, they instantly made efforts to
shake it off.' It has been suggested that the buz-
zing noise of the gadfly strikes the cattle with in-
stinctive terror, as the whirring noise made by the
rattlesnake does those animals liable to the rep-
tile's attack.

" Again, we are assured that the gadfly of the
horse (oestrus equi) is beheld with every sign of
agitation by the latter ; and assuredly that species
deposits its eggs on the hairs.

" Leaving then the question open as to whe-
ther the gadfly of the ox makes a puncture or
not, certain it is that at a very early period
the gmbs are found beneath the skin of the
beast; where they lie, tumours, called warbles,
form, and suppuration takes jjlace in the cellular
tissue. It is on the purulent matter that the
grubs feed ; and as they grow the tumours be-
come more extensive. Each grub is thus as it
were a tenant of a cell, which at once protects it
and supplies it w'ith nutriment. These tumours have
each an external orifice, and this is necessary for
the due respiration of the grub : its spiracles are
placed at the hinder part of the body, and the posi-
tion the grub occupies brings the tail to the orifice,
through which it. emerges, rising to a level with
the external surface. Another object, besides the
freedom of respiration, is answered by this orifice
remaining open ; it gives to the purulent matter a
free exit, and prevents the suppuration from ex-
tending to a dangerous degree. In due time the
grub has attained its full growth, and is ready to
assume the pupa state ; it now pushes its way
thi-ough the orifice, and, falling to the ground,
burrows iu the earth, passes through a brief season
of torpor, and appears in August a winged gadfly,
to continue its progeny. Many of the grubs, how-
ever, perish ; various birds watch their egress from
the tumours, and seize them as they are endea-
vouring to escape. The jackdaw and magpie are
expert at this service to cattle ; and the bird called
Pique Bceuf of Southern Africa is of the same
benefit to the large auelopes, itc."

It is said that the larva always escapes from
its cell in the morning, between six and eight
o'clock, as if guided by some mj'sterious instinct
to choose a time in which it will be exposed neither
to the scorching heat of the sun of midday nor the
cold of night.

In general warbles do not affect the health of
the beast, nor interfere with its condition, though
instances of the contraty are on record. In the
3'ears 1823 and 1824, these insects were so nu-

iGi

mcrous, thvougliout the department of Loiret, in
France, and the tumours accumulated to such an
extent on the cattle, that many heasts perished
from fever and inflammation ; a disposition to in-
flammatory fever prevailed among domestic ani-
mals at the time, and the slight irritation of the
tumours most prohably sufficed to induce the
inflammator}' disease.

Farmers are mostly careless ahout warbles ;
but these suppurating tumours render the hide of
the beast less valuable to the tanner ; so that, if
for no other reason, the larvae should be de-
stroyed : the best way is by crushing them, and
pressing them out with the finger. It is some time
after the destruction and expulsion of the larva
that the cell is filled up, even then a weakness and a
disposition to crack remain for a long period.

WOUNDS, BRUISES, STRAINS, ETC.

Cattle are subject to wounds from various
sources. They often stab each other with their
horns ; they sometimes I'uu against sharp hedge-
stakes, or the points of sharp agricultural imple-
ments, and similar articles. These wounds are
sometimes very deep, and the cow-leech aggravates
the mischief by irritating applications ; he ajiplies
the same to trifling wounds, and converts an acci-
dent of little consequence into an aflair of some
magnitude.

When an animal has received a deej) and for-
midable wound, as in the chest, the shoulder, the
neck, or side, but yet no vital organ is injured, the
first thing to be done is to prevent high fever and
inflammation. Blood must be abstracted, and sa-
line aperients administered ; then let the wounded
part be well fomented with a decoction of poppy
heads, next covered with soft lint, and a large
linseed-meal poultice placed over it. These must
be repeated till the inflammation be subdued, and
the wound begins to discharge healthy purulent
matter — the sign of the commencement of granu-
lations. It is requisite that the wound should heal
up from the bottom, and that the matter should
have a free vent ; it will be now therefore necessary
to introduce a tent or plug of soft tow, of suflicient
size, smeared with a digestive ointment, which
may consist of lard and turpentine, of each four
ounces. Melt tliese together, and add an ounce of
verdigris (acetate of copper). This will keep down
the granulations at the sides and upper part of the
wound, while they are filling up the bottom. It is
sometimes necessaiy to enlarge the external orifice
of the wound to allow of the escape of matter ; for
if this be confined it will lead to extensive suppu-
rating sinuses, and other mischief.

It often happens that wounds bleed freely, some
large vessel being injured. This generally is not
attended with danger ; but if the flow of blood con-
tinue longer than is deemud prudent (for it will

relieve the animal), it may be stopped by firm
pressure ailapted to the situation of the wound. In
managing this some judgment is requisite; for it
is not always easy to secure the compress. The
bleeding having ceased, the treatment already de-
scribed must be pursued.

If the sides of the chest of a beast be punc-
tured, but as far as can be told the lungs have
escaped uninjured (for should they be lacerated
there will be little or no hope), the wound must
be closed, and kept closed by stout adhesive plas-
ter, and the treatment recommended in pleuritis
adopted. Bleeding, aperients, and doses of nitre
combined with digitalis and tartarised antimony,
are the chief medicines. The wound must be
looked at in a day or two, and healed b}' tents, as
described, from its deepest part ; if it discharges
matter, this must have vent externally. We need
not say that the case is pregnant with danger.

It not unfrequently happens that the abdomen
is wounded, and that some of the bowels protrude.
These should be first cleaned from dirt with warm
water, and then be gentl_v and cautiously returned,
even if it be necessary to enlarge the wound for"
the purpose, and to throw and secure the beast
with cords. The edges of the wound must then
be brought together, and secured with stitches of
thread, in the skin only, or with metallic sutures,
which are better and not liable to give way. A
bandage should be neatly and closely applied, its
folds being brought round the body and prevented
from slipping. The medicinal treatment will con-
sist of bleeding, aperients, &c., accordmg to the
symptoms which supervene.

In all these cases the aid of a veterinaiy sur-
geon is quite indispensable. His anatomical know-
ledge will be called in requisition, and the farmer
must rely on his judgment. Kerves, tendons, and
ligaments are often lacerated by wounds ; and in-
juries or fractures of bones may occur. The pecu-
liar line of treatment to be pursued in each case
(and no two cases will be precisely alike) must be
directed by the experienced practitioner.

When cattle meet with severe strains or bruises,
it will be often necessaiy to take away blood and
administer aperients. The injured parts must be
well fomented, and afterwards covered with a poul-
tice, if the situation of the part will admit of it.
When the inflammation has subsided, but swelling
and stiSiiess remain, a stimulating embrocation of
oil, hartshorn, and turpentine will be very useful.

It often happens that severe strains j^roduca
inflammation of the fetlock or the pastcrr -joints,
accompanied by swelling, heat, and great tender-
ness. Bleeding from the veins of the coronet,
poultices, rest, and afterwards embrocations, con-
stitute the plan of treatment : blisters, should the
stiffness not subside, will be needful. Too fre-
quently these strains of the feet arc neglected, and

|G4 THE

result in permanent lameness ; callus, or a bony
deposit, is fonned around the joints, producing a
ring-lilie exostosis, and the beast is crippled, and
hobbles along suffering great pain at eveiy step.
In these cases neurotomy, that is dividing, or ra-
ther cutting away, a small portion of the sentient
nerve which supplies these parts, is recommended
by Mr. Youatt ; indeed he was the first to propose
it, and his plan has been found successful. " There
is not," he says, " a farmer who has not had cows in
his daily that have lost for a time full half of their
milk on account of the pain which tender or dis-
eased feet have occasioned. There is not a grazier
■who has not occasionally lost the advantage of three
and four months' feeding from the same cause. In
the London diiiries tender feet is often a most se-
rious ailment, and compels the milkman to part
with some of his best cows, and in very indifferent
condition too. Why should not the operation of
neurotomy be resorted to here? There is no-
thing difficult iu it to any one who is acquainted
with the anatomy of the part, and its beneficial
effect cannot admit of dispute." Mr. Youatt thus
describes this operation: — "The ox is cast and
secured, the hair ha\ang been previouly cut from
the limb or limbs (to the necessary extent) on
■which the operation is to be performed. The leg is
then to be removed from the hobbles and dis-
tended, and a tight ligature passed round it be-
neath the knee to prevent bleeding. Then, on
the centre of the back of the leg, but a little in-,
dining towards the inside, and about two and a
half inches above the fetlock, the artery will be
felt for and recognised by its pulsation. Lying
immediately inside the artery, towai'ds the other
leg, is the vein, and close to that the nerve, so that
the nerve will be found about one-sixth part of an
inch within the artery. The artery, we repeat it,
is recognised by its pulsation, the vein by its
yielding to the pressure of the finger, and the
nerve by its being a hard unyielding body. Tlie
ojierator then makes a cautious incision, an inch
and a half in length, upon the nei-ve, taking care
merely to cut through the integument. The cel-
lular substance is dissected through, and the nerve
exposed ; a crooked needle, armed with silk, is
next passed under it to raise it a little ; it is dis-
sected from the cellular substance beneath, and
about three-quarters of an incli cut out, the first
incision being made at the upper part, in which
case the second cut will not be felt. There is only
one nerve to be excised here, because the opera-
tion is to be performed a little above the bifur-
cation of the nerve. The edges of the wound are
now brought together ; a small bit of tow or lint is
placed over them, and upon that a bandage is
drawn tolerably tight. The wound should not be
examined for the first three days, after which it
■may be dressed with the healing ointment (cala-

mine cerate, or the tincture of aloes). In about
three weeks it will be quite healed, but the relief
will be inmiediate ; the milk of the cow will re-
turn, and the grazing beast will begin to fatten in
a day or two."

A case in point is related by Mr. Gutteridge,"
in the "Veterinarian" for 1841. The operation
was conducted exactly as detailed by Mr. Y'ouatt,
and the wound bandaged ; a purgative was given,
and the cow put upon a diet of ma-ihes. On the
third day the bandage was removed, and the wound
dressed with tincture of aloes. " The part," he
adds, " healed in less than three weeks ; but the
cow got up immediately after the operation, free
from lameness, to the great joy not only of the
owner but every person present. The milk which
had stopped altogether retui-ned ia a few days, and
the cow is now in fine condition."

We enter into these details some^vhat explicitly,
not because we aim at instructing the farmer or
grazier how to perform the operation iu question,
but because we wish to impress upon him the im-
portant fact, that there is a simple, a safe, and aii
efficacious remedy in these cases of severe lame-
ness, which, as he knows to his cost, are but too
frequent. The means of relief are in his power,
and he need not, in despair, give up the case, as
hopeless.

It is now time that we pay some attention e.x-
clusively to the cow, with reference to gestation,
parturition, and these diseases or accidents to which
she is exclusively liable.

GESTATION AND PARTURITION.

The natural period of gestation is generally
stated as two hundred and seventy days, or nine
calendar mouths, but there is considerable variation
in this respect ; accoidiug to the experience of
some breeders, the average is two hundred and
eighty-four or two hundred and eighty-five days;
sometimes the pieriod is still longer, and under
these circumstances the offspring mostly prove to
be bull-calves. The pregnancy of a cow may be
determined by a practised ear, or by means of the
stethoscope, in as early a stage of it as six or eight
weeks. If the ear or instrument be applied to the
right flank, beginning on thesuperiorpartof it and
shifted backwards and downwards, the pukation of
the head of the foetal calf will soon be heard, twice
as frequent at least as that of the parent ; each
pulsation will betray the double beating of the fcetal
heart, and the rushing of blood through the vessels
of the placenta will at the same time be audible.

The cow has now to nourish the fujtus ; still for
some months, if in good condition and not half-
starved, little difference will be perceived in the
quantity of milk yielded. At leugth the decline of
milk is palpable, and for a month or three weeks
at least before the anticipated time of calving, she

IGS

should be allowed to dry. Cows in poor (condition
should be dried at least two months before calving,
otherwise from deficiency of nutriment the calf
will be stunted, weakly, and even if it live, of little
worth. Too high and luxurious feeding must on
the other hand be avoided, for fever and inflamma-
tion are then apt to follow parturition.

•Besides the reasons for drying the cow before
calving to which we have alluded, another is, that if
the animal be milked too long, so that on calving the
new milk descends into the udder, while the flow of
the old milk continues, there is imminent danger
either of puerperal fever, or of inflammation of the
udder. Experience has abundantly proved that on
these grounds alone, the cow (though yielding a
tolerable supply) should be dried before the secretion
of new milk for the expected young one commences.

Other precautions must be taken with regard
to cows in the latter months of gestation, and espe-
cially as the time approaches. The bowels must
be kept in a relaxed condition, and the food should
be limited in quantity ; at all times the rumen
when loaded presses upon the uterus, but more
especially so during gestation, and should the
rumen become distended with food or gas, or the
manyplus become tilled with hardened and matted
vegetable fibres, arresting the due and healthy pro-
cess of digestion, the pressure of the enormous ru-
men may conduce to the destruction of both parent
and offspring. Itsometimes occasions an alteration
in the position of the foetus, it always renders partu-
rition difficult, and fatal cases ofteuer, perhaps,
arise from this than from an}' other cause.
Farmers in general seem to be little aware of the
necessity of regulating and moderating the diet of
cows on the eve of parturition, yet there are few
who have not lost cows from this neglect. The
food allowed, moreover, must not be stimulating ;
the system takes on at this time a febrile excite-
ment ; hence in cows which have been high fed in
rich pastures, or on much dry food, it will be well
to have recourse both to a mild dose of aperient
medicine and the lancet, blood being taken in
moderation according to the strength of the subject.

It is the absurd and cruel practice of some,
■when they observe the precursor signs of partu-
rition, or even when the latter has commenced, to
rouse the cow and drive it about, hoping, we sup-
pose, thereby to hasten the process which nature
herself has undertaken to regulate, implanting in
the beasts instincts obedient to her law. The con-
sequence of this ignorant, brutal practice is inflam-
mation and all its train of evils, and not unfrequently
death. What does instinct teach the animal '? to
leave the rest of her companions, to retire to some
quiet spot, to the shelter of the hedge, or the side
of a coppice, in order that she may escape disturb-
ance till she has brought forth her young. The
■svild cattle, when thej- calve, select some seques- j

tered situation, amidst the dense thickets of the
wood, there they hide their progen}', and go sevei'al
times every day to suckle it, remaining near it at
night. The domestic cow has lost her original
shyness, but still she seeks an undisturbed spot
and quits the herd.

If her pasture afford no shelter, the cow should
be put into some quiet retreat, and be housed ia
severe or stormy weather.

The precursor signs of parturition are too well
known to be minutely detailed ; restlessness,
moaning, a visible and rapid enlargement of the
udder, accelerated respiration, and a dropping
of the abdomen first attract notice. Soon, the
restlessness increases, the animal keeps getting up
and lying down, at last she remains lying on the
ground, and if all go on well is soon delivered of
her offspring.

During this time she maybe cautiously looked
at, but not unnecessarily disturbed ; if the pre-
sentation of the calf is natural, the farmer must
not be impatient; if the labour is protracted longer
than is usual, while the throes continue, and the
animal's strength keeps up, it is better not to uiter-
fere ; but then, it will be requisite to ascertain that
the position of the calf is natui'al. In a natural
position the forelegs of the calf project, and the
head lies upon them and a little between them, the
muzzle reaching down as far as the knees, the
back of the calf corresponds with ihatof ihe mother,
and its under surface with the mother's abdomen.
This being ascertained, the farmer may hope that
nature will accomplish her work.

Supposing, however, that the pains abate or cease,
and that an hour or so elapses without any sign
of their return, then some assistance is required.
Under these circumstances, the best plan is to ex-
cite the uterus to action ; let two drachms of finely
powdered ergot of rye be mixed with a bason of
gruel and a pint of good ale, and gently poured
down the gullet, and if necessary let this be re-
peated at intervals of an hour or rather less, but
without the ale, till the pains begin to return.
Some practitioners have found ergot of rye inert,
even when given in doses of two or three ounces,
others have administered it in small doses with the
best effects. Of the peculiar powers of this medi-
cine no one can doubt, and in cases where it fails,
its inefliciency may be attributed to one of two
causes: first, its being impure, not genuine, or having
lost its original strength : secondh', to its having
passed into the rumen, where, mixed with a quan-
tity of coarsely groimd vegetable matters, it may
remain perfectly inert, dose after dose being given
to no purpose. (We need here scarcely say, that
no rumination takes place during parturition.) If,
however, the medicine be genuine and escape
falling into the rumen, it seldom if ever fails.
Supposing, however, that after waiting three or

four Iiours, the ergot of its sliould not revive tlie
action of the uterus, mechanical means must then
be resorted to. If the calf be dead, there must be
no delaj' ; if alive, it may still be saved ; but the
cow must be disturbed as little as possible ; b}'
dexterous manipulation, the slip-luiotof a cord may
be fastened round each leg, immediately above the
fetlock, and another cord secured around the lower
jaw, cautiously but firmly, yet avoiding all unneces-
saiy violence, the calf may be drawn forward by
degrees, and at length extricated. If. however,
it be firmly impacted, we may be sure it is dead,
and the removal of one slioulder will be I'equisite,
in order to effect its extrication and save the
mother. This ma}' very readily be done, by guard-
ing a small hooked knife with the fingers, and
making an incision round the fore-arm of the calf,
so as to cut the skiu in a circular manner, while
cai-e is taken that no injury is done to the mother.
This being accomplished, the skin should be turned
as far back as possible by the fingers, and slight
force will theu suffice to detach the shoulder. This
removal will give the room required.

Let us put another case ; suppose that the pains
do not subside, or are recalled bj' ergot of rye, and
that the calf, altlwugh in its natural position,
makes no advance ; under these circumstances, let
the slip-cords be applied to the fore-legs, and held
by an assistant, or rather if possible, let him take
hold of the fore-legs, and let the operator grasp the
head, or place his hand in such a position as to
bear upon it and urge it forwards, then let each
simultaneously and with cautious firmness assist
the uterus in its action, pulling only while each
throe continues, and waiting for their successive
return. By this mode of procedure, the object
being to assist nature in her efforts, the young
animal may be delivered. Let the operator only
have patience, and the uterus continue to act, and
in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, mother
and offspring will be saved.

But cases occur in which the presentation is
unnatural, and in which without prompt assistance
the calf will never be brought forth. Some of
these cases are easily managed, others put the skill
of the practitioner to the test. Sometimes the
fore-legs instead of projecting are doubled back at
the knees. They must be carefully brought for-
ward, the calf being pressed back for the purpose,
if necessary, and lest they should return to their
wrong position, it may be advisable to put a slip-
knot of strong tape around them, which latter being
kept on the gentle stretch, will prevent the re-oc-
currence of the accident. In other cases the head
of the calf is bent under the chest, or turned back
over the shoulders, or to one side of the shoulders.
It may be necessary to put a slip noose on each
fore limb, which being done, the operator must
force back the foetus till he can secure the head.

which must be brought into its natural position ; a
slip noose must then be applied to the under jaw ;
the position of the head being righted, the assistant
must gently draw the three cords or pieces of tape
forwards, and the throes of labour if necessary be
assisted ; sometimes, with this unnatural position
of the head, the fore limbs may be also bent back ;
the great object will be to push the foetus back, so
as to bring head and limbs forward, and secure
them in their proper position. This is not very
easy, and the operator must expect his arm to be
benumbed in the attempt.

Other cases occur in which all the feet present,
the foetus being doubled up. The aim in this
instance will be to alter the position of the fcetus,
and bring the fore limbs and head forward, slip
nooses being necessary as in the previous case, but
this cannot always be effected ; the next attempt,
therefore, will be to bring the hind limbs forward,
and so deliver the cow.

Sometimes the fcetus is found altogether in a
reversed position, its limbs uppermost, that is di-
rected to the back of the mother, and tlie tail or
crupper presenting. To turn the calf into its
natural position, under these circumstances, is very
difficult, or rather impracticable. It is seldom
indeed attempted ; for as a rule it will be found
best to pusli the calf back, so as to bring forward
the hind legs, and secure them with slip-knots, and
then draw the foetus gradually forward. In such
cases as these all_chance of saving the calf is lost,
the mother only must be considered, indeed the
calf will be generally found dead.

In other cases the calf lies with its feet upper-
most, and the limbs doubled up, and the head
foremost, but depressed. The elevation of the
head and the drawing forward of the fore limbs,
securing them with cords or tapes, are to be accom-
plished as prom])tly as possible, and assistance
given during the j^ains.

Various other cases of unnatural positions occur,
into the details of which we need not enter ; what
we have briefly said on this subject is to put the
farmer on his guard, to warn him against unneces-
sary interference, and to show him the necessity of
having recourse when any difficulty occurs to a
slulful practitioner, whose knowledge of anatomy
will enable him to act with promptness and sound
judgment. We say nothing here of the Csesariau
operation, which some practitioners have recom-
mended in extreme cases, where from malforma-
tion or other causes, extrication of the calf
otherwise is deemed impossible. We doubt
whether this operation is ever needed ; the calf,
ah-eady dead, may be cut to pieces, and thus ex-
tracted, even if things come to the worst, and the
mother be saved, but this operation will destroy the
mother to a moral certainty. It is a horrible opera-
tion, involving the puncture of the rumen, and the

167

ojaening of the abLlominal cavity. If it be impossible,
utterhj impossible, to deliver the cow otherwise, it
will be most merciful and ecpially profitable to
shoot her dead upon the spot, and thus terminate
her life and her sufferings.

Cows not unfrequently produce twins; in
these cases there is seldom ranch trouble, for the
calves are usually small ; in instances of wrong
position, therefore, they are more easily manage-
able. Inversion of the uterus sometimes results
from the violent spasmodic efforts of severe par-
turition. The immediate return of this organ to
its natural site is imperative, but it can only Ije
effected by a professional practitioner. The treat-
ment of the case, and the application of proper
compresses and bandages, so as to prevent the
recurrence of the inversion, must be exclusively
under his direction.

Rupture of the uterus during parturition in
consequence of too powerful an action of that organ
may occur ; the pains cease, the ears, muzzle, and
limbs become cold, the abdomen swells, and the
animal dies. In such a case nothing can be done.
Happily it is very rare. When a cow has brought
forth her calf ■without any untoward event, she
ought to be left with it undisturbed for two or
three hours ; a warm mash, or some warm gruel
(but not an unlimited quantity of cold water as
Mr. Parkinson recommends) may be put before
her. Her time will be chiefly occupied by those
attentions to her little one which nature dictates,
and which the youngling requires. In the course
of four hours it will be prudent to give an aperient
drench, which will tend to prevent puerperal fever
or inflammation of the udder. Should the udder
be swollen and the teats tender, it will be neces-
sary to draw off the milk three or four times a
day, but this will seldom be needed if the calf
have free access to its parent. The presence of
lier young one keeps the cow quiet, contented, and
happy ; its absence renders her restless, impatient,
miserable, and feverish ; it should play at her side
in the field, or, if in the cow-house, should be al-
lowed to suck at least three times a day. It is
seldom that the laws of nature can be broken with
impunity, and the early removal of the calf from its
parent is not unattended with danger. In whatever
way the calf is intended to be reared, it should re-
main with the mother for the first few days at
least, till the milk is fit for the dairy. The first
flow of milk after parturition, commonly called
benstinps, is of an aperient quality, and is expressly
intended for the young animal, from whose bowels
it carries off the black glutinous matter, accumu-
lated during the latter months of foetal existence.
If the first milk be denied, constipation of the
bowels, not always easily removed, is a common re-
sult. The prejudice which exists in the minds of
some farmers that the first milk is injurious to the

calf is a great error; it is a gentle medicine pre-
pared by nature for the young ruminant. With
respect to the placenta or afterliirth in the cow, it
is generally expelled within fifteen hours, often
sooner, after the birth of the calf ; but instances
are on record of its having remained for the space
of ten days without producing any bad effects. In
these cases the cow-leech has recourse to various
means, and to stimulating drenches, more likely to
bring on inflammation than act as intended. In
some instances it is advisable to assist the expul-
sive efforts by drawing forward the umbilical cord
during each accession. But when the natural ef-
forts with this assistance are insufficient, and the
animal appears ill and distressed, it may be neces-
sary to separate the placenta from its attachments
by the hand, an operation requiring great caution
and care, and to be attempted only by a veterinary
surgeon. Some farmers after the birth of the calf
attach a small weight to the umbilical cord, ifl
order to facilitate the separation and expulsion of
the placenta ; there is no great harm in this, and
if a cow be weakly and the expulsive pains slight,
it may be of service. The placenta of the cow
consists (besides the membranes) of numerous coty-
ledons, or tufts of vessels which form the union be-
tween the chorion and the uterus. It would be
needless here to enter into anatomical minutiae.

ABOKTION, MISCARRIAGE, OR SLINKING.

No domestic animals are so subject to abortion
as the cow. It is produced by various causes. It
often occurs in cattle which are too highly fed,
and in a constant state of excitement ; it results
from rank and acrid plants irritating or disturbing
the due action of the stomachs, and frequently
occurs in low marshy districts. It has been
known to follow the drinking of hard mineral or
ferruginous water. It frequently happens in cows
that have suffered from catarrh ; and hoove or dis-
tention of the rumen will produce it. Fright from
any cause will bring it on, thunder-storms have
been known to do so ; putrid odours and the foul
air of ill-conditioned cow-houses are among the
causes producing it It sometimes appears as an
epidemic, both in very wet seasons or in seasons of
great heat. Blows, over exertion, whatever hur-
ries or agitates ; sudden change of food and pecu-
liar conditions of the atmosphere may be also
enumerated. There is another cause also to which
we must advert, viz. sympathy. For example,
one cow among a number of others casts her calf,
in a few days several of her pregnant companions
are taken ill in the same way; nor is the mischief
easily arrested, it spreads, and perhaps contiguous
herds become influenced as if by a contagion. A
cow, moreover, which has once east her calf is al-
most sure to do so the succeeding year, influ-
encing perhaps a new set of companions, and thus

168

THE OX.

is tlie destructive habit perpetuated. But how is
this to be accounted for upon sympathy? During
her period of pregnancy the cow is extremely irri-
table, and easily affected ; in every disturbance of
the mind or body the uterus strongly sympathises,
it is influenced by whatever influences any other
part of the symptom, or makes an impression upon
the nerves. A cow, we will suppose, prematurely
casts her calf, it is dead, ofteu putrid, the placenta
is expelled at intervals in putrid fragments; the
noisome odour directly affects the other cattle,
they become agitated, they run about, and by bel-
lowing express their uneasiness ; in a few days
their turn comes round, and several perhaps lose
their lives. It is thus that peculiar odours, espe-
cially when the stomach is irritable, produce vomit-
ing, and sometimes, as we oiu'selves have seen,
even epileptic convulsions. In the pregnant cow
it is the irritable uterus, and not the stomach
*vhich becomes affected ; it is excited to unnatural
action, abortion takes place, and if the cow re-
cover, the habit has commenced, and abortion
will again and again occur.

The signs of approaching abortion are dulness,
loss of appetite, diminution of milk, the abdomen
loses its rotundity and sinks ; the breathing is
quick and laborious, the gait is slightly staggering,
the animal moans frequently, the pulse becomes
small, and sometimes intermittent; and a yellow
glairy fluid discharge announces the approaching
evil. Labour soon comes on ; the animal is in
jeopardy and often perishes ; still gi'eater is the
danger if abortion be the result of injury or vio-
lence ; the symptoms are more distressing ; hemor-
rhage from the uterus often takes place, or the
mouth of the uterus is spasmodically contracted,
and the throes continue increasing in strength,
but without relaxation of the mouth of the uterus,
until the latter is ruptured. We do not say that
hemorrhage, or spasmodic constriction of the mouth
of the uterus always occur, nevertheless the labour
in most instances is protracted and dangerous.

In these cases the treatment must be regu-
lated by circumstances. Is the fcetus dead ? if so
(and it will be known by the fcetid discharge), the
sooner it can be got rid of the better; the cow
must be secluded from all the others, and the
animal treated as if natural parturition had come
on. If she be plethoric the loss of a little blood
may tend to prevent subsequent fever ; if not, w^arm
mashes may be given, and if the action of the
uterus be sluggish, ergot of rye may be adminis-
tered. It is desirable that the placenta be re-
moved as soon as possible, and this and the foetus
must be immediately buried deep iu some remote
spot, with quick lime, and covered up with earth
closely trodden dowu. A dose of physic may be
given; and in the ftiean time the cow-house
^hould be well washed out with a solution of chlo-

ride of lime, and the cow herself veiy thoroughly
cleaned and purified by a similar solution ; she
should not be allowed to visit the herd on her re-
covery, but be fattened for sale to the butcher ; for
other purposes she is useless, and it will be unsafe
for her to mix with the rest of the cattle. In this
way the spread of the mischief may be prevented,
but the other cows should be narrowly watched.
Various superstitious ceremonies have been re-
sorted to for the purjiose of averting this evil,
which has occasionally made havoc among the
cows of farms ; but the only means are those re-
commended : if, however, several cases of abortion
succeed each other year after year, the farmer, if
he can do so without serious loss, had better sell
all his stock for fattening, and procure an entirely
new herd, otherwise he will have to submit to
yearly disasters.

If the symptoms of abortion are incipient, and
there is reason to believe that the fcetus is not
dead (its motion being felt), there is hope that
the disaster may be prevented. It will be neces-
sary to lessen the arterial action by bleeding ac-
cording to the size and strength of the beast, and
aperient medicine should be given directly after-
wards. As soon as the medicine begins to operate
a sedative may be administered, as half a drachm
of opium in a little gruel, but stimulant and cor-
dial comforting drinks, those favourite multifarious
compounds of the cow-leech, should be avoided ; if
the cow be weak, a pint of good ale in gruel is the
best comforter. We need not say that the cow
should be kept quiet and alone.

It is not ofteu, however, that the signs of ap-
proaching abortion are perceived in so early a
stage as to give the farmer much chance, and this
is too often destroyed by the death of the fcetus,
in which latter case the aim must be rather to ex-
pedite labour, than to attempt any preventive
measures.

We believe that if the food and condition of
breeding cattle were cautiously attended to, and a
little blood taken from such as are plethoric, about
the end of third month, and a mild aperient
draught administered, abortion would very rarely
occur. If one case has occurred on a farm, let the
condition of the rest of the cows be immediately
looked to ; should they have even been in the way
at the time (the accident happening before any
person became aware of it) still by prompt mea-
sures much may be done ; bleeding, medicines,
restriction of food, and of necessary sedatives, may
avert the calamity ; if proper precautions with re-
gard to the cow which has suffered abortion have
been taken, there is almost a certainly of success.
We should not despair of preventing future abor-
tion in a cow, which had only once experienced
this affliction ; the measures must be decided, yet
followed out with caution.

109

MILK FEVEB, rUEEPEEAL FEVER, OE DIIOP.

This is a formidable disease which comes on
sometimes in a few hours, at other times in a few
days after calving, but seldom in a cow at her first
parturition ; it generally attacks plethoric cows of
mature age, which have been fed luxuriously ; yet
it not unfrequently appears in lean spare cattle,
especially when they have been removed a few
weeks before calving, from a scanty to a rich pas-
ture, or to stall-feeding upon abundance.

Mr. Youatt considers tliis disease to be prima-
rily inflammation of the uterus or of the perito-
neum, but that afterwards it assumes an intensity
of character truly specific. " The affection is
originally that of some particular viscus, but it
soon is lost in a general inflammatory state, as
rapid in its progress as it is violent in its nature,
and is speedily followed by a prostration of vital
power that often bids defiance to every stimulus."

This is not quite the view of the case taken by
other veterinary surgeons. Mr. Spooner says,
"it used to be supposed that the uterus or womb
was the principal seat of the disease, but it has
now been ascertained that this organ is not af-
fected in one case out of ten. To Mr. Friend, of
Walsall, we are principally indebted for directing
our attention to the brain and nervous system,
and it has since been placed beyond doubt by the
i-esearches of other practitioners, that these organs
are the principal seats of the disease. There are,
however, two varieties, one exceedingly dangerous,
the other comparatively attended with little danger,
and this accounts for the different opinions given
as to the fatality of the disease. In the severer
description, the brain as well as the spine is in-
volved ; in the milder form the lesions appear
confined to the region of the loins. Cows rarely
become affected with this disease until they have
had several calves, and the short-horn breed is
more liable to it than others."

We are inclined to agree with Mr. Spooner
and Mr. Friend in their views respecting the na-
ture of true puerperal fever in cattle ; yet doubt-
less it is sometimes accompanied hj peritoneal in-
flammation which often follows parturition, and
though a distinction between the two diseases
must be made, it is not improbable that peritoneal
inflammation may induce lesion of the spinal cord,
and cerebral congestion ; we know indeed that it
does. Mr. Spooner obser\es that the name of this
disea.se, puerjieral fever, "is calculated to mislead,
and to induce the supposition that it is the same
as the puerperal fever of women after child-birth,*

* Puerperal fever must be considered either as a disorder of the
\cholt: system, producing local inflammation as one of its conse-
quences, which is the opinion of Burns and many others, or as a
symptomatic or secondary fever, the result of an active and exten-
sive injlammalion of the pelvic and abdominal viscera in the fe-

whereas in point of fact it is a peculiar disease af-
fecting cows alone." The symptoms of this disease
in cattle are thus detailed by Mr. Simonds: — " In
the severer alfection, the first symptom is a stag-
gering gait; the respiration soon becomes dis-
turbed, the eyes appear prominent and glassy, and
the pupils greatly dilated. After reeling about for
a while, the animal falls, often to rise no more ;
the head is turned to the side, and the animal be-
comes unconscious. Liquids if given with the horn
(the tube of the stomach-pump should be used) fre-
quently enter the laiynx without producing cough-
ing or irritation ; the nerves of sensation appear
to have lost their power; the animal afterwards
loses the power of motion in the fore extremities as
well as the hind, and sensation, too, is sometimes
lost with or without the power of motion." Some-
times, observes Mr. Spooner, " the animal lies in
a comatose state, at others exhibits great pain and
distress. The disease sometimes destroys life in a
few hours, and if the animal dies, it is generally
within forty-eight hours of the attack. Tlie pulse
is inmostcases much quicliened, behigfrom seventy
to eighty in a minute, but soon becomes very weak.
The appetite is of course totally lost, rumination
suspended, and there is generally fiital constipa-
tion. It must be confessed that the majority of
cases of this severe affection prove fatal. On ex-
amining the body after death, the principal disease
is found to exist in the brain and spinal chord, the
latter in the greatest degree at the region of the
loins. The chord itself is often discoloured, and
the vessels of the membrane immediately covering
it injected with blood ; sometimes these vessels are
ruptured. The brain often presents a similar ap-
pearance though in a less marked degree. The
tliird stomach is always found full of hard undi-
gestible food, and sometimes the other viscera pre-
sent inflammation. The uterus is generally
found in the same state as it usually is a few days
after parturition, but occasionally it is discovered
in a state of the most intense inflammation. In
these cases inflammation of the uterus and parts
connected with it, appears added to the other
disease. When such is the case there is usually
greater pain exhibited, and external appearances
demonstrate its presence." In these cases of in-
male, more particularly of their peritoneal surfaces; the opinion of
Gordon, and most practitioners in tliis country. Some conse-
quently bleed freely, others, if they bleed at all, bhed spar-
ingly and with caution. Burns says, " I have slated ihut in peri,
toneul inflammation blood-letting and laxatives are the principal
remedies, but in this disease blood-letting must be employed with
greater caution. It must be resorted to very early, and ought not
to be pushed very far. My experience would lead me to say that
the distinction between this and simple peritonitis in point of prac-
tice is, that in the latter we can scarcely bleed too much, where.is in
the former the lancet can only be used early with any prospect of ad-
vantage." Consequently, as he elsewhere obser\'es. " it is important
to distinguish this disease from simple peritonitis.'' Others advise
a contrary mode of practice, and bleed according to the strength
of the patient, regarding the disease as peritoneal inflammation.

jooae iiiflinr— *^"

eent, «e AgnU be

^e aiMldtoni ?.? - -■ nvltn-, diil not the latter so

cCgem •oeu' indet>=-. -. atly. Moreover in the milder

fwietf of lUs dtse5i>e tlio spinal cho-i i< *'■' '-■•■

,-■"■' ><=st of the afiei'ii'Mi. "'The ~ ;

:,.(- "udir t'omi of th;r H-eiiseare nu;

the animal drops and

mies feeding, and r-:iss(

<ilnlity. The ;>" .-o

diii the spinal . i.

' ; liowels aro . ~".vo

ho;

men(

times

lowest ell

stimulaii

nitrous ;

rally and bc;it S

but with caution

A continuance
Tourable prognostic
the flow of milk does
takes place, but if the
rally dies.

An attentive consideration

tlie uterus ani puts adj*- ' abo> detafled. «wl of the moriad ajipeuaDces ob-

Lined to reijarcl tlie kaon of s^rr e mfter Atmth, tH alike ia&adTe of lesmt

spinal thori and «f the haan, casnot Uit

exd% to believe, that thowgh iidlaiwinitinw of the

and pmitoaeal nembnaes nar attend this

-J {ed cooditiaa of the centre of the nerroos

L it is not its necessaiv awotapaniment.

other hand, hoaerer. is there not reason

re that this spinal and cenbnl mischief.

from being ahaars ptiaanr, is often se-

and tfaenadkof pentoaitis? Aooiwafter

s lakeMJliijiil is evidentlj fererish. she

her feet, paas the

:tT. and heaves at the

hot. and tender, and

spensioa of the flow

Old drr. the month

the eres are

Dtteis moans

she now becomes ir-

•hing her head aboat.

her: she gtatcs her

th. she is enJentlr de-

srmptooiS of a ^gfaij

1 if not checked, will

atter pnetration of the

t of this I
t mvotves the oteras and

nd stage saperrenes,

r. she feels aboat. the

•-< and limbs lose

e rises perhaps

oMnes Boie de-

-mks. she tnms

7«ire in agofiT :

mervaallT doses the

npon inflamma-

of the brain and

after death

peritoneom.

will bs

<^ the

the

'■ - -''L

\aniiRstiaa

. and wfaich the

\h^T 'be perito-

e spinal

"'"Vca-

k««.^

171

done under the circumstances last described.
First, then, we have a stage of high fever and
great inflammation, often escaping careless obser-
vation, till the stage of collapse supervenes. In
this stage the quick, hard, but perhaps small
pulse will indicate bleeding. The intense inflam-
mation must be subdued if possible; the disease
runs a most rapid course and must be arrested. Let
then the blood flow in a full stream to the amount
of six, eight, or ten quarts, according to the size
and strength of the animal. Small bleedings are
mefficient, they tend rather to bring on the stage
of debility than to cut short the inflammation.
Let purgatives be then given, as salts, sulphur,
and croton, as recommended previously, assisted
by injections, and persevered in till the bowels
act well. This is most important ; once get the
bowels to act, and the battle is half won. Sedatives
may perhaps be then needed. Perhaps the sto-
mach is distended with gas, tliis must be allowed
e.^it through the flexible tube introduced into the
rumen, and a solution of chloride of lime must be
given (see "Hoove"), and this maybe necessary to
be done before either bleeding or purgatives can be
resorted to with any hope of advantage.

Suppose the second stage described has super-
vened, something, perhaps, may yet be done with
a prospect of success ; if the beast is in the field,
her removal is impossible : she must be supported
in an easy position, with the fore-parts a little ele-
vated by means of trusses of straw ; if the weather
is changeable or cold, a rough tent of sacks or
matting may be reared up over her ; and if she can
eat, a warm mash given. Now, as to bleeding, all
will depend upon tlie state of the pulse ; if it be
weak, trembling, or intermittent, no blood mtist
be abstracted : the powers of the system will give
way under the least depletion. But if the pulse
be quick, small, hard, and wiry, the lancet may be
used, but the pulse must lie consulted as the flood
flows, and the vein stopped at its first tremulous
wavering. Here judgment will be required, in
order to decide the point at which to stop. The
next thing to be done is to urge the bowels to action
by purgatives and injections. This is often a diffi-
cult affair to be accomplished; and if all measures
fail there is little hope. Blisters or stimulating
embrocations should be applied to the spine along
the lumber region, and the limbs kept from being
chilled. Gradually, perhaps, the cow will recover,
the milk may in a measure return, and even some
little degree of appetite ; she will, perhaps, after a
few days, endeavour to regain her feet, and may
be assisted by a sling. For a long time, however,
she will remain weak, and (the fever having abso-
lutely subsided) tonics (as four drachms of gentian,
two drachms of ginger, and a little good ale, in
gruel) may be given twice a day ; but neither
spirits nor those villanous compounds called cordial

drenches. We need scarcely say that the favour-
able termination we have pictured is not in every
case realized. Puerperal fever is sometimes epi-
demical, and a dreadful epidemic it is ; and
moreover a cow, who has once suffered under this
malady, is exceedingly liable to its recurrence at
her next parturition. It is for the farmer to judge
whether he will prepare the animal for the butcher,
or keep her and endeavour by proper measures to
secure her as far as possible from the recurrence of
the disease when she calves the next year. Bleed-
ing, gentle aperients, and a ratlier spare diet,
during the last few weeks, may do great service.

GAItGET, OR INFLAMMATION OF THE SUBSTANCE OF
THE UDDER.

The udder of the cow is divided into four com-
partments ; and it often happens that one or more
of these compartments becomes swelled, hot, in-
flamed, and knotty. This inflammation is accom-
panied by fever, more or less severe according to
the violence of the inflammation ; and this fever is
often preceded by a shivering fit of three or four
houi's' duration. Garget is apt to occur in highly-
conditioned heifers after their first calving ; it may
be produced in cows liy cold and wet during partu-
rition, when the active secretion of fresh milk
takes place. Bruises will cause it, as will also a
careless mode of milking, the compartments of the
udder not being thoroughlj' drained ; in which case
the milk that is left becomes a source of irritation.
P^rom whatever cause it may arise, garget often
proves a troublesome disease, and not unfrequently
terminates in suppuration, extensive abscesses, and
gangrene.

In the beginning of this affection, before the
inflammation has proceeded to a great degree, it
will be advisable to let the calf go with its parent
on the field or close ; the young animal will suck
freely, relieving the udder of the milk, and as it
takes plenty of exercise will not be apt to suffer
from overloading the stomach. But besides this,
the quarter of the udder affected should be fairly
drained three times a day, lest any milk remain-
ing there coagulate and add to the mischief AVe
need not say that the milk should be drawn gently,
so as to give as little pain as possible. An active
aperient should be administered, and the diet
restricted. These measures, if resorted to in time,
will generall}- prove effectual. But the early stage
is sometimes overlooked, and the inflammatiuii
and pain have amved at a serious height : the cow
will not permit the calf to suck ; there is consi-
derable fever; the animal loses her appetite and
ceases to ruminate ; and the danger of suppuration
is imminent. Bleeding must now be resorted to
and afterwards aperients. The udder must be
well fomented for some hours with hot water, or
the decoction of poppy-heads, and then with a firm

IjanJ (Iniiiied of its milk. Sometimes
^milk of the all'ected quarter, iiiul
puiulent matter is mixed with it.
(Iraiiieil, ibe aflecteJ (junrter or
be well rubbed with a weak cam-
ial (liutmcut (oau)plior one ounce,
Ider by means of a few drops of spirit i
ounce of mercurial ointment, and
of lard or elder ointment, intimately j
etlui). In the evening the fomentation
iioulilbc repialed, the udiler cleaned,
esh ointnunt applied. In the com-se of a |
the glandular inlargements and the pain
t prob.ably materially diminish, especially if i
pill',' itives act well ; but if not it may be advis- |
able to have recourse to iodine both externally and
intcrnallv. The ointment may consist of one part
i'( iiiiiiile of potass added to seven parts of
lard, and must be used instead of the mercurial
preparation ; and six or eight grains of iodide of
jiotiiss may be given in gruel every day. l-'roni i
to time the udder must be carefidly examined, ,
soon forms in the centre of the iiidura- [
if not at once evacuated, will produce '
extending in various directions: these will ,
igth burst externally, and terminate in foul
il:ir ulcers, spreading nipidly to the destruc- ,
if iiie or more of the quarters. Nothing will !
this l)Ut a free opening of the abscess as
it is formed ; there must be no hesitation,
fir if allowed to burst of itself, even should no !
minuses be formed, it will cause a va.st destruction
of the glandidar mass before the external skin j
gives way ; and the consequence will be a deep
ragged idcer and gangrene ; the spreading of which i
will not be arrested, perhaps, unless by the use of,
the knife. L'lider these circumstances, the first
thing to be done is to cleanse the idcer, which
should lirst be washed with warm water, and then
freely laved with a solution of the chloride of lime; |
repeated applications of this solution will not only
remove the disgusting eHluvium, but arrest the
spread of destructi<in, and induce a healthy condi-
tion of the part. The process of healing by gra-
nulation will now commence, and the part may be
dressed with Friar's balsam, and occasionally
washed with the solution, till the cure is complete.
It not uiifreqnently hajipens that, after active
iidlamniation of the udder is subdued, a chronic
induration will remain, and that for a considerable
time : not only lessening the tlow of milk from the
affected quarter, but rendering that milk unlit for
use. From time to time the induration becomes
very tender, indicative of increa.sed vascular action,
and the milk is sometimes tinged with blood.
These cases yield readily to repeated applications of
the iodide of potass, in the form of an ointment, as
before directed, and to the administration of the
same medicine iutemally.

ing Inste iinA
ri^iilts from
, aiiil espcci-
rth stomach,
I '-udder-ill."
ited, and the
J, iiillamma-
dy described
blei-.ling will
e given ; the
of r-hort but
>ligeil to take
suliiciencj' of
B organs will
idary or sym-
subside, the
ntitv, and tlio

^rev.

soon

Loss of milk, or milk of a disgi
odour, and consequently tintit for u
derangement of the digestive orga
ally from morbid alfeclions of the 1
and the animal is said to labour unc
When the primary disease is neg
impure milk not drawn off comple
tion and all its consequences, as alt
often ensue. I f the cow be feverit
be requisite, ami ape'rients must
animal shoidd also be put into a fi.
wholesome grass, where she will l.e
considerable exercise in procuring
food. By these means the diges
gain tone and energv', and tlie sei
pathetic atTectioii of the udder w
milk will be sweet and in proper q
general health become c >nlirmed.

SORE TliATS.

Cows after calving, and especi: y young cow^,
are very subject to tenderness ami >reness of the
teats. Thev become inllamcd. «n exi'oriated
or covered with cracks, from «hie b sanious dis-
charge oozes. Those who milk tin attle are often
verv- careless lioth as to the dip »g of this dis-
charge into the milk, and to the iin which they
inllict on the cow. In both point- lere is nothing
to excuse them, nor can languae too severe bo
applied to them. Many a guiMJ i r is spoiled by
the milker. I'uder the pain inl'ted the animal
often kicks violently, and tl.is wi at last beconio
habitual : she will retain her mill and contract a
habit of retaining it, by which (luaiility will
speedily become diminished. T ' cow requires
soothing and gentle treatment : e teats before
milking should be well cleaned, i I fomented for
some time with warm water, in o er to ease and
mollify them. No unnecessary ^i' nee in milking
should be used, but at the sam^iime the udder
must be thoiYiughly drained, fir it leblom that the
teats suffer without the udder in so »degree jiartiei-
paiing in their tenderness ; an<l a ight cause may
aggravate this into positive iiiHa malion. After
milking, the teats may be dressi with a cooling
and somewhat astringent ointm t, composed of
two drachms of sugar of leaii. id a dr.ichm of
alum finely powdered, aild.-d t- four ounces of
.spermaceti ointment.

cow-rox, oit VAK U.

It is to Dr. Jenner, of Berey, Gloucester-
shire (who died February U\, \k , aged seventy-
four), that we owe the pnu'tii of vaccination,
as a preservative from the attacl it that destruc-
tive scourge of the human race tli mallpo\. The
experiments of this philosophic n i were begun in
1797 and published in 179H. le had observed
that cows were subject to a certiu infectious erup-

■tURoniMitpi'

»M

173

tion of the teats, and that those persons who
became affected by it, while milking the cattle,
escaped the sniall-pox raging around them. This
fact, known to farmers from lime immemorial, led
him to a course of experiments, the result of which
all are acquainted with. Yet in oue opinion, an
opinion in which many medical men of the highest
eminence have coincided. Dr. Jenner appears to
have been wrong. He regarded the cow-pox nut as
an original disease of the cov; itself, but as one
communicated to that animal from the horse. He
conceived that the sanious fluid of the disease of
tlie heels, called grease, so common in horses, was
the source of the pustular eruption in question.
Cows, feeding in the same pasture with horses
thus affected, might lie down on the spots where
the sanious discharge from the grease had dripped,
and in this manner the teats might become inocu-
lated ; or persons who had dressed or rubbed the
heels of horses might with unwashed hands engage
in milking the cows, and thus inoculate them. But
query. Will the matter of grease produce the cow-
pox in man or animals? Will inoculation from
the diseased heels of the horse produce in the
human subject the true cow-pox pustule, and ex-
emption from small-pox? Inoculation with this
matter may indeed produce a pustular disease, but
not cow-pox. It may produce unpleasant sores,
and convert simple cuts into festering wounds ;
these, however, in no respect bear any analogy
tx) the vaccine diseiise. Various experiments have
been made on the subject by Woodville, Simmons,
Professor Coleman of the Veterinary College,
Bartholiin, Dr. Pearson, and others, which de-
monstrate the error of the theory ; and though
there may be some few medical men who yet retain
the opinion, it has been abandoned by those who
have closely investigated tlie subject. The two dis-
eases, as the veterinary surgeon well knows, have
nothing in common between them.

The cow is subject to two kinds of pustular
eruption on the teats, both infectious, and usually
comprehended under the same name; but of these
one only must be regarded as the genuine cow-
pox. In the spurious disease the pustules are
small and of irregular shape ; in the genuine dis-
ease they are large and round, with a central de-
pression, and accompanied by more or less of fever
and general derangement. In both, however, they
are filled with a limpid fluid which by degrees
becomes opaque and purulent. A scab is then
formed, which hi a short time peels off, leaving the
skin sound beneath. If, however, the pustules are
broken, they degenei'ate into ulcers lai'ger, deeper,
and more difficult to heal in the genuine than in
the spurious cowpox. To distinguish between these
two species of pustular eruption is important : the
true disease may be known by the large size of
the pustules, their -depression, the decided ring of

inflammation around them, and the constitutional
disturbance of the animal. In both cases the
treatment is simple ; an aperient draught and a
cooling lotion are all that is needed. If ulcers are
produced they may be occasionally washed with a
weak solution of chloride of lime, and powdered
with a little calamine, or dressed with the calamine
cerate of the London Pharmacopccia.

It is a remarkable circumstance connected with
the history of the cowpox, that although its powers
as a prophylactic against the smallpox had long
been known among farmers in many parts, not
only of our own country but of the continent, me-
dical men regarded it as a popular error, and conse-
quently paid no attention to the subject ; nay, the
farmers themselves never dreamed of practising the
inoculation of it, and Dr. Jeuner's ideas of propagat-
ing it by inoculation were at first treated by the
medical world as visionar}' — as a wild speculation
unworthy of serious consideration. For twenty
years the subject occupied his thoughts before
he ventured, against the ridicule of his medical
brethren, to commence his series of exjieriments.
But he did commence — he multiplied his expe-
riments — his most sanguine expectations were
realized ; and the name of Jenner now ranks, not
indeed amongst those of heroes and warriors, but
amongst those of the benefactors of the human
race.

DISEASES AND TREATMENT OF CALyES.

From those diseases which more immediately
concern the cow, we may now turn to those which pe-
culiarly affect the calf, and which, setting accidents
aside, are nearly all more or less connected with a
deranged state of the digestive organs. In the calf,
as we have said, while feeding exclusively on its
mother's milk, the first three stomachs are unde-
veloped, the abomasum or true digesting stomach
alone being required ; but as it begins to pai'take
of vegetable food the first three stomachs gradually
increase, and begin to labour in the performance
of the duties now imposed upion them. In both
states the powers of digestion are often overtaxed ;
for the calf is apt to take more than it can properly
digest, especially if not allowed free exercise, or if
the bowels have not been cleared of the black ex-
cremeutitious matter (meconium) with which they
were loaded after birth. Some fiirraers refuse the
first milk or bcastings to the calf, ignorant that it
is a purgative expressly intended by nature for this
purpose ; the consequence of which is that, early
as it is to begin with medicine, some aperient is
rendered absolutely necessary*, recourse to which
might have been prevented had nature not been
interfered with. The mischief, however, is done;
and the only question to be settled is, what pur-
gative must be chosen ? Two or three ounces of
castor oil, mixed up with the yolk of an egg into

im*"

•Adit«

.ail

f »>*»■•« Va-ja M I

-• inutr ML IMV

r« «

V«t^

«S I ;"*-^.,

«.— n {^

UJK.I,

I I :•
I t I a

I I «
Ills

I I «

175

and unless prompt measures be resorted to the
animal will die. Aperients and the use of the
stomacli-pump will be required, the rumen must
be unloaded, and the manyplus stimulated to
action.

Calves are subject to diarrhcea or scouring
from various causes ; the millc maj' disagree with
the stomach and disorder it, change of diet may
produce it, or whatever has been taken which irri-
tates the alimeutarv canal. If uot severe, diarrhoea
need uot be regarded with apprehension ; it is an
effort of nature to get rid of the irritating matters,
and only requires to be checked when it continues
too long, or the animal begins to droop. Occa-
sionally diarrhoea merges into dysentery, with mu-
cous and bloody purging. In the treatment of
diarrhoea, a mild purgative, as two ounces of castor
oil, may first be given, or three ounces of Epsom
salts, two drachms of soda, and half a drachm of
ginger, in half a pint of thin gruel. This will re-
move the cause of disturbance. Afterwards, four
tablespooufuls of the following mkture may be
given morning and night : — Powdered chalk one
ounce, powdered catechu four drachms, powdered
ginger two drachms, powdered opium half a
drachm, mucilage of gum arable two ounces,
peppermint- water six ounces. This mixture re-
quires to be shaken up well each time it is given.
Gruel made of fine wheat-flour, arrow-root, or bean
mashes with a little pea-flour will be useful ; no
green or ascescent food should be allowed.

We have described the hoove in cattle, and that
affection of the bronchial tubes (see '• Bronchitis")
iu which they are crowded by innumerable para-
sitic worms. To this disease calves are extremely
subject, and it often produces death. There is a
hard husky cough, a staring coat, a heaving of the
flanks, great debility and emaciation. After death
the bronchial tubes are found to be filled with
worms, often iu incredible numbers. In this
disease turpentine has peculiar claims upon our
notice, as its use has been in many instances at-
tended with the best results. It acts evidently
through the medium of the circulation, being di-
rectly absorbed into the system ; as it impregnates
even the breath, we may easily conceive its ef-
fect upon the parasites.

In the 14th volume of the " Veterinai'ian,"
Mr. Dickens illustrates the advantages of this
medicine by several examples. To each calf, he
says, I gave the following draught : Linseed oil
four ounces, turpentine one ounce, oil of caraways
twenty drops. •■ In a day or two afterwards the
beneficial effects of this were quite discernible.
The animals appeared to husk much less, the oil
seemed to have acted beneficially upon the intes-
tinal canal, and their appetite had improved. The
dose was repeated to each in about ten days, and
again after the lapse of another ten days ; after

which my patients were all well and required no
more medical assistiince. 1 have since been called to
many cases, and have pursued the same treatment,
adhering to my three doses at the interval of ten
days ; but of course I have proportioned the dose
to the age and size of my patient, the dose stated
being for animals from six to ten moths old."

I u the same work (IH.ll) the following cases
are recorded: — " I was called," says a practitioner
in the country, "to see seven calves (September .3rd,
1840) that were affected with this disease ; the
owner had already lost five, though, as he said, he
had tried every thing. The symptoms were hur-
ried respiration, staring coat, a diy husk, heaving
of the flanks, with difficulty of moving or unwill-
ingness to move. They were reduced to perfect
skeletons ; two of them were then fast sinking.
The treatment consisted of inserting setons in the
dewlap, and blistering the lower jiai-t of the throat.
Each had from half an ounce to an ounce and a
half (according to their age) once a day of a mixture
composed of spirits of turpentine six parts, tinc-
ture of opium and balsam of sulphur, of each one
part, with gentian and ginger, of each one drachm.
Five soon recovered, the other two died on the se-
cond day, having taken two doses of the mixture.
On examining the lungs they appeared quite filled
with these parasites, some of wliich when washed
and examined were brown, and appeared dead, the
others were quite alive. I had a great many calves
under treatment the last autumn, and was very
successful after I began to administer the turpen-
tine, but I never gave the tonic except in the cases
above mentioned, and when the patients were iu
an exceedingly debilitated condition. I have found
the disease to follow the keeping of animals upon
a bare pasture, from the latter end of May to the
beginning of August, and with a bad sujiply of
water. Cows are sometimes affected."

Calves are subject to inflammation of the
lungs ; the treatment, modified according to the
age and strength of the calf, will be the same as
that already described in adult beasts. Calves of
six months old I'equire only a fourth of the
dose of medicine ordinarily given to cattle, and
one-half is sufficient for calves of twelve months
old.

A disease termed navel-ill is apt to appear iu
voung calves between the third and tenth day
"after birth. Perhaps a little oozing of blood from
the umbilical cord at first took place, which was
stopped by the application of caustic, or by a liga-
ture too near the abdomen, and the result is in-
flammation. Sometimes, however, this inflam-
mation comes on without any known cause; the
part swells, and perhaps suppurates; in the latter
case, as soon as the abscess points it must be
opened by a lancet. Fomentations, poultices, and
medicine, consisting of a few two-ounce doses of

176

castor oil made into an emulsion witli the )'olk of
an egg, constitute the course of treatment. If,
however, great debility, as is often the case, should
succeed, stimulants may be given, as a little ale
in gruel, or a little port wine with powdered
gentian (half a drachm).

When about a year old calves are very subject
to inflammatory complaints. These may he pre-
vented by a little medicine, and keeping them on
a scanty pasture. Quick forcing at this period by
luxurious diet is one of the great sources of de-
struction among young cattle ; it is by degrees
only that they should be brought to a rich grazing
ground, or to dry and stimulating food.

With regard to the weaning of calves, different
practices prevail in different counties ; it may how-
ever be laid down as a rule, that when calves, male or
female, are designed for rearing, the}' should not be
weaned before six weeks or two months old ; milk
is their natural food, and it is incontestable that
the longer a calf sucks, the stronger the animal
grows up, the better its form and contour, and the
more healthy and sound its constitution. If the
mother does not yield a sufficiency of milk, let the
calf be also fed from the pail, due care being
taken that its stomach be not overloaded. No
calf should be weaned suddenly, the change of
diet must be effected by degrees, a little good
sweet hay or grass being allowed. To this at last
the calf will take almost exclusively; a little
skimmed milk, buttermilk, or a mash may be now
occasionally given ; some feed the calf when
weaned three times a day, but it is better to give
the food oftener, though in less quantity at a
time. It should however be sutficient, and of
good quality, otherwise the animal will be stunted
in growth. It is an excellent plan to allow it to feed
in the field or paddock with its mother a few hours
every day ; the fresh air and the exercise
strengthen its limbs and give tone to the diges-
tive organs, and its contour becomes better deve-
loped. Hence it is that calves kept constantly in
a stable or cow-house, seldom thrive so well in the
long run as those which are allowed exercise. In
choosing calves for rearing, those born in the
spring are to be preferred ; before the severities
of winter come on they will have acquired strength
to bear the cold, which is trying to younger and
feebler animals, and against which they should be
carefully guarded. No calves should be reared
but those which are perfect in form, with broad
hips in the female, a capacious chest, and sound
lungs. Some recommend that calves intended for
rearing should be allowed to suck the mother for
three or four days, but no more, and then brought
up by hand at the pail. " When the calf is a
week old, skimmed milk, which has been boiled
and allowed to cool again so as to he milk-warm,
tuay be given. After a time this may be diluted

with water and a little meal stirred into it, or
some thin gruel may be made to which skimmed
milk is added. Carrots or turnips make an ex-
cellent food for calves, especially if they are boiled
with cut hay and given warm. In this way calves
may be reared with veiy little milk, till they can
live on grass alone. A bull calf, if not intended
to be kept as a bull, may be castrated when three
months old."

Calves may be, and constantly are, reared in
this manner, but, as we have said, the longer a
calf sucks, the finer animal in all respects does it
grow up, and the more it will ultimately sell for,
so that the profit will pay for the milk consumed.

To a small farmer who depends on his milk
and its produce we doubt the advantage of rearing
calves, excepting on the meagre plan above de-
scribed.

Calves intended for the butcher may be weaned
earlier than others ; in daiiy districts they are
generally sold as soon as possible, for it is chiefly
in the neighbourhood of large towns that the
practice of fattening calves for the market is pro-
fitable. The calf dealer, therefore, buys up the
calves in the dairy disti-icts, and sells them again
to those who rear them. The poor animals are
often carried to a great distance in carts, packed
together on their sides, with their four feet tied
firmly together, and their heads hanging over the
back and sides of the cart. This is a most cniel
and barbarous practice, and ought to be abolished
by the Legislature. It is distressing to behold the
poor animals, bound in this uneasy position, in
which they often remain whole days without food
or drink, so that when they arrive at the place of
sale they are so weak and attenuated, that many
of them die ; and all of them require the gi-eatest
care and attention before they recover sufficient
strength to bear their natural food. If allowed to
satisfy their appetite at first, excessive diarrhoea
supervenes, and they frequently die. In these
cases active astringents are utterly useless, they
only accelerate the fatal tennination. The ex-
hausted calves must be fed upon boiled milk,
given by little and little at a time. To the milk
thus prepared arrow-root or fine flour may be
added, and occasionally an egg well beaten up
previously. Gradually the tone of the stomach
will he restored, and the animals begin to thrive.

A writer on the treatment of calves for the
butcher, inakes the following observations : —

" When the calf begins to thrive on the milk
which he sucks, or which is given him waiin from
the cow, nothing more is necessary than to keep
him extremely clean and dry, to give him plenty
of air, but not much light, and never to disturb
him between his meals, which are generally twice
in the day, at the usual time of milldng the cows.
Where it can be conveniently done, it is better to

177

let them suck three times a clay. If one now does
not give sufficient milk to satisfy the calf when he
begins to get large, auotlier cow must be at haml.
Where a number of calves are fattened at once,
and no butter or cheese is made, the number and
age of the calves must be regulated by the number
of cows and the quantity of milk which they give,
so that there sliall be millv enougli for all.

" The calf pens should be made like narrow
stalls, each for the accommodation of onl_y one
calf, just wide enough to allow him to lie do\Mi,
but not to turn about and lick himself, which, if it
become a habit, will much retard his progress in
fattening. The bottom of the pen should be
paved with brick, and washed clean morning and
evening — or it should be boarded; the boards
should be six inches from the ground, and have
holes bored in them to let the urine drain through.
A piece of chalk or powdered limestone is fre-
quently put in a small trough, which the calf licks,
and thus corrects the acidity which is apt to be
generated in the stomach. The common notion
that it makes the flesh whiter is a mistake, except
so far as good health in the calf produces whiter
flesh. When the calves are taken out of their
stalls to suck the cows, they must not be allowed
to- play instead of sucking. If they appear not to
have much appetite a little salt may be rubbed
into their mouth, and they may occasionally have
a raw egg put down their throat. At five or six
weeks old, if a little sweet hay is tied in a small
bundle with a string and hung before them, they
will pick a little of it ; and by thus exciting the
saliva the digestion will be assisted. It is only by
minute attention that the suckling of calves can be
made more profitable than tlie mailing of butter or
cheese. Wlien it is well managed, and the price
of veal is about one-half the price of butter by the
pound, there is an advantage in suckling, but
otherwise making butter is more profitable.

" Calves should be fat by eight or nine weeks
old, and it is seldom advisable to keep them above
twelve weeks. AVhen they get large they take a
much greater quantity of milk, in comparison with
■what they do at seven or eight weeks old, to pro-
duce the same increase of flesh. A calf of sixteen
or eighteen stones (eight pounds to the stone) the
four quarters, and well fatted, will always sell better
than one that is lai-ger.

" When milk is scarce, and the calves have not
enough to satisfy them, it may be necessary to
give them some substitute, such as meal mixed
with warm milk, or balls of meal and water with a
little gin in them, which makes them drows}'.
Linseed made into a jelly with boiUng water and
mixed with warm milk is given by some, or
powdered oil-cake. All these substitutes can only
be recommended when the milk fails — they dete-
riorate the flesh more or less. The best plan, in

VOL. I.

such a case, is to sell the largest calves, and reduce
the number so that they may all have their fill of
milk. To know the weight of the four quarters of
a calf when killed, take the live weight and mul-
tiply it by O'O. Thus if a live calf weiglis 200
pounds, his four quarters when he is killed will
weigh '200 x 00 = 120 pounds."

It is a general practise on the continent to kill
calves at a very early age, often indeed when only
four or five days old ; the flesh is soft, flabby, and
tasteless ; indeed, to most persons unaccustomed
to such veal, if veal it can be tenned, it is disgust-
ing. It ma}' not perhaps be positively unwhole-
some, but upon this ground it is that no calf
under ten daj'S old is permitted in France and
Switzerland to be slaughtered for the market ; a
considerable penalty is attached to the infraction
of this law. In England veal is highly esteemed,
and is confined chiefl}' to the tables of the more
opulent and middle classes ; but in France, as far
as our own personal observation goes, it is either
less esteemed, or is more accessible to the humbler
classes. In small country villages, for example,
we have often had a dish of veal placed before us at
the rude inn, or cabaret, when no other " butcher's
meat" graced the table. We cannot say much in
its praise ; we do not of coui-se allude to Paris, or
the large cities or towns, but to the far-between
hamlets visited occasionally by the pedestrian tra-
veller, who wishes to see France, not as she displays
herself in the great city, but in the rural districts.

Essex has been long celebrated for the veal
sent up by the feeders in that county to the Lon-
don market.' They are purchased when a week
or fortnight old, at the various markets held from
time to time in Romford, Chelmsford, Colchester,
Braintree, Maldon, &c. Some of these calves are
sent from the dairies about London, and in Mid-
dlesex generally, others from Sufi'olk and the ad-
jacent counties. They are generally fed for about
twelve or thirteen weeks, and then sent to the
Romford and Smithfield markets, where they are
purchased by the London butchers, or are killed
Ijy the Essex butchers and sent to Newgate and
Leadenhall markets. Since the establishment of
railroads, numbers of country-killed calves, as well
as live calves, are seut to the metropolis from
various counties, and Essex is not the almost
exclusive district, which it formerly was, for the
supply of London.

MEDICINES EMPLOYED IN THE
TREATMENT OF CATTLE.

It may be useful to conclude our observations
on the diseases of cattle with a brief account of the
principal medicines employed in their medical and
surgical treatment, many of which the farmer
ought to keep in his possession for instant use

I'4l!:

TUB OX.

awt4r oil ottJe into an naokkm with U>« folk of i with

bo.

in Kru«l. u( t laiUf pun •tuv miUi |ju«ilrrc«l i v
t«>iwti (hairaararbm). I.

When aUxil • yew oU calm are »rr
lo infkmautorr ronpluou. 'rbM« m.i

«enl<

Itti

oalt

gnxi

I**

ptcr Iw UmI tiu«iiK< ■ ruir, thai «)i<
frmalv. Bfx .|«<«i5»ti»>.J fur r«-annv'. ll:
■MSni l> :'
H ibeir ll

Ifr.-

lakrii iiiji IK
C«ir*bouM be
diet niMl Lc r:'
•«f«t b«f or ifrtM Lr
lh« oJr «i)l (ak^ r
•kimaMd i^

u Ljr dijii
a rich gra/

lifr.rriit

..«V ]t..\\

In linn ai

^f!r a r

wvanni ti.i-- ..
lb<< (uod u(lrii- -

lilMO. 1 1 UtiMI

|^KlJ i|«alllT. *A)

in irrt'Wth il i>
in(b«l>I!
n rnr il .

ranagai* to b« pn-f
of «iai«r roa* on Uk^
to Uw tlM coU. «h>
Cprtirr anioMla. aixl *
cmivfuUT ir<ianl«<l. N
liot tl>i>M' vhh'h arv ;
Im|~ ..> th r. „.,1- ,
lui

r>-»'

thrre u

r L-'Ut

.b.

,. 1

it i^-

•P»^

hand

ib«

P..I

WrV

1 1 .1

.1* In bf milk'Vn:

Uus maj li« dilu;

*l«r uiil • little meal stim-d intn it, or
I"- made t.i which skimmed
i^ 'T tunii|»s make an ex-

■ -<■• ■ inlly if they are iMiiled

111 this way calves

1 milk, till tiiey can

in A Lull lalf, if imt intended

I'ull, may W ca.strated when three

U\ and constantly are, reared in

It. as we lm\c said, the longer a

iiiuT animal in idl res|>eot8 does it

'..• iMiire it will ultimately sell for,

I iv f ip ihe milk (X»n«.iimed.

r «liM depends on his milk

-- .'ulit Uie adrantjige of rearing

^Ypting on the meagre plan above de-

rih.- luitcher may be weaned

11 .Liin- districts they are

' '•■. fi'r it is chielly

tiiwii-i that the

::h- market is jini-

• I. iinrvfore. buys up lite
lit- iind wdls them again

'" ■ l> "ir animals are
ill carls, imcked

i I til if fiiur feet tied

.tnd iheir hcjids hanging over the

*■ the cnrl. lliis is a most cniel

I ii.jlii III l,p alMilislied

I. --iii'4 to behold the

, .- liuiiisy |Hisition. in

•1 lO, >le days without food

ilo \ urrive at the plaice of

ui-.ik ajid lUtenuiiteil. that many

I nil (if ihfiii rt><|uin- the greatest

lioy ri'cover sufficient

1 f»o<l. If allowed to

-t. excessive diarriioMi

' I'u-ntly die. In these

ire utterly useless, they

■ ! Nrmination. 'Hie ex-

'••l upon Uiiled milk.

,■ ,ii a time. To the milk

it or fine flmir may lie

\ iin egg well lieaten up

;)i' lone of the st<ima<'h

• iiiiinals l>egin to thrive.

icnt of cilves for the

J ol>HiT«ations : —

to thrive on the milk

'•r winch i» giv.n him wann from

. n>-.r*» i^ necessary than to keep

in. to give him plenty

and never to disturb

i' h are (if-nerally twice

of milking the cows.

i.ilv done, it b better to

179

the medicine. It may be given in doses of six,
eight, or ten ounces.

CROTON (on, OF, AND FARINA OF THE SEEDs).

As croton oil is mostly adulterated, and as the
powder or farina loses its strength by keeping, it
ia the best plan to have recourse to the seeds
themselves, which may be preserved in a well-
stopped bottle. When required they should be
deprived of their shells and pounded.

Croton is but rarely used, and then generally
in combination with other medicines. It is a
powerful purgative. Dose :^of the seed, from ten
to forty grains ; of the essential oil, from ten to
forty drops.

CASTOR OIL.

This is an excellent but expensive purgative,
and is often a useful adjunct to Epsom salts. It
may be given iu doses of six, eight, or twelve
ounces.

LINSEED OIL.

This is little inferior to castor oil, and is very
much cheaper. Its dose is the same as that of the
jireceding oil. The same observations apply to
Olive Oil.

Such are the principal purgatives employed in
the treatment of cattle. Whatever the medicine
may be which is selected to form a di'ench, it will
be generally necessary to add some cordial or sti-
mulant to it, in order to excite the insensible lining
of the paunch. Of these cordials the cow leech
has a great variety, such as cardamon seeds, cum-
min seeds, pepper, coriander, &c., &c., all of which
are superseded by ginger and caraway seeds pow-
dered (in doses of one, two, or three drachms, and
more as may be required), and essence of pepper-
mint.

We subjoin a few forms of purgatives, which
may be readily made up by the farmer : —

AN ACTIVE PURGATIVE.'

Sulphate of magnesia twelve ounces

Sulphur four ounces

Powdered ginger two drachms.

Dissolve in a quart of gruel or warm water ; if
a still more active dose be required, from ten to
twenty grains of the farina of croton seed may be
added.

AN OLEAGINOUS PURGATIVE.

Sulphate of magnesia six ounces

Sulphur two ounces

Powdered ginger two drachms

Dissolve iu thin gruel or warm water, and add

Linseed oil twelve ounces. — Mix.

ALOETrC PURGATIVE, USEFUL IN COLIC.

Barbadoes aloes four drachms

Common salt sis ounces

Ginger three drachms

Laudanum one small tahle-spoonfrd

Wat«i or gruel one quart. — Mix.

For young calves, castor oil, in doses of two
or three ounces, with a little ginger, forms the
safest aperient. When older, the followng drench
may be given : —

Sulphate of magnesia two or three ounces

Carbonate of soda two drachms

Ginger one drachm

Water six or eight ounces. — Mix

ALTERATIVES AND SPECIFIC
MEDICINES.

These are medicines that exert a peculiar in-
fluence on certain organs, altering their diseased
action or stimulating their respective secretion ;
some of these medicines, as iodine, affect the glan-
dular system through the absorbents ; others, as
rethiops mineral, act on the cutaneous secretions ;
others, as calomel, excite the action of the liver ;
others, as ergot of rye, exert a peculiar effect on
the uterus. We know little or notliiug of their
modus operandi, experience only has made us ac-
quainted with their effects.

calomel (sobmdriate or protochloride of
mercury).

Calomel is not often administered to cattle, it
is most useful in dysentery and in diseases of the
liver. It is given in doses of from half a drachm,
to two drachms, in combination with half a drachm
of powdered opium in thick gruel ; but the pro-
fessed veterinary surgeon only should be entrusted
with it.

sulphate of mercury or ^thiops mineral.

This is very useful in cutaneous diseases, and
is generally given, combined with sulphur and
nitre. It is administered in doses of half a drachm,
to two drachms. An excellent alterative for hide-
bound cattle is composed of a drachm of tethiops
mineral, two drachms of nitre, and four drachms
of sulphm-. To be given once a day.

Both as an external application, and a medicine
taken internally, iodine is extremely valuable in
cases of glandular affections, and indurated swell-
ings of the udder ; a useful ointment may be com-
posed of one drachm of iodine and seven drachms
of lard. The iodide of potassium is however
a more convenient preparation. It may be
made into an ointment iu the same proportions
as the pm-e iodine, and in the dispereion of har-
dened tumom-s and enlarged glands, acts with
decided advantage. The iodide of potass given
internally materially assists in the absoqition of
tumours, and is strongly recommended in phthisis
or consumption, when tubercles have formed on
the lungs, indicated by an inward, hollow, feeble,

180 THE

and gurgling cougli, succeeding catarrh, or inflam-
mation of the lungs. The dose is from three
gi-ains, morning and evening, to eight or ten grains
(the increase being gradual), in a small mash.

EKGOT OF EYE.

Spun-ed rye exerts a peculiar action on the
utenis, exciting its contractile efforts, and is given
occasionally, when, in lingering parturition, the
powei-s of that organ are exhausted. The average
dose of ergot of r}'e in powder is from two to three
drachms, and this may he repeated at intervals of
half an hour, or an hour, till the powers of the
uterus are roused.

DIURETIC MEDICINES.
Diui'etics are medicines which excite the action
of the kidneys ; they are not much employed in the
treatment of cattle, hut may be sometimes used
.with advantage.

TURPENTINE.

Turpentine is not only a diuretic, it is also an
antispasmodic, and a vermifuge ; that is, a certain
destroyer of intestinal worms. Externally applied
it is stimulating and irritant. The dose of turpen-
tine is from one ounce to four, with linseed oil.
The following diuretic has been found to be
serviceable : —

Oil of juniper four drachms

Oil of turpentine one ounce

Tincture of opium one ounce

Linseed tea one pint. — Mix.

To be given once a day.

KITKE, OR NITRATE OF POTASS.

Nitre is a diuretic, and also a useful, cooling,
or febrifuge medicine, in inflammatory diseases.
Its dose is from two to eight drachms.

SEDATIVES & FEBRIFUGE MEDICINES.
These are medicines calculated to allay fever,
and moderate the action of the arterial system.
In some respects opium and laudanum come under
the denomination of sedatives ; nothing allays irri-
tation so promptly as opium, and it is often requi-
site even to combine it with purgatives. But
we shall again recur more particularly to this
estimable drug.

NITRATE OF POTASS.

We have already stated this salt to be a veiy
useful febrifuge, in doses of two or four drachms.
A solution of nitrate of potass in water, forms a
good cooling lotion to local bruises.

TARTAR EMETIC, OR TARTRATE OP ANTIMONY.

Tartar emetic possesses gi'eat efficacy in lowering
the strength of the pulse, and in inflammation of
the lungs, pleurisy, catarrh, &c., is a most valuable
medicine. Its dose is from a scruple to a drachm.

Tartar emetic made into an ointment, with
lard, forms a powerful irritant to the skin, often
very beneficial.

DIGITALIS.

The powder of the dried leaves of the foxglove
acts with great efficacy in reducing the action of
the heai-t, and the general irritability of the system.
Its operation must be narrowly watched, as it is
apt to accumulate, as it were, in the system, and to
produce a sudden degree of exhaustion, a sinking
of the vital powers to an alarming degree. It will
almost always render the pulse intermittent, but
this need not cause any alann, it is indeed a desi-
deratum indicative of the subjugation of the fever.
Digitalis powder must be kept in a closely stopped
bottle, with dark coloured paper pasted aroimd it
so as to exclude it from the action of the light,
which destroys its active principle. The dose of
this medicine, for cattle, is from a scruple to a
drachm, once or twice a day.

The following prescription constitutes a good
fever-mLxture for cattle, in pleurisy, and other
inflammatory diseases : —

Digitalis powder half a drachm to one drachm

Tartar emetic half a drachm to one drachm

Nitre four drachms to sis drachms

Water one pint.— Mix.

To he given two or three times a day.

WHITE HELLEBORE.

The powder of white hellebore is sometimes
given in inflammation of the lungs, as a sedative
Dose, one scruple.

SPIRIT OF NITROUS ETHER

This medicine is often employed in fevers, and
inflammatory diseases, at their advanced stage,
when great debility is present. It has been found
beneficial in advanced stages of epidemic catarrh ;
it rouses, to a certain degree, the powers of the
system, while ij; acts as a febrifuge and sudorific.
Dose, from two drachms to an ounce. Half an
ounce is the average dose.

ANTISPASMODICS.
In some respects we may place the spirit of
nitrous ether, last noticed, among antispasmodics,
and also spirits of turpentine, both of which are
useful in cases of colic. The great antispas-
modic, however, is opium.

This drag is both an antispasmodic and a seda-
tive In diarrhoea, dysentery, inflammation of the
bowels, in colic, in locked jaw, and spasmodic
affections generally, it is of the highest importance.
Opium is most conveniently administered in the
form of a powder, suspended in mucilage or gniel ;
the dose is from half .a drachm to a drachm, or a

]S1

drachm and a half, once or tmce a day, in some
cases three times a dnj.

LAUDANUM OR TINCTUBE OF OPIUM.

Tinctvu'e of opium possesses the same properties
as the powder of opium. The dose is from half an
ounce to about an ounce.

SULPHURIC ETHER.

Sulphuric ether is a powerful antispasmodic
and stimulant, and is sometimes employed in colic
and other spasmodic affections It may be given
in doses of two di'achms, four drachms, or one
ounce. It has been found useful in cases of hoove,
promptly condensing the gas in the stomach,
■\vithout causing any dangerous mitation.

TONICS.
In cases of gi-eat debility, especially during
slow recover}' from fever, inflammation, or other
diseases, tonics are often extremely useful ; but
they must not be administered injudiciously, or
hefore the fever has totally subsided. The best
tonics are gentian, coliunbo, etc.

Powdered gentian is generally given with a
drachm or two of ginger, in doses varying from one
to four drachms, in water or a little good ale. In
cases of debility, after red water, Mr. Han-ison
recommends a drachm of gentian and ginger and
an ounce of spirit of nitrous ether, in grael, tmce
a day.

COLUMBO-EOOT.

Powder of columbo-root is given with ginger in
the same doses as gentian. It is useful in debility
which follows after dysentery.

SULPHATE OF IKON.

Sulphate of iron is occasionally given as a
tonic to cattle, m doses of from two to four
drachms, combined with gentian.

STIMULANTS AND CORDIALS.
Cordials and stimulating drenches, composed
of a mixture of ingredients, are great favourites
with the cow-leech, and much mischief is often
caused by their imprudent administration. A good
cordial draught requires for its composition but
few drags, and may be made agreeable instead of
disgusting to the palate. Ginger, caraway-seeds
bruised, a few drops of oil of aniseed, or, what is
far better, oil of peppermint (commonly called
essence of peppermint), and a little carbonate of
ammonia, or carbonate of soda (if there be acid on
the stomach), with good ale, neither hard nor acid,
will make the best cordial drenches.

GTXGEE.

Dose, from half a drachni to four drachms.

CARAWAV-SEEDS.

Bruised caraway-seeds, though inferior to
ginger, are useful as a cordial. Dose, from half
an ounce to two ounces.

It ma}' be as well while talking of cordial me-
dicines, which relieve and warm the stomach, and
excite its digestive powers, to notice the chloride
of lime, so well known as a disinfectant. In cases
of hoove or distention of the stomach by gas, gene-
rated from the food, chloride of lime acts as a cor-
dial, though upon chemical principles only. Two
drachms of chloride of lime, in two quarts of water,
constitutes a dose, it must be given by means of
the stomach-pump. When in the stomach, the
chloride separates itself from the lime, and com-
bines with the hydrogen gas, for which it has a
more powerful alEnity than for lime : it thus fomis
muriatic gas. This gas has a strong affinity for
water, and is quickly absorbed by the fluid always
contained within the stomach ; thus quitting its
gaseous for a fluid form, it quickly disappears, oris
reduced to a thousandth part of its former bulk.
Muriatic acid is now formed ; but no mischief results
from this circumstance, nor from the liberation of
the lime, for there being a chemical affinity between
the lime and the muriatic acid, a recomposition is
formed, and an inert solution of muriate of lime is
the result. This is not theory, but has been brought
to the test successfully in practice. Mr. Youatt
says that chloride of lime, administered internally
in blain, in the malignant epidemic, and in
diarrhoea, and dysentery, is of essential service : "in
the last disease it is particularly beneficial, in
changing the nature of the intestinal discharge, and
depriviug it of its putridity and infection, and dis-
posing the surface of the intestines to tal^e on a
more healthy character."

CHLORIDE OF LLME.

Its properties see above. Dose, two drachms.
We cannot call this salt a cordial, nor is it easy to
say under what head it should be ranged. Its
action depends upon the laws of chemistry.

SUBCARBONATE OF AMMONIA.

Subcarbonate of ammonia is a stimulant not
often given to cattle, it is sometimes added in
doses of half a drachm or a drachm, with ginger, to
a purgative drench, and occasionally also to a
cordial drench. It has been used in cases of hoove,
but not with veiy marked success.

AMMONIA LIQUID.

Liquid ammonia is given by some practitioners
in cases of hoove of sudden occurrence, and pro-
duced by green food. ' It is given in doses of an
ounce and a half mixed in a pint of water. Mr
Spooner says, " Experience has proved to me its

180 Tin

luttl gur^lin** cou);li, succeediii}; catarrh, or inflom-
luiition «>f ilif luiiftM. The dose is from thn-f
gruiiiH, iiiiiniiti({ aiiil eveninjj, to eight or ten gniiiis
(the iiR-rease being gradual I. in a small nia.sli.

KRGC/r OK IIYK.

Sjiiirrrd rye exerts a i>eculiar ai-tion on the
titcrus, exritiiig its njutractile cflTorts. and is given
orrtihionallv, when, in lin^'i'rin^' |i4irlnri(i<>n. i)i'
|»iwerK of that (irgiin are r\liau'»ii'd. '1 he svimi'
ili>»e of ergnt of ryv in p<i«i|i r i» fmni two to tlir^ ■
drni-linis, and this niav U- rr|>eated at intervals of
ludf an hour, or an hour, till the ]iowerB of the
utcnu are roused.

nURETir MKDK INKS.
Diuri'tii-s are medicines which excite the action
of the kidneys ; thev are not much employed in the
treatment of cattle, hut mar be Mimetimes used
wiili advantage.

TlHrKKTIXE.

Turpentine is not ouir a diurplic, it b also an
anti'<|in.'>miMlic. ami a veniiifuge : that is, a certain
«lestn>yer of nitestinal vionns. Kxtemallr ap|die<l
it is sliinitlaling and irritant. The dose of tuqieii-
tine is from one oimcp to four, with linsee<l oil.
The following diuretic lias been found to U-
serviceable : —

Oil of Janipvr fuur drarhma

Oil of tarprDlior mie tmnrc

TiArturr of o|i«tiiii mc oudc«

Liwenl Ira «ae|iiM. — Mil.

To be gitm odcc • daj.

MTUE. on SITTUTJ; OF IHTTASS.
Nitre in a diuretic, and nl«> a useful, cooling,
or febrifuge medicine, in inllunmiatorr diseases.
Its dose is from two to eight dmchms.

SEDATIVES * FEBRIFT:GE MEDICINES.
Tlie.se are medicines ca]ndate<l to allay fever,
and moderate the action of the arterial system.
In some resp«vts opium and laudanum come under
the denomination of sedatives ; iinthing allays irri-
tation so promptly as opium, and it is often re<)ui-
site even to combine it with purgotives. Hut
we shall again recur more pnrticularly to this
estimable drug.

NinUTE OF POTASS.

W'p have alreaily stated this salt to lie a very
Mseful febrifuge, in doses of two or four drachms.
A solution of niimte of potass in water, forma a
good cooling lotion to local bruises.

TARTAIl EM>-nc, OR TARTRATE OF AXTIMOXT.

Tartan nietic jiossesses great efficacy in lowering
the strength of the i-ulse, and in intlnmmation of
the lungs, pleurisy, catarrh. A<-.. is r most valuable
medicine. Its dose is from a scruple to a drachm.

rtar emetic mad.; into an ointment, wi
lanl )niw u jiowcrful irritant to the skin, ofte|
ver\ •ncliiiid.

MilITAUS.

e I .. .« .ler of the dried leaves of the foxglove
Hi'- ^ ' ill reducing the action of

tin il iiriinliility of the system.

I'- 11 luirrowly watched, as it is

Ululate, as it were, in the system, and to

-iidden degree of exhaustion, a sinking

"I li viLil |iowers to an alanniiig degree. It will

aliiii ahviiys render the pulse intermittent, Imt

tlii- el •■ ' i-e ;itiy alimn, it is indeed a desi-

dii 1 . ■! I lie subjugation of tlie fever.

I>i I ; inii-i lie kept in a closely stopped

Ix'U. wall dark coloured pa|ier pasted around it
-I I II to exclude it from the action of the lif^ht,
whii destroys its active principle. The dose of
thi-. ^dicine, for cattle, is from a scruple to a
dnu 't, once or twice a day.

'lie following pn^scription constitutes a good
fe\eiiixture for cattle, in pleurisy, and other
iiit1:i natory diseases : —

I Ul • ixivdrr hairadrai'hin looncdnrhm

I mi rmriir half a drachm to nnr drnclim

^ d I'Hir drai-hm^ lo tix drachma

\ rr ow piiiL— Mia.

To he gi*ru two or three timea a day.

WHITE HELLEBORE.

'1 9 powder of white hellelwre is sometimes

S'veiiQ intlammntion of the lungs, as a sedative
OS) me scruple.

SPIRIT or KITROfS ETHER

' ' is nie<lirine is often employed in fevers, and
iiillui natory diseases, at their advanced stage,
«hei ;reat debility is present. It has been found
beni ial in atlvanced stages of epidemic catarrh ;
it r< e», to a certain degree, the piwers of the
systi , while il arts as a febrifuge and sudorific.
I).. SI from two drachms to an ounce. Half au
nun. (B the average dose.

ANTISPASMODICS.
1 some respects we may place tlie spirit of
nitr><i ether, la.st noticed, among antispa-smodics,
and to sjiirits of turpentine, l»oth of wliich are
usefiiiin cases of colic. The great antispas-
mo<lifhowever, is opiimi.

OPIIM.

dnig is l>oth an antispasmodic ando seda-
diarrhaa. dysentery, inflammation of the
n odic. in locked jaw, and spasmodic
18 generally, it is of the highest importance.
, . , is most conyeniently administered in the
fnnii f a powder, suspended in mucilage or gnicl ;
the <fe is from half a drachm to a drachm, or a

I % 9

183

act as counter-irritants : and iii inflammation of
the lungs or other important organs, should not
be neglected. Black hellebore-root is an irritant,
and produces a free discharge of matter.

BLISTEUS.

Blisters are efficient counter-irritants ; but
the thick hide of the ox is not readily affected
by them. The common blister-ointment with
turpentine will sometimes act, or the following : —
Powder of blister-fly, one ounce ; olive oil, sLs
ounces ; oil of turpentine, four ounces. — Mix. To
be well rubbed in.

An ointment composed of one drachm of emetic
tartar and six of lard will produce great irritation.

Boiling water and the hot iron are powerful
counter-irritants, and their use is sometimes, in
severe cases, resorted to.

POULTICES.

Linseed-meal forms the best poultice. If the
ulcers to which it is applied be foul, a little
of the chloride of lime should be mixed with
it. If it be the object to bring tlie ulcer to a
proper state of suppuration, a little turpentine
may be added. No other stimulus is needed,
still less the torturing caustics of the cow-leech.

DISINFECTANTS.

Of these, none are equal to chloride of lime.
Half an ounce of the powder may be dissolved
in a gallon of water ; with this the cow may
be well washed, as is needful after abortion
(see "Abortion"), and the floor and walls of the
cow-house. As a purifying lotion for foul ulcers,
of the feet, udder, &c., it is of eminent service ;
it induces a healthy action, and abolishes the
often ovei-powering fcetor.

STIMULANTS.

Tuiijentiue and hartshorn, with camphorated
oil, form a good stimulating embrocation, useful
in strains, chronic rheumatism, &c. An ounce
of the two first may be added to two ounces of
the latter.

OINTMENTS.

Ointments are prepared for different purposes.
A good digestive ointment for wounds is com-
posed of lard and turpentine, of each four ounces,
melted together, with one ounce of finely-powdered
verdigris or acetate of copper added to it and
well mixed.

Calamine ointment is useful in superficial
wounds. It is generally termed a " healing oint-
ment;" and when deep wounds have assumed a
healthy character, may be applied with advantage.
Calamine is an ore of zinc, consisting of the
oxide combined with carbonic acid and mixed
with earthy matter.

Sulphur and mercurial ointment, with linseed
oil and a little turpentine, form an unguent very
efficacious in mange and similar cutaneous diseases.

White lead, or subcarbonate of lead, is the
basis of a cooling and drying ointment, often useful
in excoriations or torn wounds of the skin.

In the preparation of ointment, wax, oil, and
lard, are useful in different proportions. The
wax gives firmness and consistency, the oil fluidity.

CAUSTICS.

Of all caustics, nitrate of silver, or lunar
caustic, is the most powerful, and one over
which the operator has great command. In
wounds inflicted by the bite of a rabid dog its
free application to every recess or sinuosity of the
wound is essential, and cannot be too much in-
sisted upon. Lunar caustic is useful in removing
warts and other slight cutaneous excrescences.

Caustics of a milder nature are often applied
to fungous excrescences, and unhealthy granula-
tions. Verdigris or acetate of copper, mLxed
with an equal proportion of sugar of lead, finely
powdered, is sprinkled on the diseased sm-face,
and acts with good effect.

Powdered sulphate of copper, or blue vitriol,
is recommended as a caustic or escharotic, in order
to produce sloughing in the disease termed Joul
in the foot. (See " Foul in the Foot.")

Chloride of antimony, commonly called butyr
or butter of antimony, is a very useful and con-
venient caustic where a supei-ficial action only is
required. It does not produce any deep corrosion ;
and in indolent ulcers, cankered foot, the foot-rot
in sheeji, and in the removal of warts or excres-
cences, it is of great value.

DEESSrSGS.

Setting aside ointments, there are other dress-
ings of importance in the wounds and sores of
cattle ; and of these, tincture of aloes, tincture
of myrrh, and compound tincture of benzoin or
Friar's balsam, may be noticed.

In recent wounds, tincture of aloes is an
excellent dressing ; and in foul ulcere discharging
fcetid purulent matter, equal parts of this tincture
and of the solution of chloride of lime form an
excellent application.

Tincture of aloes may be tlnis prepared :

Powdered aloes eight ounces

Powdered myrrh one ounce

Rectified spirit two quarts

Water two quarts. — Mis.

Let it stand for fourteen days, being frequently well shaken : it
is then fit for use.

Tincture of myrrh is useful for the same pur-
poses as the tincture of aloes, and also as an
application to cankered patches about the mouth.

Compomid tincture of benzoin or Friar's bal-
sam(London Pharmacopa;ia) is an excellent dressing

184

for sluggisli ulcers. Its general use is the same
as that of the tincture of aloes.

Cooling lotions are often useful in bruises,
or sprains with superficial inflammation. A solu-
tion of nitrate of potass forms a good cooling
lotion in these cases. lu inflammation of the
eye, the goulard lotion is of great service. It
may be made with a teaspooiiful of the goulard
extract (liquor plumbi superacetatis) to half a pint
of pure water.

A tonic or astringent lotion of great service
when active inflammation of the e3'e has subsided,
is composed of sulphate of zinc (white vitriol) and
■water, in the proportion of three or four grains of
the former to an ounce of the latter. It should
be used weak at first (two grains of sulphate of
zinc to an ounce of water), and gradually increased
in strength. When debility of the vessels alone
remains, it produces very good effects.

FOMENTATIONS.

The chief benefit derived from fomentations
results from the warmth of the water. The warm
fluid opens the pores of the skin, excites the
action of the cutaneous vessels, produces perspira-
tion, and is thus useful in relieving pain and
abating local inflammation. It has a soothing
©flfect on the nerves. Some use decoctions of
various herbs as fomentations ; but herbs do not
increase the benefit of the warm water. Pojspy-
heads, however, from the opium which they con-
tain, are perhaps advantageous. A little laudanum
■would be better.

PLASTEES OR CHARGES.

Plasters or charges are useful in cases of sprain,
or chronic local debility, arising from bruises or
rheumatism. They are useful when spread on
the loins of old cows, weakened by chronic rheu-
matism. They give a'permanent.supportto the part,
and keep up a constant but gentle stimulus to the
skin, from which they are not easily removed.

They consist of pitch, resin, wax, &c., thickly
spread upon coarse cloth or a piece of leather.

Tar spread upon cloth forms an excellent co-
vering for broken horns ; it excludes the entrance
of atmospheric air into the sinuses or cells of the
skull, and also the ingress of flies or other insects.
It forms also a useful plaster for spreading over a
wound penetrating into the chest or the abdominal
cavity, from which it excludes the air. Mixed with
krd and spread on cloth it makes a good bandage

for the defence of sore feet against the mud or
wet, and also saves them from becoming bruised.

Of the medicines and external applications
above enumerated, and from which we have de-
signedly excluded corrosive sublimate, as very dan-
gerous excepting in the most cautious hands, there
are some which the farmer or cattle-keeper ought
to keep by him in store for instant use. Of these
we may enumerate salts, linseed-oil, ginger, sul-
phur, opium, chloride of lime, chalk, nitre, linseed-
meal, turpentine, tincture of aloes, or compound
tincture of benzoin, tar, plasters, and perhaps
ergot of rye.

He should be furnished with a hollow or tubu-
lar probang and Read's stomach and enema-pump,
a seton needle, and a fleam with different sized
lancets for grown-up cattle and younger beasts.
These should always be in order, and ready for in-
stant use. In acute diseases delay is dangerous ;
an hour lost, and all the mischief may be done.

With regard to the numerous drugs, some of
them, as turmeric, &c. inert, and others dangerous,
which disfigure the shelves of the cow-leech, the
less the farmer concerns himself with them the
better ; let him beware of nostrums " good" for
such and such diseases, and which though sanc-
tioned by custom, ought, like the ridiculous com-
pounds of the Pharmacopceia of the olden time, to
be rejected as unworthy of notice. Science in the
practice of medicine, whether man or one of the
lower animals be concerned, aims at simplicity, at
the production t)f certain results by efficient and
well-directed means, and at the assistance of na-
ture in her operations. Let it be remembered too
that it is better to prevent a disease than to cure
it; diet, air, cleanliness, due exercise, are all
points of consideration, and require attention.
Sudden change of pasturage, the sudden substitu-
tion of high diet for meagre fare, the exposure of
heated cattle to wet or cold, over-driving, careless
milking, rash blows, all these and more, in their
turn have caused the destruction of hundreds and
hundreds of valuable animals. The means of pre-
serving health should be as sedulously studied and
attended to as those of curing disease ; nor, ■nith
this aim only (and other motives, those of kind
feeling and humanity should operate) ought the
comfort of cattle to be neglected. The rules
which reason dictates for the preservation of health,
are indeed of primary consideration. These rules
should be observed by the healthy, and care must
be taken, lest, while in good health, the barriers
against disease be destroyed.

[CONCLDSTO.V OF THE OX.]

THE HORSE.

BY WILLIAM YOUATT.

WITH A TREATISE ON DRAUGHT.

181 THI

for slug^fish ulcere. Its general use is the same
iM tbnt uf the tincture of aloes.

I.OTIOSH.

Cooling lutiuus ore often UM'ful in bruises,
iir Npruin.s witli 8U|*crticial inllaniinuliun. A kuIu-
tiun of iiilnito of |>ola.s8 furniK a giKxl cooling
lotion in these cases. in inlliiiniuution of llie
eve, llie goulurJ lotion is of great service. It ] we ni
may bo niaJo with a tea.s|><x)nful of the goulurJ j plmr.
extnut (li(|uor pluinbi superaccUitisj to half u pint meal.
of pure water. j ,i,„.,;,

A tonic or astringent lotion of great service
when ai-tive intlaniiuation of the eye lias subsided,
is com|K)scd of sulphate of zinc (white vitriol) and
vrater, in the pn>|Hirtion of three or four grains of
the former to an ounce of tlie latter. It should
bo Used weak at lin*t (two grains of sulphate of I 'I'h,
/inr to an ounce of waten, and gradually iucrea.Hed | hiimt
in strength. Whru debiiitv- of the vessels alone
roniaius, it ])roduces very good eirecto.

FOMENTATIONS.

The chief benefit derived from fomentation^
rcsult.s from the warmth of the water. The warm
lluid o{>ens the pores of the skin, excites thr
ucUon of the cuuuieous vessels, produces |H>rspir.i
tion, and is thus useful in relieving pain and
aluiting liM-al intlammation. It lias a soothing
olTect on the nerves. .Some use decoctions of
various herbs as fomentations; but herbs do not
increase the l)enelit of the warm water. I'oppy
heads, however, from Iho opium which lliey con-
tain, are |ii-rhaps advantageous. A little lauclaiium
Would bu U-ttcr.

signci
gemu
are si'
to kee

erg.it
II

Innr

ri.ASTERS on CIIAROKS.

Pliusters or charges are u.seful in cases of sprain,
or chrunic local debility, arising from bniises or
rheumatism. They are useful when spread on
the loins of old cows, weakened by chronic rheu-
matism. They give a permiuienI.sup|K>rt to the jMirt,
and keep up a constiint but gentle stimulus to the
skin, from which they are not easily removed.

They consist of pitch, resin, wax, Ac, thickly
spread n|v)n coarse cloth or a piece of leother.

Tar spread up<m cloth forms an excellent co-
vering for broken horns ; it excludes the entrance
of iiimosphcric air into the sinuses or cells of the
skull, and also the ingress of llies or other insects.
It fiirnis also a useful plaster for spreailing over a
wound penetrating into the chest or the alnlominal
cavity, from which it excludes the air. Mixed with

for til defence of sore feet agiunst the mud or
wet, n also s<ives lliem from becoming bruised.

O the iii.iiicines and external applications
alwve lUniir.iti'd, and from which we have de-
i-Xilu.i.di-orrohivo sublimate, as very dan-
Xi-< I'lnig in the most cautious hands, there
9 v%liuh the farmer or cattle-keeper ought
by hiin ni store for instant use. Uf these
enumerate salts, linseed-oil, ginger, sul-
iuiu. I'liKirideof lime, chalk, nitre, linsced-
rpentine, tincture of aloes, or compound
of benzoin, tar, plasters, and perhaps
rye.

I ' ' ' ;■ miished with a hollow or tubu-
.1 ^ stomach and enema-pump,
I la lleam with dilbrent si/.ed

or growii-up cattle and younger beasts,
loulil always be in order, and reiuly for in-
». In acute diseiLses delay is dangerous;
an b'>i lost, and all the niisi-hicf may be done.

\N' i rt'gard to the numerous drugs, some of
them, i'tunneric, Ac. inert, and others ilangerous,
wliir-t; «|ti^'ure the shelves of the cow-leech, the
1 MiK-r concerns himself with them the
him lieware of nostnnns " good" for
-, anil which though sane-
I. like the ri<liculous com-
I "jHiia of the oMen time, to

uo»<.i'tiiy of notice. Science in the
dicine, whether man or one of the
■- l.i' r. ini-cmed, aims at simplicity, at
•1 <'f nrtoin results by eflicient and
: i iniMiis. and at the assistance of na-
ture III er ojiemtions. Let it be remembered too
tliat ii I better to prevent a disease than to cure
it; di' air. clemiliness, due exeri'ise, are all
piints t consideraiion, and re<]uire attention.
Siiddei -hange of pasturage, the siiddeu sultstitu-
ti"n ol igli diet f.r meagre fare, the exposure of
heated itile to wet or Cold, over-driving, careless
milkiii rasli Mows, alt these and more, in their
turn b » caused the destniclion of hundreds and
hiiiiiln . of \aliiulile animals. The means of pre-
^erriii; eallli -liuiild be as sedulously studied and
aiiriel. to a^ iliose of curing diseiLse ; nor, with
this nil only (and nther motives, those of kind
feeling od humaniiy should opei^te) ought the
comf'iiiof rjitile til be neglected. The rules
which r «4iii ill. I lies for the preservation of health,
are iiiil<l nf iprimnry considemtion. These rules
should I i>l>served by the healthy, and care must
be takoi le-.t. while in good health, the barriers

1..- I.J. od
|inicii. of

bird and spread on cloth it makes a good bandage I against kcase be destroyed.

[COSCLCSIOX

or TlIK 9.]

ton M''

1000''

[HE HORSE.

CHAPTER T.

ITS EAULY niSTOUY.

That this animal existed before t) Flood, tlie
researches of geologists atlord abtdaut proof.
Tbere is not n portion of Euroi>i\ ii< scarcely any
part of the globe, from the troiiii'.il iiins of India
to the frozen regions of Siberia — iV 'ithe northern
extremities of the New World tn tin cry southern
point of America, in which the fussil miuns of the
horse have not been found mingled uh the bones
of the hippopotjimus, the elephant. U rhinoceros,
the bear, the tiger, the deer, and arious other
animals, some uf which, like the ostodon, have
passed away.

There is scarcely a district in <irvt Britain in
which the fossil remains of this nnial have not
been discovered. In the ni:iiori ■• if cases the
bones are of nearly the s;iiiii' ^i/.c v n those of the
common breed of horses at the pi eait day ; but
in South America the bones of horseof a gigantic
size have been dug up.

Whether the horse had tliPii }•<■■ )• the servant
of man, or for what purpose ]u' wa- i J, we know
not. Every record of him was ^u. i way by the
general inundation, except iliat i! rk of Xoah
presened a remnant of the nuo 1'm i ■ future use
of man.*

In the sacred volume, which, besi^s its higher

'I i! Fanner's

II • history of

ade of cer-

o Abraham

1 Tiiey con-

iid female,

s: but the

I -;<-arcely be

: II that this

Cypt, or, at

claims to stand at the head of
Library," contains the oldest auiln
past transactions, an enunn rarion
tain valuable gifts that were |ii-.~' n
by Pharaoh, the monarch uf ]'..'n
sisted of sheep, oxen, assi.s mai
camels, men-servants and nniil-s.-i
horse is not mentioned.! Tlil> .
accounted for, except on the Mipj"
noble animal was not then fcjiml n
least, had not been domesticadal th-

The first allusion to the 1
of the Flood, is a perfectly iiicL
said of Aa^Hjti^son of Zibeon,
Isaac, wl^^^^^Hi about the
1.500, th^^^B^Bthe mules
the pro^^^^^^l ass and

earliest i
12lh

It i>r the hist<
llldmilton Sq
.'s Libra]

i period
It is
aryof
Christ
Jess —
\e fed

<jm the
I in the

the asses of his father. J The wilderness referred
to was that of Idumea or Seir. Whether these
were wild horses that inhabited the deserts of
Idumea, or had been subjugated by man, we know
not. History is altogether silent as to the period
when the connexion cumnienced or was renewed
between the human being ami this his most valu-
able servant.ll

Nearly a century after this, when Jacob de-
parted from I.aban, a singular account is given of
the immber of goats and sheep, and camels, and
oxen, and asses which he possessed ; but no men-
tion is made of the horse. § This also would lead
to the conclusion that the horse was either not
known or was not used in Canaan at that early
period.

Another century or more passed on, and wag-
gons— conveyances drawn by animals — were sent
to Cauiian to bring Joseph's father into Egypt.
No mention is made of the kind of animals by
which these vehicles were drawn ; but there are
many fragments of the architecture of the early
ages, and particularly of the Egyptian architecture,
in which the chariots, even on slate occasions, were
drawn by oxen. We cannot, however, come to any
certain conclusion from this ; but at no distant
period, while Joseph and his father were still living,
a famine, precedeil by scveiid years of plenty, oc-
curred ill Egypt. Joseph, who had arrived at the
chief oflieo in the state under Pharaoh, had availed
himself of tho cheapness of the corn during the
plentiful years, and had accnunulated great (juan-
tities of it in tho royal granaries, which he after-
wards sold to the starving pcoidc for money, as long
as it lasted, and then for their cattle and horses.

This is the first certain mention of the horse
in sacred or profane history ; but it utfords no clue
as to the purposes to which this animal was then
devoted. In a few years, however, after tho ces-
sation of this famine, some elucidation of this

J Gen. xxxvi. 2-1.

II Colonil Hamilton Smilli ha.s the folhiwinR Interesting obser-
vations on the early history oC the horse: — "We know so httU; of
the primitive seat of civiiisiition, the original centre, perhaps in

liactria, in the hj^
knowledge radu
niiSL'd that thg
aehicved in J

§ Ocn..

alleys of the Oxus, or in Cashmere, wliciieo

, India, and Egypt, that it may be sur-

^cullon of the post-diluvian horse was

eommcnced nearly sinmltaueously in

|ld animals of the horse form existed.

N 2

)

100

THE HORSE.

afiei- the Israelites had left Egypt, that the horse
^vas domesticated among them ; and then so rapidly
did he increase that Solomon had a thousand and
four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand cavalry,
and stabling for forty thousand horses.* The greater
part of these horses were imported from Egypt.

The sacred historian gives the price both of
the chariots and the horses. It is the oldest docu-
ment of the kind on record. The horse, including
probably the expense of the journey, cost one hun-
dred and fifty shekels of silver, or rather more
than seventeen pounds.f The chariot cost six
hundred shekels, or a little more than sixty-eight
pounds. Of the comparative value of money at
that jieriod it is impossible to speak ; but it was
probably many times greater than at present.

It is a question yet disputed, whether the use
of chariots or the art of riding was first cultivated.
According to Colonel Hamilton Smith, the northern
nations were exclusively riders. At Nineveh, in
Asia Minor, and India, they were both charioteers
and riders. In Greece, Palestine, and Egypt,
they were originally charioteers only. J The pro-
bability, however, is, that although one might pre-
vail in particular eras and countries, the other
would not long remain unpractised. II

Before a sketch of the history of the European
horse is attempted, it may be interesting to collect
the accounts given by historians of the character
and management of the horse in earlier periods.

Upper Egypt and Ethiopia were inhabited by
horsemen, of wild and predacious habits ; plunder-
ing those who fell into their power, or hiring
themselves to increase the army of any foreign po-
tentate. Many troops of them attended Xerxes
in his expedition into Greece.

In Libya, Numidia, Mauritania, and the set-
tlements on the northern coast of Africa, compris-
ing Morocco, Barbaiy, Tunis, and Tripoli of the
present day, and the northern part of the Sahara,
01- Great Desert, the horses were numerous and
fleet. .(Elian describes them as being somewhat
slenderly made, and seldom carrying much flesh ;
requiring little care and attendance from their
owners ; content with the common pasture which
the comitry afforded, and on which they were
turned, without further care or notice, as soon as
their work was done. Their present treatment is
not a great deal better.

They were at first ridden, as they are repre-
sented on the fresco of the Parthenon, without
either bridle or saddle ; and the rider had nothing
but a switch or stick by which to guide them.
This is said to have given them an ungraceful and

* I Kings X. 26. + ] Kings x. 29.

t Nat. Lib. vol. xii. p. S8.

II Berenger's Hist, of Horsemanship, vol. i. p. 11. — This ii
work of great research and fidchty. We have found it truly :
valuable in our investigation of the early history of the horse.

awkward appearance ; their necks being straight
and extended, and their noses pointing somewhat
upwards. " It may, in some degree," says Be-
renger, "be difficult to conceive how a wand or
stick could be sufficient to guide or control a spi-
rited or obstinate horse in the violence of his
course, or the tumult of battle ; but the attention,
docility, and memory of this animal are such, that
it is hard to say to what a degree of obedience he
may not be reduced. There is no reason why
these horses should not be brought to understand
the intention and obey the will of his rider with as
much certainty and readiness as our cart-horses in
our crowded streets attend to the voice of their
driver, by which they are almost solely go-
verned."§ The older writers say that the horse
was touched on the right of the face, to make him
go forward — on the left, to direct him to the right
— on the muzzle, when he was required to stop ;
while the heel was used to urge him forward. The
guidance of the horse by the gentle touch of the
fingers is well represented in the engraving given
at page 1 89.

Passing the Isthmus of Suez, ancient writers
say not a word of the horses of Arabia. These
deserts were not then inhabited by this noble
animal, or there was nothing about him worthy of
record.

Palestine, during the later periods of the
Jewish monarchy, contained numerous horses.
Mention has been made of the forty thousand
stalls for horses built by Solomon; but they were
all brought from Egypt, and a very little portion
of the Holy Land was ever devoted to the breed-
ing of horses after the settlement of the Israelites
in it.

Syria acquired little reputation on this account,
nor did Asia Minor generally, with the exception
of the country around Colophon, between Smyrna
and Ephesus, whose cavalry was so numerous and
well trained that they were always in request as
mercenaries, and deemed to be invincible. 1[

We must now travel to Armenia, on the west
of Media, before we meet with anything to arrest
our steps. A beautiful breed of horses was culti-
vated in this district. The chariot of Xerxes was
drawn by Armenian horses, being the stateliest

§ Silius Italicua thus describes the management of the early
horse : —
" Paret in obsequium lentje mode ramine virgte,

Verbera sunt prffinepta fuglE, sunt verbera frceni."
" All needless here the bit's coercive force

To guide the motions of the pliant horse ;

Form'd by the rod alone, its aids they know,

And stop and turn obedient to the blow." — Berenger, vol. i. pp. 24
and 26.

IT In all long and tedious wars the assistance of the Colophonian
troops was courted, and the party that obtained supplies from them
were so certain of success, that KoXo^uva rifltVai.and. afterwards
among the Romans, " Colophonem imponerc," were used prover-
bially for putting a conclusion to any affair. Strabo, lib. siv.

THE HORSE.

191

and tlie noljlest wliicli bis extensive empire could
produce.'''

Some writers, describing the horse at a later
period, mention the great care that was taken of
the dressing and adorning of the mane. Vegetius
gives a long account of this. It was cut into the
form of an arch or bow ; or it was parted in the
middle, that the hair might fall down on either
side ; or, more generally, it was left long and
flowing ou the right side — a custom which has
been retained to the present day.f

Many old sculptures prove that the horsemen
of almost every country mounted on the right side
of the animal. There are a few exceptions to this.
The mane hanging on that side would assist the
rider in getting on the horse. There were not any
stirnips in those days. The modem horseman
always mounts on the left side, yet the mane is
turned to the right.}

Media produced numerous horses of the same
character as those from Armenia.

Cappadocia stood highest of all the eastern
Countries for its breed of horses ; not perhaps so
speedy as those from some other districts, but dis-
tinguished for their stately appearance and lofty
action. Old Blundeville, from the inspection of
many of the ancient sculptures, says that these
were more heavy-headed than the horses of the
Parthians.|| Perhaps they were so; but no one
can dispute the stateliness of their figure, and
their proud and high and equal step. Although
often ridden, they were better calculated for the
chariot. This kind of horse seems to have pleased
the ancients ; and their painters and statuaries
are fond of exhibiting them in their most striking
attitudes. The horses in the cut at the com-
mencement of this chapter are illustrative of the
remark. Oppian says of them, what is true at
the present day of many horses of this character,
" when young, they are delicate and weak ; but
strength comes with years, and, contrary to other
horses, they are better and more powerful when
advanced in age."§

The Parthians fought on foot in the army of
Xerxes. Either they had not begun to be cele-
brated as horsemen, or there were reasons which
no author states for their being dismounted at that
time. No very long period, however, passed be-
fore they became some of the most expert riders
that the world could produce, and were reckoned,
and justly so, almost invincible. They are de-
scribed as being exceedingly active and dexterous
in the management of their horses. They were as
formidable iu flight as in attack, and would often

• Berenger, vol. i. p. 20.

+ Denso juba, et deslrojactata recumbit in a

t Vegetius, lib. iv. c. 7.

II Blundeville's Fowcr Cbiefeat Offices, p. 3.

§ Brrenger, vol. i. p. 22.

turn on the back of the animal, and pour on their
pursuers a cloud of arrows that at once changed the
fortune of the day.

Vegetius gives a singular account of the man-
ner of their breaking in their horses, and render-
ing them sure-footed when galloping over the most
irregular and dangerous grounds; for they were
lighter and hardier horses than those of the Cap-
padocians or Modes, and better for their peculiar
pace and manner of fighting. A spot of di-y and
level ground was selected, on which various
troughs or boxes, filled with chalk or clay, were
placed at irregular distances, and with much irre-
gularity of surface and of height. Here the horses
were taken for exercise; and they had many a
stumble and many a fall as they galloped over this
strangely uneven course; but they gradually
learned to lift their feet higher, and to bend their
knees better, and to deal their steps sometimes
shorter and sometimes longer, as the ground re-
quired, until they could carry their riders with
ease and safety over the most irregular and dan-
gerous places. Then it was that the Parthians
could fully put into practice their favourite ma-
noeuvre, and turn upon and destroy their unsus-
pecting foes. They could also travel an almost
incredible distance without food or rest.lT

To the Scythians, the Modes, and the Par-
thians, in after times, and in rapid succession (if,
indeed, they were not different names for hordes
of one common origin), succeeded the Ostraces, the
Urals, the Monguls, the Calmucks, the Nogays,
the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, and the Huns — all
people of the vast plains of Central Asia, which has
been well denominated the nurseiy of nations.
These were all horsemen. Some of their leaders
could bring from two to three hundred thou-
sand horsemen into the field. The speed of
their marches; their attacks and their retreats;
the hardihood to which they inured themselves and
the animals by which they were carried ; the in-
cursion, and often settlement, of horde after horde,
each as numerous as that to which it succeeded ; —
these are circumstances that must not be forgotten
in our rapid sketch of the horse.

At the end of the eighth century, when the
Saracens overran a great part of Europe, they
brought -^vith them a force of two hundred thou-
sand cavalry, in a much higher state of discipline
than the Goths and Huns of former ages.

Of the horses in the south of Asia and the east
of the Indus little mention occurs, except that both
chariots and cavalry were summoned from this
distant region to swell the army of Xenes.

Celebrated as the horses of Persia afterwards
became, they were few, and of an inferior kind,

T Qnot siDO aqua raithas millia curral eqnus. — Fropcrlr.
lib. iv. eleg. S.

193

THE HORSE.

until the reign of Cyms. That monarch, whose ]
life was devoted to the amelioration and happiness
of his people, saw how admirably Persia was
adapted for tlie breeding of horses, and how neces-
sary was their introduction to the maintenance of
the independence of his country. He therefore
devoted liimself to the encouragement and im-
provement of the breed of horses. He granted
jieculiar privileges to those who possessed a cer-
tain number of these animals ; so that at length
it was deemed ignominious in a Persian to be seen
in public, e.^ccept on horseback. At first the Per-
sians vied with each other in the beauty of their
horses, and the splendour of their clothing ; and
incurred the censure of the historian, that they
were more desirous of sitting at their ease than of
approving themselves dexterous and bold horse-
men;* but under such a monarch as Cyrus they
■were soon inspired with a nobler ambition, and
became the best cavalry of the East. The native
Persian horse was so highly prized, that Alexander
considered one of them the noblest gift he could
bestow ; and when the kings of Parthia would pro-
pitiate their divinities by the most costly sacrifice,
a Persian horse was offered on the altar.

Vegetiushas preserved a description of the Per-
sian horse, which proves him to have been a
valuable animal, according to the notions of those
times ; but capable of much improvement, accord-
ing to the standard of a more modern period. He
says that " they surpassed otlier horses in the
pride and gracefulness of their paces, which were
so soft and easy as to please and relieve, rather
than fatigue the rider, and that the pace was as
safe as it was pleasant ; and that, when thej' were
bred on a large scale, they constituted a consi-
derable part of their owner's revenue." He adds,
as a commendation, " the graceful arching of their
uecks, so that their chins leaned upon their
breasts, while their pace was someiliing between a
gallop and an amble." The horsemen of the pre-
sent day would decidedly object to both of these
things, and that which follows would be a still
more serious cause of objection: — "They were
subject to tire upon a long march or journey, and
then were of a temper which, unless awed and
subdued by discipline and exercise, inclined them
to obstinacy and rebellion ; yet, with all their heat
and anger, they were not difficult to be pacified."
Both the soldier and the horse were often co-
vered with armour from head to foot. They
adopted mucli of the tactics of the Parthians in
their pretended flight. Even when retreating in
earnest, they annoyed their pursuers by the conti-
nual discharge of their arrows. Arrian gives a cu-
rious account of their manner of riding. They had
no bridles, like the Greeks ; but they governed
their horses by means of a thong or strap, cut

• Albenffius. lib. xii. 4.

from the raw hide of a bull, and which they bound
across their noses. On the inside of this noseband
were little pointed pieces of iron, or brass, or
ivory, moderately shai-p. In the mouth was a
small piece of iron, in the form of a small bar, to
which the reins were tied, and with which the
noseband was connected. When the reins were
pulled, the small teeth on the noseband pinched
the horse, and compelled him to obey the will of
tlie rider. The modem caveson was probably de-
rived from this invention.!

It is time to proceed to the early histoiy of the
horse in Europe. Many colonies of Egyptian semi-
grated to Greece They carried with them the love
of the horse, and as many of these noble animals as
their ships would contain. It would appear that the
first colony, about the time of the birth of Moses,
landed in Thessaly, in the north of Greece. Their
appearance mounted on horseback, according to the
old fable, terrified the native inhabitants, and they
tied in all directions, imagining that their country
was attacked by a set of monsters, half horse and
half man, and they called them Centaurs. Such
was the origin of the figures which are not unfre-
quent among the remains of ancient sculpture.

Another and a more natural interpretation
offers itself to tlie mind of the horseman. The
Thessalians were the pride of the Grecian cavalry.
Before the other provinces of Greece were scarcely
acquainted with the name of horse, their subjuga-
tion of him was so complete, that, in the language
of another poet of far later days, but not inferior
to any that Greece ever knew,

" These gallants
Had witchcraft in 't — they ^ew unto their seat,
And to stich wondrous doing brought their horse
As Ihey had been incorpsed, and demi-natured
With the brave beast"*

Hence the origin of tlie fable and of all the
expressive sculptures. Bucephalus, the favourite
war-horse of Alexander, was probably of this
breed. He would permit no one to mount him
but his master, and he alwaj's knelt down to
receive him on his back. Alexander rode him
at the battle of the Hydaspes, in which the noble
steed received his death-wound. For once he was
disobedient to the commands of his master : he
hastened from the heat of the fight; he brought
Alexander to a place where he was secure from
danger ; he knelt for him to alight, and then
dropped down and died. ||

Sixty years afterwards, another colony of
Egyptians landed in the southern part of Greece,
and they introduced the knowledge of the horse
in the neighbourhood of Athens. Their leader
was called Erichthonius, or the horse-breaker;
and after his death, like the first Centaur, he

+ Ai-rian. Hist. Ind. lib. 17. Berenger, vol. i. p. 301.
% Shakspeare, Hamlet, Act iv. scene 7.
II riular.-h, in Alex., Arrian. v. c. 3.

THE HOBSE.

193

found a place iu the Zodiac under the name of
" The Archer." Erichthonius likewise occupied a
situation among the constellations, and was termed
Auriga, or the charioteer.

The Thessalians always maintained their cha-
racter as the tirst and the choicest of the Grecian
cavalry. In point of fact, it was the only part of
the country in which horses could with decided
advantage be bied. It abounded in rich pastures,
whereas the rest of Greece was comparatively dry
and barren.*

From various of the Greek authors we can
very satisfactorily trace the rapid improvement
which about this time took place iu the character
and management of the horse. It has been stated
that the soil and produce of Greece were not
favourable for the breeding of horses, and that it
could be a matter of profit only in Thessaly. They
soon, however, became necessary in almost everj'
part of the country, both for offence and defence ;
therefore, in most of the cities, and particularly
in Athens and in Sparta, in order to induce the
inhabitants to keep the requisite number, a new
order of citizens was instituted, deemed the second
in rank in the commonwealth, and distinguished
by certain honours and privileges. The equites,
or knights, iu the Roman republic, were formed
on the same model.

It is in some of the Grecian sculptures that
we first see the bit in the horse's mouth, but it is
not always that we do see it ; on the contrary,
there is frequently neither bridle, saddle, nor
stirrup. It however was frequently necessary to
make use of cords or thongs, in order to confine
the horse to the place at which it suited the rider
for a while to leave him. These cords were
fastened round the animal's neck, and may be
seen in several of the ancient figures. According
V3 some writers, the occasional struggles of the
animal to escape from these trammels, and the
strength which he exerted in order to accomplish
his purpose, first suggested the idea of harnessing
him to certain machines for the purpose of drawing
them ; and it is evident that soon after this it must
have occurred to the horsemen, that if this rope
were put over the head, and over the muzzle, or
perhaps into the mouth of the animal, he would

• Blundeville.who was an excellent classic as well as horseman,
says: — "The horses of Greece have good legges, g;eat bndyes,
comely heads, and are of a high stature, and very well made
forewarde, but not backwarde, because they are pyn-bultocked.
NotK-ithstanding, they are verye swift, and of a bolde courage.
But of all the races in Greece, both the horses and mares of
Thessaly for their bewtie, bignesse, bountie and courage, of h1
authors are most celebrated. For which cause Xines, on his
comraing into Greece, made a running of horses in chariots to
be proclaynied only in Thessalia, because hee woulde have his
owne horses to runne wythe the best horses in Greece. Julius
CEEsar, also, beyitig Dictatour of Rome, knowyng the courage of
these horses, was the first that ordeyned them as a spectacle before
the people to fyghte wythe wylde bulls, and to kyll them."— The
Power Chiefist Offices lelongimj to Horxemamhip. p. 4.

Bits and bridles of this kind occur frequently
in the Athenian sculptures of the time of Pericles,
about four hundred and thirty years before the
Christian era ; but the headgear of the bridle had
not been long introduced, the bit being supported,
in some figures, by the buckling or tying of the
bridle about the nose, a little above the muzzle.
These, however, soon disappear, and we have the
present snaffle with very little alteration, except a
straight leather or cord from the head to the nose-
band, and that not always found. The chain under
the chin is occasionally observed, probably for the
sake of keeping the bit steady in the mouth.

In no period of Grecian history, so far as the
author is aware, was the severe and often cruel
curb-bit known. This was an invention of after-
times. The only instniment of punishment which
was then attached to the bit was found iu the
knobs at the corners of the mouth : they had
sharp or rough points on their inner surface, which
by a turn or twist of the bridle might easily be
brought to bear painfully on the cheeks and angles
of the mouth. A bit so constructed was termed a
hipatum, from the supposed resemblance of these
sharp projections to the teeth of a wolf. It would
seem that this was, among the Romans, almost
coeval with the introduction of the bit, for the poet
attributes it to Neptune, the fabulous parent of the
horse.t

No mention is made of saddles, such as ai'e
used in modern times ; but by way of ornament,
and partly of convenience too. the horseis were
often covered with beautiful cloths, or with the
skins of wild beasts, secured by a girth or sm-cin-
gle. Thus the hoi*s6 of Parthenopius was covered

+ " Neptunus equo, si certa priorum,

Fama patet, primus teneris Iffisisse lupatis
Ora, et littoreo domuisse in pulvere feitiir."
" Neptune, if we may credit give to fame,
First taught with bits the generous horse to t.>n;c."

I I

J>.

192

TIIF llORSF

until tbo reign of (\vrus. Thai monarch, whose
life was devoted to the amelioration and happiness
of his people, saw how admirahly Persia was
adapted for the brecdinj? of hoi-ses, and how neces-
sarj' was their introduction to the maintenance of
the independence of his country. He therefore
devoted Inmself to the encountgement and im-
provement of the breed of horses. He granted
peculiar privileges to those who possessed a rer-
iiiin number of these animals ; so that at length
it was deemed ignominious in a I'ersian to be seen
in public, except on horselmck. At tii-st tlie Per-
sians vied with each other in the beauty of their
horses, and tlie splendour of their clothing ; and
incurred the censure of the historian, that they
were more desirous of sitting at their ease than of
approving themselves dexterous and bold horse-
men ;* but under such a monarch as Cyrus they
were soon inspired with a nobler ambition, and
became the licst cavalry of the East. The native
Persian horse was so highly ]>ri/<Ml, that Alexander
considered one of tiiem the noblest gift he coulil
bestow ; and when the kings of Partliin would pro
pitiate their divinities by the most costly sacritice.
a Persian horse was offeri'd on the altar.

Vegetius has preserv cd a <lescription of the Per-
sian horse, which proves him to have been a
valuable animal, at-conling to the notions of those
times ; but capable of much improvement, accord-
ing to the standard of a more modem |>eriod. He
says that " they surpa.ssed nther horses in the
pride and gracefulness of their paces, which were
so soft and easy as to please and relieve, rather
than fati;4ue the rider, and that the pace was as
siife as it was pleasant : and that, when they were
bred on a large scale, they constituted a consi-
derable part of their owner's revenue." He adds,
as a commendation. " the graceful archingof their
necks, so that their chins leaneace was somotliing lietween a
gallop and on amble." The liorseineii of the pre-
sent day would decidedly object to Kith of these
things, and that which follows would be a still
more seriou.s cause of objection: — "They were
subject to tire upon a long march or jouniey, and
then were of a temper which, unless awed and
subdued by discipline and exercise, inclined them
to obstinacy and rebellion ; yet. with all their heat
and anger, they were not difficult to be pacified."
Both the soldier and the horse were often co-
vered with nruiour from head to foot. Tliey
adopted much of the tactics of the Parthians in
their pretended tlight. Even when retreating in
earnest, they annoyed their pursuers by ilie o '^
nual discharge of their arrows. Arria« giv
rious account of their nianner of riding,
no bridles, like tlie Greeks: but ibe
their horses by means of a iboi

• Athcnntt^, lib

from e raw hide of a bull, and which they bound
acros heir noses On the inside of tliis noseband
were ttle i>oiiited pieces of iron, or brass, or
ivory n'"Knitely shai-ji. In the mouth was a
siiial' iece of iriii, in the form of a small bar, to
whici the reins were tied, and with which the
niisel id WHS runiiected. When the reins were
piille the siiiiill teeth on the nosel>and pinched
the I *e. ail I cwnipelled him to obey the will of
tlie I ir. J'lie iiiiideni caveson was probably de-
rive.l 0111 liu^ invention.!

I i tinii- to ]«roceed to the early historj- of the
hors< 1 Ennip'. Many colonies of Egyptian semi-
grate to ( in - , e They carried witli them the love
of tlh lorx'. :i!iil MS many of these noble animals as
their ipswoulil contain. It would appear that the
first 1 oiiy. alK>ut the time of the birth of Moses,
laiiiii in riiissaly, in thf north of Greece. Their

a|'l e. .nee lilted on hiTseback, according to the

olii f; e, !• I riiM <i the native inhabitants, and they
lb i I all ilii.eii.ins. imagining that their country
■';i- j'lrkcd by a set of monsters, half horse and
li:ill in. and they called them Centaurs. Such
was I ) origin of the figures which are not unfre-
i|ueniaiong the remains of ancient sculpture.

.\>tlier and a more natural iiilerjiretalion
ofleivtself to tlie mind of the horseman. The
Thespians were the pride of the Grecian cavalrv-.
Hefoi-the other provinces of Greece were scarcely
acipinted with the name of horse, their subjugu-
tioM <^im was so complete, that, in the language
of linger poet of far later days, but not inferior
to nii^iat Gree<'e ever knew.

" Tbra« f^anU

•d wilrJimA in l— thcT ftrcw onto their irat.

nd III uH'h woaclrou> iloing broogbl Ihar bnrwi
Aft ih^T had bcrn incfirp^cd, and drmi-nauu^ed
With tiir bniTc bruL "<

H. IK the origin of the fable and of all the
e\pri ive sculptures. Bucephalus, the favourite
«nri se of Alexander, was probably of this
breed He would permit no one to mount him
but !i m.nster. and he always knelt down to
rei-eix him on his liack. Alexander
at ib.jattle of the Hydaspes
stood jceivod his death-wc
disiibijent to the con
linstefB from thCj
.Me\. ler to
daii|j' . he^

i*"'

a»"

gim'

diiaik*

I:....

mt ll ka*v I,

tSSk-i IQ,

THE HOESE.

193

^>«t&

•u av ■ ■

found a place in the Zodiac under th name of
" The Archer." Erichthonius likewise ccupied a
situation among the constellations, and as termed
Auriga, or the charioteer.

The Thessalians always maintained heir cha-
racter as the first and the choicest of U Grecian
cavalry. In point of fact, it was the oty pai't of
the country in which hoi"ses could wii decided
advantage be bred. It abounded in ric pastures,
whereas the rest of Greece was comparively diy
and barren.*

From various of the Greek autha we can
very satisfactorily trace the rapid imrovemeut
which about this time took place in thcharacter
and management of the horse. It has len stated
that the soil and produce of Greece .vere not
favourable for the breeding of horses, id that it
could be a matterof profit only in Th' ^ y. They
soon, however, became necessary in : >st every
part of the coimtry, both for otiVuce .
therefore, in most of the cities, and
in Athens and in Sparta, in order X'
inhabitants to keep the requisite nii
order of citizens was instituted, detiii
in rank in the commonwealth, and
by certain honours and privi]c2:es.
or knights, in the Roman republic.
on the same model.

It is in some of the Grecian sculpires that
we first see the bit in the horse's niii V but it is
not always that we do see it: .n ontrary,

there is frequently neither bridlr. He, nor
stirrup. It however was fi-equently nessary to
make use of cords or thongs, in order confine
the horse to the place at which it suit'
for a while to leave him. Jin >■
fastened round the animal's neck, i
seen in several of the ancient tiffure^.
to some writers, the occasional <irn'
animal to escape from tin
strength which he exerieil
his purpose, first suggested iIm i
him to certain machines for I'lir ■ •,
them; audit is evident ti'
have occurred to the
were put over the hei
perhaps into the moi

Bla

!• defence ;

pticularly

iduce the

! r, a new

e second

iguished

equites,

■ : formed

1 he rider

' Is were

' may be

■cording

'; of the

md the

irnplish

iiessing

Ira wing

it must

be more easily fastened or led from place to place,
and more securely guided and managed, whether
the man was off or on his back. Hence arose the
bridle. It probably was at first nothing more than
the halter or cord by which the horse was usually
confined. An improvement on this was a detached
cord or rope, with prolongations coming up on
both sides of the mouth, and giving the rider
much greater power over the animal ; and after
that, for the sake of cleanliness, and to prevent
the wear and tear of the rope, and also giving yet
more command over the animal, an iron bit was
fitted to the mouth, and rested on the tongue, and
the bridle was attached to each end of it. It was
the common snaffle bridle of the present dai/, the
iron being jointed and fle.xible, or often composed
of a chain. There were, however, no cross pieces
to these bits at the mouth, but simple knobs or
bulbs, to the inside of which the bits were attached.
Bits and bridles of this kind occur frequently
in the Athenian sculptures of the time of Pericles,
about four hundred and thirty years before the
Christian era ; but the headgear of the bridle had
not been long introduced, the bit being supported,
in some figures, by the buckling or tying of the
bridle about the nose, a little above the muzzle.
These, however, soon disappear, and we have the
present snaffle with very little alteration, except a
straight leather or cord from the head to the nose-
band, and that not always found. The chain under
the chin is occasionally observed, probably for the
sake of keeping the bit steady in the mouth.

In no period of Grecian history, so far as the
author is aware, was the severe and often cruel
curb-bit known. This was an invention of after-
times. The only instnament of punishment which
was then attached to the bit was found in the
knobs at the corners of the mouth : they had
sharp or rough points on their inner surface, which
by a turn or twist of the bridle might easily be
brought to bear painfully on the cheeks and angles
of the mouth. A bit so constructed was termed a
lupatum, from the supposed resemblance of these
sharp projections to the teeth of a wolf It would
seem that this was, among the Romans, almost
coeval with the introduction of the bit, for the pool
attributes it to Neptune, the fabulous parent of iU*
lorse.f

No mention is made of saddles, wk* »i»^^

ed in modem times; but bv ^> > ^^^^

and partly of convenience t<" , th*

often covered with beauti/ul • ' _^„

skins of wild beasts, secarfdV^^ ^

Thus the horse of P**^ *

gle.

+ " NeplmiiM njiio. ■* "

Faun p'^'' P"* -.

On, el I'O'*^ "T,

.. Srpmac.if •rr ^,

Fif.1 uxe"'

I'Ji

THE HO I.

wilh the skin of a Iviix, ami thut of ^neas with '
a lioii'ii skill. In tlioir reli);iou8 or triuiu|iliul
processions llio liuusings of the horses vh-tv jmr-
ticiiliirly inii)Ont°>ccnt, being freijuenlly uUonnil
with gold und DJlver ami iliaiiiomU. Kich cullars
were also liung n>uiid iht-ir ueiks, uiul U-Us
adonieJ their crests. The tnippiugs of the young ,
knight in the days of chivalr)' did not exceed ,
those of the Grecian warrior on days of ceremony.

Tlie stirrup was hkewise uiiktio\«'n. The adop-
tion of tliat convenient iis.sisUini'e iu mouuling
the horse was of singularly late date. The lirst .
mention of it o<-ours in tlie works of Eustathius,
uIhiuI the 1 1 CtNth year of the Christian era :
but it was usetl in the time of William the |
CoiHjueror, nearly a century before that. JJi n k-
ger gives the figure of a horse saddled, bn
and with siimii>s, copied from the Itayetu tapi
which wiis embroidered iu the time of tin <
queror by his wife, ami di'St-rilK.-s the cireumst.t
preceding and attending his descent intoKii','
The heroes of ancient limes trusted chii i'
their own agility in lea[)ing on their horses' i'
and that whcliier standing ou tlie nghl side >,.
the l.ft.

They who fought on horseback with the spi -:■
or lance luul a projcvtion on the s|M-ar, or s"i
times a loop of conl, aliout two feet from n.<
bottom of it, which ser\'ed at once for a tinner
grasp of the weapon, ami a step on which the
right or the left foot might be phu-e«l, acconling to
the side on which the warrior inleiidrd to niounl.
and from which he could easily vault on his
courser's back. The horse was sometimes taught
to assist the rider in raounting by bending lii«
neck or kneeling down.* The magnates nl
hati their slaves by their horse's side to .

them in mounting and dismounting. Smie i

use of a short ladder ; and it was the duty of the
local magistracy, Iwtli in Home and tireeoe, to see '
that convenient stepping-stones were placed at
short distances along all the n>a<ls.

The boot for the defence of the leg fr«>in the
dangers to which it was exposed was very early
adopted, and the heel of it was, occasionally at
least, armed with a spur.

The horses' feet were unshod, the paved or
flinty n>ails, which are now so destructive to the
feet, Ik ing in a manner unknown. Occasionally,
however, from natural weakness of the foot, or
from travelling too far or too fast over the cause-
ways, lameness then, as now, occurred. In order |
to prevent this, the Greeks and the llomans were

• Tims the Ilomiui |w»cl : — J

*' Intle inrlinjiii» roUum, tubmisnu ct Annot I

lie more, iuAciis prKbcbat >candaT Icrg* !

Cruribus." j

" Downwuds the hone h\y bemd and •houlden hect, .

To give bis rider a more free aiceiiL"

.S'i7iM IlaJiciu. '

Th.

8' mtoTiK'-l t" f.isten a sort of sandal or stocking,

1 • - twisted together like a mat, or else

; where the owner could afford it,

^ ..K ■ ■ "IlIi plates of iron, and sometimes

n' iieil Willi silver and even with gold, as was the
r. > \\itli the horses of Pop|«ea luid N'erD.f

Tlnre wiLs a peculiarity iu the Greek mode of
ri ag. ai leiisi witli regard to the cavalry horses,

-, those used for pleasure. Two or

were tied together by their bridles,

iian, at full sjieed, lea|>ed from one

V iH'ib< r ai Ins pleasure. This might occasionally

b ts«'ful ; when one horse was tired or wounded,

tl warrior might leap upon another ; but he

w Id be so lianipered by the management of all

" 111 III. anil the attention which he was compelled

t" tlicm all, that it never became the

wiy of riding or fighting; nor was it

i 111 any other country. Uomer, in hit

I 1 1 1. Ill, alludes to it as a feat of skill

■ ~]>ort. The following is a translation

:e : — ".lust as a skilful horseman

iisen horses along a public road to

y, where his course is to terminate,

II a.ssembles to behold him, and gaze

II ^ili wonder and applause; while he

>■- . :;ii .use from the back of one horse to

:ni i llies along wiih them."

< I reeks must liave carried their manage-

not of the horse to a verj- liigh state of p«-rfection;

lit the (irwian horse must have l>een exceedingly

ilile, when exhibitions of this kind could take

lie.

Jt was. lioweTcr, to the draught of the chariot

lit, iliji animal was principally devoted in some

i.-s, and among the (i reeks in the

i' their historr. No mention is made

. .. _ iijrseimui on either side, during the

t years siege of Troy; but the warriors all

f {ht on foot or in chariots.

The chariots were simple in their structure,
I D at the back, and |)arliy on the sides: and
< taining the driver in the front, and the warrior
sliding on a platfonn, usually somewhat elevated.
I i=. vi'liirles seem to Imve lieen rarely brought
n with each other ; but they were
i'.y over the field, the warrior hurling
1 11,1..- „n eitlier side, or alighting when he
lit with a f<je worthy of his attack. These
ilfiots were not only contrived for senice, but
w* often most splendidly and expensively oma-
nftte<l. They were the prize of the conqueror.
Spetiin. s they were drawn by thn-e horses; but
tl^tliir.i W1V9 a spare one, in ca,se either of the
oirs shiiuld l>e tired or wounded. Some had
fi ^horses yoked abreast: such was the chariot
oBector.

f Appeoilix to tbe TnnUjtioo of XcDnpboo'ft Buh-a, p. f 1.

tmtm"

■ kliktiMi b. •' 4
n^fc W«|

■(■WW***

I'm,
in

nm I

THE HORSE.

195

—■»•■»«■

.mmtximtm

The chai-ioteer, altLough at the tie iufeiior
to, or under the command of the arrior, was
seldom or never a menial. He va often the
intimate friend of the warrior ; thus estor, and
even Hector, ai'e found acting as haiioteei's.
■\Vhen not the personal friend of the.ai'rior, he
was usually a charioteer hy profession and drove
where he was directed.

Occasional mention is made of he ciinus
falcati, chariots witli armed instrumtts in the
form of scythes, projecting from the lIcs of the
wheels, by means of which whole rans might be
mown down at once. They were conned, how-
ever, to the more barbarous nations and were
used neither by the Greeks nor ;1 I'lOmaus.
They were advantageous only on t I ably open
and level ground; and it not uiitr rntly hap-
pened that, afinghted by the cluiuuui the battle,
or by wounds, the horses became i ^veniable,
and, turning on the ranks of ihcir : Js, threw
them into complete disorder. Thr, \ re on this
account laidaside. even by the barl.:ui;: ~ emselves.

In process of time, war-ch;iri.>t~ ; veiy kind
fell into disuse, and the higher c la-- ' warriors
were content to fight on hors.lNu'i lere their
personal strength and courage iui;_ e as well
displayed, and discipline could be IilI. -iireserved.

Still, almo.st to the period of th. Chiistian
era, and long after tliat in many couiitrs, the use
of the horse was confined to war. to i . base, and
to public pageants. The first nnpl i nt of the
Egj-ptian colonists, when they laml. Thessaly,
was to rid the forests of the wiM i a md other
dangerous animals, with whiih tli- ere then
peopled. In the central and -■ u parts of

Greece, the countiy was more oj" n. he wilder
animals were scarcely known ; bin m j ^yria and
Persia, and every countr}- in which tluegitimate
prey of the hunter was found, the orse was
employed in its pursuit.

In process of time, in order to jcide the
comparative value of different horses, oto gratify
the vanity of their owners, and alsu im ive more
effect to certain religious rites and public tectacles,
borse-races were introduced. The moiielebrated
of these exhibitions was that at Oly
ponnesus, held ej
Jupiter. The .
eveiy district i
manly e.xercis
ning, wrestli
persons of
fairly and hod
crowned wit|

his natiy
ch was I
had so
Ifor li
kitioi

inferior civil offices ; his name was enrolled in
the archives of his coiuitry, and statues were
erected to his memory. This was the source of
the noble spirit of emulation and the ai'deut love
of country by which the Greek was distinguished.

Nearly a centuiy, however, passed before the
attraction of the exhibition was increased by the
labours of the horse. The first colonists could
bring with them only a few of these noble animals.
In several of the wars in which they were engaged,
their deficiency in cavahy was lamentably apparent.
It was not until the 23d Olympiad that the horse
mingled in the contest.

During the first two Olympiads after this horse-
men alone appeared. Of these races the accounts
are exceedingly imperfect. Each horse was ridden
by his owner, who was obliged to undergo prepa-
ratory trials for the space of thirty days. The
horses were divided into full and luider-aged ; but.
no explanation is given by any writer of the pre-
cise meaning of these terms, nor is any thing said
of the weight of the riders. We only know the
space to be run over, wliich somewhat exceeded
four miles. There was one race, called C'olne, in
which mares alone were permitted to run. Towards
the end of the course the riders were compelled to
leap from their backs, and, keeping the bridle in their
hands, to run alongside of Iheni to the winning-post.

In the 25th Olympiad chariot-races were in-
troduced. The chariots were arranged abreast of
each other at the starting-post ; the places— for it
will appear that these gave some important advan-
tages— having been previously decided by lot. An
altar was erected on one side, upon which stood a
brazen eagle, dedicated to Jupiter, and a dolphin,
sacred to Neptune. At a signal from the presiding
officer, the eagle, by some mechanism, sprang into
the air, the dolphin sank under ground, and away
the horses started. The hippodrome, or course,
was about one-third of a mile in length ; and at
the farther end was a pillar, round which the cha-
riots were to be driven, and back again to the
starting-place, six times, making rather more than
four miles.

The rounding of this pillar was the first test
of the skill of tlie driver and the docility of the
horses, and many an accident happened there.

This dangerous spot was no sooner passed, than
the competitors came at once upon a strange figure
placed to try the courage and nerve of the horses.
It was an enormous statue, called Taraxippus, the
terrifier of horses — and, according to the old writers,
well worthy of the name. None of them describe

this strange deit
to frighten
lives, and th

centre
defile,

all agree that he used sadly
'nd often to endanger their

iver.

as a lofty rock, in the very
leaving only a very narrow
through which the skill of

100

THE HOR .

the charioteer wjis severely tried ; while several
men, placed on the rock, increased the confusion,
and the terror of the horses, by the continual bray-
ing of tlu'ir trumpets.

As may \>€ well supposed, the number of the
competitors was much diminished ere the conclu-
sion of the nice. Some ran against the pilliir.
others were frightened out of the course by the
horrible statue, and not a few were wrecked on
that fearful rock. Some were destroyed on the
spot ; others, who escaped without serious injury,
were derided by the spcctiilors, on account of their
want of skill ; and the fragments with which the
course was covered rendered almost every step
perilous. Theconqueror in such a nice well desencd
the crown which he received, and the honours that
were bestowed on him.

What were the opinions which prevailed at this
early period respecting the proper form — the points
of the horse ? Let tliiit master horseman. Aeni>-
phon, declare. •• The first thing that ought to Ix'
looked to is the fotit ; for as a house would Imj of in>
use, though all the upper parts of it were l>eauli-
ful, if the lower parts of it bad »•)! a projwr foun-
dation, so a horse would not l>e of any use in war.
if be had tender feet, even thoujib he should have
all other good qualities; for his good qualities
could not l>e made any valuable use of." This
maxim, more than two tliousand two hundred years
old, bespeaks at once the horseman.

"Thick hiKjfs make a horse's feel better than
thin ones." This must be selfevident, where
there was no artificial protection of the foot. The
force with which the fnit will conn? in contact with
the gn)und at every step will pn>duce sufficient ex-
pansion of the heel : but it is only a strong foot
that can long endure the concussion, without being
worn away.

" It likewise must not be forgotten to see
whether the hoofs are high or low, and near the
ground, both Wfore and Wbind."' Few things are
of greater importance than this. If the inelimitinn
of the foot in front is less than its usual angle
(forty-five degrees^ it indicates a contracted foot,
and a morbidly hollow sole, and inflammation of
the laminir. and speedy and incurable lameness.
If the inclination is greater, and the angle acuter
than it should be. there is flatness of the s«>le. and
liability to serious bniise of it, or. perhaps, pumiced
feet.

" The pastcnis, or bones immediately above
the hoofs and Itelow the fetlocks, ought not to be
straight like those of a goat ; for this would shake
the rider, and such legs are more subject to inflam-
mation ; nor ought tlu'se Ivmes to be too low. for^
the fetkx;k would be chafed and ulcerated, if t
horse was ridden over ploughed grounds, oram(
stones." If he had added that the oblique pi
was sadly liable to spniin, and there wouM o!

inj'/ thpMigh the whole course of the flexor ten-
doi jotliing could have been added to the force of
lii> wer^iitioii
I The Ikhics of the legs ought to be large, since
the are sup[>orier9 of the Iwdy ; not, however,
ihii villi veins, or cellular matter." He is
■-I" iiii,' I if tin- war-horse and the hunter, and
wii Call 1.1- more correct ?

If tlie coll in walking bends his knees freely,
yon lay judge, when he comes to be ridden, that
his gx will be supple: ondsupple joints are justly
coil .ended. ti.s they make a horse less liable to
stui>]e. and nut tire so soon as when his joints
arc iff'."

rbi- 1 highs under the shoulders (the fore- arms),
wli' thi'v nri' large, are Iwlh powerful and grace-
ful Old tin- i-lirst being large, contributes not only
to I lUiy and strength, but to a horse's being able
t" • itiiuie a Iniig time in one pace."

Ttir i!^ . k should proceed from the chest,

r itnd it should be loose about the

the head, too, being bony, should

' . k. The eye should be standing

K ill the cheek. The nostrils that

■ ; 'Illy better adapted for breathing

tliuiiio.-.! iii.il lire compressed, but likewise cause
till- >rse III a)i|H-ar more terrible in battle. The
!■ I ■ ■ i being large, and the ears small,

I: ^i|ij>ear more elegant. The point

' : likewise, being high, renders that

I more compact." The author was

■f the advantage of this form, but
•« the principles on which it was

I,.- . I..

follliHl.

rh.

the lUv

■ides, being deep and swellinp
make a horse in general

dim to be sealed on and belter^

his 'id. Tlie broader and shg

the are reiidily will he

and e l>elly tlmt appear

oiil\ bfigures n liorse^

less ble to earn'

agai he seizes

flcKld
the li
a h
matil

lid
Itifully
pre-

xh€ MUU0
I these things

and the

ine had

t»*»-'

Till* ■■<*•'

':* 3iA u. .J ~~

«»■■■■«•

TBsa ntm .

ipiia.M ka I

111

.>^

THE HORSE.

197

«#•'»•

'^^^•'.'^i

The Konians, from the veiv builJir of their
city, paid much attention to the breling and
management of the horse ; but this wsisaore than
seven hundred years after this animalhad been
imported into Greece, and his value ad import-
ance had begun to be almost univei-sar acknow-
ledged.

Horse and chariot races were early itrodueed
at Rome. The chariot-races fell graaally into
disrepute, but the horse-races were cctinued to
the times of the Caesars, and the yom men of
the equestrian order were enthusiasticay devoted
to this exercise. There were not, ho«er, any of
the difficulties or dangers that attende the Gre-
cian races. They were chiefly trials o speed, or
of dexterity in the performance of certn circles,
now properly confined to our theatrical ehibitions.
The rider would stand upright on '■^?teed, lie
along his back, pick up things froiii jround at
full speed, and leap from horsf to • e in the
swiftest gallop.

A singular circumstance in the man(ement of
this animal by the Romans, was the snp-ior value
which they attributed to the mare. Thr natural
historians, agriculturists, and poets, urte in this
opinion. Perhaps this might in pait rise from
the custom of the Romans to castrate allhe horses

that were employed in mercant
pursuits. The horse, howevei
by the operation or the labour, i a
made to occupy the situation f r
signed him; and from this tu;. .
over every part of Europe, he lias i ■
the most useful of the servants of man.

To the Romans may be attributed ib
of the curb-bit. The Emp&
presented in one of the
a bit with a tremeni
could inflict dreadfi
so inclined.

It may rep''
of the hoi
dififused
the jj
existe

icultural
legraded
:■ be was
iture de-
,'radually
le one of

His head should be small, his limbs clean and
compact, his eyes bright and sparkling, his nos-
trils open and large, his ears placed near each
other, his mane strong and full, his chest broad,
his shoulders flat and sloping backward, his bar-
rel round and compact, his loins broad and strong,
his tail full and bushy, his legs strait and even,
his knees broad and well knit, his hoofs hard and
tough, and his veins large and swelling over all
his body."*

Virgil, eighty or ninety years aftei-wards, gives
some interesting accounts of the horse, and parti-
cularly when taken from the pursuits of war and
employed in the peaceful service of agriculture.

A few years after him followed Columella, who,
in a work devoted exclusively to agriculture, treats
at length of the management of the horse and of
many of his diseases.

To him succeeded Palladius on agriculture, the
management of the vineyard, and the apiary, &c. ;
and he also describes at considerable length the
treatment and the diseases of the horse.

About the same time, or somewhat before, the
Roman emperors, being continually engaged in
foreign wars, and in many of these expeditions the
cavalry forming a most effective division of the
army, veterinary surgeons were appointed to each
of the legions. The horse and his management
and diseases were then for the first time systema-
tically studied. The works, or extracts from the
works of a few of them are preserved. There is,
however, little in them that is valuable.

About the middle of the fourth century a vo-
lume of a ditferent character on the veterinary art
^en by Vegetius, who appears to have been
the army, but in what situation is un-
is work, with all its errors, is truly
^ as a collection of the best remarks that
,d been written on veterinary matters, from the
rliest age to his day, and including extiacts from
the works of Chiron and Hippocrates, which would
otherwise have h^i^lost. The history of the
symptoms^j|^^^^H)us diseases is singularly
'of treatment reflects little
'y acquirements of the author
ived.
time the irruptions of the Goths
d shortly after eveiy record of science
^way in both the eastern and the western

Berenger, p. 82.

»•*.

200

THE HORSE.

the withers fine and high ; the loins straight and
sliort ; the flanks and ribs round and full, and
with not too much band; the haunches strong;
the croup, perhaps, a little too long ; the quarters
muscular and well developed ; the legs clean, with
the tendons boldly detached from the bone ; the
pastern somewhat too long and oblique ; and the
foot sound and good.* They are rather lower
than the Arabian, seldom exceeding fourteen hands
and an inch, and have not his spirit, or speed, or
continuance, although in general form they are
probably his superior.

The barb has chiefly contributed to the excel-
lence of the Spanish horse ; and, when the im-
provement of the breed of horses began to be
systematically pursued in Great Britain, the barb
was very early introduced. The Godolphin Ara-
bian, as he is called, and who was the origin of
some of our best racing blood, was a barb ; and
others of our most celebrated turf-horses trace
their descent from African mares. They are
generally first mounted at two years old. They
are never castrated, for " a Mussulman would not
mutilate or sell the skin of the beast of the Pro-
phet." The horses alone are used for the saddle,!
and the mares are kept for breeding. The cavalry
exercise to which their horses are exposed is
exceedingly severe. The Moorish method of
fighting principally consists in galloping at the
very height of their horses' speed, for the distance
of a quarter of a mile or more, then suddenly
stopping while the rider throws his spear or dis-
charges his musket. By way of exercise, they
will sometimes continue to do this without a
moment's intermission to change or to breathe
their horse. All that is required of the best-taught
and most valuable Barbaiy horse is thus to gallop
and to stop, and to stand still, all the day if it is
necessary, when his rider quits him. As for
trotting, cantering, or ambling, it would be an
unpardonable fault were he ever to be guilty of it.
A Barbary horse is generally broken in in a far
severer way, and much earlier than he ought to
be, and therefore he usually becomes unfit for
service long before the Arabian. The usual food
of the barb is barley and chopped straw, and grass
while it is to be found, but of the provision for
winter food in the form of hay they are altogether
ignorant.

Captain Brown, in his Biographical Sketches
of Horses, gives the following interesting account
of a barb and his rider, at the Cape of Good
Hope : — In one of the violent storms which often

• Berenger, p. 127.

+ No Arab ever mounts a stallion ; on the contrary, in Africa
tliey never ride mares. The reason is plain. The Arabs are
constantly at war with their neighbours, and always endeavour to
take their enemies by surprise in the grey of the evening, or the
dawn of day. A stallion no sooner smells the stale of the mare in
the enemy's quarters, than he begins to neigh, and that would give

occur there, a vessel in the road dragged her
anchors, and was forced on the rocks, and beaten
to pieces. The greater part of the crew perished
immediately, but some few were seen from the
shore clinging to different pieces of the wreck.
No boat could venture to their assistance. Mean-
while a planter came from his farm to see the
shipwreck, and perceiving no other chance of
escape for the survivors, and knowing the spirit
of his horse and his excellence as a swimmer, he
determined to make one desperate efibrt for their
deliverance, and pushed into the midst of the
breakers. At first both disappeared, but they
were soon seen on the surface. Nearing the
wreck, he induced two of the poor fellows to quit
their hold and to cling to his boots, and so he
brought them safe ashore. He repeated this
perilous expedition seven times, and saved four-
teen lives ; but on his return, the eighth time, his
horse being much fatigued, and meeting with a
formidable wave, the rider lost his balance and
was overwhelmed in a moment. The horse swam
safely to land, but his gallant rider was seen no
more. The Cape was then a colony of the Dutch
The Directors christened one of their new vessels
after him, and ordered a pillar to be erected to
his memory, but the local authorities refused to
the son a trifling place which his father filled. J

The barb improves towards the Western coast
of Africa, both in his form and graceful action.

Deep in the Sahara Desert is a noble breed
of barbs, known by the name of the "Wind-sucker
or the Desert-horse." Jackson says of him, that
the Desert-horse is to the common Barbary horse
what the Desert-camel is to the usual camel of
burden ; but that he can only be induced to eat
barley or wheat — oats are never given to horses in
Africa ; but that, supplied with a little camel's
milk, he will travel almost incredible distances
across the Desert. He is principally employed
in hunting the antelope and the ostrich.

There is some little exaggeration, however,
about this, for when he is brought towards the
coast, and can no longer get his camel's milk, he
will eat the barley and the straw which are given ,
to him, and will thrive and get fat upon them. If
he chances to die, it is from being suffered to
gorge too much of his new food ; or if he loses a
portion of his speed and wind, it is because he has
been taken out of his exercise, and permitted to
accumulate flesh and fat too fast.

More in the centre of Africa, in the kingdom
of Boumou, is a breed, which Mr. Tully, in his

the alarm to the party intended to be surprised. No such thing
can ever happen when they ride mares only. On the contrary, the
African trusts only to superior force. They are in an open plain
country, must be discovered at many miles' distance, and all such
surprises and stratagems are useless to them.

S De Page's Travels Round the World, and Sharmau's 'Voyage
to the Cape of Good Hope.

THE HOESE.

201

almost romantic history of Tripoli, reckons su-
perior evea to those of Arabia or Barbary ; it pos-
sesses, according to him, the best qualities of
both those breeds, being as serviceable as that of
Arabia, and as beautiful as that of Barbary.

On the south of the Great Sahara Desert we
find again the Arabian or the Barbary horse in
the possession of some of the chiefs of the Foulahs
and the Jalofs ; but the general character of the
animal is in those torrid regions much deteriorated.
These horses are small, weak, unsafe, and un-
tractable. The Foulahs, however, can bring into
the field no fewer than 16,000 cavalry. Some
writers have asserted, that in the kingdom of
Benin a much larger number could be collected.

In the country lying between that of the
Foulahs and the kingdom of Benin, tliere are few
horses immediately on the coast, but they are
more numerous in the inland districts. Bosman,
however, says of them that they are very ill-shaped ;
that they carry their heads and necks more pro-
jecting and depressed than even the ass ; that
they are slow and obstinate, and only to be forced
on by dint of blows ; and that they are so low,
that a tall man sitting on their backs could touch
the ground with his feet. He adds that at Fida,
on the slave-coast, whence he journeyed inland to
Elmina, he bought five or six of them, each of
which cost him somewhat less than four pounds,
but they did him no manner of service, and he
was compelled to leave them behind. Neither
horses, nor any other produce of value, can be
looked for in these unhappj' countries, so long as
they ai'e desolated by the abominable slave-trade,
under the sanction of the more civilised but truly
unchristian nations of Europe. *

THE C.\PE OF GOOD HOPE HORSE.

Nothing is certainly known of the western
coast of Africa, descending towards the south ; but
arriving at the Cape of Good Hope, we find that
the horse, if a native of that country, is only
occasionally seen in its wild state. The horses
that were introduced by the first colonists, the
Dutch, were mostly procured from Batavia, Java,
and South America. At the very commencement
of the colony, many horses were imported from
Persia. These were mingled together, and crossed
in every possible way, e.N.cept that not one notion
of scientific improvement seems to have entered
the head of the Dutch boor. They were a small
hardy race, capable of enduring a great deal of
fatigue, but in every way sadly neglected ; never
dressed, and often ill-fed.

When the Cape was ceded to the English,
both the colonists and the government set ear-
nestly to work to improve these undersized ani-
mals, and with very considerable success. The

• Bosnian's Coast of Guinea, p. 366.
TOL. I.

British light regiments of dragoons, in their pas-
sage to the East, can now frequently draw con-
siderable supplies of horses from this colony, and
some regiments have been entirely mounted here.
This is sufficient proof of the degree of hnprove-
ment which they have reached. It is, however,
said that the riding-masters have occasionally
much trouble in breaking in the Cape horses,
which are naturally vicious, and especially when
put beyond the pace to which they had been ac-
customed.f They rarely stand above fourteen
hands high ; they are hardy, and when thorouglily
broken in, are capable of enduring great privation
and fatigue. They are rarely shod while they
remain in the colony, or if they are, it is only on
the fore feet. Their principal food is carrots, with
a small quantity of corn. No hay is grown near
Cape Town, nor are there any pastures on which
the liorses can be turned. |

The wild horses have long disappeared near to
the colony, and we have no authentic record that
any of them were ever taken and attempted to be
domesticated.

The horse is rarely seen in any part of the
eastern coast of Africa. It is not a native of
Madagascar, but is again found in Ajan and Adel,
on the southern frontiers of Abyssinia.

THE AR.iBI.^N HORSE.

Although modern Europe owes so much to
Arabia for the improvement in her breed of horses,
it may be doubted whether these animals were,
found in that country as a matter of merchandise,
or indeed existed there at all in large numbers in
very early times. The author of the book of Job,
in describing the wealth of that patriarch, who
was a native of Arabia, and the richest man of his
time, makes no mention of horses, although the
writer shows himself very conversant with that
animal. Five hundred years after that, Solomon
imported spices, gold, and silver, from Arabia ; ||
but all the hor=es for his own cavalry and chariots,
and those with which he supplied the Phoenician
monarchs, he procured from Egypt. §

There is a curious record of the commerce of
different countries at the close of the second cen-
tm-y. Among the articles exported from Egypt
to Arabia, and particularly as presents to reigning
monarchs, were horses.

In the fourtli century, two hundred Cappado-
cian horses were sent by the Roman emperor as
the most acceptable present he could offer a pow-
erful prince of Arabia.

So late as the seventh century the Arabs had
few horses, and those of little value ; for when
Mahomet attacked the Koreish near Mecca, he

+ Pevcivall's Cape of Good Hope, p. 161.
» Percivall's Cape of Good Hope, p. 145.
II 2 Clnon. is. U. § 2 Cliron. i. 17.

202

THE HOKSE.

had but two horses in his whole army : and at
the close of his murderous campaign, although he
drove off twentj'-four thousand camels and forty-
thousand sheep, and carried away twenty-four
thousand ounces of silver, not one horse appears
in the list of plunder.

These circumstances sufficiently prove that,
however superior may be the present breed, it is
comparatively lately that the horse was naturalised
in Arabia. Indeed the Arabs do not deny this ;
for until within the last century, when their horses
began to be so deservedly valued, they were con-
tent to limit their piedigree to one of the five on
which Mahomet and his four immediate successors
fled from Mecca to Medina on the night of the
Hegira.

Although in the seventh century the Arabs
had no horses of value, yet those which they had
derived from their neighbours began then to be
preserved with so much care, and propagated so
uniformly and strictly from the finest of the
breed, that in the thirteenth century the Arabian
horse began to assume a just and unrivalled
celebrity.

There are now said to be three breeds or
varieties of Arabian horses : the Attechi, or in-
ferior breed, on which the natives set little value,
and which are found wild on some parts of the
deserts ; the Keidischi, literally horses of an un-
known race, answering to our half-bred horses — a
mixed breed ; and the Kochlani, horses whose
genealogy, according to the modem exaggerated

accounts, has been cultivated during two thousand
years. Many written and attested pedigrees ex-
tend, with true Eastern exaggeration, to the stud
of Solomon, The Kochlani are principally reared
by the Bedouin Arabs, in the remote deserts. A
stallion may be procured without much difficulty,
although at a great price. The Arabs imagine
that the female is more concerned than the male
in the excellence and value of the produce,
and the genealogies of their horses are always
traced through the dam.

The Arab horse would not be acknowledged by
every judge to possess a perfect form. The head,
however (like that which is delineated in the title-
page), is inimitable. The broadness and square-
ness of the forehead ; the smallness of the ears ;
the prominence and brilliancy of the eye ; the
shortness and fineness of the muzzle ; the width
of the nostril ; the thinness of the lower jaw, and
the beautifully developed course of the veins, — will
always characterize the head of the Arabian horse.
The cut in the title-page is the portrait of the
head of a black Arabian presented to William IV.
by the Imaum of Muscat. It is a close and
honest likeness. The muzzle, the nostrils, and
the eye, are inimitable. In the sale of the Hamp-
ton Court stud, in 1837, this animal realized five
hundred and eighty guineas ; it was bought for the
King of Wurtemberg, and is highly prized in
Germany.

The body of the Arab may, perhaps, be con-
sidered as too light, and his chest too narrow ; but

ARAB M.\BE AND FOAL.

THE HORSE.

203

behind the arms the barrel generally swells out,
and leaves sufficient room for the play of the
lungs. This is well exhibited in the cut of the
grey Arabian mare, whose portrait is here given.
She is far inferior to the black one in the peculiar
development of the liead and neck, but in other
respects affords a more faithful specimen of the
true form of the Arabian horse. She is of the
purest caste, and was a present from the same
potentate by whom the black Arabian was given.
The foal at her foot was by Acteon. She was sold
for one hundred guineas only. Perhaps her colour
was against her. Her flea-bitten appearance would
not please every one. The foal, which had more
than the usual clumsiness belonging to the young-
ster, sold for fifty-eight guineas.

The neck of the Arabian is long and arched,
and beautifully joined to the chest. The black
horse in the frontispiece afforded a perfect speci-
men of this. In the formation of the shoulder,
next to that of the head, the Arab is superior to
any other breed. The withers ai-e high, and the
shoulder-blade has its proper inclination back-
wards. It is also thickly clothed with muscle,
but without the slightest appearance of heavi-
ness.

The fineness of his legs and the oblique po-
sition of the pasterns might be supposed by the
uninitiated to lessen his apparent strength; but
the leg, although small, is deep, and composed of
bone of the densest character. The tendons are
sufficiently distinct from the bone, and the starting
muscles of the fore-arm and the thigh indicate that

he is fully capable of accomplishing many of the
feats that are recorded of him.

As a faithful specimen of the general form of
these horses, with, perhaps, a little deficiency in
the head and neck, we refer once more to the fol-
lowing portrait of a bay Arabian — an animal of
the purest caste, presented also by the Imaura of
Muscat. It was sold for four hundred and ten
guineas. The higher price that was given for the
black Arabian proves that he was the general
favourite ; but the bay one, although not so striking
in his figure, was a stronger, a speedier, and a
better horse.

. The Barb alone excels the Arabian in noble
and spirited action; but if there is a defect about
tlie latter, he is perfect for that iov which he was
designed. He presents the true combination of
speed and bottom : strength enough to carry mire
than a light weight, and courage that would cause
him to die rather than yield.

Mr. Burckhardt, in a letter to Professor Sewell,
says that " the tribes richest in horses are those
who dwell, during the spring of the year at least,
in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia; for, notwith-
standing all that is said of the desert horse, plenty
of nutritious food is absolutely requisite for its
reaching its full vigour and growth. The nume-
rous tribes on the Red Sea, between Akaba and
Mecca, and especially those to the south of Mecca,
and as far as Yemen, have very few horses ; but
the Curdes and Bedouins in the east, and espe-
cially in Mesopotamia, possess more horses, and
more valuable ones, than all of the Arabian Be-

BAY ARAnlAN.

S04

THE HORSE.

douins ; for the ricbness of tlieir pastures easily
nourishes the colts, and fills their studs." These
observations are very important, and are evidently
foimded on truth. He adds, that "the number of
horses in Arabia is not more than fifty thousand ;
a number far inferior to that found in any part of
Europe, or Asia, on an equal extent of ground."

" During the Wahabee government, horses be-
came scarcer every year among the Arabs. They
were sold by tlieir masters to foreign purchasers,
who carried them to Yemen, Syria, and Bassora,
which latter place supplies India with Arabian
horses, because they were afraid of having them
seized upon by their chiefs — it ha"ving become the
custom, upon every slight pretext of disobedience
or crime, to declare the most valuable Bedouin
mare forfeit to the public treasury."

Syria is the best place to purchase true Arabian
blood-horses ; and no district is superior to the
Naurau, where the horse may be purchased from
the first hand, and chosen in the very encamp-
ments of the Arabs themselves, who fill these
plains ill the spring. The horses bought at Bas-
sora for the Indian markets are purchased second-
hand from Bedouin dealers. These procure them
from the Moutifell Arabs, who are not careful in
maintaining a pure breed. Damascus would be
the best residence for a person constantly employed
in this trade.

While the number of horses generally is much
smaller than had been supposed, there are com-
paratively fewer of those of perfect quality and
beauty, — perhaps not more than five or six in a
whole tribe; probably not two hundred in the
whole desert. Each of these, in the desert itself,
may be worth from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred pounds ; but very few, if any, of these
have ever found their way to Europe.

There has, however, been much exaggeration
with regard to these pedigrees. Burckhardt says,
that in the interior of the desert, the Bedouins
never make use of any, because, among them-
selves, they know the genealogy of their liorse
almost as well as that of their own families; but if
they carry their horses to any distance, as to Bas-
sora, Bagdat, or Damascus, they take care to have
a written pedigree made out, in order to present it
to the purchaser. In that case onlj' would a Be-
douhi be found possessed of his horse's pedigree.
He would laugh at it in the desert.

The Kochlani ai'e principally reared by the
Bedouin Aralis in the remoter deserts. One of
them was sold at Acre fur the sum of fifteen
thousand piastres.

It is an error into which almost every writer
on the history of the horse has fallen, that the
Arabian is bred in the arid deserts, and owes the
power of endurance which he possesses in his adult
state to the hardships which he endured while he

was a colt. The real fact is, that the Arabs' select;
for their breeding-places some of those delightful
spots, known only in countries like these, where,
though all may be dry and barren around, there is
pasture unrivalled for its succulence and its nu-
tritious or aromatic properties. The powers of
the young animal are afterwards developed, as
they alone could be, by the mingled influence of
plentiful and healthy food, and sufficient, but not,
except in one day of trial, cruel exercise.

The most extraordinaiy care is taken to pre-
serve the purity of the breed. Burckhardt states
that the favourite mare of Savud the Wahabee,
which he constantly rode in all his expeditions,
and was known in every part of Arabia, produced
a colt of very superior beauty and promise, and it
grew to be the finest stallion of his day. Savud,
however, would never permit him to be used for
the purposes of breeding, because his mother was
not of pure blood ; and not knowing what to do
with him, as the Bedouins never ride stallions, he
sent him as a present to the sclieriff.

The parentage and birth of the foal are care-
fully recorded by competent witnesses, whose cer-
tificate includes the marks of the colt, and the
names of the sire and dam.

The colt is never allowed to fall on the ground
at the period of birth, but is caught in the arms of
those who stand by, and washed and caressed as
though it were an infant. The mare and her
foal inhabit the same tent with the Bedouin and
his children. Tlie neck of the mare is often the
pillow of the rider, and, more frequently, of the
children, who are rolling about upon her and the
foal. No accident ever occurs, and the animal ac-
quires that friendship and love for man which occa-
sional ill-treatment will not cause her for a moment
to forget.

At the end of a mouth the foal is weaned, and
is fed on camel's milk for one hundred days. At
the expiration of that period, a little wheat is
allowed ; and by degrees that quantity is in-
creased, the milk continuing to be the principal
food. This mode of feeding continues another
hnndred days, when the foal is permitted to graze
in the neighbourhood of the tent. Barley is also
given; and to this some camel's milk is added
in the evening, if the Arab can afford it. By
these means the Arab horse becomes as decidedly
characterised for his docility and good temper, as
for his speed and courage. The kindness with
which he is treated from the time of his being
foaled, gives him an affection for his master, a
wish to please, a pride in exerting every energy in
obedience to his commands, and, consequentlj', an
apparent sagacity which is seldom found in other
breeds. In that delightful book. Bishop Heber's
" Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Pro-
vinces of India," the following interesting cha-

THE HORSE.

205

raoter 13 given of him: — " My morning rides are
very pleasant. My horse is a nice, quiet, good-
tempered little Arab, who is so fearless, that he
goes without starting close to an elephant, and so
gentle and docile that he eats bread out of my
hand, and has almost as much attachment and
coaxing ways as a dog. This seems the general
character of the Arab horses, to judge from what
I have seen in this country. It is not the fiery
dashing animal I had supposed, but with more
rationality about him, and more apparent confi-
dence in his rider, than the majority of English
horses."

When the Arab falls from his mare, and is
unable to rise, she will immediately stand still,
and neigh until assistance arrives. If he lies
down to sleep, as fatigue sometimes compels him,
in the midst of the desert, she stands watchful
over him, and neighs and rouses him if either
man or beast approaches. The Arab horses are
taught to rest occasionally in a standing position;
and a great many of them never lie down.

The Arab loves his horse as truly and as much
as the horse loves him; and no little portion of
his time is often spent in talking to him and
caressing him.

An old Arab had a valuable mare that had
carried him for fifteen years in many a rapid weary
march, and many a hard-fought battle ; at length,
eighty years old, and unable longer to ride her,
he gave her, and a scimitar that had been his
fathers, to his eldest son, and told him to appre-
ciate their value, and never lie down to rest
until he had rubbed them both as bright as a
mirror. In the first skinnish in which the young
man was engaged, he was killed, and the mare
fell into the hands of the enemj'. When the
news reached the old man, he exclaimed, that
" life was no longer worth presei-ving, for he had
lost both his son and his mare, and he grieved for
one as much as the other." He immediately
sickened, and soon afterwards died.

A Bedouin had committed some offence, and
was pursued by the governor's guards in the di-
rection towards Jericho. They were so close upon
him that his only chance of escape was to gallop
down the almost pei-pendicular declivity of the
hills that overlooked the town. His mare pre-
cipitated herself dowii it at full speed, leaving
the soldiers lost in admiration and astonishment.
She, however, dropped dead on entering Jericho.
The Bedouin, who would not quit her, was taken
weeping over the body of his faithful companion.
"Ali Aga," saj's M.Chateaubriand, "religiously
showed me her footsteps along the face of the
mountain." A Macedonian could not have beheld
those of Bucephalus with greater veneration.

The following anecdote of the attachment of
an Arab to his mare has often -been told : — " The

whole stock of an Arab of the desert consisted of
a mare. The French consul offered to purchase
her, in order to send her to his sovereign, Louis
XIV. The Arab would have rejected the pro-
posal, but he was miserably poor; he had scarcely
a rag to cover him, and his wife and his childi'en
were starving. The sum offered was great, — it
would provide him and his family with food for life.
At length, and reluctantl}', hejaelded. He brought
the mare to the dwelling of the consul, dismounted,
and stood leaning upon her ; he looked now at the
gold, and then at his favourite. ' To whom is it,'
said he, ' I am going to yield thee up? To Euro-
peans, who will tie thee close, — who will beat
thee, — who will render thee miserable. Ketum
with me, my beauty, my jewel, and rejoice the
hearts of my children.' As he pronounced the
last words, he sprung upon her back, and was
presently out of sight."

One of our own countrymen, the entei^prising
traveller. Major Denliam, affords us a pleasing
instance of the attachment with which the docility
and sagacity of this animal may inspire the owner.
He thus relates the death of his favourite Arabian,
in one of the most desert spots of Central Africa.
His feelings needed no apology : we naturally
honour the man in whom true sensibility and
undaunted courage, exerted fur useful purposes,
were thus united.

" There are a few situations in a man's life in
which losses of this nature are felt most keenly ;
and this was one of them. It was not grief, but it
was something veiy nearly approaching to it ; and
though I felt ashamed of the degree of derange-
ment I suffered from it, yet it was several days
before I could get over the loss. Let it, however,
be remembered, that the poor animal had been
my support and comfort, — nay, I may say, compa-
ni(m, through many a dreary day and night ; — had
endured both hunger and thirst in my service ;
and was so docile, that lie would stand still for
hours in the desert while I slept between his legs,
his body affiii'ding me the only shelter that could
be obtained from the powerful influence of a noon-
day sun : he was yet the fleetest of the fleet, and
ever foremost in the chase."

Man, however, is an inconsistent being. The
Arab who thus lives with and loves his horses, re-
garding them as his most valuable treasure, some-
times treats them with a cruelty scarcely to be
credited. The severest treatment which the Eng-
lish race-horse endures is gentleness compared
with the trial of the young Arabian. Probably the
filly has never before been mounted. Her owner
springs on her back, and goads h6r over the sands
and rocks of the desert for fifty or sixty miles
without one moment's respite. She is then forced,
steaming and panting, into water deep enough for
Jier to swim. If, immediately after this, she will

200

THE HOESE.

eat as if nothing had occurred, her character is
established, and she is acknowledged to he a
genuine descendant of the Kocldani breed. The
Arab does not think of the cruelty which he thus
inflicts ; he only follows an invariable custom.

We may not jserhaps believe all that is told us
of the speed and endurance of the Arabian. It
has been remarked, that there are on the deserts
which this horse traverses no mile-stones to mark
the distance, or watches to calculate the time ;
and that the Bedouin is naturally given to exag-
geration, and, most of all, when relating the
prowess of the animal, that he loves as dearly as
his children : yet it cannot be denied that, at the
introduction of the Arabian into the European
Stables, there was no horse comparable to him.
The mare in her native deserts will travel fifty
miles without stopping; she has been urged to
the almost incredible distance of one hundred and
twenty miles, and, occasionally, neither she nor
her rider has tasted food for three whole days.

Oiu- horses would fare badly on the scanty
nourishment afforded the Arabian. The mare
usually has but two meals in twenty-four hours.
During the day she is tied to the door of the tent,
ready for the Bedoun to spring, at a moment's
warning, into the saddle ; or she is turned out be-
fore the tent ready saddled, the bridle merely being
taken off, and she is so trained th8,t she immedi-
ately gallops up at her master's call. At night
she receives a little water ; and with her scanty
provender of five or six pounds of barley or beans,
and sometimes a little straw, she lies down con-
tent, if she is accustomed to lie down at all, in the
midst of her master's family.

Buckliardt relates a stoiy of the speed and en-
durance of one of them, and shows with what feel-
ings an Arab regards his quadiiiped friend : — " A
troop of Druses, on horseback, attacked, in the
summer of 1815, a party of Bedouins, and pur-
sued them to their encampment : the Bedouins
were then assisted by a superior force, and be-
coming the assailants in their tuni, kjlled all the
Druses excejiting one who fled. He was pursued
by some of the best mounted Bedouins, but his
mare, although fatigued, could not be overtaken.
Before his pursuers gave up the chase they called
to him, and begged to be peimitted to kiss his e.x-
cellent mare, promising him safe conduct for her
sake. He might have taken them at their word,
for the pledge of an Arab, in such circumstances,
might have been relied on: he however refused.
They immediately left the pursuit, and, blessing
the noble beast, cried out to the fugitive, ' Go and
wash the feet of your mare and drink off the water.'
This expression is often used by the Bedouins to
show the regard they have for their mares."*

* Coini avative View of die Kaccr, jj. 161.

A periodical writer, on what authority is not
stated, but he is right in most of the particulars if
not in all of them, says, that "taking the compa-
rative excellence of the different races, Nejed, be-
tween the desert of Syria and Yemen, and now in
the possession of the Wahabis, is generally reck-
oned to produce the grandest, noblest horses ;
Hcjaz (extending along the Eed Sea, from Mount
Sinai to Yemen, and including in it Medina and
Mecca) the handsomest ; Yemen (on the coast of
the Eed Sea and the Indian Ocean, and the most
fertile part of Arabia) the most durable ; Syria the
richest in colour ; Mesopotamia the most quiet ;
Egypt the swiftest ; Barbaiy the most prolific :
and Persia and Koordistan the most warlike. "t

The introduction of the Arabian into England,
and the concern which he has had in the improve-
ment of the English horse, will be treated of in
the next chapter.

THE PERSIAN HOESE.

Next in the route which has been pursued
along the south of Asia, towai'ds the east, and
yielding only to the Arabian in beauty and value,
stands the Persian horse. He is of larger growth
than the Arabian, — purposely bred so, — and on
that account some foreign — still east country, but
not pure Arabian blood, being introduced. A
larger animal, one more adapted for modern war,
is the result, but with some diminution of speed
and endurance. The Persian is a nobler-looking
animal at the first glance, but he will not bear the
accurate examination that only increases our ad-
miration of the other. Berenger thus describes
their principal points : — " They are in general
small headed ; they have long and somewhat too
fine foreheads, and they are rather too narrow
chested ; their legs are a little small, but their
croups are well fashioned, and their hoofs good and
firm. They are docile, quick, light, bold, full of
spirit, capable of enduring much fatigue, swift,
sure-footed, hardy in constitution, and contented
with almost any provender." They have, since
his time, lost somewhat of the beauty, elasticity,
docility, speed, and almost never-failing endurance.

The Persian horses constituted in ancient
times the best cavaliy of the East. The im-
proved, incomparable Arabian breed was not then
in existence.

An entertaining traveller (Sir E. Kerr Porter)
gives the following account of them :— " The Per-
sian horses seldom exceed fourteen or fourteen
and a half hands high, yet certainly, in the whole,
are taller than the Arabs. Those of the desert
and country about Hillah run veiy small, but are
full of bone and of good speed. General custom
feeds and waters them only at sunrise and sunset,

+ The Sportsman, vol. iii. p. 256.

THE HOUSE.

207

when they are cleaned. Their usual provender is
barley and chopped straw, which, if the animals
are picketed, is put into a nosebag and liung
from their heads ; but if stabled, it is thrown into
a small lozenge-shaped hole left in the thickness
of the mud-wall for tliat purpose, but much higher
up than the line of our mangers, and there the
animal eats at his leisure. Hay is a Ivind of food
not known here. The bedding of the horse con-
sists of his dung. After being exposed to the
drying intluence of the sun during the day, it be-
comes pulverised, and, in that state, is nightly
spread under him.* Little of it touches his body,
that being covered by his clothing, a large numniud
from the ears to the tail and bound firmly round
his body by a very long surcingle. But this ap-
parel is only for cold weather ; in the warmer
season the night-clothes are of a lighter substance,
and during the heat of the day, the animal is kept
entirely under shade.

" At night he is tied in the com't-yard. The
horses' heads are attached to the place of security
by double ropes from their halters, and the heels of
their hinder legs are confined by cords of twisted
hair, fastened to iron rings, and pegs driven into
the earth. The same custom prevailed in the
time of Xenophon, and for the same reason : to se-
cure them from being able to attack and maim
each other, the whole stud generally consisting of
stallions. Their keepers, however, always sleep
on their rugs amongst them to prevent accident;
and sometimes, notwithstanding all this care, they
manage to break loose, and then the combat en-
sues. A general neighing, screaming, kicking,
and snorting, soon rouses the grooms, and the
scene for a while is terrible. Indeed no one can
conceive the sudden uproar of such a moment who
has not been in Eastern countries to hear it, and
then all who have, must bear me witness that
the noise is tremendous. They seize, bite, and
kick each other with the most determined fury,
and frequently cannot be separated before their
heads and haimches stream with blood. Even in
skirmishes with the natives, the horses take part
in the fray, tearuig each other with their teeth,
while their masters are in similar close quartera
on their baclis."

His description of a Persian race does not
altogether remind us of Newmarket or Doncaster.

" My curiosity was fully on the spur to see the
racers, which I could not doubt must have been
chosen from the best in the nation to exhibit the
perfection of its breed before the sovereign. The
rival horses were divided into three sets, in order

* It is the usual floodng of the stable and the tent. The
united influence of the sun and air deprives it of all unpleasant
odiiur, and when from use it becomes a second time oifenoive, it is
again exposed to the suu, and all impleasani smell once mure taken
away.

to lengthen the amusement. They had been in
training for several weeks, going over the ground
very often during that time ; and when I did see
them, I found so much pains had been taken to
sweat and reduce their weight, that their bones
were nearly cutting the skin. The distance
marked for the race was a stretch of fuur-and-
twenty miles, and, that his majesty might not have
to wait when he had reached the field, the horses
had set forward long before, by three divisions,
from the starting point, (a short interval of time
passing between each set,) so that they might be-
gin to come in a few minutes after the king had
taken his seat. The different divisions arrived in
regular order at the goal, but all so fatigued and
exhausted, that their former boasted tleetness
hardly exceeded a moderate canter when they
passed before the royal eyes."

The plains of Persepolis, Media, Ardebil, and
Derbane, rear annually a great number of valuable
horses, but those bred in Kurdistan are accounted
the best both in beauty and strength.

THE CIRCASSIAN HORSE.

The Circassian horse, although inferior to the
Persian, does not often find his equal among the
predatory hordes with which this part of Asia
abounds. Vast numbers of horses and sheep are
reared in the plains of Circassia, and they and the
slaves which are made in their excursions, form
the principal articles of the commerce of the na-
tives. Almost every family of distinction aims at
possessing a peculiar breed of horses, excelling, in
their estimation, that of any other tribe. Each
breed is distinguished by its peculiar mark, to
forge or to place which on an inferior breed, would
be punished with death. The most valuable breed
of all is in the possession of the reigning family,
and its distinguishing mark is a full horse-shoe.
These horses possess considerable strength and
speed.

THE EAST INDIAN HORSE.
We will now travel farther eastward, and ex-
amine the breeds of horses in our Indian posses-
sions. They are small, and, altliough some have
considerable endurance and courage, they weai- the
general character of degeneracy from a nobler
stock. First in value is the Toorky, originally
from a Toorkoman and a Persian, beautiful in his
form, graceful m his action, and docile in his
temper. When skilfully managed his cai'riage is
stately and grand. His spirit rising as his exer-
ertions are required, he exhibits to his beholders
an appearance of fury in the performance of his
task, yet preserving to his rider the utmost play-
fulness and gentleness. They are usually from
fourteen to fifteen hands high, and have the com-
mon defect of the East India horse — smallness

208

THE HOUSE.

nnd length of bone below tbe knees and about the
hocks.

Next conies the Iranee, Tvell limbed, and his
joints closely knit, and j-articularlj' j^owerful in
the (juarters, but with large head, and hanging
ears, and deficiency of spirit.

The gentle and docile Cozakee is deep in the
girth, powerful in the fore-arm, but with large
bead and cat-hammed ; hardy, and calculated for
long journeys and severe sen'ice.

The Mojimnss have spirit, beauty, speed, and
perseverance.

The Tazsee is slight, hollow-backed, and, for
that reaton perhaps, deficient in strength. His
hind legs are ill placed, and dragged as it were
behind him, and he is stubborn and irritable; yet
this horse is sought after on account of the pecu-
liar easiness of his paces, a matter of no small
consideration where the heat is so great and the
slightest exertion fatiguing.

A sale of horses near the Company's stud, at
Hissar, is thus described by an excellent judge : —
" Not less than one thousand horses were shown.
There were all above fourteen hands and a half in
height, high-crested, and showy-looking animals.
The great defect seemed a want of bone below the
knee, which is general to all the native horses
throughout India; and also so great a tendency to
fulness in tbe hocks, that, in England, it would
be thought half of them had blood spavins."

There are other studs in different parts of the
counti-y, in which some valuable stallions are kept
for the purpose of improving the various Indian
breeds. Almost all of them have a greater or
lesser portion of Arabian blood in them, which
gives them the appearance of good cavalry horses,
but renders them inferior to the Arabians gene-
rally in swiftness and always in endurance. For
this reason the native cavalry are principally
mounted on Arabian horses, which are brought in
great numbers, but of no considerable value, from
Arabia and Syria.

It may be readily supposed that it was not
long before races were established in the East
Indies, and that they were properly patronized
by the goveniment. They were, however, con-
fined almost entirely to the Arabian horses, for
those of half blood were manifestly inferior to
them.

In 1B98, Eecruit, by "Whalebone, a horse of
some celebrity at the tine, was sent out to Cal-
cutta. This was deemed a proper opportunity to
decide tbe question of superiority between the
pure Arab, and the true English racing blood, and
he was matched against Pyramus, the best Arabian
in Bengal. The distance was two miles, with
give' and take weights, fourteen hands to carry
nine stone, and the Arabian to be allowed seven
pounds ; Eecruit carried ten stones twelve pounds,

and Pyramus only eight stones three pounds.
They started well together, and ran the first part
of the distance neck and neck, but at about half
the distance. Recruit took the lead, and the
Arabian was beaten easil}' by several lengths.
The distance was run in three minutes and fifty-
seven seconds. Another trial took place between
Champion, a first-rate Arabian, and Constance, a
moderately good thorough-bred English horse.
The Arabian won in a canter; the question, there-
fore, is thought by some persons to be yet un-
decided.

There is an East Indian pony, called the Tattoo,
varying from ten to twelve hands in height. This
is a serviceable and hardy animal for carrying
baggage or any light weight. Tavemier describes
one which he saw ridden by a young Mogul prince,
of seven or eight years of age, and which was not
much larger than a greyhound.

In ]765 one, not more than seven hands, or
twenty-eight inches in height, was sent from India,
as a present to the queen of George III. It was
taken from the ship to the palace in a hackney-
coach. It was of a dun colour; and its hair
resembled that of a young fawn. It was four
years old, well proportioned, had fine ears, a quick
eye, with a handsome long tail, and w'as thoroughly
good-natured and manageable.

The Mahrattas were two powerful tribes or
nations, inhabiting the central part of Hindoostan,
and their territory extending from sea to sea,
across the south of the Deccan. Their wars
among themselves, or in union with the British
against Tippoo Saib, and afterwards against their
former protectors and allies, are prominent objects
in the modern bistoiy of India. Their troops
consisted almost entirely of cavalry, composed of
one of the best varieties of the half-blood Arabian
and native horse. The Mahratta, when not on
horseback, may be said to be almost constantly
employed in shampooing his horse. It is properly
so called, for he nibs him violently with his wrists
and elbows, as well as his hands, and moulds and
bends his limbs in eveiy direction. The Mahrattan
way of riding is a singular and, according to Euro-
pean notions, a very ungraceful one. His knees
are as high as his horse's back ; he holds on with
his heels, and clings with his hands either to the
mane or the peak of the saddle. "With such aids,
his seat is more secure than at first sight it would
appear to be. The peak of the saddle rises in the
form of a crane's neck, and is said to have been
borrowed from the Moguls. A crupper and a
martingale are almost indispensable accompani-
ments of the Mahratta horse-furniture. It is a
singular kind of crupper, however, not projecting
from the centre of the saddle, but attached to both
sides. The tohsa, or leathern vessel out of which
the horse eats his corn, is also attached to the

THE HORSE.

209

crupper; and this part of the trappings is generally
ornamented with silver knobs, or with silk tassels
or enibroideiy.

Their horses, like most of those in the East,
are picketed, not only during the day, hut very
frequently in the night. A rope is carried from
the headstall on each side to a peg driven into the
ground. A rope, or thong, is also tied round the
fetlocks behind, and carried backwards twenty or
thirty feet, and fastened to a peg. This pulls the
horse back, and keeps him, when standing, on the
stretch, but does not prevent him from lying down.
When they are thus tethered, their eyes are
covered, that they may not be alarmed by any
object that passes. They are also clothed, in
order that the beautiful, glossy appearance of their
coat may be preserved.

They use the snaffle-bridle, but it is so jagged
and pointed that the animal may be punished to
the full content of any barbarian that may ride
him. The headstall is usually ornamented, and
from the rein a thong descends by which the horse
may be occasionally reminded of his duty. The
horseman has neither whip, switch, nor spur, but
the horse is controlled, if he is disposed to rebel,
by the ciniel argument of the bit.

The breast of the Mahratta horse is more
splendidly ornamented than any other part. Nu-
merous coins, of different size and value — rupees
and double rupees — are formed into plates more
or less highly ornamented, and which in time of
war form a rich booty for the conqueror. The
mane, too, is generally plaited with silk-braids,
and silver knobs attached to them, with a beautiful
top-knot between the ears. If the rider has
distinguished himself in war, some curious tails,
said to be taken from the wild cow, dangle on
either side.*

THE BIRMAN AND CHINESE HORSE.

The Birman horses are small, but spirited and
strong. There is one at present ( 1 842) in the mena-
gerie belonging to the Zoological Society of London.
It does not stand more than twelve hands high ;
but he is a beautiful little fellow, and a picture of
strength.

In Siam the horses are few, and inferior to
those of the Birman empire.

In Cochin-China, on the eastern coast of the
peninsula, the horses are still small ; but they are
better formed, and more active and strong, than
they are in Siam. In Sumatra and Java the
horses have not increased in size ; but in form
and usefulness they scarcely yield to any in the
south-west of Asia. In Borneo they are few, and
scarcely deserving of notice. The horses of China
are, generally speaking, small, ill-formed, weak.

The Sportsi

, vol. iv. p. 174.

and without spirit ; indeed they have little occasion
for the horse in the greater part of that immense
empire.

THE AUSTRALIAN HORSE.

The new colonies of the British in Australia
and its dependencies will present something more
satisfactory. The greater part of the horses in
New South Wales — the eastern coast of Australia,
were derived from the Cape of Good Hope and
from India. Very little judgment was employed
in the selection, and indeed very few horses of
good quality could have been procured from either
place. The consequence was, that a writer so late
as 1824 says of them, that "they are principally
of the nag kind, and bred without much care.
They are not veiy sightly in appearance, being
narrow-chested and sharp-backed, and sadly de-
ficient in the quarters. They have an incurable
habit of shying, and they are not ver}' sure-footed."
The New South Wales horses are seldom stabled;
but are supposed to be healthier, and better able
to endure fatigue, when kept in the open air.
This, however, is probably only an excuse for
neglect.f

The sheep, however, prospering so well, and
the cattle rapidly increasing and improving, the
colonist began to be a little ashamed of his horses.
Several of a better kind, cart and blood, were
consequently imported from the mother-country —
an Arabian was procured from India — and the
Australian horse soon began to be a very different
sort of animal. A writer of a few years' later
date says ; — " We have few thorough-bred cart-
horses, almost all of them having a spice of blood
about them, which makes them unsteady at draught,
restive, and given to jibbing when put to a hard
pull." This was a veiy erroneous charge, and the
writer seems to be aware of it, for he adds, " This
may arise in a great measure from their being
badly broken in." It was the fjiulty management
and education of the horse, and not the portion of
pure blood which he had acquired, that produced
vices like these. The writer proceeds : — " We
have many fine gig, carriage, and saddle horses,
and even some that have pretensions to rank in
the list of racers." In fact races were instituted
at Sidney. A turf club was formed, and horses of
no despicable qualities entered the lists.

An excellent stallion, named Bay Cameron,
was imported from England, and the owner netted
by him, for the first season or two, more than six
hundred pounds per annum. Horses generally
rose more than fifteen per cent, in value. Even
at Sidney, two hundred pounds and more were
given for a horse of extraordinary figure and
powers ; and no good saddle, gig, or cart horse
could he purchased for less than forty pounds.

+ Atkinsons New South Wales, p. 61.

210

THE HOKSE.

These horses were found to be remarkably
hardy, and could undergo considerable fatigue.
The greatest fault was a heaviness of the head,
with a considerable degree of obstinacy and sulki-
ness — as much, however, the fault of education as
of natural disposition. *

A still later writer says, " that the breed is
rapidly improving, and particularly the draught
horses, from the importation of some of the
Cleveland breed from England." The true di-ay-
horse, however, was yet to be found, and could
not be procured from any of the native horses,
not even with the assistance of the Cleveland.
The mixture of English blood had not lessened
the endurance of the native breed ; for at the
hottest time of the year, with the thermometer at
times as high as ninety-six degi'ees in the shade,
the wi-iter says that he has ridden the same animal
fifty miles a day for three successive days. They
will all go through a vast deal of work, but they
would have more endurance, if they were not
broken in for the saddle and for harness so young.
It is no unusual thing to ride them sixty miles in
less than seven hours, and immediately turn them
out, to pick up what scanty herbage they can find.
The number of good horses was so rapidly in-
creased that their price had materially diminished,
and scarcely more than thirty-five pounds could be
got for the best of them.f

The traveller adds, that there are some diseases
to which the horse is subject in England, which
are as yet unknown in New South Wales. Glanders
has never made its appearance there. Greasy heels,
the almost peculiar disease of Britain, have not
been seen there. Strangles, however, are prevalent,
and, the author of the present work learns from
another source, unusually severe.*

In Van Dieman's Land the breed of horses,
originally derived from India, is very good. A
valuable breed of cart-horses is beginning to be
formed. The riding-horses are small, but they
are hardy. Horses of every kind are sixty per
cent, dearer in Van Diemen's Land than in New
South Wales ; because the colony is smaller, and
the number of horses that are bred is comparatively
small. Their treatment is not so good as in the
larger colony. Many of them know not the taste
of corn, and, when it is given to them, it is usually
in the straw. ||

Returning again to the continent of Asia, there
is nothing in China to detain us ; for through the
whole of the southern part of that immense empire
the horses are small, weak, without spirit, and
altogether undeserving of notice.

* Two Years in New South Wules, by P. Cunuins-ham,
vol. i. p. -296. " °

+ Breton's Excursions in New South Wales, in 1833, p. 330.
S Ibid. p. 332.
II Widowson's State of Van Diemen's Land in 1829, p. 184.

THE TARTARIAN HORSE.

Tartary comprehends a vast extent of country,
reaching from the Eastern Ocean to the European
dominions of Russia, through the central part of
Asia and Europe. Eastern Tartary belongs chiefly
to China — the Western has been subjected by
Russia, but a small portion of it about the Caspian
Sea claims to be independent. The tribes which
inhabit this immense space are dissimilar in their
appearance, and manners, and customs ; but, with
a few exceptions, the character of the horse is
nearly the same.

The wild horse is found in various parts of
Tartary ; but nowhere can it be considered as the
remnant of an original race that has never been
domesticated. The horees of the Ukraine, and
those of South America, are equally the descen-
dants of those that had escaped from the slavery
of man. The origin of the horses of Tartary has
been clearly traced to those that were emjiloyed iu
the siege of Azof, in 1657. Being suffered, from
want of forage, to penetrate into the desert in
order to find subsistence, they strayed to too great
a distance to be pursued or recalled, and became
wild and created a new breed. They are genei'ally
of a red colour, with a black stripe along the back.
They are divided into numerous herds, at the
head of each of which is an old stallion, who has
fought his way to the crown, and whose pre-
eminence is acknowledged by the rest. On the
approach of apparent danger, the mares and their
foals are driven into a close bod}^ in front of
which the males are ranged. There are frequent
contests between the different herds. The domes-
ticated horse, if he falls in their way unprotected
by his master, is instantly attacked, and speedily
destroyed ; but at the sight of a human being,
and especially mounted, they all take to flight,
and gallop into the recesses of the desert. The
young stallions as they grow up are driven from
the herd, and are seen straggling about at a dis-
tance, until they are strong enough to form herds
of wild mares for themselves.

The Cossacks ai'e accustomed to hunt the wild
horses, partly to keep up their own stock, and
partly for food. A species of vulture is sometimes
made use of in this affair. The bird pounces
upon the poor animal, and fastens itself on his
head or neck, fluttering his wings, and pei^plexing,
and half blinding him, so that he becomes an easy
prey to the Tartar. The young horses are generally
tamed without much difficulty ; they are, after a
little while, coupled with a tame horse, and grow
gentle and obedient. The wild horses thus re-
claimed are usually found to be stronger and more
serviceable than any which can be bred at home.

In the great deserts of Tartary, the herds of
wild horses are much larger. Many thousands, as
on the Pampas of South America, are often col-

THE UOltSE.

211

lected togethei'. The Kirghiso Tartars either
capture them for use, or spear them for food.

The flesh of the horse is a frequent article of
food among the Tartars ; and although they do
not, like the Indians of the Pampas, eat it raw,
their mode of cookery would not be very inviting
to the European epicure. They cut the muscular
parts into slices, and place them under their sad-
dles, and after they have galloped thirty or forty
miles, the meat becomes tender and sodden, and
fit for their table. At all their feasts, the first
and last, and most favourite dish, is a horse's head,
unless they have a roasted foal, which is the greatest
delicacy that can be procured.

When water was not at hand, the Scytliians
used to draw blood from their horses, and drink
it ; and the Dukes of Muscovy, for nearly two
hundred and sixty years, presented the Tartar
ambassadors with the milk of mares.*

Some of the Tartar and Kalmuck women ride
fully as well as the men. When a comtship is
taking place between two of the young ones, the
answer of the lady is thus obtained. She is mounted
on one of the best horses, and off she gallops at
full speed. Her lover pursues, and if he overtake
her, she becomes his wife ; but it is seldom or never
that a Kalmuck girl once on horseback is caught,
unless she has a partiality for her pursuer, t

The domesticated horees belonging to the Tar-
tars that wander over the immense plains of Cen-
tral Asia are little removed from a wild state.
They are small and badly made, but capable of
supporting the longest and most rapid journeys on
the scantiest fare.

One well-known circumstance will go far to ac-
count for their general hardiness. The Tartars
live much on the flesh of horses ; and the animals
that are unable to support the labour of their fre-
quent and rapid emigrations are first destroyed ;
the most vigorous are alone presened.

Berenger gives the following account of the
Tai-tar horses : — " Although but of a moderate
size, they are strong, nervous, proud, full of spirit,
bold, and active. They have good feet, but some-

* Must of the Tartars manufacture a liquor calltd koumiss,
from the milk of the mare. It has a very pleasant taste of mingled
sweet and snur, and is considerably nutritious. The Tartars say
that it is an excellent medicine, and almost a specific in consump-
tion, and some diseases of debility. It is thus made: — To a
certain quantity of fresh mare's milk, a sixth part of water, and an
eighth part of very sour milk, or of old koumiss, is added. The
vessel is covered with a thick cloth, and set in a place of moderate
warmth. It is thus left at rest twenty-four hours, when the
whole of it will have become sour, and a thick substance will
have gathered on the top. The whole is then beaten with a stick,
in the form of a chum-statf, until it becomes blended into one
homogeneous mass. Twenty-four hours after this the beating is
repeated, or the liquor is agitated in a chum, until the whole
is again mingled together. The process is now complete, and
the koumiss is formed ; but it must be always well shaken before
it is used. — Transactions of the Bot/al Sociely of Edinburgh,
vol. i. p. 181.

The Tartars have discovered a method of obtaining an ardent

what narrow ; their heads are well-shaped and lean,
but too small ; the forehead long and stiff; and
the legs over long : yet with all these imperfec-
tions they are good and serviceable horses, being
unconquerable by labour, and endowed with consi-
sideraljle speed. The Tartars live with them
almost in the same manner that the Arabs do with
their horses. When they are six or eight months
old, they make their children ride them, who exer-
cise tliem in small excursions, dressing and form-
ing them by degrees, and brmgiug them into gentle
and early discipline, and, after a while, making
them undergo hunger and thirst, and many other
hardships. The men, however, do not ride them
until they are five or six years old, when they exact
from them the severest service, and enure them to
almost incredible fatigue, travelling two or three
days almost without resting, and passing four or
five days with no more or better nourishment than
a handful of grass, and with nothing to quench
their thirst. "| This discipline as much exceeds
that of the Ai-abs in severity and horrible barbarity,
as the Arabs excel the Tartars in civilisation.

The horses of the Nogais Tartare are some of
the best of the roving tribes. They are stronger
and taller than the others ; and some of them are
trained to draw carriages. It is from them that
the Khan of Tartary derives the principal paj-t of
his supplies. It is said that in case of necessity
they could furnish a hundred thousand men. Each
of the Nogais commonly has with him four horses ;
one is for his own riding ; a second to mount if the
first should be tired ; and the other two to carry
his provisions, his slaves, and his boot)'.

THE TOOKKOM.\N HORSE.

Turkistan is that part of South Tartar^', north-
east of the Caspian Sea, and has been celebrated
from very early times for producing a pure and
valuable breed of horses. They ai-e called Toorko-
mans. They are said to be preferable even to the
pure Persians, for actual service. They are large,
from fifteen to sixteen hands high, swift, and in-
exhaustible mider fatigue. Some of them have

spirit from this koumiss, which they call rack, or racky, from the
name given to the spirit raanufiictured in the East Indies.

Dr. Clarke saw the proctss of the manufa<ture : — *' The still
was composed of mud, or veiy close clay. For the neck of the
retort a cane was used ; and the receiver was entirely covered by a
coating of wet clay. The brandy had just passed over. The
women who had the management of the distillery, wishing to give
us a taste of the spirit, thrust a stick with a small tuft of camel's
hair into the receiver, dropped a portion of it on the retort, and
waving the instrument above her head, scattered the remaining
liquor in the air. I asked the meaning of this ceremony, and was
answered that it w-as a religious custom to give always the lirst of
the brandy which they drew from the receiver to their god. The
stick was then plunged into the liquor a second time, when more
brandy adhering to the camel's hair, she squeezed it into the palm
of her dirty baud, and having tasted the liquor, presented it to our
lips:'— Clarke's Traveh in Russia, p. 239.

+ Clarke's Travels in Russia, p. 333.

i Berenger on Horsemanship, vol. i. p I3o.

212

THE HORSE.

travelled nine liimdred miles in eleven successive
da3's. They are, however, somewhat too small in
the barrel, — too long on the legs, — occasionally
ewe-necked, and always having a bead out of pro-
portion large : yet such are the good qualities of
the horse, that one of the pure blood is worth two
or three hundred pounds, even in that country.

Captain Fraser, who is evidently a good judge
of the horse, thus relates the impression which
they made on him, in his " Journey to Khorasan : "
— " They are deficient in compactness. Their
bodies are longin proportion to their bulk. They are
not well-ribbed up. They are long on the legs, — de-
ficient in muscle,^ — falling off below the knee ; nar-
row-chested,— long-necked, — head large, uncouth,
and seldom well put on. Such was the impression
I received from the first sight of them, and it was
not for some time that their superior valuable quali-
ties were apparent to me."

The Toorkomans trace their breed of horses to
Arabian sires ; and, most anxious that a sufficient
proportion of the pure blood shall be retained,
they have frequent recourse to the best Arabians
they can procure.

Before a Toorkoman starts on an expedition,
he provides himself with a few hard balls of barley-
meal, which are to serve both him and his horse
for subsistence until his return ; but sometimes
when, crossing the desert, be is unusually faint
and weary, he opens the jugular vein of his horse,
and drinks a little of the blood, by which he is un-
doubtedly refreshed, and he thinks his horse is
relieved. According to Sir John Malcolm, the
Toorkoman will think little of pushing the same
horse one hundred miles a day for some successive
days ; and, he adds, that a horseman mounted on
a Toorkoman horse brought a packet of letters
from Shiraz to Teheran, a distance of five hundred
miles, in six days.

THE TURKISH HORSE.

The Turkish horses are descended piincipally
from the Arab, crossed by the Persian and other
kindred varieties. They possess all the gentleness
and tractability of the parent race, but they have
lost some of their vigour and speed. They have
contributed materially to the improvement of the
English breed. The Byerley and the Helmsley
Turk are names familiar to every one conversant
with horses, and connected with our best blood.

The learned and benevolent Busbequius, who
was ambassador at Coustantmople in the seven-
teenth century, gives the following account of the
Turkish horses. Our grooms, and their masters
too, may learn a lesson of wisdom and humanity
from his words.

" There is no creature so gentle as a Turkish
horse, nor more respectful to his master, or the
groom that dresses him. The reason is, because

they treat their horses with great lenity. I myself
saw, when I was in Pontus, passing through a part
of Bithynia called Axilos, towards Cappadocia,
how indulgent the countiymen were to young colts,
and how kindly they used them soon after they
were foaled. They would stroke them, bring them
into their houses, and almost to their tables, and
use them even like children. They hung some-
thing like a jewel about their necks, and a garter
which was full of amulets against poison, which
they are most afraid of. The grooms that dress
them are as indulgent as their masters ; they fre-
quently sleek them down with their hands, and
never use a cudgel to bang their sides, but in cases
of necessity. This makes their horses great lovers
of mankind ; and they are so far from kicking,
wincing, or growing untractable by this gentle
usage, that you will hardly find an ill-tempered
horse amongst them.

" But, alas ! our Christian grooms' horses go
on at another rate. They never think them rightly
curried till they thunder at them with their voices,
and let their clubs or horse-whips, as it were, dwell
on their sides. This makes some horses even
tremble when their keepers come into their stable;
so that they hate and fear them too. But the
Turks love to have their horses so gentle, that at
the word of command they may fall on their knees,
and in this position receive their riders.

" They will take up a staff or club upon the
road with their teeth, which their rider has let fall,
and hold it up to him again ; and when they are
perfect in this lesson, then, as a reward, they have
rings of silver hung on their nostrils as a badge of
honour and good discipline. I saw some horses
when their master was fallen from the saddle stand
stock still without wagging a foot till he got up
again. Another time 1 saw a groom standing at a
distance in the midst of a whole ring of horses, and
at the word of command, the}' would either go
round or stand still. Once I saw some horses,
when their master was at dinner with me in an
upper room, prick up their ears to hear his voice,
and when they did so they neighed for joy."
THE AMERICAN HORSES.

Before we can advance eastward into Europe,
it will be convenient to dispose of the horses of the
American continents. In South America, although
constant warfare is carried on against them, there
are innumerable herds of wild horses: and in the
back settlements of the south-westeni states of
North America, there is a horse resembling the
wild horse of the Pampas ; but both are evidently
the descendants of those who have escaped from
the slavery of man.

THE WILD HORSE OF SOUTH AMERICA.

All travellers who have crossed the plains ex-
tending from the shores of La Plata to Patagonia

THE HORSE.

813

have spoken of numerous droves of wild horses.
Some affirm that they have seen ten thousand in
one troop. They appear to be under the command
of a leader, the strongest and boldest of the herd,
and whom they implicitly obey. A secret instinct
teaches them that their safety consists in their
union, and in a principle of subordination. The
lion, the tiger, and the leopard* are their principal
enemies. At some signal, intelligible to them all,
they either close into a dense mass and trample
their enemy to death, or, placing the mares and
foals in the centre, they form themselves into a
circle and welcome him with their heels. In the
attack, their leader is the first to face the danger,
and when prudence demands a retreat, they follow
his rapid flight.

In the thinly-inhabited parts of South America
it is dangerous to fall in with any of these troops.
The wild horses approach as near as they dare :
they call to the loaded horse with the greatest
eagerness, and if the rider is not on the alert, and
has not considerable strength of arm and sharpness
of spur, his beast will divest himself of his burden,
take to his heels, and be gone for ever. Byron
beautifully describes this in his Mazeppa : —

'* A trampling troop : I see them come,
In one vast sqaadron they advance !
I strove to cry — my Hps were dumh.
The steeds rush on in plunging pride,
But where are they the reins who guide?
A thousand horse and none to ride !
With flowing tail and flying mane,
Wide nostrils — never stretch'd by pain —
Mouths bloodless to the hit or rein.
And feet that iron never shod.
And flanks uuscarr'd by spur or rod —
A thousand horse, the wild, the free.
Like waves that follow o"er thes ja.
On came the troop ....
They stop — they start — they snuff the air.
Gallop a moment here and there,
Approach, retire, wheel round and round,
Tlien plunging back with sudden bound ;
Tht-y snort, they foam, neigh, swerve aside,
And backward to the forest fly."

Captain Head gives the following account of a
meeting with a troop of wild horses, where the
country is more thickly inhabited. Some poor
captured animals are supposed to be forced along
by their riders at their very utmost speed: — " As
they are thus galloping along, urged by the spur,
it is interesting to see the groups of wild horses
one passes. The mares, which are never ridden
in South America, seem not to understand what
makes the poor horse carry his head so low and
look so weary, f The little innocent colts come
running to meet him, and then start away fright-

The:

nals

of a different race from those whic:h go
the Old World, and are very inferior in

under the same n
strength.

+ An Englishman once attempted to ride a mare, but he was
hooted and pelted by the natives, and thought himself fortunate to
escape without serious injury. — Sir J. Carr, in his Northern Sum-
mer, p. 44, states that it is only a short time since mares began to
be ridden in Russia.

ened ; while the old horses', whose white marks on
their flanks and backs betray their acquaintance
with the spur and saddle, walk slowly away for
some distance, then breaking into a trot as they
seek their safety, snort and look behind them, first
with one eye and then with the other, turning
their noses from right to left, and carrying their
long tails high in the air. "J

The same pleasing writer describes the system
of horse-management among the rude inhabitants
of the plains of South America. They have no
stables, no fenced pastures. One horse is usually
kept tied at the door of the hut, fed scantily at
night on maize ; or at other times several may be
inclosed in the corral, which is a circular space
surrounded by rough posts, driven firmly into the
ground. The mares are never ridden, or attempted
to be tamed, but wander with their foals wherever
they please.

When the Gaucho, the native inhabitant of the
plains, wants horses for himself or for the supply
of the traveller, he either goes with his lasso to the
corral, and selects those possibly who on the pre-
ceding day had for the first time been backed, or
he scampers across the plain, and presently returns
with an unwilling, struggling, or subdued captive.
When the services of the animals have been ex-
acted, he either takes them to the corral and feeds
them with a small quantity of maize, if he thinks he
shall presently need them again, or he once more
turns them loose on the plains.

Travellers give some amusing accounts of the
manner in which all this is effected. Miers|| thus
describes the lasso, sin>ple in its construction, but
all-powerful in the hands of the Gaucho : — ■

" The lasso is a missile weapon used by every
native of the United Provinces and Chili. It is a
very strong plaited thong of equal thickness, half
aii inch in diameter aind forty feet long, made of
many strips of green hide plaited like a whip-
thong, and rendered supple by grease. It has at
one end an iron ring, above an inch and a half
in diameter, through which the thong is passed,
and this forms a running-noose. The Gaucho, or
native of Peon, is generally mounted on horseback
when he uses the lasso. One end of the thong is
affi.ved to his saddle-girth: the remainder he coUs
carefully in his left hand, leaving about twelve feet
belonging to the noose-end in a coil, and a half of
which he holds in his right hand. He then swings
this long noose horizontally round his head, the
weight of the iron ring at the end of the noose
assisting in giving to it, by a continued circular mo-
tion, a sufficient force to project it the whole length
of the line."

When the Gauchos wish to have a grand
breaking-in, they drive a whole herd of wild horses

t Head's Journey across the Pampa
II Miers' Travels in Chile, vol. i. p. €

p. 258.

214

THE HORSE.

into the corral : — " The corral was quite full of
horses, most of which were young ones about two
or three years old. The capitar (chief Gaucho),
mounted "on a strong steady horse, rode into the
corral, and threw his lasso over the neck of a
young horse, and dragged him to the gate. For
some time he was very unwilling to lose his
comrades ; but the moment he was forced out of the
corral, his first idea was to gallop away : however
a timely jerk of the lasso cheeked him in the most
effectual way. The peons now ran after him on
foot, and threw a lasso over his fore-legs just above
the fetlock, and twitching it, they pulled his legs
from imder him so suddenly, that I really thought
the fall he got had killed him. In an instant a
Gaucho was seated on his head, and with his
long knife, in a few seconds, cut off the whole
of the horse's main, while another cut the
hair from the end of his tail : this, they told me,
was a mark that the horse had been once mounted.
They then put a piece of hide into his mouth
to serve for a bit, and a strong hide halter on his
head. The Gaucho who was to mount arranged
his spurs, which were unusually long and sharp,*
and while two men held the horse by his ears,
he put on the saddle, which he girthed extremely
tight. He then caught hold of the horse's ear, and
in an instant vaulted into the saddle ; upon which
the man who held the horse by the halter threw
the end to the rider, and from that moment
no one seemed to take further notice of him.

" The horse instantly began to jump in a
manner which made it very difficult for the rider
to keep his seat, and quite different from the kick
or plunge of an English horse : however, the
Gaucho 's spurs soon set him going, and off he
galloped, doing everything in his power to throw
his rider.

" Another horse was immediately brought
from the corral ; and so quick was the operation,
that twelve Gauchos were mounted in a space
which I think hardly exceeded an hour. It was
wonderful to see the different manner in which
different horses behaved. Some would actually
scream while the Gauchos were girding the saddle
upon their backs ; some would instantly lie down
and roll upon it ; while some would stand without
being held, their legs stiff and in unnatural
positions, their necks half bent towards their tails,
and looking vicious and obstinate : and I could

* The manufacture of the Gaucho's boots is somewhat sin-
gular : — •" The boots of the Gauchos are formed of the ham and
part of the leg-skin of a colt taken reeking^ from the mother, which
is said to be sacrificed for the sole purpose, just at the time of
bearing, when the hair has not begun to grow. At this stage the
skin strips otf easily, and is very while and beautiful in texture and
appearance. The ham forms the calf of the boot ; the hock easily
adapts itself to the heel ; and the leg above the fetlock constitutes
the foot: the whole making a neat and elegant half boot, with
an aperture sufficient for the great toe to project through." —
Andrew's Journey in South Ainerica, vol. i. p. 26.

not help thinking that I would not have mounted
one of those for any reward that could be offered
me, for they were invariably the most difficult
to subdue.

" It was now curious to look around and
see the Gauchos on the horizon in different
directions, trying to bring their horses back to the
corral, which is the most difficult part of their
work, for the poor creatures had been so scared
there that they were un-nilling to return to the
place. It was amusing to see the antics of
the horses ; they were jumping and dancing in
different ways, wliile the right arm of the Gauchos
was seen flogging them. At last they brought
the horses back, apparently subdued and broken
in. The saddles and bridles were taken off,
and the young horses trotted off towards the
corral, neighing to one another." f

When the Gaucho wishes to take a wild horse,
he mounts one that has bden used to the sport,
and gallops over the plain. As soon as he comes
sufficiently near his prey, " tlie lasso is thrown
round the two hind legs, and as the Gaucho
rides a little on one side, the jerk pulls the
entangled horse's feet latei'ally, so as to throw
him on his side, without endangering his knees or
his face. Before the horse can recover the shock,
the rider dismounts, and snatching his poncho
or cloak from his shoulders, wraps it round the
prostrate animal's head. He then forces into his
mouth one of the powerful bridles of the country,
straps a saddle on his back, and bestriding
him, removes the poncho ; upon which the
astonished horse springs on his legs, and endea-
vours by a thousand vain efforts to disencumber
himself of his new master, who sits quite com-
posedly on his back, and, by a discipline which
never fails, reduces the horse to such complete
obedience, that he is soon trained to lend his
whole speed and strength to the capture of his
companions ." I

These animals possess much of the form of
the Spanish Rorse, from which they sprang ; they
are tiimed, as has been seen, with far less diffi-
culty than could be thought possible ; and
although theirs is the obedience of fear, and
enforced at first by the whip and spur, there are
no horses who so soon and so perfectly exert their
sagacity and their power in the service of man.
They are possessed of no extraordinary speed, but
they are capable of enduring immense fatigue.
They are frequently ridden sixty or seventy miles
without drawing bit, and have been urged on

+ Head's Journey across the Pampas, p. 258.

* Basil Hall's journey to Peru and Mexico, vol. i. p. 151.
The .Jesuit Dobrizboirer, in his history of the Abipones, a nation
of Paraguay, and speaking of the tamed horse (vol. ii. p. 113),
says, that " Stirrups are not in general use. The men leap on
their backs without assistance."

THE HOnSK.

215

by the cruel spur of the Gaucho more than a
hundred miles, and at the rate of twelve miles
in the hour.

Like the Arab horses, they know no inter-
mediate pace between the walk and the gallop.
Although at the end of a day so hard, their sides
are horribly mangled, and they completely e.\-
hausted, there is this consolation for them, —
they are immediately turned loose on the plains,
and it will be their oven fiiult if they are speedilj'
caught again. The mare is occasionally killed for
food, and especially on occasions of imusual
festivity. General San Martin, during the war
for independence, gave a feast to the Indian allies
attached to his army in which mares' flesh, and
the blood niLxed with gin, formed the whole of the
entertainment.

On such di-y and sultry j)lains the supply
of water is often scanty, and then a species of
madness seizes on the horses, and their generous
and docile qualities are no longer recognised.
They rush violently into every pond and lake,
savagely mangling and trampling upon one
another ; and the carcasses of many thousands
of them, destroyed by their fellows, have occa-
sionally been seen in and around a considerable
pool. That is one of the means by which the too
rapid increase of this quadruped is, by the
ordinance of nature, there prevented. Humboldt
says that during the periodical swellings of the
large rivers, immense numbers of wild horses are
drowned, particularly when the river Apure is
swollen, and these animals are attempting to
reach the rising grounds of the Llanos. The
mares may be seen, during the season of high
water, swimming about followed by their colts,
and feeding on the tall grass, of which the tops
alone wave above the waters. In this state they
are pursued by crocodiles, and their thighs
frequently bear the prints of the teeth of these
carnivorous reptiles. They lead for a time an
amphibious life, surrounded by crocodiles, water-
serpents, and marsetees. ^^^len the rivers return
again into their beds, they roam in the savannah,
which is then spread over with a fine odoriferous
grass, and seem to enjoy the renewed vegetation
of spring. *

Numerous herds of wild horses abound in the
west of Louisiana, and of all colours. They are,
like those on the Pampas, the remains of the
Spanish horses, and are hunted, caught, and some-
times destroyed for food, by the savage inhabitants
of the back settlements.

Mr. Low, in his beautiful delineations of
the British quadnipeds, gives the following
account of the horses of North America : —

" North America seems as well adapted to the

* Humboldt's Pers. Nar. vol. iv, p. 394. — Lyell's Geology.

temperament of the horse as any similar countries
in the old continent. The Mexican horses are
derived from, but somewhat deteriorated by, a less
careful management. Mexican horses have like-
wise escaped into the woods and savannahs,
and although they have not multiplied, as in
the plains of the Plata, thence they have descended
northward to the Rocky Mountains, and the
sources of the Columbia. The Indians of the
country have learned to pursue and capture them,
employing them in hunting, and transporting their
families from place to place — the first great
change that has taken place for ages in the
condition of the Pted Man of the North American
woods. The highest ambition of the young Indian
of these northern tribes, is to possess a good horse
for the chase of the buffalo. The Osages form large
hunting-parties, for the chase of horses in the coun-
tiy of the Red Canadian River, using relays of fresh
horses, imtil they have ran down the wild herds.
To steal the horse of an adverse tribe, is con-
sidered as an exploit almost as heroic as the
killing of an enemy, and the distances that they
will travel and the privations they will undergo in
these predatory excursions are scarcely to be
believed."

The Anglo-Americans, the Canadians, and the
colonists of the West India Islands, have all
acquired the domesticated horse. The Canadian
is found principally in Canada, and the northern
States. He is supposed to be of French descent,
and many of the celebrated trotters are of this
breed. Mention will be made of some of these
when the paces of the horse are described.

These horses are much used for \rinter travel
ling in Canada, and in the northern States. One
of them has drawn a light cabriolet over the ice
ninety miles in twelve hours. Their shoes are
roughened by the insertion of two or three steel
screws, instead of the common European method.
The cm-ry-comb is never used upon them in the
winter, for a thick fur has gi-own over them to
protect them from the inclemency of the season.
They are animals never refusing the collar, yet
they are accustomed to bad usage. Those of the
United States are of eveiy variety, but crossed by
the modem English race, or the Arab. The
improvement of the horse, at this time, occupies
much of their attention. Horse-races are estab-
lished in many places, and particularly in the
southern States ; and they have adopted, to a veiy
considerable degree, the usages of tlie English
turf. They have different vaiieties of useful
horees for riding, and for their public and private
carriages. Habit, arising from some cause or
wliim now not known, has made them partial
to the trotting horse ; and the fastest trotting
horses in the world are to be found in the United
States. The breeds of the West India Islands

216

THE HOESE.

are those of tte parent stales.' The horses of
Cuba are derived from Spain, and retain the
distinctive characters of the parent stock ; and
those of the English colonies have been improved
by continued intercourse with the mother country.

A much valued correspondent, Mr. Eotch,
of Louisville, in the State of New York, thus
addresses the author:' — "From my own personal
experience, I should say that all our stock in
America seems to possess a hardier constitution
and are much less liable to disease than in Eng-
land ; and that animals, but a few generations
removed from those actually imported, acquire
much stronger constitutions than their ancestors,
and it has been a question with me, and acceded
to by the late Rev. H. Beny, whether impor-
tations of some of our pure-bred animals might
not sometimes be made into your country with
advantage. I am sure that our hacks and
roadsters will endure a great deal more fatigue
and hardship than the same description of horse in
England. 1 speak with confidence in these
matters, because I have been a breeder in both
countries."

That the greater hardship and labour to which
the American horse of this description is exposed
would produce a greater development of animal
power, there can be no doubt, and a cross from
the best of such a breed could not fail of being
advantageous ; but we must adopt and perpetuate
the circumstances that produced this superior
power, or we should not long retain the advantage
of the cross.

In the extensive territoiy and varied climate
of the United States several breeds of horses are
found.

The Conestoga horse is found in Pennsylvania
and the middle states ; long in the leg and light
in the carcass ; sometimes rising seventeen hands ;
used principally for the carriage ; but, when not
too high, and with sufficient substance, useful
for hunting and the saddle.

The English horse, with a good deal of blood,
prevails in Virginia and Kentucky, and is found to
a greater or less degree in all the States. The
Americans have at different times imported some
of the best English blood. It has been most
diligently and purely presei-ved in the southern
States. The celebrated Shark, the best horse
of his day, and equalled by few at any time, was
the sire of the best Virginian horses ; and Tally-
ho, a son of Highflyer, peopled the Jerseys.

THE MODERN EUROPEAN HORSES.

The limits of our work compel us to be exceed-
ingly' brief in our account of the breeds of the
different countries of Europe. We start from the
•south-west of this quarter of the world.

THE SPANISH HO RSE. ' '

The Spanish horses, for many a century,
ranked next to those of Barbary and Arabia.
They descended from the Barbs, or rather theywere
the Barbs transplanted to a European soil, and
somewhat altered, but not materially injured by
the change. Solleysel, the parfait mareschal,
gives an eloquent description of them : — " I have
seen many Spanish horses ; they are extremely
beautiful, and the most proper of all to be drawn
by a curious pencil, or to be mounted by a king,
when he intends to show himself in his majestic
glory to the people."

The common breed of Spanish horses have
nothing extraordinary about them. The legs and
feet are good, but the head is rather large, the
forehand heavy, and yet the posterior part of
the chest deficient, the crupper also having too
much the appearance of a mule. The horses of
Estremadura and Granada, and particularly of
Andalusia, are most valued. Berenger, whose
judgment can be fully depended on, thus enume-
rates their excellences and defects : — " The neck
is long and arched, perhaps somewhat thick, but
clothed with a full and flowing mane ; the head
may be a little too coarse ; the ears long, but well
placed ; the eyes large, bold, and full of fire.
Their carriage lofty, proud, and noble. The
breast large ; the shoulders sometimes thick ; the
belly frequently too full, and swelling; and the
loin a little too low ; but the ribs round, and the
croup round and full, and the legs well formed
and clear of hair, and the sinews at a distance
from the bone — active and ready in their paces —
of quick apprehension ; a memory singulaily
faithful ; obedient to the utmost proof ; docile and
aff'ectionate to man, yet fiill of spirit and
courage." * The Parfait Mareschal shall take
up the story again : — " There will not be found
any kind of horse more noble than they, and of
their courage ! why I have seen their entrails
hanging from them, through the number of
wounds that they have received ; yet they have
carried off their rider safe and sound with the
same pride with which they brought him to the
field, and after that they have died, having less
life than courage." ■[ It is delightful to read
accounts like these, and we know not which to
admire most, the noble horse or the man who
could so well appreciate his excellence.

The modern Spanish horses are fed upon
chopped straw and a little barley. When the
French and English cavalry were there, during
the Peninsular war, and were without preparation
put upon this mode of living, so different from
that to which they had been accustomed, they

• Berenger's Horsemanship, p. 151.

+ SoUeystl's Compleat Horseman, part i. p. 211 .

THE HORSE

217

began to be much debilitated, and a considerable
mortality broke out among them ; but, after a
while, they who were left regained their strength
and spirits, and the mortality entirely ceased.*
THE PORTUGUESE HORSE.

There was a time when the Lusitanian or
Portuguese horses were highly celebrated. The
Roman historian Justin compares their swiftness
to that of the winds, and adds, that many of them
might be said to be born of the winds ; while, on
the other hand, Berenger, who lived at a time
when the glory of the Spanish horse had not
quite faded away, says, that " the Portugal
horses are in no repute, and differ as much
from their neighbours, the Spaniards, as crabs
from apples, or sloes from grapes. "f He thus
accounts for it. When Portugal was annexed to
Spain, the latter country was preferred for the
establishment of the studs for breeding, and the
few districts in Portugal which were sufficiently
supplied with herbage and water to fit tliem for a
breeding country were devoted to the rearing of
horned cattle for the shambles and the plough,
aud mules and asses for draught. Hence, the
natives regarded the horse as connected more
with pomp and pleasure than with utility, and
drew the comparatively few horses that they
wanted from Spain. The present government,
however, seems disposed to effect a reform in
this, and there are still a sufficient number of
Andalusian horses in Portugal, and Barbs in
Africa, fully to accomplish the purpose.

THE FRENCH HORSE.

According to the survey of \8i9, France con-
tained 2,400,000 horses, including those of every
description. The number of mares was 1,327,78 1.
The greater part of these were employed in the
breeding of mules, and perhaps not more than a
fourth part were used for keeping up the num-
ber of horses. Besides these, nearly 27,000
horses are annually imported into France, either
on speculation of immediate sale, or for the ex-
press purpose of improving the breed.

Two-thirds of the French horses are devoted
to purposes of light work, and possess a certain
degree, and that gradually increasing, of Eastern
blood. There is room, however, for a great deal
more than the French horse usually possesses.
One-third of the horses are employed in heavy
work ; 70,000 in post work, and about the same
number are registered as fit for military use, al-
though not more than half of them are on actual
service. The ascertained number of deaths is
about one in twelve or thirteen, or leaving the
average age of the horse at twelve. This speaks
strongly in favour of the humanity of the French,

• Recueil dp MM., Gel., 1837, p. 80.
+ Berenger, p. 153.

or the hardihood of the horses, for it exceeds the
average duration of the life of the horse in England
by more than two years. Calculating the average
value of the French horse at 400 francs, or
161. 13.5. 4d., there results a sum of 000,000,000
francs, or 40,000,000 pounds sterling, as the gross
value of this species of national property.^

It must be supposed that so extensive a coun-
try as France possesses various breeds of horses.
Auvergne and Poitou produce good ponies and
gallow^ays ; but the best French horses are bred
in Limousin and Normandy. From the former
district come excellent saddle-horses and hunters,
and from the latter a stronger species for the
road, the cavalry service, and the carriage.

M. Hoiiel has recently published an interest-
ing work on the varieties of the horse in France.
He states that in the time of the Romans there
were but two kinds of horses, — the war-horse, and
the sumpter or pack-horse. The carriage, or
draught-horse, was comparatively or quite un-
known ; and even men of the highest station suf-
fered themselves to be indolently drawn by oxen.
Great care was taken to preserve or to renew the
strength and speed of the war-horse, and African
or Arab blood was diligently sought. An animal,
the type of the English Cleveland breed, the
handsomest and strongest description of the coach-
horse, was thus procured. By degrees, this horse
was found too valuable for a hackney, and too
high-trotting for a long journey, and a more
smoothly moving animal was gradually introduced.
Still the charger did not grow quite out of fashion,
and in Normandy the rearing of this animal be-
came an object of much attention to the farmer.
At fii-st they were bred too slow and ponderous,
but by degrees a horse was obtained of some-
what lighter action aud considerable speed, with-
out much sacrifice of strength, and they now con-
stitute a most valuable breed. " I have not
elsewhere," says M. Hoiiel, " seen such horses at
the collar, under the diligence, or the post-car-
riage, or the farm-cart. They are enduring and
energetic beyond description. At the voice of
the brutal driver, or at the dreaded sound of
his never-ceasing whip, they put forth all their
strength; and they keep their condition when
other horses would die of neglect and hard treat-
ment " The little Norman cart-horse is, perhaps,
the best for farm-work. The Norman horses—
and the same observation applies to all the
northern provinces of France — are very gentle
and docile. A kicking or vicious one is almost
unknown there; but they are, with few excep-
tions, treated with tyranny and cruelty from first
to last. The reign of terror may to a certain
degree be necessary where there ai-e many perfect
horses; but the principle of cruelty should not

» Journal des Hai-as, JIarcli, 18:)7,

218

THE HORSK.

extend, as it too often does, to the treatment of
eveiy kind of horse.

Something must be attributed to both causes.
There is more humanitj' among the French than
the Englisli pensantrj'; but, on the other hand,
there are liorrible scenes of ci'ueUy to the liorse
hourly taking phice in tlie streets of Paris, that
would not be tolerated for a moment in the British
metropolis.

The breeding of horses has more decidedly
become a branch of agricultural attention and
speculation than it used to be ; for it has been
proved to the farmer that, with the proper kind of
pasture, and within a fair distance of a proper
market, instead of being one of the most uncertain
and unprofitable modes of using the land, it yields
more than an average return.

The establishment of races in almost eveiy part
of France bas given a spiiit to the breeding and im-
provement of the horse which cannot fail of being
exceedingly lieneficial throughout the whole of the
French empire. In fact, it may be stated, with-
out exaggeration, that the rapid improvement
which is taking place is attributable principally to
this cause. In order to effect the desired im-
provement, the French, and with much judgment,
have had recourse to the English thorough-bred
horse far more than to the native Arabian. A
great many of the best English stallions have
been purchased for the French studs, and ha\e
been beneficially employed in improving, and
often creating, the hunter, the racer, and almost
all of the better class of horses used for purposes
of luxury.

It has been stated that the most valuable
native horses are those of Normandy; perhaps
they have been improved by the EngHsh hunter,
and occasional!}' by the English thorough-bred
horse ; and on the other hand, the English road-
ster, and the light draught horse, has derived con-
siderable advantage from a mixture with the
Norman, not only in early times when William
the Conqueror was so eager to improve the horses
of his new subjects by means of those of Norman
blood, but at many succeeding periods.

A certain number of Normandy horses used
to be purchased every year by the French govern-
ment for the use of tbe other departments. This
led occasionally to considerable trickery and evil.
None of the Norman horses were castrated until
they were three, or sometimes four years old ;
and then it frequently happened that horses of
superior appearance, but with no pure blood in
them, were sold as belonging to the improved
breed ; and it was only in their offspring that tbe
cheat could be discovered. The government now
purchases the greater part of the Xonnandy horses
in their first year, and brings them up in the
public studs. They cost more money, it is true ;

but they are better bred, and become finer ani-
mals. There is no deception with regard to these
horses, and the amelioration of the other breeds is
secured.

Every country that has occupied itself with
the amelioration of its breed of hoises, has deemed
it necessary to have a public register of tbe names
and progeny of those of an acknowledged race
England has had its stud-book nearly Jialf a cen-
tury, containing a list of all the horses of pure
blood that have existed in the country. France,
in the year 1837, had her first stud-book, in
which are inscribed the names of 215 stallions,
of pure English blood, imported into France or
born there ; 266 Arabs, Barbs, Persian, or Turkish
horses; 274 English mares of true blood, and 4 J
Eastern mares. Their progeny is also traced, so
far as it was practicable. This work will form an
epoch in the equestrian annals of that country.

THE SARDINIAN AND CORSICAN HORSES.

They are small, well-made, and capable of
enduring much fatigue; as for their other quali-
ties (and they are not much changed at the pre-
sent day from what they formerly were), Blunde-
ville shall speak of them: — "The horses that
come out of the Isle of Sardygnia and Corsica
have short bodyes and be verye bolde and coura-
geous, and unquiet in their pace, for they be of
so fierce and bote cbolericke complexion, and
therewith so much used to running in their coun-
trie as they will stand still on no grounde. And,
therefore, this kynde of horse requireth a dis-
creete and pacient ryder, who must not be over
hastie in correcting him for feare of marring him
altogither."*

THE ITALIAN HOR.SE

Was once celebrated for the beauty of his form
and his paces; but, like everything else in that
degraded country, he has sadly degenerated. The
Neapolitan horses were particularly remarkable for
their size and majestic action; there was, however,
a degree of clumsiness about the heads and fore-
hand, and general appeai'ance. which the seeming
grandeur of their action would not always con-
ceal ; and they were occasionally untractable and
vicious to an alarming degree. They are now much
deteriorated, and, in fact, with but few exceptions,
scarcely of any value.

Some of the Italian races are a disgraceful
burlesque on those of other countries. At Home
they have become a necessaiy ajipendage to the
annual carnival, and there is no other of the
pastimes of that gay season in which tbe people
take an equal delight. Some of tbe horse-races
resemble those in other countries, and are faiily
contested; but much oftener the Pioman course

• Blundeville's Four Cbiefest Offices.

THE HORSE.

219

presents nothing but the horse running without
any rider, and not from his own spirit and emula-
tion, but startled by noises and goaded on by
ridiculous and barbarous contrivances.

The hjrses termsd Barbsri — because the race
wa3 at first contested by B:irbs —are brou;^ht to
the stirtiug-post, their heiJsanJ th3ir necks giily
ornamsnte.l ; while tJ a girth which g.ies round the
holy of each are attached several loose straps,
having at thjir ends small balls of lead thickly
set with sharp steel points. At every motion these
are brought into contact with the flanks and bellies
of the horses, and the more violent the motion the
more dreadful the incessant torture. On their
backs are placed sheets of thin tin, or stiff paper,
which, when agitated, will make a rustling, rat-
tling noise.

It is difficult to conceive of the rearing, kick-
ing, pawing, and snorting which occurs at the
stariiug-place. A rope placed across the street
prevents them from getting away, and a stout pea-
sant is employed with each horse in a struggle of
downright strength, and at the hazard of limb and
of life, to restrain him. Occasionally some of them
do break aw.iy and pass the rope before the street
— the race-course — is cleared, and then many se-
rious accidents are sure to happen.

When all is ready for starting, a troop of dra-
goons gallop through the street in order to clear
the way. A trumpet sounds — the rope drops — the
grooms let go their hold, and the horses start
away like arrows from a bow. The harder they
run the more they are pricked ; the cause of this
they seem scarcely able to comprehend, for they
bite and plunge at each other, and a terrible fight
is sometimes commenced. Others, from mere
fright or sulldness, stand stock-still, and it is by
brute force alone that they can be again induced
to move.

A strong canvas screen is passed along the
bottom of the street. This is the goal. It has
the appearance of a wall ; but some of the horses,
in the excess of their agoiiy and terror, dart full
against it, tear through it, or carry it away.

After all, the prize is nothing more than an
ornamental flag ; but it is presented by the go-
vernor of Rome, and it is supposed to be a pledge
of the speed and value of the horse which will de-
scend as an heir-loom from generation to genera-
tion among the ))easantry, to whom many of these
horses belong. The decision of such a race, how-
ever, can have little to do with the speed or
strength or value of the horses in any respect.
The Italians, however, enter into the affair with
all their characteristic eagerness of feeling, and
are guilty of every kind of e.'ctravaganc3. During
the first six days of the carnival, the horses ai'e
fairly classed according to the age. height, degree
of breeding, &c. ; but on the two last days— the

choice days — they run all together, and some in
the manner that I have described, and thus in-
crease the confusion, the riot, and the danger of
the exhibition.*

The Corso is very nearly a mile, and it has
occasionally been run in two minutes and twenty-
one seconds; a very quick pace for small horse?,
many of them not more than fourteen hands high.f

Before we quit the neighbourhood of Italy, we
may perhaps notice another curious mode of horse-
racing, practised in Malta. The horses here are
indeed mounted, but they have neither saddle nor
bridle. The riders sit on the bare back, and have
nothing to guide or to spur on their horses but a
small pointed instrument, not unlike a cobbler's
awl. These horses are small barbs, well tempered,
or they would resist this mode of management,
and they certainly are not swift. By pricking the
horse on one side or the other of the neck, the
rider can guide him a little in the way he should
go, and certainly he may urge liim to his fullest
speed ; but still, although it affords a novel and
amusing sight to the stranger, the horse and tlie
spectators are degraded by such an exhibition. J

THE AUSTRIAN HORSE.

The following account is given by the Duke
of Ragusa of the imperial establishment for the
breeding of horses at Mesohagres, near Carlsburg,
in Austria ; — " This is the finest establishment in
the Austrian monarchy for the breeding and im-
provement of horses. It stands on forty thousand
acres of land of the best quality, and is surrounded
in its whole extent, which is fifteen leagues, by a

* Penny Magazine, 1833, p. 4'25.

+ Races of a similar character take place at Florence, of which
Mrs. Piozzi gives the foUowiDg description: — "The street is co-
vered with sawdust, and made fast at both ends. Near the starting-
post are elegant booths, lined with red velvet, for the court and
first nobility. At the other end a piece of tapestry is hung, to
prevent the creatures from dashing their brains out when they
reach the goal. Thousands and tens of thousands of people on
ibot fill the course, so that il is a great wonder to nie still that
numbers are not killed. The prizes are exhibited to view in quite
the old classical style — a piece of crimson damask for the winner;
a small silver basin and ewer for the second; and so on, leaving
no performer unrewarded.

'* At last come out the horses, without riders, but with a narrow
leathern strap hung across their bodies, which has a lump of ivoiy
fixed to the end of it, all set full of sharp .spikes like a hedgehog,
and this goads them along while galloping worse than any spur
could do, because the faster they run the more this odil machine
keeps jumping up and down, and piicking their sides ridiculously
enoiigh : and it m ikes one laugh to see that some of them are so
tickled by it as not to run at all, but set about plunging in order to
rid th'-'mselves of the inconvenience, instead of driving forward to
divert the mob, who leap, and caper, and shout wiih delight, and
lash the loggers along with great indignation indeed, and witli the
mo.t comical gestures. I never saw horses in so droll a slate of
degradation before : for they were all striped, or spoued, or painted
of some colour, to distinguish them from each other."

This curious scene is described on account of the strongly-
marked picture it afibrds, not of the poor horses, but of the inhabi-
tants of Italy, once the abode of everything that was honourable
to human nature ; and perhaps, also, of certain writers, when they
sacrifice good and kindlv feeling to atfectati«n and folly.

X Penny Mag., 1833, p. 426.

f 2

220

THE HORSE.

broad and deep ditch, and by a broad plantation
sixty feet \vide. It was formerly designed to sup-
ply horses to recruit the cavaliy ; at present its
object is to obtain stallions of a good breed, which
are sent to certain depots for the supply of the
provinces. To produce these, one thousand brood
mares and forty-eight stallions are kept ; two hun-
dred additional mares and six hundred oxen are
employed in cultivating the ground. The plain is
divided into four equal parts, and each of these
subdivided into portions resembling so many farms.
At the age of four years the young horses are all
collected in the centre of the establishment. A
selection is first made of the best animals to supply
the deficiences in the establishment, in order al-
ways to keep it on the same footing. A second
selection is then made for the use of the other :
none of these, however, are sent away until they
are five years old ; but the horses that are not of
sufficient value to be selected are sold by auction,
or sent to the amiy to remount the cavaliy, as
circumstances may require.

The whole number of horses at present here,
including the stallions, brood-mares, colts, and
fillies, is three thousand. The persons employed
in the cultivation of the ground, the care of the
animals, and the management of the establishment
generally, are a major-director, twelve subaltern
officers, and eleven hundred and seventy soldiers.

The imperial treasury advances to the estab-
lishment every year one hundred and eighteen
thousand florins (the half rix-dollar or florin is in
value about 2s. Id. English money), and is reim-
bursed by the sale of one hundred and fifty stal-
lions, which are sent every year to the provinces
at the price of one thousand florins each, and by
the value of the horses supplied to the cavaby.
The other expenses of eTe.ry description are paid
for by the produce of the, establishment, which is
required to defray, and does defray all. This is,
therefore, an immense estate — a farm on a colossal
scale — with a stud in proportion managed on ac-
count of the sovereign, and which produces a consi-
derable revenue, independently of the principal
object which is attained, the propagation and mul-
tiplication of the best breeds of horses. He can
always supply the wants of his army at a price
almost incredibly small. For a horse of the light
cavahy he pays only one hundred and ten florins,
for the dragoons one hundred and twenty, for the
cuirassiers one hundred and forty, for the train
one hundred and sixty, and for the artillery one
hundred and eighty. It is a great element of
power to possess at home such an immense re-
source against a time of war, at an expense so far
below that which the powers of the west and south
of Europe are compelled to incur.

So early as 1790, a very superior Arabian,
named Turkmainath, was imported into Germany,

and his stock became celebrated, not only in Hun-
gaiy, but throughout most of the German pro-
vinces. In 1819, the Archduke Maximilian, bro-
ther to the emperor, purchased some valuable
racers and hunters in England, and sent them to
Austria. Some of them went to the imperial
establishment of which mention has just been
made, and the others contributed materially to the
improvement of the horses wherever they were
distributed. Eaces have been established in va-
rious parts of the Austrian dominions, and particu-
larly at Buda and at Pest, in Hungar}'. Of the
good effect which this will have on the breed of
horses there can be no dispute, provided the race
does not degenerate into a mere contest of supe-
riority of speed, and exhibited in an animal that
from his youth must inevitably be injured or
ruined in the struggle.

The gipsies used to be the principal horse-
dealers in Hungary, but they have been getting
into comparative disrepute since the establishment
of the noble studs scattered through this dis-
trict. He who wants a horse, or to speculate in
horses, may now go to head-quarters and choose
for himself.

THE RUSSIAN HORSE.

It may be well supposed that this animal will
be of a very different character in various parts of
this immense empire. The heavy cavalry, and the
greater part of the horses for pleasure, are de-
scended originally from Cossack blood, but im-
proved by stallions from Poland, Prussia, Holstein,
and England ; and the studs, which are now found
on an immense scale in various parts of Russia.
The lighter cavalry, and the commoner horses,
are, as these have ever been, Cossacks, without
any attempted improvement, and on that account
more hardy and better suited to the duties re-
quired from them.

It has been supposed that no horse, except
the Arab, could endure privation like the Cossack,
or had combined speed and endurance equal to
him. The Cossack, however, was beaten, and that
not by horses of the first-rate English blood, in a
race which fairly put to the test both qualities. It
was a cruel affair ; yet nothing short of such a
contest would have settled the question.

On the 4th of August, 1825, a race of forty-
seven miles was run between two Cossack and two
English horses. The English horses were Sharper
and Mina, well known, yet not ranking with the
first of their class. The Cossacks were selected
from the best horses of the Don, the Black Sea,
and the Ural.

On starting, the Cossacks took the lead at a
modei'ate pace ; but, before they had gone half a
mile, the stirrup-leather of Sharper broke, and he
ran away with his rider, followed by Mina, and they

This cut represents a Cossack soldier accoutred for his journey, and ha\'ing all that is necessary for him or for his horse. It gives a
faithful hut somewhat flattering representation hoth of the soldier and his steed.

went more than a mile, and up a steep liill, before
they could he held in.

Half the distance was run in an hour and
fourteen minutes. Both the English horses were
then fresh, and one of the CossacliS. On their
return Mina fell lame, and was taken away, and
Sharper began to show the effects of the pace at
which he had gone when running away, and was
much distressed. The Calmuck was completely
knocked up, his rider was dismounted, a mere
child was put on his back, and a Cossack on horse-
back on either side dragged him on by ropes at-
tached to his bridle, while others at the side sup-
ported him from falling. Ultimately Sharper
performed the whole distance in two hom's and
forty-eight minutes — sixteen miles an hour for
three successive hours ; and the Cossack horse
was brought in eight minutes after him. At
starting the English horses carried full three
stone more than the Cossacks ; and during the

latter part of the race a mere child had ridden the
Cossack.

The Emperor Nicholas has established races
in different parts of his vast empire, for the im-
provement of the Cossack and other horses. On
the 30th of September, 1836, the races at Ouralsk
took place. The distance to be run was eighteen
wersts, or about four and a half French leagues —
rather more than ten miles. Twenty-one horses
of the military stud of the Cossacks of Oural
started for the first heat, and which was won in
twenty-five minutes and nineteen seconds by a horse
belonging to the Cossack Bourtche-Tchourunief
The second race was disputed by twenty-tlu'ee
horses of the Kergheese Cossacks, and which was
won in twenty-five minutes and five seconds by the
horse of the Cossack Siboka-Ist«rlaie. On the
following day the wmners of the two first heats
strove for the point of honour. The course was
now twelve wersts — three French leagues or about

222

THE HORSE.

six miles and three quarters. It was won in fifteen
minutes by the liorse of the Cossack Bourtche-
Tehourunief. The Russian noblemen who were
present, admiring the speed and stoutness of the
horse, were anxious to purchase him ; but the
Cossack replied that " All the gold in the world
should not separate him from his friend, his
brother."*

In Southern and Western Russia, and also in
Poland, the breeding of horses and cattle has
lately occupied the attention of the great land pro-
prietors, and has constituted a very considerable
part of their annual income. There is scarcely
now a signorial residence to which there is not
attached a vast court, in fom* large divisions, and
surrounded by stables. In each of the angles of
this court is a passage leading to beautiful and
extensive pasture-grounds, divided into equal com-
partments, and all of them having convenient
sheds, under which the horses may shelter them-
selves from the rain or the sun. From these studs
a larger kind of horse than that of the Cossacks is
principally supplied, and more fit for the regular
cavalry troops, and also for pleasure and parade,
than connnon use. The i-emounts of the principal
houses in Germany are derived hence ; and from
tlie same source the great fairs in the different
states of the Gennan empire are supplied.!

The stud of the Russian Countess Orloff Tshes-
mensky, in the province of Walonese, contains
thirteen hundred and twenty horses, Arabs, Eng-
lish, natives, and others. The ground attached to
it amounts to nearly eleven hundred acres ; and
the number of grooms, labourers, and others is
more than four thousand. The sum realized by
the sale of horses is of considerable annual amount ;
and they are disposed of not only on the spot itself,
but in the regular markets both of St. Petersburgh
and Moscow.

• Journal des Haras, Jan. 1837, p. 256.

+ '* The bret'dinj; of callle is also zealously and profitably pur-
sued. The cow-h<»uses form the <?rciiter portion of the oilier huild-
ings attached to the mansion. The largest of these is destined for
the milch cows, and another square building serves for a milking
house. These dairies are disposed ,ind fitted up like those in
Switzerland. In the middle is a jet of water. Slabs or tables of
marble occupy every side, and a slight inclination of the floor per-
mits the observance of the gi'eatest possible cleanliness. An upjier
story serves for the manufacture of ilitferent kinds of cheese, winch
are made in imitation of, and sometimes equal those which are
most esteemed in other parts of Europe.

'* There is another space or court inclosed with walls, and with
little buildings closed with iron bars. This is destined to be a
menagerie for bears of the rarest and most beaulilul colours, and
yielding the choicest furs. This speculation is a very profitable one.
A cub of sis months old, with black hair pointed with silver white,
yields a very light skin and fur, and which will obtain a consider-
able price, especially if there are others of the same fineness and va-
riegated colour sulficiciil to make a pelisse. A garment of ibis kind
will sometimes be sold for six hundred or one thousand pounds.
The skins of the old bears are employed for carpets, or linings of
carriages, and the most supple of them form the clothing of the
coachmen." — Journal des Haras. Although this note refers to
catlle and bears, it does not wander from the design of the Far-
mer's Series, since it describes the singular agricultural pursuits of
the Russian and Polish noblemen.

THE ICELAND HORSE.

There are numerous troops of horses in this
cold and inhospitable countiy, descended, accord-
ing to Mr. Anderson, from the Nonvegian horse,
but, according to Mr. Horrebow, being of Scottish
origin. They are very small, strong, and swift.
There are thousands of them in the mountains
which never enter a stable ; but instinct or habit
has taught them to scrape away the snow, or break
the ice, in search of their scanty food. A few are
usually kept in the stable ; but when the peasant
wants more he catches as many as he needs, and
shoes them himself, and that sometimes with a
sheep's horn. J

THE LAPLAND HORSE.

This animal, according to Berenger, is small,
but active and willing — somewhat eager and im-
patient, but free from vice. He is used only in
the winter season, when he is employed in draw-
ing sledges over the snow, and transporting wood,
forage, and other necessaries, whicli in the sum-
mer are all conveyed in boats. During the summer
these horses are turned into the forests, where
they form themselves into distinct troops, and
select certain districts, from which they rarely
wander. They return of their own accord when
the season begins to change, and the forests no
longer supply them with food.||

THE SWEDISH HORSE
Is small, but -nimble and willing. He is almost
entirely fed on bread, composed of equal parts of
lye and oatmeal. To this is added a considerable
quantity of salt, and, if he is about to start on a
long journey, a little brandy. " While changing
horses we were not a little entertained at the cu-
rious group formed by the peasants and their
steeds breakfasting together ; both cordially par-
taking of a large hard lye cake. The horses
sometimes belong to three or even more proprie-
tors : it is then highly amusing to observe the fre-
quent altercations between them ; each endea-
vouring to spare his own horse. Their affection
for their horses is so great that I have seen them
shed tears when they have been driven beyond
their strength. The expedition, however, with
which these little animals pro(;eed is surprising,
when we consider the smallness of their size,
which hardly exceeds that of a pony. The roads
being universally good throughout Sweden, they
frequently do not relax from a gallop, from one
post-house to anotber."§

THE FINLAND HORSES

Are yet smaller than the Swedes, and not more

i Kerguelen's Voyage to the North.

H Berenger, p. 150.

§ Sir A. de Capel Brooke's Travels in Sweden.

THE HORSE.

223

than twelve liands high. They are beautifully
formed and very fleet. They, like the Swedes,
are turned into the forests in the summer, and
must be fetched thence when they are wanted by
the traveller. Although apparently wild, they are
under perfect control ; and can trot along with
ease at the rate of t\velve miles in the hour.

Fish is much used, both in Finland and Lap-
land, for the winter food of horses and cattle.

THE NORWEGIAN HORSE

Is larger than the Swedish or Finland, but is
equally hardy and manageable, and attached to its
owner, and its owner to it. The roads in Norway
are the reverse of what they are in Sweden : they
are rough and almost impassable for carriages, but
the sure-footed Norwegian seldom stumbles upon
them. Pontoppidan speaks of their occasional
contests with bears and wolves, and chiefly the
latter. These occurrences are now more matter
of story than of actual fact, but they do sometimes
occur at the present day. When the horse per-
ceives any of these animals, and has a mare or
foal with him, he puts them behind him, and then
furiously attacks his enemy with his fore legs,
which he uses so expertly, as generally to prove
the conqueror ; but if he turns round in order to
strike with his hind legs, the bear closes upon
him immediately, and he is lost.

Of the horses of the islands of Feroe, still be-
longing to the Danish crown, Berenger speaks in
terms of much praise. He says that "they are
small of growth, but strong, swift, and sure of
foot, going over the roughest places with such cer-
tainty that a man may more surely rely upon
them than trust to his own feet. In Suderoe,
one of these islands, they have a lighter and
swifter breed than in any of the rest. On their
backs the inhabitants piu'sue the sheep, which are
wild in this island ; the pony carries the man over
places that would be otherwise inaccessible to him
— follows his rider over others — enters into the
full spirit of the chase, and even knocks down and
holds the prey under his feet until the rider can
take possession of it."*

THE HOLSTEIN AND MECKLENBURG HORSES.

Returning to the Continent, and having crossed
the Baltic, we meet with a horse as different from
those which have just been described as it is pos-
sible to imagine. The horses of Holstein and
Mecklenburg, and some of the neighbouring dis-
tricts, are on the largest scale. Their usual height
is sixteen, or seventeen, or eighteen hands. t They
are heavily made ; the neck is too thick ; the
shoulders are heavy ; the backs ai'e too long, and

* Berenger' .s Histoiy of Horsemanship, p. 149.
+ There are t-^o in the Queen's iUhles in PiniUco, that are iieaily
twenty hands in height.

the croups are narrow compared with their fore
parts : but their appearance is so noble and com-
manding, their action is so high and brilliant,
and their strength and spirit are so evident in
every motion, that their faults are pardoned and
forgotten, and they are selected for every occasion
of peculiar state and ceremony.

Before, however, we arrive at the native coun-
try of these magnificent horses, we must glance
at the attempt of one noble individual to improve
the general breed of horses. In the island of
Alsen, separated from the duchy of Sleswick by a
narrow channel, is the noble habitation of the
Duke of Augustenbourg. His stud is attached to
it, and under the immediate management of the
noble owner. It contains thirty mares of pure
blood, and fifteen or sixteen stallions of the same
grade ; and all of them selected with care from the
best thorough-bred horses in England. Not\vith-
stauding this selection of pure blood, or rather in
its peculiar selection, it has been the object of the
duke to produce a horse that shall be useful for the
purpose of pleasure, commerce, and agriculture.
Some of the stallions are reserved for his own
stud ; but with regard to the others, such is the
spirit with which this noble establishment is con-
ducted, and his desire to improve the race of
horses in Sleswick, that he allows more than six
hundred mares every year, belonging to the pea-
sants of the isle of Alsen, to be covered gra-
tuitously. He keeps a register of them, and in
the majority of cases he examines the mares
himself, and chooses the horse which will best
suit her form, her beauties, her defects, or the
purpose for which the progeny is intended. It is
not therefore surprising that there should be so
many good horses in this part of Denmark, and
that the improvement in Sleswick, and in Hoi
stein, and also in Mecklenburg, should be so rapid,
and so universally acknowledged.

There is another circumstance which should
not be forgotten -it is that by which alone the
preseiwation of a valuable breed can be secured— it
is that to the neglect of whii;h the deterioration of
every breed must be partly, at least, and, in many
cases, chiefly traced. The duke in his stud, and the
peasants in the surrounding country', pressiwe the
good breeding mares, and will not part with cue
that has not some evident or secret fault about
her.

How much have the breeders of Great Britain
to answer for in the deterioration of some of our
best breeds from this cause alone !

Tliere is, however, nothing perfect under the
sun. This determination to breed only from
horses of pm'e blood, although care is taken that
these horses shall be the stoutest of their kind,
has lessened the size and somewhat altered the
peculiar character of the horse in the immediata

224

THE HOESE.

districts ; and we must go somewhat more south-
ward for the large and stately animal of which
frequent mention has been made. The practice
of the country is likewise to a certain degree un-
friendly to the full development of the Augusten-
bourg horse. The pasturage is sufficiently good
to develop the powers of the colt, and few things
contribute more to his subsequent hardihood than
his living on these pastures, and becoming accus-
tomed to the vicissitudes of the seasons : yet this
may be carried too far. The Slesmck colt is left
out of doors all the year round, and, e.xeept when
the snow renders it impossible for him to graze,
he is, day and night, exposed to the cold, and the
wind, and the rain. We are no advocates for a
system of nursing laborious to the owner and in-
jurious to the animal, but a full development of
form and of power can never be acquii-ed amidst
outrageous neglect and privation.

THE PRUSSIAN HORSE.

Pnissia has not been backward in the race of
improvement — or rather, with her characteristic
policy, she has taken the lead, where her influ-

ence and her power were concerned. The govern-
ment has established some extensive and well-re-
gulated studs in various parts of the kingdom ; and
many of the Prussian noblemen have establish-
ments of their own. In some of the marshy dis-
tricts, and about the mouth of the Vistula, there
is a breed of large and strong horses suited to
agricultural pui-poses. The studs produce others
for pleasure or for war. In the royal studs parti-
cidar attention has been paid to the improvement
of the Pnissian cavalry-horse. He has acquired
considerably more fire and spirit, and strength and
endui-ance, without any sacrifice either of form or
action.

THE FLEMISH AND DUTCH HORSE.

The Flemish and Dutch horses are large, and
strongly and beautifully formed. We are indebted
to them for some of the best blood of our draught-
horses, and we still have frequent recoui'se to them
for keeping up and improving the breed. They
will be more particularly described when the cart-
horse is spoken of.

CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HOESE.

The earliest record of the horse in Great Bri-
tain is contained in the histoiy given by Julius
Cssar of his invasion of our island. The British
army was accompanied by numerous war-chariots,
drawn by horses. Short scythes were fastened to
the ends of the axle-trees, sweeping downa every
thing before them, and carrying terror and devas-
tation into the ranks of the enemy. The con-
queror gives an animated description of the dexte-
rity vnth which these horses were managed.

What kind of horse the Britains then pos-
sessed, it would be useless to inquire ; but, from
the cumbrous structure of the car, and the fmy
with which it was driven, and the badness of the
roads, and the almost non-existence of those that
were passable, it must have been both active and
powerful in an extraordinaiy degree. It is absurd
to suppose, as some naturalists have done, that the
ponies of Cornwall and of Devon, or of Wales, or
of Shetland, are types of what the British horse
was in early times. He was then as ever the
creature of the countiy in which he lived. With
short fare and exposed to the rigour of the sea-
sons, he was probably the little hardy thing which
we yet see him ; but in the mai-shes of the Nen
and the Witham, and on the borders of the Tees
^nd the Clyde, there would be as much propor-

tionate development of frame and of strength as
we find at the present day.

Caesar deemed these horses so valuable, that
he carried many of them to Piome ; and they were,
for a considerable period afterwards, in great re-
quest in various parts of the Pioman empire.

Horses must at that time have been exceed-
ingly numerous in Britain, for we are told that
when the British king, Cassivellaunus, dismissed
the main body of his army, he retained four thou-
sand of his war-chariots for the purpose of harass-
ing the Romans, when they attempted to forage.

The British horse now received its first cross ;
but whether the breed was thereby improved
cannot be asceilaiued. The Romans having
established themselves in Britain, found it neces-
saiy to send over a numerous body of cavalry, in
order effectually to check the frequent insurrec-
tions of the natives. The Roman horses would
breed with those of the country, and, to a greater
or less extent, change their character ; and from
this time, the English horse would consist of a
compound of the native animal and those from
Gaul, Italy, Spain, and every province from which
the Roman cavalry was supplied.

Many centuries afterwards passed by without
leaving any record of the character or value, im-

THE HORSE.

223

provement or deterioration, of the horse. About
the year 630, however, according to Bade, the
EngHsh were accustomed to use the saddle. He
sa3's, that " the bishops and others rode on horse-
back, who until then were wout to go on foot ;
and that even then it was only on urgent occa-
sions that they tlius rode. They used mares
only, as a mai'k of humility, the mare generally
not being so handsome or so much valued as the
horse."

About nine hundred and twenty years after the
first landing of Caesar, we find the various British
kingdoms united, and Alfred on the throne. No-
thing that concerned the welfare of his kingdom
was neglected by this patriotic monarch, and some
of the chronicles relate the attention which he
paid to the breeding and improvement of the
horse. An oflScer was appointed for this especial
purpose, who was entitled the Hors-Than, or
Horse- Thane, or as the historian renders it, Equo-
rum Magister, Master of the Horse. In every
succeeding reign, this officer was always near the
royal person, especially on every state occasion.=i=

Athelstan, the natui'al son of Alfred, ha^^ng
subdued the rebellious portions of the Heptarchy,
was congratulated on his success by some of the
continental princes, and received from Hugh
Capet of France, who solicited liis sister in mar-
riage, several German running-horses. Hence our
breed received another cross, and probably
an improvement. We are not, however, certain
of the precise breed of these horses, or how far
they resembled the beautiful state horses, whether
black orcream-colom-ed, which we obtain from Ger-
many at the present day. Athelstan seems to
have placed peculiar value on these horses or
their descendants, or the result of their inter-
course with the native breed ; for he soon after-
wards (a.d. 930) decreed, that no horses should be
sent abroad for sale, or on any account, except as
royal presents. This proves his anxiety to preserve
the breed, and likemse renders it probable that
that breed was beginning to be esteemed by om-
neighbours.

It is not unlikely that, even at this early pe-
riod, the beautiful effect of the English soil and
climate, and care in the improvement of the horse,
began to be evident. This will be a subject for
pleasing inquiry by and bye : but the experience
of every age has proved that thei'e are few countries
in which the native breed has been rendered so
much more valuable by the importation of a foreign
stock, and eveiy good quality of a foreign race so
certainly retained, as in England.

In a document bearing date a.d. 1000, we have
an interesting account of the relative value of the
horse. If a horse was destroyed, or negligently

• Bereoger's History of Horsemanship, vol. i. p. 308.

lost, the compensation to be demanded was thirty
shillings ; for a mare or colt, twenty shillings ; a
mule or young ass, twelve shillings ; an ox, thirty
pence ; a cow, twenty-four pence ; a pig, eight
pence ; and, it strangely follows, a man, one
pound.f

In the laws of Howell Dha, Howell the Good,
Prince of Wales, enacted a little before this time,
there are some curious particulars respecting the
value and sale of horses. The value of a foal not
fourteen days old is fi.xed at four pence ; at one
year and a day it is estimated at forty-eight pence ;
and at three years, sixty pence. It was then to be
tamed with the bridle, and brought up either as a
palfrey or a serving horse, when its value became
one hundred and twenty pence. That of a ii'ild
or unbroken mare was sixty pence.

Even in those early days, the frauds of dealers
were too notorious, and the following singular regu-
lations were established. The buyer was allowed
time to ascertain whether the horse was free from
three diseases. He had three nights to prove him
for the staggers ; three months to prove the sound-
ness of his lungs ; and one year to ascertain
whether he was infected with glanders. For every
blemish discovered after the purchase, one-third of
the money was to be returned, except it should be
a blemish of the ears or tail, which it was supposed
to be his own fault if the purchaser did not discover.
The seller also wareanted that the horse would not
tire when on a journey with others, or refuse his
food from hard work, and that he would cany a load
or draw a carriage up or down liill, and not be resty.
The practice of letting horses for hire then ex-
isted ; and then, as now, the services of the poor
hack were too brutally exacted. The benevolent
Howell disdains not to legislate for the protection
of this abused and valuable servant. " Whoever
shall borrow a horse, and rub the hair so as to gall
the back, shall pay four pence ; if the skin is forced
into the flesh, eight pence ; if the flesh be forced
to the bone, sixteen pence." If a person lamed a
horse, he was to forfeit the value of the animal ;
and if he was supposed to have killed a horse, he
was to purge himself bj' the oatbs of twenty-four
compurgators.

Then, as now, it would appear that some young
men were a little too fond of unwarrantable mis-
chief, or perhaps there were thieves in the country,
even so soon after Alfred's days, showing also the
estimation in which this portion of the animal
was held, and the manner in which the hair was
suffered to grow, for it was decreed that he who cut
ofi' the hair from a horse's tail was to maintain him

+ According to the .\nglo-Saxon computation, forty-eight shil-
lings made a pound, equal in silver to about three pounds of our
present money ; live pence made one shilling. The actual value of
these coins, however, strangely varied in different times and cir-
cumstances.

226

THE HORSE.

until it was grown again, and in tlie mean time to
furnish the owner with another horse. If the tail
was cut off with the hair, the miscreant wlio inflicted
the outrage was mulcted in the value of the animal.
and the horse was deemed unfit for future service.

Athelstan seems to have placed considerable
value on some of his horses ; for he bequeaths, in
his will, the horses given him by Thurbrand, and
the white horses presented to him by Lisbrmd.
These are apparently Saxon names, but the mem-
ory of them is now lost.

With William the Conqueror came a marked
improvement in the British horse. To his super!-
orily in cavalry this prince was chiefly indebted for
the victory of Hastings. The favourite charger of
William was a Spaniard. His followers, both the
barons and tlie common soldiers, principally came
from a country in which agriculture had made more
rapid progress than in England. A very consi-
derable portion of the kingdom was divided among
these men ; and it cannot be doubted that, however
unjust was the usurpation of the Norman, England
benefited in its husbandry, and particularly in its
horses, by the change of masters. Some of the
barons, and particularly Roger de Boulogne, earl
of Shrewsbury, introduced the Spanish horse on
their newly-acquired estates. The historians of
these times, however — principally monks, and
knowing nothing about horses — give us very little
information on the subject.

The Spanish horse was then highly and de-
servedly valued for his stately figure and noble
action, and was in much request in the tilts and
tournaments that were then in fashion. The Spa-
nish horse v*-as the war-horse of eveiy one who
could afford to purchase and properly accoutre so
noble an animal. The courage and the skill of the
rider w-ere most perfectly displayed when united
with the strength and activity, and spirit and
beauty, of the steed.

One circumstance deserves to be remarked,
namely, thatin none of the earliesthistorical records
of the Anglo-Saxons or the Welsh is there any al-
lusion to the use of the horse for the plough. Until
a comparatively recent period, oxen alone were em-
ployed in England, as in other countries, for this
purpose; but about this period— the latter part of
the tenth centnry — some innovation on this point
was commencing, and a Welsh law forbade the
farmer to plough with horses, mares, or cows, but
with oxen alone. On one of the pieces of the
Bayeux tapestry woven in the time of William the
Conqueror (a.d. 1066), there is the figure of a man
driving a horse attached to a harrow. This is the
earliest notice that we have of the use of this ani-
mal in field-labour.

In the reign of Henry I. (a.d. 1121), the first
Arabian horse, or at least the first on record, was
introduced. Alexander I., king of Scotland, pre-

sented to the church of St. Andrew's an Arabian
horse, with costly furniture, Turkish armour, many
valuable trinkets, and a considerable estate.

There have been some pretensions to the exist-
ence of a breed derived from or improved by this
horse, but no certain proof of it can be adduced.

In the reign of Henry II. several foreign horses
were imported, but of what kind is not mentioned.
Maddox speaks of " the increased allowance that
was made for the subsistence of the King's horses
that were lately brought from beyond sea."*

Smithfield is also now first spoken of as a
horse-market, a field for tournaments, and a race-
course. Fitzstephen, who lived at that time, gives
the following animated account of the scene :-—
" Without one of the gates of the city is a certain
field, plain or smooth, both in name and situation.
Every Friday, except some festival intervene, there
is a fine sight of horses brought to be sold. Ma';y
come out of the city to buy or look on — to wit,
earls, barons, knights, and citizens. It is a plea-
sant thing to behold the horses there, all gay and
sleek, moving up and down, some on the amhle
and some on the trot, which latter pace, although
rougher to the rider, is better suited to men who
bear arms. Here also are colts, yet ignorant of
the bridle, which prance and bound, and give early
signs of spirit and courage. Here also are managed
or war horses, of elegant shape, full of fire, and
giving every proof of agenei'ous and noble temper.
Horses also for the cart, dray, and plough, are to
be found here ; mares, big with foal, and others
with their colts wantonly running by their sides.

"Every Sunday in Lent, after dinner, a company
of young men ride out into the fields, on horses that
are fit for war, and excellent for their speed. Every
one among them is taught to run the rounds with
his horse. The citizen's sons issue out through
the gates by troops, furnished with lances and
shields. The younger sort have their pikes not
headed with iron ; and they make representntion of
battle, and exercise a skirmish. To this perform-
ance many courtiers resort, when the court is near;
and young striplings, yet uninitiated in arms, from
the families of barons and great persons, to train
and practise.

" They bep;in by dividing themselves into troops.
Some labour to outs'.rip their leaders, without being
able to reach them : others unhorse their antago-
nists, yet are not able to get beyond them. A race
is to be run by this sort of horses, and perhaps by
others, which also in their kird are strong and fleet;
a shout is immediately raised, and the common
horses are ordered to withdraw out of the way.
Three jockeys, or sometimes only two, as the match
is made, prepare themselves for the contest. The
horses on their part are not without emulation :

• History of Uie Exchequer, p. 252.

THE HOKSE.

227

they tremble and are impatient, and are continually
in motion. At last, the signal ouce given, they
start, devour the course, and hurry along with un-
remitting swiftness. The jockeys, inspired with
the thoiiglit of applause and the hope of victory,
clap spurs to their willing horses, brandish tbeir
whips, and cheer them with their cries." Tiiis
animated description reminds us of the more
lengthened races of the present day, and proves
the blood of the English horse, even before the
Eastern breed was tried.*

Close on this followed the Crusades. The
champions of the Cross certainly had it in their
power to enrich their native country with some of
the choicest specimens of the Eastern horse, but
they were completely under the influence of super-
stition and fanaticism, and common sense and use-
fulness were forgotten.

An old metrical romance, however, records the
excellence of two horses belonging to Richard
Coeur de Lion, which he purchased at Cyprus, and
were, therefore, probably of Eastern origin : —

Yn this worlde Ihey had no pere,+
Dromedary nor duslreic, t
Stede, Rdbyle.ll ne Cummele,
Goelh none so swille, without fayle :
For a thousand pownd ofgolde,
Ne should the one be solde.

The head of the war-steed was ornamented with
a crest, and, together with his chest and flanks, was
wholly or partially protected. Sometimes he was
clad in complete steel, with the arms of his master
engraved or embossed on his hardings. The bri-
dle of the horse was always as splendid as the cir-
cumstances of the knight allowed, and thus a horse
was often called brigliadore, from briglia d'oro, a
bridle of gold. Bells were a very favourite addi-
tion to the equipment of the horse. The old trou-
badour, Arnold of Marson. says that " nothing is
so proper to inspire confidence in a knight and
terror in an enemy."

The price of horses at this period was singu-
larly uncertain. In 1185, fifteen breeding mares
sold for two pounds, twelve shillings, and sixpence.
They were purchased by the monarch, and distri-
buted among his tenants ; and, in order to get
something by the bargain, he charged them the
great sum of .'our shillings each. Twenty years
afterwards, ten capital horses brought no less than
twenty pounds each; and. twelve years later, a pair
of horses were imported from Lonibardy, for wliich
the extravagant price of thirty-eight pounds, thir-
teen shillings, and fourpence was given. The
usual price of good handsome horses was ten pounds,
and the hire of a car or cart, with two horses,
tenpence a-day.

To King John, hateful as he was in all other

* Leland's Itinerinary, vol. viii. ; and Berenger, vol. i. p. 165.
+ Peer, equal. t 'Warhorse. II Arabia.

respects, we are much indebted for the attention
which he paid to agriculture generally, and particu-
larly to the improvement of the breed of horses.
He imported one hundred chosen stallions of the
Flanders breed, and thus mainly contribute i to
prepare our noble species of draiight-borses, as un-
rivalled in tiieir way as the horses of the turf.

John accumulated a very immerous and valuable
stud. He was eager to possess himself of every
horse of more than usual power ; and at all times
gladly received from the tenants of the crown
horses of a superior quality instead of money for
the renewal of grants, or the jjaymeut of forfeitures
belonging to the crown. It was his pride to render
his cavalry, and the horses for the tournament and
for pleasure, as perfect as he could. It was not to
be expected that so haughty and overbearing a ty-
rant would concern himself much with the inferior
kinds ; yet while the superior kinds were rapidly
becoming more valuable, the others would, in an
indirect manner, partake of the improvement.

One hundred years afterwards, Edward II.
pm'chased thirty Lombardy war-horses, and twelve
heavy draught-horses. Lombardy, Italy, and Spain
were the countries whence the greater part of Eu-
rope was then supplied with the most valuable
cavalry or parade horses. Those for agricultm-al
purposes were chiefly procured from Flanders.

Edward III. devoted one thousand marks to
the purchase of fifty Spanish horses ; and of such
importance did he consider. this addition to the
English, or rather, mingled blood then existing,
that formal application was made to the kings of
France and Spain to graut safe-conduct to the troop.
When they had safely arrived at the royal stud, it
was computed that they had cost the monarch no
less than thirteen pounds, six shillings, and eight-
pence per horse, equal in value to one hundred and
sixty pounds of our present money.

These horses were bought in order to enable
him successfully to prosecute a war against Scot-
land, and to prepare for a splendid tournament
which he was about to hold.

Entire horses were alone used fm- this mimic
contest, and generally so in the duties and dangers
of the field. It was rarely the custom to castrate
the colts; and the introduction of the female among
so many perfect horses might occasionally be pro-
ductive of confusion. The mare was at this jieriod
comparatively despised. It was deemed disgrace-
ful for any one above the common rank to ride her,
and she was employed only in the most servile
offices. This feeling and practice was then preva-
lent in every part of the world. When, however,
it beg.n to be the custom to castrate the young
horses, the worth and value of the mare was soon
appreciated ; and it is now acknowledged that,
usually, she is not much, if at all, inferior to the
perfect horse in many respects, while she has far

228

THE HORSE.

more strength, proportionate courage, and endu-
rance than the gelding. *

This monarch had many running-horses. The
precise meaning of the term is not, laowever, clear.
They might be light and speedy animals in oppo-
sition to those destined for the cavalry service, or
horses that were literally used for the purpose of
racing. The average price of these running-horses
■was tvrenty marks, or three pounds, six shillings,
and eightpence.

Edward was devoted to the sports of the tm-f
and the field, or he began to see the propriety
of crossing our stately and heavy breed with those
of a lighter stincture and greater speed. There
was, however, one impediment to this, which was
not for a very long period removed. The soldier
was cased in heavy armour, and the knight, with
all his accoutrements, often rode more than twenty-
five stones. No little bulk and strength were
required in the animal destined to carry this
back-breaking weight. When the musket was
substituted for the cross-bow and battle-axe, and
this iron defence, cumbrous to the wearer and
destructive to the horse, became useless, and was
laid aside, the improvement of the British horse
in reality commenced.

While Edward was thus eager to avail himself
of foreign blood, he, with the too frequent selfish-
ness of the sportsman, would let no neighbom'
share in the advantage. The exportation of horses
was forbidden under hea\y penalties. One case
in which he relaxed from his severity is recorded.
He permitted a German merchant to re-export
some Flanders horses which he had brought on
speculation ; but he strictly forbade him to send
them to Scotland. Nay, so jealous were these
sister-kingdoms of each other's prosperity, that so
late as the time of Elizabeth, it was deemed felony
to export horses from England to Scotland.

The English horse was advancing, although
slowly, to an equality with, or even superiority
over those of neighbouring countries. His value
began to be more generally and highly estimated,
and his price rapidly increased — so much so, that

• The author of this worlt does not fee] disposed to pass over
another circumstance connected with the purchase of these horses,
although not very creditable to his profession at that period. In
the accounts of the charges for the education of the horse, there
was usually one termed Troyndli. This is monkish Latin, and
not to be found in our modern dictionaries. It referred to certain
instruments which \he fcrrarii or fio/ear/i— blacksmiths and shoe-
ing-smiths — used in order that the horses might be taught a short
namby-pamby pace, designated ambling. They consisted of stiong
yarn or iron-chains, by which the fore-feet were connected together,
and oidy a certain degree of liberty allowed them, while a shoe with
a long toe was placed on the hinder feet. Perhaps these artificers
were scarcely worthy of better employment at that time ; and yet
it was poor work to teach the noble war-horse to amble, and to spoil
him for the field of danger, in order to please the ladies who graced
the front seats at the tournament. The warrior ambling I
" She shall make him amble on a gossip's message,

And take the distatf with a hand as patient

As e'er did Hercules !" — Howe.

the breeders and the dealers, then, as now, skilful
in imposing on the inexperienced, obtained from
many of the young grandees enormous prices for
their cattle. Tliis evil increased to such an
extent, that Richard II. (1386) interfered to
regulate and determine the price. The procla-
mation which he issued is interesting, not only
as proving the increased value of the horse, but
showing what were, four hundred and fifty years
ago, the chief breeding districts, as they still
continue to be. It was ordered to be published
in the counties of Lincoln and Cambridge, and
the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire ; and
the price of the horse was restricted to that which
had been determined by former monarchs. A
more enlightened policy has at length banished
all such absurd interferences with agriculture and
commerce.

We can now collect but little of the history of
the horse until the reign of Heniy VII., at the
close of the fifteenth century^ He continued to
prohibit the exportation of stallions, but allowed
that of mares when more than two years old, and
under the value of six shillings and eightpence.
This regulation was, however, easily evaded ; for
if a mare could be found worth more than six
sliillings and eightpence, she might be freely ex-
ported on the jjayment of that sum.

The intention of this was to put an end to the
exportation of perfect horses ; for it is recited in
the preamble " that not only a smaller number of
good horses were left within the realm for the
defence thereof, but also that great and good
plenty of the same were in jjarts beyond the sea,
which in times past were wont to be within this
land, whereby the price of horses was greatly
enhanced," &c. The exception of the mare, and
the small sum for which she might be exported,
shows the mijust contempt in which she was held.
Another act of the same monarch, however un-
willingly on his part, restored her to her proper
rank among her kind.

It had been the custom to keep large herds of
horses in the pastures and common fields, and
when the harvest was gathered in, the cattle of a
great many owners fed promiscuously together.
The conset|uence of this was that the progeny
presented a strange admixture, and there was
often a great deterioration of the favoimte and
best breed. On this account an act was passed
prohibiting stallions from being turned out into
any common pasture. This, at no great distance
of time, necessai-ily led to the castrating of all but
a veiy few of the best stallions, and then, on com-
paring the powers and work of the mare with that
of the gelding, she soon began to be accounted
more valuable — more service was exacted from
her — she was taken more care of, and the general
breed of horses was materially improved.

THE HORSE.

229

Polydore Virgil, who flourished in this reigii,
confirms the statements already made, that " the
English horses were seldom accustomed to trot,
but excelled in the softer pace of the amble"

Henry VII. was an arbitrary monarch, and
seemed to be too fond of prohibitory acts of
parliament; but so far as the horse was con-
cerned, they were most of them politic, although
tyrannical.

Succeeding monarchs acted on the same
principle, and by prohibiting exportation, and en-
couraging a numerous and good breed of horses,
by public rewards and reconipences, every necessary
incitement was afforded rapidly to improve the
breed.

Henry VIII., a tyrannical and cruel prince,
but fond of show and splendour, was very anxious
to produce a valuable breed of horses ; and the
means which he adopted were perfectly in unison
with his arbitrary disposition, although certainly
calculated to effect his object. He affixed a
certain standard, below which no horse should
be kept. The lowest height for the stallion was
fifteen hands, and for the mare thirteen hands.
Those whose local interests were injured loudly
complained of this arbitrary proceeding. The
small breed of Cornish horses was in a manner
extinguished. The dwarfish but active and useful
inhabitants of the Welsh mountains rapidly di-
minished, the Exmoors and the Dartmoors were
compelled to add an inch to their stature, and
a more uniformly stout and useful breed of horses
was produced.

The monarch was determined to effect and to
secure his object. At " Michaelmastide " the
neighbouring magistrates were ordered to " drive"
all forests and commons, and not only destroy
such stallions, but all " unlikely tits," whether
mares or geldings, or foals, which they might
deem not calculated to produce a valuable breed.

By a singular coincidence, the year of his
reign, 1540, which found him thus arbitrarily
employed in the domestic improvement of his
people, or rather in the accomplishment of his
favourite objects — the splendour of his toiuiia-
ments and the magnificence of his pageantries —
was that in which he accomplished another tyran-
nical, but master-stroke of policy, — the suppression
of the monasteries. =■=

He next had recourse to a sumptuary law in
order more fully to accomplish his object, and,
appealing to the pride of those who were concerned,
he had no difRcidty in this matter. Every arch-
bishop and duke was compelled, under certain

• There is a singular entry in the Joui-nals of the House of
Lords, which shows how much they had this horse business at
heart : — "Hodie (15th Jiinii, 1640) tandem lecta est billa edticationi
eijuorum proceriorls staturtE, et communi omnium consensu, nemine
discrepante, expedila."

penalties, to keep seven trotting stallions for the
saddle, each of which was to be fourteen hands
high at the age of three years.

There were very minute directions with regard
to the number of the same kind of horses to be
kept by the other ranks of the clergy and nobility,
and the statute concludes by enacting, that every
person having benefices to the amount of one
himdred pounds yearly, and " every la3Tnan, whose
wife shall wear any French hood or bormet of
velvet," shall keep one such trotting stallion for
the saddle.

These enactments, tyrannical as they ap-
pear to us, were quietly submitted to in those
days, and produced the kind of horse which
was then alone comparatively useful, and whose
strength and noble bearing and good action
were the foundation of something better in after
days.

The civil dissensions were at an end, there
was no fear of foreign invasions — no numerous
cavalry were needed — the labours of agriculture
were performed chiefly by oxen, or by the smaller
and inferior breeds of horses, — races were not
established — the chase had not begmi to be pur-
sued with the ardour and speed of modern days — ■
nothing, in fact, was now wanted or sought for, but
an animal more for occasional exhibition than for
sterling use, or if useful, principally or solely with
reference to the heavy carriages and bad roads
and tedious travelling through the country. If
this is rightly considered, it will he acknowledged
that, with all his faults, and mth the confession
that he was ever more actuated by the determina-
tions of his own ungovernable passions than the
advantage of his people or of posterity, we still
owe him thanks for the preservation of that breed
of horses from which in after times spiTing those
that were the glory of our country and the envy of
every other.

The following extract from a manuscript dated
1512, in the third year of the reign of Heniy VIII.,
and entitled the Regulations and Establishment of
the household of Algernon Percy, the fifth Earl of
Northumberland, may give the reader a sufficient
knowledge of the different kinds of horses then
in use.

" This is the ordre of the chequir roul of the
nombre of all the horsys of my lordis and my
ladys that are apoynted to be in the charge of the
hous yerely, as to say, gentil-hors.f palfreys, J

+ The gentil horse was one of superior breed, in distinction
from the ordinary race. The same term is at present applied
to Italian horses of the best breeds.

t Palfreys were smaller horses of an inferior breed. The best
of them, distinguished for their gentleness and pleasant paces, were
set apart for the females of the family : — " The bard that tells of
palfried dames." Others of inferior value were ridden by the
domestics or servants of every kind. Thus Dryden says,
" The smiths and armourers on palfreys ride."

230

THE HORSE.

hobys, * naggis, f- clotli-sek hors, J maleliors. |]
First, geiitil-hors, to stand in my lordis stable,
six. Item. Palfreys of my lady's, to -nit, one fur
my lady, and two for her gentil-women, and oone
for her chamberer. Four hobys and naggis for
my Inrdis oone saddill, liz., oone for my lorde
to ride, oone to lede for my lorde, and oone to
stay at home for my loixle. Item. Chariot hors
to stond in my lorde's stable yerely. Seven great
trottynge hors to draw in the chariott, § and a
nagg for the chariott-man to ride ; eight. Again,
hors for lorde Percy, his lordship "s sou and heir.
A grete doble trottynge horse,^! for my lorde
Percy to travel on in winter. Item. A grete
doble trottynge hors, called a curtal,** for his
lordship to ride on out of townes. Another
trottynge gambaldj'nge f-|- hors, for his lordship
to ride upon when he comes into townes. An
ambling hors for his lordship to journey on dayly.
A proper amblyng little nagg for his lordship
when he goeth on hunting or hawking. A gret
amblynge gelding or trottynge gelding to carry
his male."

Sir Thomas Chaloner, who wrote in the early
part of the reign of Elizabeth, and whose praise
of the departed monarch may be supposed to be
sincere, speaks in the highest terms of his labour
to introduce into his kingdom every A'ariety of
breed, and his selection of the finest animals
which Turkey, or Naples, or Spain, or Flanders,
could produce. Sir Thomas was now ambassador
at the court of Spain, and had an opportunity
of seeing the valuable horses which that country
could produce ; and he says that " England could
furnish more beautiful and useful breeds than any
which foreign kingdoms could supply." The fact
was, that except for pageantry or war, and the
slow travelling of those times, there was no motive
to cultivate any new or valuable breed. The most
powerful stimulus had not yet been applied.^!

Berenger, who would be good authority in such
a case, provided experienced and skilful persons
to preside in his stables, and to spread by these
means the i-ules and elements of horsemanship

* Ilohys. — Hdtibies were strong and active linrses of rather
Rm:ill .size, aird siiid t(» ha\e been originally of Irish extraction.
Thus Davies, in liis account of Ireland, says:— "For twenty
hohhUiA armed — Irish l.orse-sid.iiei-s — so called because they served
on holil'ies; they had QiL per diem."

+ The iiaiifiis, or naijjs, so called from their supposed propensity
to neijih, kiitgtfa. They were small, and not much valued, but
active horses; — " Thy nai;s," s.iys Prior,

" Tlie leanest things alive,
So very hurd ihou lov'st lo drive."

* The cloth-seU was the horse that carried the cloali-bag.

II Milk, or mail, was equivalent lo portmanteau. Thus, in
Chaui'cr, " I have relics and p irdons in mv male."

§ The chariot or car was the vehicle in' various forms, hut far
inferior to the chariiu or coach iu common use, in which the furni-
ture or moveables were conveyed, or, perchance, the inferior females
of the family. The lord and the lady usually rode on horseback.
They were slow-paced, heavy horses, perhaps not much unlike the
carriage-horses a century ago, which ploughed all the week, fnd

through the nation. He invited two Italians, pu-
pils of Pignatelli the riding-master of Naples, and
placed them in his service ; and he likewise had an
Italian farrier named Hannibale, who, Berenger,
quaintly remarks. " did not discover any great
mysteries to his English brethren, but yet taught
them more than they knew before."

There is nothing worthy of remark in the
short reign of Edward VI., except the constituting
the stealing of horses a felony without benefit
of clergy.

In the twentj'-second year of Elizabeth, the
use of coaches was inti-oduced. It has been
already remarked that the heads of noble houses
travelled almost from one end of the kingdom
to the other on horseback, unless occasionally they
took refuge in the cars that were generally appro-
priated to their household. Even the Queen rode
behind her master of the horsc when she went in
state to St. Paul's. The convenience of this new
mode of carriage caused it to be immediately
adopted by all who had the means ; and the horses
were so rapidly bought up for this purpose, and
became so exorbitantly dear, that it was agitated
in parliament whether the use of carriages should
not be confined to the higher classes.

This fashion would have produced an injurious
effect on the character of the English horse. It
would have too much encouraged the breed of the
heavy and slow horse, to the comparative or almost
total neglect of the lighter framed and speedy
one ; but, gunpowder having been invented, and
heavy armour beginning to be disused, or, at this
period, having fallen into almost perfect neglect, a
lighter kind of horse was necessary in order to
give effect to many of the manoeuvres of the
cavalry. Hence arose the light cavalry — light
compared with the horsemen of former days —
heavy compared vnXh. those of modem times ;
and hence, too, arose the lighter horse, which,
except for a few particular purposes, gradually
superseded the old heavy war and draught horse.

An account has already been given of the
occasional races at Smithfield. They were mostly

took the family to church on Sunday It must not be forgotten, as
marking the character of the vehicle and its contents, ttjat the
chariot-man. or coachman, rode by the side of the horses, and
so conducted them and the carriage.

IT " .A grete dohh or dimblc trottynge horse," means a large
and broad backed horse, the depression along whose back jiives
almost the appearance of two horses joined together. Thus the
I'Yench speak of le double bidet ; and Virgil, referring to the horse,
says, " .M dii]jlex agiliir per luinlios spina" {Georg. 111.)

•• A ciirtiil hiuse is one with a docked tail. Thus, Ben
Jonson : — "Hold my sliiTup, my one lacquey, and look to my
curlal the other."

+f Gambaldynge. — Gambald was the old word for gambol, and
it means a horsc that was fond of playing and prancing about —
the kind of horse on which a nobleman coultl best show himself
off when he entered a town. — Berengtr on HoT»cman.\}iip, vol. ii.
p. 178, to whom the author acknowledges much obligation here,
and on other occasions.

it De Kepublica Anglorum instauranda.

THE HORSE.

231

accidental trials of strength and speed, and there
were no running-horses, properly speaking — none
that were kept for the purpose of displa3'ing tlieir
speed, and dedicated to this particular purpose
alone. Regular races, however, wei'e now esta-
blished in various parts of England, first at
Garterly in Yorkshire, then at Croydon, at Theo-
bald's on Eufield-chase. and at Stamford. -= There
was no acknowledged system as now — no breed of
racing-horses ; but hackneys and hunters mingled
together, and no description of horse was excluded.

There was at first no course marked out for
the race, but the contest generally consisted in
the running of train-scent across the country, and
sometimes the most difficult and dangerous part
of the countiy was selected for the exhibition.
Occasionally our present steeple-chase was adopted
with all its dangers, and more than its present
barbarity ; for persons were appointed cnielly to
flog along the jaded and exhausted horse, t

By degrees, however, certain horses were de-
voted to these exhibitions, and were prepared for
the race, as far as the mystery of the training
stable could then be explored, somewhat in the
same way as at present. The weight of the rider,
however, was not always adjusted to the age or
performances of the horse ; but no rider could
start who weighed less than ten stones.

The races of that period were not disgraced by
the system of gambling and fraud which in later
times seems to have become almost inseparable
from tlie amusements of the turf. No hea^'y stakes
were run for; and no betting system had been
established. The prize was usually a wooden bell
adorned with flowers. This was afterwards ex-
exchanged for a silver bell, and "given to him
who should run the best and farthest (m horse-
back, and especially on Shrove Tuesday." Hence
the common phrase of " bearing away the bell."

Horse-racing became gradually more cultivated;
but it was not until the last year of the reign of
James I. that mles were promulgated and gene-
rally subscribed to for their regulation. That
prince was fond of field-sports. He had encou-
raged, if he did not establish, horse-racing in
Scotland, and he brought with him to England his
predilection for it; but his races were often matches
against time, or tiials of speed and bottom for
absurdly and ci-uelly long distances. His favou-
rite courses were at Croydon and on Enfield-
chase.

» Bnucher, in his History of Slamfnril, says, th,it the first
valiKible public prize was run for at that place in llie tunc of
Charles I it was a silver-gilt cup and cover, of the value of
eight pounds, provided by the corporation.

+ This peihaps requires a little explanation. A match wa.s
formed culled the " VVild-Goose Chave." Itelween two horses, jind
a to]er;ibly sure trial it was of the speed and huntint; propertes of
the horse. M'hichever horse obtained the lead at lwel^e score yards
from the starting post, the other was compelled to follow him wher-
ever he went, and to keep within a certain distance of him, as twice

Although the Turkish and Barbary horses had
been freely used to produce with the English mare
the breed that was best suited to this exercise,
little improvement had been effected. James,
wiih great juilgment, determined to tiy the Arab
breed. Probably he had not forgotten the story of
the Arabian that had been presented to one of his
Scottish churclies, five centuries before. He pur-
chased from a merchant, named Markham, a cele-
brated Arabian horse, for which lie gave the extra-
vagant sum of five hundred pounds. Kings, how-
ever, like their subjects, are often thwarted and
governed by their servants, and the Duke of New-
castle took a dislike to this foreign animal. He
wrote a book, and a very good one, on horseman-
ship ; but he described this Arabian as a little
bony horse, of ordinary shape ; setting him down
as almost worthless, because, after being regularly
trained, he seemed to be deficient in speed. The
opinion of the duke, probably altogether erroneous,
had for nearly a century great weight ; and the
Arabian horse lost its reputation among the Eng-
lish breeders.

A south-eastern horse was afterwards brought
into England, and purchased by James, of Mr.
Place, who afterwards became stud-master or groom
to Oliver Cromwell. This beautiful animal was
called the AVhite Turk ; and his name and that of
his keeper will long be remembered. Shortly after
this appeared the Helmsley Tv:rk, introduced by
Villiers, the first duke of Buckingham. He was
followed by Fairfax's Morocco barb. These horses
speedily effected a considerable change in the cha-
racter of our breed, so that Lord Harleigh, one
of the old school, complained that the great horse
was fast disappearing, and that horses were now
bred light and fine for the sake of speed only.

Charles I., however, ardently pursued this
favourite object of English gentlemen ; and, a
little before his rupture with the parliament,
established races in Hyde Park and at New-
market.

We owe to Charles I. the introduction of the
bit into universal use in the cavalry service, and
generally out of it. The invention of the bit has
been traced to as early as the time as the Roman
emperors, but for some inexplicable reason it had
not been adopted by the English. Charles I.,
however, in the third year of his reign, issued a
proclamation stating that such horses as are em-
ployed in the service, being more easily managed

or ihi-ice his lenglh, or else to he "heaten up," whipped up to the
mark by the judges who rode to see fair play. Il one horse got
bel'ore ihe other twelve score yards, or any certain distance, accord-
ing as the match was made, he was accounted to be beaten. If
the horse which at the beginning vas behind, could git bef'-re him
that tirst led, then the other was boimd to lollow. and so on, until
one got two hundred and forty yards, the eighth part of a mile,
before the other, or refused ^ome hreak-neck leap which the other
had taken. — Berenger, vol. ii. p. 188.

232

THE HORSE.

by means of tlie bit and the snaffle, he strictly
charged and commanded that, excejit in times of
disport — racing and hunting — no person engaged
in the cavaliy service should, in riding, use any
snaffles, but hits only.

It was feared by some that the love of hunting
and racing was making somewhat too rapid pro-
gi'ess ; for there is on record a memorial presented
to Charles, " touching the state of the kingdom,
and the deficiency of good and stout horses for its
defence, on account of the strong addiction which
the nation had to racing and hunting horses,
which, for the sake of swiftness, were of a lighter
and weaker mould."

The civil wars somewhat suspended the inquiiy
into this, and also the improvement of the breed ;
yet the advantage which was derived by both par-
ties from a light and active cavalry sufficiently
proved the importance of the change that had been
effected. Cromwell, perceiving vdih his wonted
sagacity how much these pursuits were connei'ted
with the prospeiity of the countiy, had his stud of
race-horses.

At the Restoration a new impulse was given to
the cultivation of the horse, by tlie inclination of
the court to patronise gaiety and dissipation. The
races at Newmarket, which had been for a -svhile
suspended, were restored ; and, as an additional
spur to emulation, royal plates were given at each
of the principal courses. Charles II. sent his
master of the horse to the Levant, to purchase
brood mares and stallions. These were principallj'
Barbs and Tm-ks.

James II. lived in too unquiet a period to be
enabled to bestow much time on the sports of the
turf or the field. He has, however, been repre-
sented as being exceedingly fond of hunting, and
showing so decided a preference for the English
horse as, after his abdication, to have several of
them in his stables in France. Berenger speaks
of this with much feeling : — " He expressed a pe-
culiar satisfaction in having them, and that at a
time, and in a situation in which it is natm'al to
think that they were rather likely to have given
him uneasiness and mortification than to have
afforded him pleasure."

William III., and Anne, prmcipally at the
instigation of her consort, George, Prince of Den-
mark, were zealous patrons of the turf, and the
system of improvement was zealously pursued ;
every variety of Eastern blood was occasionally
engrafted on our own, and the superiority of the
newly-introduced breed above the best of the ori-
ginal stock began to be evident.

Some persons imagined that this speed and
stoutness might possibly be further increased ; and
Mr. Darley, in the latter part of the reign of
Queen Anne, had recom-se to the discarded and
despised Arabian. He had much prejudice to

contend with, and it was some time before the
horse which he selected, and which was afterwards
known by the name of the Darley Arabian, at-
tracted much notice. At length the value of his
produce began to be reoogiiised, and to him we are
mainly indebted for a breed of horses of unequalled
beauty, speed, and strength.

The last improvement furnished all that could
be desired : nor was this true only of the thorough-
bred or turf horse — it was to a very material de-
gree the case with every description of horse. By
a judicious admixture and proportion of blood, we
have rendered our hunters, our hackneys, om-
coach — nay, even our cart-horses, stronger, more
active, and more enduring, than they were before
the introduction of the race-horse.

The history of the horse in England is a very in-
teresting one. Tlie original breed — that of which
mention is first made in history — seems to have been
a valuable one. The Conqueror carried away many
specimens of it, and they were long held in repute in
every countiy subjugated by the Romans. The
insular situation of Britain, and its comparatively
little need of the war-horse, led, under several mo-
narchs, to a culpable degree of negligence ; and
although, perhaps, on the whole, the English were
not far behind their Continental neighbours, yet
at no period, until within the last centiuy and a
half, has Great Britain been at all distinguished on
this account : but from that time, and especially
during the latter part of it, the British horse has
been sought after in every part of the world.
There is nothing in our climate that can account
for this — nothing in om- soil, or this superior ex-
cellence would have been acknowledged long ago.
" The grand first cause," says Mr. William Per-
civall, in his introductory lecture at University
College, in 1834, — "that, by the steady prosecu-
tion and scientific management of which this success
has been brought about, appears to me to be breed-
ing ; by which I do not only mean the procuration
of original stock of a good description, but the con-
tinual progressive cultivation of that stock in the
progeny by the greatest care in rearing and feed-
ing, and by the most careful selection. On these
two circumstances, and particularly on the latter,
a great deal more depends than on the original
characters or attributes of the parents. By these
means we have progressed from good to better,
losing sight of no subsidiary help, until we have
attained a perfection in horse-flesh unknown in the
whole world beside."*

The love of the turf, and the anxious desire to
possess horses of unrivalled excellence, have within
the last twenty years spread over the European
continent. Everywhere stud-houses have been
built and periodical races established, and sporting
societies formed of persons of the greatest weight

• Veterinarian, vol. vii. p. 3.

THE HORSE.

233

in the community, and, everywhere, zealous at-
tempts have been made to improve the native
stock. The com'sers of the East might have been
easily procured ; a new supply of Arabian blood
might have been obtained from the native country
of the Barb ; but French, and Italians, Germans,
Russians, and Flemings, have flocked to the Bri-
tish Isles. The pure blood of the present Barb
and Arabian has been postponed, and all have
deeply drawoi from that of the thorough-bred Eng-

lish horse. This is a circumstance with regard to
which there is no dispute. It is a matter of his-
tory— and it is highly creditable to our sporting
men and breeders. Mr. Percivall has rightly stated
the cause, but there are some circumstances con-
nected with this pre-eminence that may give occa-
sion for serious reflection, and which will be best
considered as the respective breeds of horses pass

m review.

CHAPTER IV.

THK DIFFERENT BREEDS OF ENGLISH HORSES
THE RACEHORSE.

THE COLONEL

There was much dispute with regard to the origin
of the thorough-bred horse. By some he was traced
through both sire and dam to Eastern parentage ;
whUe others believed him to be the native horse,
improved and perfected by judicious crossing ^vith
the Barb, the Turk, or the Arabian. " The Stud-
Book," which is an authority acknowledged by
every English breeder, traces all the old racers to
some Eastern origin, or at least until the pedigree
is lost in the uncertainty of an earlier period of

breeding. If the pedigree of a racer of the present
day is required, it is traced back to a certain ex-
tent, and ends with a well-known racer ; or if an
eai'lier derivation is required, that ends either with
an Eastern horse or in obscurity.

It is now admitted that the present Englisli
thorough-bred horse is of foreign extraction, im-
proved and perfected by the influence of climate
and diligent cultivation. There are some excep-
tions, as in the cases of Sampson and Bay Malton,

234

THE HORSE

in each of which, although the hest horses of their
day, there was a cross of Tulgar blood ; but they
are only de^dations from a general rule. In our
best racing-stables this is an acknowledged princi-
ple; and it is not, when properly considered, in
the slightest degree derogatory to the credit of
our country. The British climate and British
sldll made the thorough-bred horse what he is.

The beautiful tales of Eastern coimtries and
somewhat remote days may lead us to imagine that
the Arabian horse possesses marvellous powers ;
but it cannot admit of a doubt that the English-
trained horse is more beautiful and far swifter and
stouter than the justly-famed coursers of the de-
sert. In the burning plains of the East and the
frozen climate of Kussia, he has invariably beaten
every antagonist on his native gi-ound. It has
been already stated that, a few years ago, Recruit,
an English horse of moderate reputation, easily
beat Pyramus, the best Arabian on the Bengal
side of India.

It must not be objected that the number of
Eastern horses imported is far too small to produce
so numerous a progeny. It will be recollected
tliat the thousands of wild horses on the plains of
South America descended from only two stallions
and four mares, which the early Spanish adven-
turers left behind them.

Whatever may be the truth as to the origin
of the race-horse, the strictest attention has for
the "last fifty years been paid to his pedigree. In
the descent of almost every modem racer not the
slightest flaw can be discovered; or when, with
the splendid exceptions of Sampson and Bay Mal-

ton, one drop of common blood has mingled with
the pure stream, it has been immediately detected
in the mferiority of form and deficiency of stamina,
and it has required two or three generations to
wipe away the stain and get rid of its conse-
quences.

The racer is generally distinguished by his
beautiful Arabian head ; tapering and finely-set-
on neck ; oblique, lengthened shoulders ; well-
bent hinder legs ; ample muscular quarters ; flat
legs, rather short from' the knee downward, al-
though not always so deep as they should be ; and
his long and elastic pastern. These will be sepa
rately considered when the structure of the horse
is treated of.

The Darley Arabian was the parent of our
best racing stock. He was pm-chased by Mr. Bar-
ley's brother at Aleppo, and was bred in the
neighbouring desert of Palmyra. His figure con-
tained eveiy point, \vithout much show, that could
be desired in a turf-horse.

The immediate descendants of this invaluable
horse were the Devonshii-e or Flying Childers ;
the Bleeding or Bartlett's Childers, who was never
trained ; Almanzor, and others.

The two Childers were the means through
which the blood and fame of their sire were widely
circulated ; and from them descended another
Childers, Blaze, Snap, Sampson, Eclipse, and a
host of excellent horses.

The Devonshire or Flying Childers, so called
from the name of his breeder, Mr. Childers, of
Carr House, and the sale of him to the Duke of
Devonsliire, was the fleetest horse of his day. He

FLVI^Q CHILD

THE HOUSE.

235

was at first trained as a hunter ; but the superior
speed and courage which he discovered caused liim
to be soon transferred to the turf. Common re-
port affirms that he could run a mile in a minute ;
but there is no authentic record of this. Childers
ran over the round course at Newmarket (three
miles, sLx furlongs, and ninety-three yards) in sLx
minutes and forty seconds, and the Beacon course
(four mOes, one furlong, and one hundred and
thirty-eight yards) in seven minutes and thirty
seconds. In 1773, a mile was run by Firetail in
one minute and four seconds.

In 1755, Bay Malton, the property of the
Marquis of Rockingham, ran the four-mile couree
at York in seven minutes and forty-three seconds,
this being seven seconds less time than it had
ever been accomplished in before. Some of these
old ones could run fast as well as stoutly. Twenty
years afterwards there was a beautiful horse, the
son of Eclipse, and inheriting a great portion of
his speed without his stoutness. He won almost
every mile-race for which he ran, but he never
could accomplish a four-mile one. He broke down
in 1779, running over the Beacon course.

One of the most really severe races that ever
was run took place at Carlisle in 1761. There
were no less than six heats, and two of them dead
heats. Each of the six was honestly contested by
the winning horse ; therefore he ran in good earnest
twenty -foui- miles : yet there was no brealdng down,
nor any account of the slightest injuiy received.

The following are some additional instances of
the mingled speed and endurance of these horses,
and deserve to be placed on record : —

In October 1741, at the Curragh meeting in
Ireland, Mr. Wilde engaged to ride one hundred
and twenty-seven miles in nine hours. He per-
formed it in si.x hours and twenty-one minutes.
He employed ten horses, and, allowing for mount-
ing and dismounting, and a moment for refresh-
ment, he rode during six hours at the rate of
twenty miles an hour.

Mr. Thorahill, in 1745, exceeded this; for he
rode from Stilton to London and back, and again
to London, being two hundred and thirteen mUes,
in eleven hours and thirty-four minutes. This
amounts, after allowing the least possible time for
changing horses, to twenty miles an hour for
eleven hom's, and on the turnpike-road and un-
even ground.

Mr. Shaftoe, in 1703, with ten horses, and five
of them ridden twice, accomplished fifty miles and
a quarter in one hour and forty-nine minutes. In
1763, he won a still more extraordinary match.
He engaged to procure a person to ride one hun-
dred miles a day for twenty-nine days, having any
number of horses not exceeding twenty-nine from
which to make his selection. He accomplished it
on fourteen horses ; but on one day he was com-
pelled to ride a hundred and sixty miles, on ac-
count of the tiring of his first horse.

Mr. Hull's Quibbler, however, afforded the
most extraordinary instance on record of the stout-
ness as well as speed of the race-horse. In De-
cember 1780, he ran twenty-three miles round the
flat at Newmarket, in fifty-seven minutes- and ten
seconds.

23G

THE HOESE.

Eclipse was got hy Marsk, a grandson of Bar-
tlett's Childers.* He was bred by the Duke of
Cumberland, and sold at his death to Mr. Wildman,
a sheep salesman, for seventy-five guineas. Colonel
O 'Kelly pm-chased a share of him from Wildman.
In the spring of the follomng year, when the re-
putation of this wonderfid animal was at its height,
O 'Kelly wished to become sole owner of him, and
bought the remaining shai'e for eleven hundred
guineas.

Eclipse was what was termed a thick-winded
horse, and puffed and roared so as to be heard at a
considerable distance. For tliis or some other
cause, he was not brought on the tmf until he
was five yeai'S old.

O'Kelly, aware of his horse's powers, had
backed him freely on his first race, in May 1769.
This excited curiosity, or perhaps roused suspi-
cion, and some persons attempted to watch one of
his trials. Mr. John Lawrence says, that " they
were a little too late ; but they found an old woman
who gave them all the information they wanted.
On inquiring whether she had seen a race, she
replied she could not tell whether it was a race or
not, but that she had just seen a horse with a
white leg ranning away at a monstrous rate, and
another horse a great way behind, trying to run

after him ; but she was sure he never would catch
the white-legged horse if he ran to the world's
end."

The first heat was easily won, when O'Kelly,
observing that the rider had been pulling at
Eclipse during the whole of the race, offered a
wager that he placed the horses in the next heat.
This seemed a thing so highly improbable, that
he immediately had bets to a large amomit. Being
called on to declare, he replied, " Eclipse first, and
the rest nowhere ! " The event justified his pre-
diction ; for all the others were distanced by
Eclipse with the greatest ease, and thus, in the
language of the turf, they had no place.

In the spring of the following year he beat
Mr. Wentworth's Bucephalus, who had never be-
fore met with his equal. Two days afterwards he
distanced Mr. Strode's Pensioner, a veiy good
horse ; and in the August of the same year he won
the great subscription at York. No horse daring
to enter against him, he closed his short career, of
seventeen months, by walking over the Newmai-ket
course for the king's plate, on October the 18th,
1770. He was never beaten, nor ever paid for-
feit, and won for his owner more than twenty-five
thousand pounds.

Eclipse was afterwards employed as a stallion.

The pedigree of Eclipse affords a singular illustration of the descent of our thorough-bred horses from pure Eastern blood :-

{Darley Arabian.
f f

Betty Leeds . . J Careless- . jShanker |Barb Mare.

Squirt ■ ■ ■{ I (-Lister Turk.

Dam of Snake .... J Daughter \ -p- ,,, fD'Arcey White Turk.

Caroline and Shock J (of Hautboy I "■'"''°°y (.Royal Mare.

Daughter -i
[ of Hautboy . / Hautboy.
( Huttons Bay Turk.
Hutton's Black Legs .| fConeyskins -Lister Turk.

[ Daughter of . . -^ ^

\ Daughter of I Hautboy. ,

Daughter of-

^ Spiletta

/■Eegulu

f Clumsy . . I Hautboy.
Fox Cub . J ' l

[ Daughter of | Leeds Arabian.

(Coneyskins ■{ Lister Turk.
Daughter of {Hutton's Grey Barb.

TGodolphin Arabian.
\ ( Bald Galloway.

(.Daughter of I (-Snake {Lister Turk.

[^ Daughter of . S

(. Old -Wilkes, by Hautboy.

fSmith's Son of Snake.
^Mother Western <

(.Old Montague {Daughter of Hautboy.

The pedigree of Eclipse -mil likewise afford another curious
illustration of the uncertainty which attends thorough-bred horses.
Marsk was sold at the sale of the Duke of Cumberland's stud for a
mere trifle, and was suffered to run almost wild on the New
Forest. - He was afterwards purchased for one thousand guineas,
and before his death covered for one hundred guineas. Squirt,
when the property of Sir Harry Harpur, was ordered to be shot;

and while he was actually leading to the'dog-kennel, he was spared
at the intercession of one of Sir Harry's grooms. Neither Bar-
tlett's Cbilders, nor Snake, was ever trained. On the side of the
dam, Spiletta never started but once, and was beaten; and the
Godolphin Arabian was purchased from a water.cart in Paris. —
Smith's Breeding for the Turf, p. 5.

THE HORSE.

237

and produced the extraordinary number of thi'ee
hundi'ed and thirtj--four winners, and these netted
' to their owners more than one hundred and sixty
thousand pounds, exchisive of plates and cups.'i=

The profit brought to the owner of this extra-
ordinary animal by his services as a stallion must
have been immense. It is said that ten years
after he was withdrawn from the turf, O 'Kelly was
asked at what price he would sell him. At first
he peremptorily refused to sell him at any price ;
but after some reflection he said that he would take
twenty-five thousand poimds, with an annuity of
five hundred pounds a year on his own life, and
the annual pri\alege of sending six mares to him.
The seeming extravagance of this sum excited
considerable remark ; but 0 'Kelly declared that
he had already cleared more than twenty-five
thousand pounds by him, and that he was young
enough still to earn double that sum. In fact he
did live nearly ten years afterwards, covering at
fifty guineas a mare for some part of the time ;
but his feet having been strangely and cruelly
neglected, he became foundered. His feet now
rapidly gi-ew worse and worse until he was a veiy
uncertain foal-getter, and the value of his progeny
■was more than suspected. He died in February
1789, at the age of twenty-five years. Of the
beautj' and yet the peculiarity of his form there
has been much dispute. His lowness before was
evident enough, and was a matter of objection and
reproach among those who could not see how
abundantly this was redeemed by the extent and
obliquity of the shoulder, the broadness of the
loins, the ample and finely-proportioned quarters,
and the swelling and the extent — the sloping and
the power of the muscles of the fore-ann and of
the thighs.

A little before the death of Eclipse, M. St. Bel,
the founder of the Veterinary College in St. Pan-
eras, had arrived from France. In teaching the
French pupils the general conformation of the
horse, and the just proportions of his various parts,
it had been necessaiy that reference should be
made to some horse of acknowledged excellence.
It occurred to St. Bel that this extraordinaiy and
unbeaten horse would be the proper standard to
which the English student might be referred for a
similar piu-pose, and with considerable trouble he
fomied an accurate scale of the proportions of this
noble animal. The reader is presented with it in
the subjoined note.!

* The produce of King Herod, a descendant of Flying Chil-
ders, was even more numerous. He got no less than four hundred
and ninety -seven winners, who gained for their proprietors upwards
of two hundred thousand pounds. HighHyer was a son of King
Herod.

+ PROPOETIONS OF ECLIPSE.

Although it is perfectly true, as stated by Mr. Blaine, in his
" Outlines of the Veterinary Act," that " for racing, we require that
the greatest possible quantity of bone, and muscle, and sinew,

More than twenty years after the Darley Ara-
bian, and when the value of the Arabian blood was
fully established. Lord G odoliihin possessed a beau-
tiful but singularly-shaped horse which he called
an Arabian, but which was really a Barb. His
crest, lofty and arched almost to a fault, will dis-
tinguish him from every other horse.

It will likewise be seen from the cut (p. 199),
that he had a sinking beliind his shoulders, almost
as peculiar, and a corresponding elevation of the
spine towards the loins. His muzzle was tincom
monly fine, his head beautifully set on, his shoul-
ders capacious, and his quarters well spread out.
He was bought in France, where he was actually
employed in drawing a cart ; and when he was
afterwards presented to Lord Godolphin, he was
in that nobleman's stud a considerable time before
his value was discovered. It was not until the
bu'th of Lath, one of the first horses of that period,
that his excellence began to be appreciated. He
was then styled an Arabian, and became, in even
a greater degree than the Darley, the founder of
the modern thorough-bred horses. He died in
1753, at the age of twenty-nme.

An intimate friendsliip subsisted between him
and a cat, which either sat on his back when he
was in the stable, or nestled as closely to him as
she could. At his death, she began to refuse her
food, and pined away, and died. Mr. Holcroft
gives a similar relation of the attachment between
a race-horse and a cat, which the courser would
take in his mouth and place in his manger and
upon his back without hurting her. Chillaby,
called from his great ferocity the ilad Arabian,
whom one only of the grooms dared to approach,
and who savagely tore to pieces the image of a man
that was purposely placed in his way, had his pe-
culiar attachment to a lamb, who used to employ
himself for many an hour hi buttmg away the flies
from his friend.

Another foreign horse, was the Wellesley Ara-
bian ; the very picture of a beautiful wild horse of
the desert. His precise countiy was never deter-
mined. He is eWdently neither a perfect Barb,
nor a perfect Arabian, but from some neighbour-
ing province, where both the Barb and Ai'abian
would expand to a more perfect fulness of form.
This horse has been erroneously selected as the
pattern of a superior Arabian, and therefore we have
introduced him : few, however, of his produce were
trained who can add much to his reputation.

should be got into the smallest bulk, and that, in addition to great
tlesibihty and some length, the limbs must be strongly united, the
chest deep and capacious, and the binder extremities furnished with
powerful muscles; for Auni/nf/, we must have a similar yet somewhat
liulkier horse, with powerful loins, and more powerful quarters;
and for the hackney, while we undervalue not the strength of the
loins and the quarters, we look more to the elevated withers, and
the deep and muscular shoulders, and the straight and well-formed
leg ;" yet there is a nearer and a truer proportion between the several
parts of these kindi'ed animals than many persons are disposed to

238

THE HORSE.

At the commencement of the last centiay,
^vhen public races had been established in the
neighbourhood of almost eveiy large town, and
when many of them were especially patronised by
royalty, although there was sufficient opportunity
given for the value of the young stock to be exhi-
bited, or at least guessed at, the contest principally
lay among the adults. The kind of contest which
was best calculated to tiy the real worth of the
hoi'se, and to promote the actual improvement of
the breed, was one of mingled speed and endur-
ance. They were mostly heats for distances of
three or four miles. Occasionally they wei'e for
greater lengths, even extending to six or eight
miles : and in one case, when the Duke of Queens-
berry's Dash beat Lord Bari*ymore s Highlander,
twelve miles. This, however, was cniel and ab-
sm'd, and never established itself among the best
supporters of the turf.

Four miles constituted the average distance,
not only for king's plates, but for simple matches;
and the horses cGd not sleep on their way. There
were occasionally as extraordinary bursts of speed
as are now witnessed in our mile-and-a-half races.

Did the horses of those days come to any ex-
traordinary hai-m? Did they ruin themselves by
the exertion of one day, and appeal' no more ? The
anonymous writer of a most interesting and valu-
able work — " A Comparative View of the English
Eacer and Saddle Horse during the Last and Pre-
sent Centuries" — mentions a horse called Exotic,

allow; and this sketch of them in Eclipse will not only be interest-
ing, but useful, to the general horseman.

The length of the head of the horse is supposed to be divided

into twenty-two equal pails, which are the common measm'e

for every part of lie body.
Three heads and thirteen parts will give the height of the horse

from the foretop to the ground.
Three heads from the withers to the ground.
Three heads from the rump to the ground.
Three heads and three parts the whole length of the body, from

the most prominent part of tbe chest tr -he extremity of the

buttocks.
Two heads and twtnty parts the heigh of the body, through

the middle of the centre of gravity.
Two heads and seven parts, the height of the highest part of the

chest from the groimd.
Two heads and five parts, the height of the perpendicular line

which falls from the articulation of the arm with the shoulder,

directly to the hoof.
One head and twenty parts, the height of the perpendicular line

which falls from the top of the fore-leg, dividing equally all

its parts to the fetlock.
One head and nineteen parts, the height of the perpendicular

line from the elbow to the ground.
One head and nineteen parts, the distance from the top of the

withers to the stifle. The same measure also gives the dis-
tance from the top of the rump to the elbow.
One and a half head, the length of the neck fiom the withers

to the lop of the head. The same measure also gives the

length of the neck from the top of the head to its insertion

into the chest.
One bead, the width of the neck at its union with the chest.
Twelve parts of a head, the width of the neck in its narrowest part.
The same measure gives the breadth of the head taken below

the eyes.
One head and four parts, the thickness of the body from the

middle of the back to the middle of the belly.

that was on the turf eleven years. *' We do not
Idow," says our author, " how many times he
stalled dm-ing this period, but in the course of it
he won eighteen times. In his seventh year on
the turf he won a race at Peterborough consisting
of four heats of four miles each."

*' Fom* horses were handicapped by Dr. Bellyse
at Newcastle-imder-Lyne — Sir John Egerton's
Astbury, Mr. Milton's Handel, Sir W. Wynne's
Tarragon, and Sir Thomas Stanley's Cedric.
The following was the result : — Of the first three
heats there was no winner. Tarragon and Handel
being each time nose and nose ; and, although
Astbuiy was stated to have been third in the first
heat, yet he w^as so nearly on a level with the
others, that there was a difficulty in placing him
as such. After the second heat, the steward re-
quested two other gentlemen to look with him
steadily as they came, to try to decide in favour of
one of them, but it was impossible to do so. In
the third dead heat Tarragon and Handel had
struggled with each other until they reeled about
as if they were dmnk, and could scai'cely cariy
their riders to the scales. Astbury, who had lain
by after the first heat, then came out and won.
The annals of the turf cannot produce another such
contest, founded on a thorough knowledge of the
hoi'ses, their ages, and then* previous nmning."*

*' In 1737, Black Chance, at five yeai's old, won
a plate at Durham, carryuig ten stone. With the
same weight he won the Ladies' Plate at York, in

The same measm-e gives the breadth of the body.

Also the rump from its summit to the extremity of the buttocks.

Also the distance from the root of the tail to the stifle.

Also the length from the stifle to the hock.

Also the height from the extremity of the hoof to the hock.

Twenty parts of a head, the distance from the extremity of the
buttocks to the stifle.

Also the breadth of the rump or croup.

Ten parts of ahead, the breadth of the fore-legs from their ante-
rior pait to the elbow.

Ten parts of a head, the breadth of one of the hind-legs taken
beneath the fold of the buttocks.

Eight parts of ahead, the breadth of the ham taken from the
bend.

Also the breadth of the head above the nostrils.

Seven paits of a head, the distance of the eyes from one great
angle to the other.

Also the distance between the fore-legs.

Five parts of a head, the thickness of the knees.

Also the breadth of the fore-legs above the knees.

Also the thickness of the hams.

Four paits of a head, the breadth of the pastern, or fetlock
joint.

Also the thickness of the coronet.

Four and a half parts of the head, the breadth of the coronet.

Three parta of a head, the thickness of the legs at their nar-
rowest part.

Also the breadth of the hinder legs or shanks.

Two and three-quarter parts of a head, the thickness of the hind-
pasterns.

Also the breadth of the shanks of the fore-legs.

Two and a quarter parts of a head, the thickness of the fore-
pasterns.

Also the breadth of the hind-pasterns.

One and three-quarter parts of a head, the thickness of the fore
and hind shanks.

• Nimrod on the Chase, the Eoad, and the Turf, p. 169.

THE HOUSE.

239

that year. In 1738, he won the King's Plate at
Guildford, beating several horses. He won the
Plate also at Salisbury, at Winchester, at Lewes,
and at Lincoln — five Bang's Plates in one season,
and every race four miles and contested. The
same horse was iu the field in 1744, and he walked
over for the aimual j)late at Famden."*

What are our racers now ? They ai'e speedier.
That it would be folly to deny.

They are longer, lighter, but still musciUai',
although shorn of much of their pride in this re-
spect. They are as beautiful creatui-es as the eye
would wish to gaze on, but the greater part of them
give in before half the race is run ; and out of a
field of fifteen, or even twenty, not more than two
or three of them live, in the exertion of their best
energies, far within the ropes.

And what becomes of them when the stiniggle
is over? After the severe racing, as it is now
called, of foi-mer times, the horse came again to
the starting post with not a single power impaired ;

* About the year 1748, Mr. Fenw-ick's Match' em was iu his
glory. He was not only celebrated as a racer himself, but he was
father of many of the best running horses of that day. It was said
that, in all probabiUty, he gained to his owner more money than
any boise in the world. He ultimately died at thirty-three years
of age.

+ An account of the lengths of the principal race-courses may
be acceptable to the reader : —

MILES. FUR. TARDS.

The Beacon Course is 4 1 138

The Round Course is 3 4 178

Last three miles of Beacon Course 3 0 45

Ditch-in 2 0 97

The last mile and a distance of Beacon

Coiuse 1 1 156

Ancasler mile 1 0 18

From the turn of the lands in 0 5 184

Clermont Course, from the Ditch to the

Duke's Stand 1 5 217

Audley End Course, from the starting-post

of the T.Y.C. to the end of the Beacon

Course 1 6 0

Across the flat 1 2 24

Rowley mile 1 0 1

Ditch mile 0 7 178

Abingdon mile 0 7 211

Two middle miles of Beacon Course 1 7 125

Two-years-old Course (on the flat) 0 6 136

New ditto (part of the Banbuiy mile) .... 0 6 186

Yearling Course 0 2 47

Banbury mile 0 7 248

" Previously to 1753 there were only two meetings in the year
at Newmarket for the purpose of running horses, one in the Spring
and another in October. At present there are seven — The Craven,
instituted in 1771, in compHment to the late Earl Craven, and
commencing on Easter Monday ; the First Spring, on the Monday
fortnight following, and being the original Spring Meeting; the
Second Spring, a fortnight after that, and instituted in 1753 ; the
July, commonly early in that month, instituted also in 1753; the
First October, on the first Monday in that month, being the ori-
ginal October Meeting ; the Second October, on the Monday fort,
night following, instituted in 1762 ; and the Third October, or
Houghton, a fortnight after that, and instituted 1770. With the
last-mentioned meeting, which, weather permitting, generally lasts
a week, and at which there is a great deal of racing, the sports of
the Turf close for the year, with the exception of Tarporley, a very
old htmt-meeting in Cheshire, now nearly abandoned ; and a Wor-
cester autumn meeting, chiefly for hunters and horses of the gentle-
men and farmers within the hunt." — Nimrod — The Turf, 162.

and year after year he was ready to meet any and
every rival. A single race, however, like that of
the Derby, now occasionally disables the winner
from ever running again ; yet the distance is only
a mile and a half. 'The St. Leger is more destruc-
tive to the winner, although the distance is less
than two miles. \ The race of the day has been
run ; some hea^y stakes have been won by the
owner ; the animal by whose exertions they were
gained is led away, his flanks cut with the whip,
his sides streaming with gore, and every sinew
strained ; and it is sometimes an even chance
whether he is ever heard of, or, perhaps, thought
of again. He has answered the purpose for which
he was bred, and he has passed away.

And by what >vitchery has all this been ac-
complished? How came it that skilful and ho-
nom'able men should have conspired together to
deteriorate the character of the racer, and with
him that of the English horse generally ? Why,
there was no conspiracy in the matter. It was

ASCOT HEATH.

The two-mile course is a circular one, of which the last half is
called the old mile. The new mile is straight and up-hill all the way.
The T.Y.C. is five fiu*longs and one hundred and thirty-sis yards.

EPSOM.

The old coiu"se, now seldom used except for the cup, is two
miles of an irregular circular form, the first irdle up-hill. The new
Derby course is exactly a mile and a half, and somewhat in the
form of a horse-shoe ; the first three-quarters of a mile may be con-
sidered as straight running, the bend in the course being very
trifling, and the width very great ; the next quarter of a mile is in
a gradual turn, and the last half-mile straight ; the first half-mile
is on the ascent, the next third of a mile level, and the remainder
is on the descent, till within the distance, where the groimd again
rises.

The new T.Y.C. is six furlongs; the old T.Y.C, or Woodcot
course, is somewhat less than four.

The Craven course is one mile and a quarter.

DONCASTER

Is a circular and nearly flat course of about one mile, seven
furlongs, and seventy yards.

The shorter courses are portions of this circle.

LIVEHTOOL.

The new course, now used for both meetings, is flat, a mile and
a half round, and with a straight run-in of nearly three-quarters of
a mile, and a very gradual rise.

MANCHESTER

Is one mile, rather oval, with a hill, and a fine run-in.

A Distance is the length of two hundred and forty yards from
the winning post In the gallery of the winning post, and in a
Uttle gallery at the distance post, are placed two men holding crim-
son flags. As soon as the first horse has passed the winning post,
the man drops his flag ; the other at the distance post drops his at
the same moment, and the horse which has not then passed that post
is said to be distanced, and cannot start again for the same plate or
prize.

A Feather-weight is the lightest weight than can be put on the
back of a horse.

A Give-and-take Plate is where horses carry weight accord-
ing to their height Fourteen hands are taken as the standard
height, and the horse must carry nine stone (the horseman's stone
is fourteen pounds). Seven pounds are taken from the weight for
every inch below fourteen hands, and seven pounds added for
every inch above fourteen hands. A few poimds additional weight
is so serious an evil, that it is said, seven poimds in a mile-race are
equivalent to a distance.

A Post Match is for horses of a certain age, and the parties
possess the privilege of bringing any horse of that age to the post

A Produce Match is that between the produce of certain mares
in foal at the time of the match, and to be decided when they arrive
at a certain age specified

840

THE HOESE.

the natural course of things. The race-horses of
the beginning, and even of the middle of the last
centuiy were fine powerful animals; they had
almost as much fleetness as could be desired, and
they had strength that would never tire. He
■who bred for the tui'f might in his moments of re-
flection he pleased by the conviction that, while
he was accomplishing his ovai pui-pose, he was
breeding an animal valuable to his country. He
might be gratified by this reflection, yet it would
not influence the system which he pursued. He
tvould breed to win ; and he would naturally try to
add a little more speed to the acknowledged
power. Thence came the Mambrmo and the
Sweet Briar, and others who had lost but little of
their compactness of form — who had got rid of a
portion of that which an enemy might call coarse-
ness, but none of the capacity of the chest, or the
substance or the power of the muscular system —
whose speed was certainly increased, and whose
vigour was not impaired.

It is not in human nature to be satisfied even
■with perfection ; and it was tried whether a little
more fleetness could not be obtained. It was so
— and, some thought, ■with a slight impairment of
stoutness. There were those, and they were not
altogether ■wrong, who saw in Shark and in Gim-
crack an evident increase of speed and little dimi-
nution of strength.

It was easy to imagine ■what would now be
the result. The grand principle was speed. It
was taken for granted that stoutness would follow
— or rather, in the selection of the stock, stout-
ness was a minor consideration. The result of
this was a horse ■with an elongated frame — as beau-
tiful as his predecessors, or more so, but to the eye
of the scientific man displaj-ing diminished muscles
and less prominent sinews, and sharper and less
powerful withers. The fleetness was all that
heart could desire, but the endurance was fearfully
diminished. Irresistible proof was soon given of
this. They could not run the distances that their
predecessors did ■with ease. Heats became mi-
fashionable — they were esteemed, and ■with too
much ti^uth, severe and cruel. We might refer to
the disgraceful exhibitions of Chateau Margaux,
and Mortgage, and Lamplighter. The necessary
consequence was that the ground run over in the
ordinary matches was lessened a full half.

And was not this sufficient to convince the
man of the turf — the breeder of horses for liis
own use — was not this sufficient to convince him
of the error wliich he had committed? Perhaps it
was, ■with regard to those who would give them-
selves the trouble to think. But the error had
been committed. The aU-important question was,
how could it be repaired? Were they to breed
back again to their former stoutness ? There were
individuals stout and speedy, but the breed was

gone. Beside, the short race had become fashion-
able. It was determined in two or three minutes.
There was not the lengthened suspense of seven or
eight rotations of the second-hand of the watch;
and who could resist the omnipotence of fashion ?
Some harsh expressions have been used with regard
to the leading sporting characters of tliat time;
but what power had they of resistance ? They had
bred for speed. They had obtained it. They had
obtained that kind of race that would be popular,
for it was short. They had no alternative, except
with regard to the king's plates. There they
should have made a stand. The interests and
honour of the country should not have been sacri-
ficed because they had erred. There should have
been something left to encourage the continuance
of the old and umivalled blood — something to fall
back upon when the fashionable leaders of the
sporting world had discovered their error. This
battle, however, must yet be fought. Additional
reasons for it ^vill appear when the present state
of the hunter and the road-horse are considered.

There is one cii'cumstance connected with
these short races which perhaps has not been suf-
ficiently appreciated. On the old system, the
tnieness and the stoutness of the horse would ge-
nerally insure the prize to him that best desei-ved
it ; but with the present young horses and short
courses, the actual race being sometimes little
more than two or three hundred yards, a great
deal depends on the rider. If the cattle are toler-
ably fairly m-atched, all depends on him. If he
has confidence in the stoutness of his horse, he
may distance all Ms competitors ; or he may nurse
the fleet but weedy thing to almost the last stride,
and dart by the winning post before his rival has
been able to gather himself up for the last efibrt.

One thing cannot be denied, that the consci-
ousness in the jockeys of their power, and the ac-
count which they will probably be called upon to
render of the manner in which they have used it,
has led to fai' more ciiielty in the management of
these races than ever disgraced the records of
foi-mer times. Habit had given to the older
horses of those days a principle of emulation and
of obedience. When the race in reality began,
the horse understood the meaning of his rider, and
it seldom required any cruel application of the
whip or the spm- to bring him through if he could
win.

Fon-ester ■will afford sufficient illustration of
this. He had won many hardly-contested races ;
but on an unfortunate day he was matched against
an extraordinary horse, Elephant, belonging to
Sir Jemhsou Shaftoe. It was a four-mile heat
over the straight course. They passed the flat —
they ascended the hill as far as the distance post
— they were nose to nose. Between this and the
chair. Elephant got a little ahead. Forrester

THE HORSK.

241

made every possible effort to recover this lost
ground, until, finding all his efforts ineffectual, he
made one desperate phmge — he seized his anta-
gonist by the jaw to hold him back, and could
scarcely be forced to quit his hold. In like man-
ner, a horse belonging to Mr. Quin, in 1753, find-
ing his adversaiy gradually passing him, seized him
by the leg ; and both riders were obliged to dis-
mount, in order to separate the animals.

The youngsters may not have felt all this emu-
lation, nor be disposed painfully to exert their ener-
gies to the very utmost ; and it may be necessar}' —
necessai-y, in order to accomplish the purpose of the
owner by winning the race — that the poor animal
should be brutally urged on, until the powers of
nature fail, and he retires from the course a cripple
for life.

This is a necessary part of the system. It is
accounted the duty of the rider — it is a duty on
the skilful discharge of which a few of them
plume themselves : but it is that which should
not be tolerated, and the system of which it is a
necessary part should midergo a speedy and an
effectual reformation.*

We have been enabled to place at the head of
our chapter a portrait of the " Colonel," taken for
this work, by Mr. Harvey ; and Mr. Good\vin,
veterinaiy surgeon to the Queen, has kindly fur-
nished us -with a considerable part of the follow-
ing account of him and of Flem'-de-Lis : —

He was a chesnut horse, fifteen hands tlu-ee
inches high, with good substance, capital legs and
feet, and true action, bred by Mr. Petre in 1825.
He was got by Whisker out of a Delphini mare
— her dam. Tipple Cider, by Iving Fergus — the
grandam was S3'lvia, by young Marsk, out of
Ferret, by a brother to Sylvio-Eegulus, &c.

He came out in 1897, when he won the two-
years stakes, beating Kitty, a colt by Trump, and
a black colt by Wliisker.

* In a former edition of this work, the protest of the author
was entered against the barbarous and useless punishment to which
some horses were subjected. He has great pleasure in recording
the following confirmation of his opinion: — "There are many
jockeys employed by the inferior black-leg species of sportsmen,
and even some of a higher class, who will not be convinced that a
rider has acted honestly, unless his horse is nearly dissected alive ;
but, in the strongest probability, every drop of blood drawn is ut-
terly unnecessary, as it is barbarous and contrary to the veiy idea
of sport, in which even the horse himself ought to share. Such
an opinion was given from the heart, as well as from the mature
judgment of the late Sir Thomas Charles Bunbiuy, within a few-
months of his decease, after five-and-fifty years of experience on the
most extensive scale. Although the stout and game horse will
run to the whip, the excess of it must necessarily s/ior(en his stride,
and, in course, detract from his speed. Many a race has been
lost by a foul cut, or a brutal use of the spur — either by damping
the spirit and enfeebling the nerve of the horse, or inducing a
sullen disgust and desperation. An example much talked of at the
time, and through which a vast sum of money was lost, occurred
in the case of a horse of old Duke William, which was nearly
home and winning. He received a foul cut with the whip on a
tender part, and instantly hung back and lost the race. With re-
spect to the hot-spirited and washy horses, if they cannot win with-
out the aid of the whip, they will seldom win with it." — Nimrod,

In the same year he carried off the two-years
old stakes at Pontefract, beating Vanish ; and the
Champagne stakes at Doncaster, beating a filly by
Blackleg.

In 1828 he ran a dead heat with Cadland for
the Derby, beating Zingaree and twelve others,
but he lost the second heat. He won however the
St. Leger at Doncaster, beating Belinda, Veloci-
pede, and seventeen others ; and walked over for
the two hundred sovereigns stakes at the same
place. f

In 1829 he was beaten at the York Spring
Meeting, by Bessy Bedlam, in a match for three
hundred sovereigns each — the St. Leger course.
He started, but was not placed, for the gold cup
at Ascot, being beaten by Zingaree and Ma-
meluke.

In 1830 he won the Craven stakes of ten so-
vereigns each, beating Harold, Clio, and eight
others. He ran second for the gold cup at Ascot,
being beaten by Loretta, but beating Greenmantle
and Zingaree. In the. same year he won a Sweep-
stake at Stockbridge ; and ran third for the gold
cup at Goodwood, but was beaten by Fleur-de-Lia
and Zingaree.

In 1831 he won the Craven stakes at Epsom;
and ran a dead heat with Mouch for the Oatlands
at Ascot ; but rmniing the second heat with her,
he broke down^ — the suspensory ligaments failing
in both legs. He did not continue lame ; but the
enlargement of the fetlock, and the traces of the
iron, plainly indicated that he could no longer be
depended upon as a racer. J

We are also gratified in being enabled to pre-
sent om- readers with a portrait of that beautiful
and almost imiivalled mare Fleur-de-Lis, by the
same artist.

She was bred by Sir M. W. Ridley, in 1822,
and was got by Bom-bon, the son of Sorcerer, out
of Lady Rachel, by Stamford — her dam, Yomig
Rachel, by Volunteer, out of Rachel, sister to
Maid of all Work, and by both the sire and the
dam was descended from Highflyer. Bourbon
started twenty-three times, out of which he was
successful seventeen times ; and canied off two
classes of the Newmarket October Oatland stakes,
the Claret, the Craven, and the Trial, besides four

+ At the latter end of 1828 he was sold by Mr. Petre to George
IV. for four thousand guineas. He continued, however, on the
turf, and won many races.

t He then covered at the Koyal Stud, Hampton Court, until
that establishment was sold at the death of William IV. He was
purchased by Mr. Tattersall, at the sale, for one thousand five
liundred and fifty guineas, who sent him to his present owners, a
stud company in Russia.

He possessed gi-eat speed ; but his progeny, like himself, were
deficient in that stoutness so essential to a real good horse.
DEgville, Posthaste, TooUiill, and The Drummer were some of
the most successful of his stock. On the whole, he could not be
considered as having always realised the expectations of those who
put mares to him.

thousand one hundred and tliu-ty guineas in
specie.

She was the finest mare in form and size ever
produced in England. She stood fully sixteen
hands, and had extraordinaiy good legs, and feet
that never failed. Her speed was good, but her
forte was distance. Independent of her being so
fine a mare in every other respect, her chest was
one of extraordinary capacity in an animal of such
imusual depth in the girthing place.

She first appeared on the turf at three years
old, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for the twenty-five
guineas sweepstakes — one mile — and beat her four
competitors.

On September 8, she won a sweepstake of
twenty guineas, and twenty added — sis subscribers
— at Pontefract.

On the 30th of the same month, she started
for the Great St. Leger, and would probably have
won it had she not been thrown down in the run-
ning by Actaeon, as she beat Mammon afterwards,
and all the best horses of that description. On
the 23d of September, however, she won a sweep-
stake of twenty sovereigns each, with twenty
added — nineteen subscribers.

On May 20, 1836, she was in the sweepstakes
of twenty sovereigns each — two miles — seven sub-
scribers, at the York Spring Meeting. Lottery,
Actaeon, and Catterick was among her opponents.
After the first hundred yards. Lottery got in front,
closely followed by the others at strong running.
He kept ahead until nearly the distance post, when
Fleur-de-Lis shot ahead, Aetseon and Catterick

letting loose at the same time. The filly, how-
ever, kept in front, and won in gallant style by
half a length.

On the next day she won the gold cup, opposed
again by Aetseon, and also by the Alderman and
six others. The betting was seven to four on the
Alderman, and four to one against the winner.
The Alderman took the lead, and made all the
running up to the distance post. They were in a
cluster at the stand, when Aetseon and Fleur-de-
Lis came out. A severe stniggle took place, the
mare winning by a length.

July 6, she won the gold cup at Newcastle-
upon-Tyne- — ten subscribers. The betting waa
fifteen to eight in favour of the -ndnner.

On the next day she won the first heat for the
town-plate, and walked over the course for the
second heat.

On September 19, she won the Doncaster
stakes of ten sovereigns each, with twenty added
by the corporation — twenty-nine subscribers. She
was opposed by Actceon, Lottery, Jerry, and
others ; but the bets were five to foiu* on Fleur-
de-Lis.

On the 21st, she won the gold cup, beating
Mulatto, Helenus, and others. The betting was
five to four on her.

On the 29th she won the gold cup at Lincoln,
walking over the course.

May the 13th, 1827, she won the Constitution
stakes at the York Spring Meeting — fifteen sub-
scribers, at twenty guineas each, among which were
Jerry, Humphrey Clinker, and Sirius ; the betting

THE HORSE

243

six to five against Fleur-de-Lis. During most of
the way, Fleur-de-Lis was in front, Jerry second,
Humphrey Clinker third, and Sirius fourth.
Wheu between the rails Jerry looked as if he
would win ; but suddenly swerving, Fleur-de-Lis
won easily by two lengths.

On the 27th, she ran at Manchester, for a
tureen, value one hundred guineas, with twenty-
four subscribers of ten sovereigns each; betting,
five to four on her. On making the last turn she
slipped, and nearly came on her side. She, how-
ever, recovered ; but, after a severely-contested
race, lost by half a head.

On July the 13th, she won the gold cup, and
sweepstakes of ten guineas each, at Preston ;
twenty subscribers. The course was three miles
and a distance. It was doubted whether any hoi'se
could be found to compete with Fleur-de-Lis ; but
at length Mr. Milton's old grey horse Euphrates
and Sir W. Wynn's Signorina entered the lists.
The old horse looked as well and appeared as gay
as ever, and Signorina was ever a well-kno\vn
good mare ; but the odds were three to one on
Fleui'-de-Lis. After the usual preparations, the
competitors were brought to the post, and away
they went. Eupihrates made play, dashing off at
score, and at about half a mile had got so far ahead,
that Fleur-de-Lis, who evidently was waiting on
Signorina, found it necessaiy to creep rather nearer,
lest the old gelding should steal the race. Eu-
phrates kept the lead, and seemed determined to
do so as long as he could ; and he was allowed to do
do this uutil within about a distance from home,
when both the mares shot ahead, and the gallant
old horse gave it up. The contest now became
highly interesting. Signorina ran well in, and
was beaten only by a neck.

She likewise won a Goodwood cup, beating the
Colonel and Zingaree, both out of the same stables
with herself, and nearly distancing a field of others.
This is a continuance of success that is scarcely
equalled in the annals of the turf The loss of the
Manchester cup was solely attributable to the ac-
cident that occurred while she was running. She
likewise failed in the St. Leger ; but there she was
thrown down by another horse during the race.
She was never beaten in a fair straggle. Her
owner, however, was perhaps justified in selling
her, as he did, for one thousand five hunch-ed
guineas, wheu he knew that he was consigning her
to the royal stud ; for he thus rendered it impos-
sible that the laurels that she had won could ever
be torn from her.

She possessed the points and form of a racer
to a degi'ee of perfection which has been rarely
met with. It is true that she stood nearly sixteen
hands ; but the depth of her chest, her length, her
quartere, her pasterns, marked her as equally
framed for motion and for endurance. Her colour

was bay, with black legs and feet, and a small
stroke on the forehead. The slouched ear has
been found fault \vith by some ; others, and per-
haps with more tmth, have considered it as an indi-
cation of pure blood. It has been hereditary in
some of our stables, as in the Oi-ville family.

She was bought of Sir M. W. Fadley, for George
IV., for one thousand five hundred guineas.

Her produce, after having been put into the
stud, was eagerly sought after by foreigners, and
sent out of the country. Fleur-de-Lis is now
(1843) in the possession of Monsieur Lupin, in
France, who bought her at the Hampton Court
sale for the inadequate sum of five hundred and
fifty guineas. The valuable mare Wings, the
dam of Cai'avan, was sold to the same person for
six hundred guineas ; and Young Mouse, the dam
of Rat Trap, for three hundi'ed and sixty guineas.

THE HUNTER.

There are few agricultuiists who have not a
little liking for the sports of the field, and who do
not fancy rich music in the ciy of the hounds. To
what extent it may be prudent for them to indulge
in these sports circumstances must decide, and
they deserve the most serious consideration. Few
can, or, if they could, ought to keep a hunter.
There are temptations to expense in the field, and
to expense after the chase, which it may be difficult
to withstand. The hunter, however, or the hunt-
ing horse, — i. e. the horse on which a farmer, if
he is not a professed sportsman, may occasionally
with pleasure, and without disgrace, follow the
hounds, — is in value and beauty next to the racer.

Fashion and an improved state of the agricul-
ture of the countiy have materially increased the
speed of the chase. The altered character of the
fox-hounds, and the additional speed which they
have lately acquired, compel the fanner to ride a
better horse, or he will not live among his compa-
nions after the first burst. Stoutness is still re-
quii-ed, but blood has become an essential quality.

In strong, thicklj'-inclosed countries, the half-
bred horse may get tolerably well along : but for
general use the hunter should be at least three-
quarters, or perhaps seven-eighths bred. When
he can be obtained with bone enough, a thorough-
bred horse will form the best of all huntere ; espe-
cially if he has been taught to carry himself suffi-
ciently high to be awai'e of and to clear his fences.

He should seldom be under fifteen or more than
sixteen hands high ; below tliis standard he cannot
alwaj's measure the object before him, and above
it he is apt to be leggy and awkward at his work.

The first property of a good hunter is, that he
should be light in hand. For this purpose his
head must be small ; his neck thin and especially
thin beneath ; his crest firm and arched, and his
jaws wide. The head vriU then be well set on. It

THE HUNTEE.

■will form that angle witli the neck which gives a
light and pleasant mouth.

The forehand should be loftier than that of the
racer. A turf horse may be forgiven if his hind
quarters rise an inch or even two above his fore
ones. His principal power is wanted from behind,
and the very lowTiess of the forehand may throw
more weight in front, and cause the whole machine
to be more easily and speedily moved. A lofty
forehand, however, is indispensable in the hunter ;
and a shoulder as extensive as in the racer and as
oblique, and somewhat thicker. The saddle will
then be in its proper place, and will continue so,
however long may be the mn.

The barrel should be roimder, in order to give
greater room for the heart and lungs to play, and
to send more and pm-er blood to the larger frame
of this horse, especially when the run continues
unchecked for a time that begins to be distressing.
A broad chest is always an excellence in a hunter.
In the violent and long-continued exertion of the
chase the respiration is exceedingly quickened,
and abundantly more blood is hurried through the
lungs in a given time than when the animal is at
rest. There must be sufficient room for this, or
he will not only be distressed, but possibly de-
stroyed. The majority of the horses that perish
in the field are narrow-chested.

The arm should be as muscular as that of the

racer, or even more so, for both strength and en-
durance are wanted.

The leg should be deeper than that of the race-
horse— broader as we stand at the side of the
horse — and especially beneath the knee. In pro-
portion to the distance of the tendon from the
cannon or shank-bone, and more particularly a
little below the knee, is the mechanical advantage
with which it acts.

The leg should be shorter. Higher action is
required than in the racer, in order that the legs
may be clearly and safely lifted over many an
obstacle, and, particularly, that they may be well
doubled up in the leap.

The pasteni should be shorter, and less slant-
ing, yet retaining considerable obliquity. The long
pastern is useful, by the yielding resistance which
its elasticity affords to break the concussion Tvith
which the race-horse from his immense stride and
speed must come on the ground : and the oblique
direction of the different bones beautifully contri-
butes to effect the same purpose. With this
elasticity, however, a considerable degree of weak-
ness is necessarily connected, and the race-horse
occasionally breaks down in the middle of his
course. The hunter, from his different action,
takes not this length of stride, and therefore wants
not all this elastic mechanism. He more needs
strength to support his own heavier carcase, and

THE HORSE.

245

{he greater weiglit of bis rider, and to undergo the
fatigue of a long day. Some obliquity, however, he
requires, otherwise the concussion even of his shor-
ter gallop, and more particularly of his frequently
tremendous leaps, would inevitably lame him.

The foot of the hunter is a most material point.
The narrow contracted foot is the curse of much
of the racing blood. The work of the racer, how-
ever, is all performed on the turf ; but the foot of
the hunter is battered over many a flinty road and
stony field, and, if not particulaiiy good, will soon
be disabled and ruined.

The position of the feet in the hunter requires
some attention. They should if possible stand
straight. If they turn a little outward, there is
no serious objection ; but if they turn inward, his
action cannot be safe, particularly when he is
fatigued or over-weighted.

The body should be short and compact, com-
pared with that of the race-horse, that he may not
in his gallop take too extended a stride. This
would be a serious disadvantage in a long day and
■with a heavy rider, from the stress on the pasterns ;
and more serious when going over clayey poached
ground during the winter months. The compact
short-strided horse will almost skim the surface,
wliile the feet of the longer-reached animal will
sink deep, and he will wear himself out by efforts
to disengage himself.

Eveiy sporting, man knows how much more
enduring is a short-bodied horse in climbing hills,
although perhaps not quite so much m descending
them. This is the secret of suiting the race-horse
to his coui"se ; and unfolds the appai'ent mystei'y
of a horse decidedly superior on a flat and straight
course, being often beaten by a httle horse with
far shorter stride, on uneven ground and with
several turnings.

The loins should be broad ; the quarters long;
the thighs muscular ; the hocks well bent, and
well under the horse.

The reader needs not to be told how essential
temper and courage are. A hot irritable brute is
a perfect nuisance, and the coward that will
scarcely face the slightest fence exposes his owner
to ridicule.*

* The grey hunter, a portrait of which is given in page 244,
possesses a very high character in the Croydon hunt. He was
bred in Warmckshire, and there his education commenced. The
country being a severe one, the powers of this noble animal were
fully developed, and he left Warkw-ickshire iu high repute.

He was purchased by Mr. Anderson, of Piccadilly, for a con-
siderable sum, and by him sold to Mr. Claggett, in 1832. He
became the favourite hunter of that genLteman, and under his
guidance performed many gallant feats in vaviiius parts of Surrey.
Iu 1835 he was purchased by Sir Edmund Antrobus at a heavy
sum ; and for five seasons was the woiihy Baronet carried at his
ease by this noble animal over hill, ridge, and brook, and many
of those ugly yawns, with which this part of Surrey abounds. The
author's friend, Mr. Thomas Turner, of Croydon, kindly procured
him permission to have a portrait of this noble animal taken by
Mr. Harvey ; and says in one of his letters, " I never heard of a
blot an the old horse's escutcheon."

VOL. I.

The principle of preparmg both the race-horse
and the hunter for their work is the same, and
can have no mystery about it. It consists in
getting rid of all superfluous flesh and fat by
physic and exercise, yet without too much lower-
ing the animal ; and particularly in bringing him
by dint of exercise into good wind, and accustom-
ing him to the full trial of his powers without
overstraining or injuring him. Two or three
doses of physic as the season approaches, and
these not too strong ; plenty of good hard meat ;
and a daily gallop of a couple of miles, at a pace
not too quick, will be nearly all that can be
required. Physic must not indeed be omitted ;
but the three words, air, exercise, food, contain
the grand secret and art of training.

The old hunter may be fairly ridden twice, or,
if not with any veiy hard days, three times in the
week ; but, after a thoroughly trying day, and
evident distress, three or four days' rest should be
allowed. They who ai'e merciful to their horses,
allow about thirty days' work in the eoui-se of the
season, with gentle exercise on each of the inter-
mediate days, and particularly a sweat on the day
before hunting. There is an account, however, of
one horse who followed the fox-hoimds seventj--five
times in one season. This feat has never been
exceeded.

We recollect to have seen the last Duke of
Richmond but one, although an old man, and
when he had the gout in his hands so severely
that he was obliged to be lifted on horseback, and,
both arms being passed through the reins, were
crossed on his breast, galloping down the steepest
part of Bow Hill, in the neighbourhood of Good-
wood, almost as abrupt as the ridge of an ordinary
house, and cheering on the hounds with all the
ai-dour of a youth.f

+ Sir John Malcolm (in his Sketches of Persia) gives an amu-
sing account of the impression which a fox-hunt in the English
style made on an Arab.

" 1 was entertained by listening to an Arab peasant, who, v\ith
animated gestures, was narrating to a group of his countrymen all
he had seen of this noble hunt. ' There came the fox," said
he, pointing with a crooked stick to a clump of date-trees, ' there he
came at a great rate. I hallooed, but nobody heard me, and I
thought he must get away ; but when he got quite out of sight, up
came a large spotted dog, and then another and another. They all
had their noses to the ground, and gave tongue — whow, whow,
whow, so loud, I was fnghtened. Away went these devils, who
soon foimd the poor animal. After them galloped the Foringees (a
corruption of Frank, the name given to a European over all Asia),
shouting and trying to make a noise louder than the dogs. No
wonder they killed the fox among tliem."

The Treasurer Burleigh, the sage councillor of Queen EUzabelh,
could not enter into the pleasures of the chase. Old Andrew
Fuller relates a quaint story of him : —

" When some nobleman had gotten 'William Cecil, Lord Bur-
leigh, to ride with them a hunting, and the sport began to be cold,
' VVhat call you this ?' said the treasurer. ' Oh ! now the dogs are
at fault,' was the reply. ' Yea,' quoth the treasurer, * take me again
in such a fault, and I '11 give you leave to punish me.' "

In former times it was the fashion for women to himt almost as
often and as keenly as the men. Queen Elizabeth was extremely
fond of the chase. Rowland Whyte, in a letter to Sir Robert
Sidney, says, " Her Majesty is well, and eicellently disposed

946

THE HORSE.

The difference in the pace, and the consequent |
difference in the breed of the horse, have efl'ected
a strange alteration in the usage of the hunter.
It is the almost invariable practice for each sports-
man to have two, or sometimes three horses in
the field, and after a moderate day's sport the
horse has his three or four daj's' rest, and no
fewer than five or six after a severe run. When a
little more speed was introduced into the turf
horse, the half-bred or three-parts-bred horse, which
constituted the racer of thirty years ago, soon
acquired a portion of the increase of speed, and
in consequence of this began to be inconveniently
or annoyingly close to the hounds. A change
then took place in the breed of the hound. This,
however, as might be expected, was carried a little
too far, and they soon began to run at a rate to
which the far greater proportion of the balf-breds
were altogether unequal. The thorough-bred horse
then began to find his way into the field. The
prejudice was strong against him at first. It was
said that lie could not take his leaps like the old
hunter: but, after a little training, he became
equal in this respect to the very best of his pre-
decessors, and superior to the greater part of
them. This is well treated of by Nimrod in his
work on " The Chase."

The horse fully shares in the enthusiasm of
his rider. It is beautiful to watch the old hunter
who, after many a winter's hard work, is turned
into the park to enjoy himself for life. His attitude
and his countenance when, perchance, he hears the
distant cry of the dogs, are a study. If he can,
he will break his fence, and, over hedge, and lane,
and brook, follow the chase, and come in first at
the death.

A horse that had, a short time before, been
severely fired on three legs, and was placed in
a loose box, with the door, four feet high, closed,
and an aperture over it little more than three feet
square, and standing himself nearly sixteen hands,
and master of fifteen stone, hearing the cheering
of the huntsman and the cry of the dogs at no
great distance, sprung through the aperture with-
,out leaving a single mark on the bottom, the top,
or the sides.

Then, if the horse is thus ready to exert him-
aelf for our pleasure — and pleasure alone is here
the object — it is indefensilde and brutal to urge
him beyond his own natural ardour so severely as
we sometimes do, and even until nature is quite

to hunting ; for every second day slie is on horsebaclv, and con-
tinues the sport long."

This custom soon afterwards began to decline, and the jokes
and scarcasms ol the witty court of Charles II. contributed to
di>counIenance it.

It is- a curious circumstance, that the first work on hunting that
Droceeded from the press was from the pen of a female, .Tuliaua
Barnes, or Berners, the sister of Lord Berners, and prioress of the
nunnery of Sopewell, abnut the year 1481.

exhausted. We do not often hear of a " hard
day," without being likewise informed, that one or
more horses either died in the field, or scarcely
reached home before they expired. Some riders
have been thoughtless and cruel enough to lull
two horses in one day. One of the severest chases
on record was by the king's stag-hounds. There
was an uninterrupted burst of fom- hours and
twenty minutes. One horse dropped dead in the
field ; another died before he could reach the
stable ; and seven more, within the week ensuing.

It is very conceivable, and does occasionally
happen, that, entering as fully as his master into
the sports of the day, the horse disdains to yield
to fatigue, and voluntarily presses on, until, nature
being exhausted, he falls and dies : but much
oftener, the poor animal has, intelligibly enough,
hinted his distress ; unwilling to give in, yet pain-
fully and falteringly holding on, while the merciless
rider, occasionally, rather than give up one hour's
enjoyment, tortures him with whip and spur, until
he drops and dies.

Although the hunter may not willingly relin
quish the chase, he who " is merciful to his beast"
will soon recognise the symptoms of excessive and
dangerous distress. To the drooping pace and
staggering gait, and heaving flank, and heavy
bearing on the hand, ^rill be added a very peculiar
sound. The inexperienced person will fancy it to
be the beating of the heart : but that has almost
ceased to pulsate, and the lungs are becoming
gorged with blood. It is the convulsive motion of
the diaphragm, called into violent action to assist
in the now laborious office of breathing. The man
wlio proceeds a single step after this, ought to
suffer the punishment he is inflicting.*

Let the rider instantly dismount. If he has
a lancet and skill to use it, let him subtract five
or six quarts of blood ; or, if he has no lancet, let
him deeply cut the bars of the palate with a knife.
The lungs will be thus relieved, and the horse
may be able to crawl home. Then, or before,
if possible, let some powerful cordial be admin-

* We should almost rejoice if the abused quadrupe<l, eriielly
urged beyond his powers, were to inflict on his rider the punish-
ment which a Spanish ruffian received when mercilessly torturing,
in a similar way, a poor Indian slave, who was canying him
on his back over the mountains. It is thus related by Captain
Cochrane {Colombia, ii. 357} — " Shortly after passing this sU'eam,
we anived at an abrupt precipice which went perpendicularly
down about fifteen hundred feet, to a mountain torrent below.
There Lieutenant Ortegas narrated to me the following anecdote of
the cmelty and punishment of a Spanish officer : — This inhuman
wretch having fastened on an immense pair of mule spurs, was
incessantly darting the rowels into the bare flesh of the tortured
sillero, who in vain remonstrated with his -persecutor, and assured
him he could not quicken his pace. The officer only plied his
spurs the more in proportion to the murmurs of the sillero. At
last the man, roused to the highest pilch of infuriated excitement
and resentment, from the relentless attacks of the officer, on reach-
ing this place, jerked him from his chair into the immense depth of
the torrent below, where he was killed, and his body could not be
recovered. The sillero dashed off at full speed, escaped into the
' mountain, and was never after heard of."

THE HORSE.

247-

istered. Cordials are, generally speaking, the
disgrace and bane of the stable ; but here, and
almost here alone, they are truly valuable. They
may rouse the exhausted powers of nature. They
may prevent what the medical man would call tlie
re-action of iutlaniniation, although they are the
veriest poison when inflammation has commenced.
A favourite hunter fell after a long burst, and
lay stretched out, convulsed, and apparently dying.
His master procured a bottle of good sherry from
the house of a neighbouring friend, and poured it
down the animal's throat. The patient immediately
began to revive : soon afterwards, he got up, walked
home, and gradually recovered. The sportsman
may not always be able to get this, but he may
obtain a cordial-ball from the nearest veterinary
surgeon ; or, such aid not being at hand, he may
beg a little ginger from some good housewife, and
mix it with warm ale ; or he may give the ale
alone, or even strengthened with a little ardent
spirit. When he gets home, or if he stops at the
first stable he finds, let the horse be put into the
coolest place, and then well clothed, and diligently
rubbed about the legs and belly. The practice of
putting the animal, thus distressed, into " a com-
fortable warm stable," and excluding every breath
of air, has destroyed many valuable horses.

We are now describing the very earliest treat-
ment to be adopted, and before it may be possible
to call in an experienced practitioner. This
stimulating plan would be fatal twelve hours
afteiTvards. It will, however, be the wisest course
to commit the animal, the first moment it is
practicable, to the care of the veterinary surgeon,
if such a one resides in the neighbourhood and in
whom confidence can be placed.

The labours and the pleasures of the hunting
season being passed, the farmer makes little or no
difference in the management of his untrained
horse ; but the wealthier sportsman is somewhat
at a loss what to do with his. It used to be
thought, that when the animal had so long con-
tributed, sometimes voluntarily, and sometimes
with a little compulsion, to the enjoyment of his
owner, he ought, for a few months, to be permitted
to seek his own amusement, in his own way ; and
he was turned out for a summer's run at grass.
Fashion, which governs everything, and now and
then most cruelly and absurdly, has exercised her
tyranny in the case of the hunter. His field,
where he could wander and gambol as he liked, is
changed to a loose box ; and the liberty in wliich
he so evidently' exulted, to an horn's walking
exercise daily. He is allowed' vetches, or grass
occasionally ; but from his box he stirs not,
except for his dull morning's round, until he is
taken into training for the next winter's business.
In this, however, as in most other things,
there is a medium. There are few horses wha

have not materially suffered in their legs and feet,
before the close of the hunting seiison. There is
nothing so refreshing to their feet as the damp
coolness of the grass into which they are turned
in April or May ; and nothing so calculated to
remove every enlargement and sprain, as the
gentle exercise which the animal voluntarily takes
while his legs are exposed to the cooling process
of evaporation that is taking place from the
herbage on which he treads. The experience
of ages has shown, that it is superior to all the
embrocations and bandages of the most skilful
veterinarian. It is the renovating process of
nature, where the art of man fails.

The spring grass is the best physic that can
possibly be administered to the horse. To a
degree, which no artificial aperient or diuretic
can reach, it carries oft" every humour that may
be lurking about the animal. It fines down the
roundness of the legs ; and, except there is some
bony enlargement, restores them almost to their
original form and strength. When, however, the
summer has thoroughly set iu, the grass ceases to
be succident, aperient, or medicinal. The ground
is no longer cool and moist, at least during the
day ; and a host of tormentors, in the shape of
flies, are, from sunrise to sunset, persecuting the
poor animal. Running and stamping to rid him-
self of his plagues, his feet are battered by the
hard ground, and he newly, and perhaps more
severely, injures his legs. Kept in a constant
state of irritation and fever, he rapidly loses his
condition, and sometimes comes up in August
little better than a skeleton.

Let the horse be turned out as soon as possible
after the hunting season is over. Let him have
the whole of May, and the greater part, or possibly
the whole of June ; but when the grass fads, and the
ground gets hard, and the flies torment, let him
be taken up. All tlie benefits of turning out, and
that which a loose box and artificial physic can
never give, ^vill h.ave been obtained, without the
inconvenience and injury that attend an injudi-
ciousl}' protracted run at grass, and which, arguing
against the use of a thing from the abuse of it,
have been improperly urged against turning out
at all.

The Steeple Chase is a relic of ancient fool-
hardiness and cruelty. It was the form under
which the hoi-se-race, at its first establishment,
was frequently decided. It is a race across the
country, of two, or four, or even a greater number
of miles, and it is generally contrived that there
shall be some deep lane, or wide brook, and many
a stitf and dangerous fence between. It is ridden
at the evident hazard of the life of the sportsman;
and it likewise puts to hazard the life or enjoyment
of the horse. Many serious accidents have hap-
pened both to the horse and his rider, and the

218

THE HORSE.

practice must ere long get into disuse; for, while
it can have no possible recommendation but its
foolhardiness, it has on many occasions been dis-
graced by bai-efaced dishonesty.

THE HACKNEY.

The perfect Hackney is more difficult to find
than even the hunter or the courser. There are
several faults that may be overlooked in the hunter,
but which the road-horse must not have. The for-
mer may start ; may be awkward in his walk, or
even his trot ; he may have thrushes or corns ; but
if he can go a good slapping pace, and has wind
and bottom, we can put up v\ith him and prize
him : but the hackney, if he is worth having,
must have good fore-legs, and good hinder ones
too ; he must be sound on his feet; even-tempered ;
no starter ; quiet, in whatever situation he may be
placed ; not heavy in hand ; and never disposed to
fall on his knees.

If there is one tiling more than any other in
which the possessor, and, in his ovra estimation at
least, the tolerable judge of the horse, is in error,
it is the action of the road-horse : " Let him lift
his legs well," it is said, "and he will never come
down."

In proportion, however, as he lifts his legs
well, ^\ill be the force with which h'e pvits them
down again; the jar and concussion to the rider;
and the battering and wear and tear of the feet.
A horse with too great " knee action" will not
always be speedy ; he will rarely be pleasant to
ride, and he will not, in the long-run, be s£ifer
than others. The careless daisy-cutter, however
pleasant on the turf, should indeed be avoided ;
but it is a njle, not often understood, and some-
times disputed, but which experience will fully
confirm, that the safety of the horse depends
a great deal more on the manner in which he puts
his feet down, than on that in which he lifts them
up : more on the foot being placed at once flat on
the ground, or perhaps the heel coming first in
contact with it, than on the highest and most
splendid action.

When the toe first touches the ground, it may
be readily supposed that the horse wiM occasion-
ally be in danger. An unexpected obstacle will
throw the centre of gravity forward. If the toe
digs into the ground before the foot is firmly
placed, a little thing will cause a trip and a fall.

For pleasant riding and for safety also, a hack-
ney should not carry his legs too high. His going
a little too near to the ground is not always to be
considered as an insuperable objection. The ques-
tion is, does he dig his toe into the ground ?

He should be mounted and put to the test.
Let his feet be taken up and examined. If the
shoe, after having been on a week, or a fortnight,

is not unnecessarily worn at the toe, and he is felt
to put his foot fiat on the ground, he may be
bought without scruple, although he may not have
the lofty action which some have erroneously
thought so important.

Eveiy horse, however, is liable to fall ; and
hence comes the golden nile of riding, "-Never
trust to your horse" but always feel his mouth
lightly. He does wrong who constantly pulls
might and main ; he will soon spoil the animal's
mouth. He does worse who carelessly throws the
reins on the neck of the horse. Always feel the
mouth lightly. The horse may thus have occa-
sional and immediate assistance before he is too
much off the centre of gravity, and when a little
check will save him. By this constant gentle
feeling he will likewise be induced to cany his
head well, than which few things are more con-
ducive to the easy, beautiful, and safe going of the
horse.

The road-horse may and should, like the hunter,
possess different degrees of breeding, according to
the nature of the countiy and the work required of
him. When approaching to thorough-bred he may
be a splendid animal, but he ii\ill be scarcely fitted
for his duty. His legs will be too slender, his
feet too small, his stride too long, and he will
rarely be able to ti'ot. Three parts of blood, or
even half, for the horse of all-work, -vsill make a
good and useful animal.

The hackney should be a hunter in miniature,
with these exceptions. His height should rarely
exceed fifteen hands and an inch. He will be
sufficiently strong, and more pleasant for general
work, below that standard. Some will imagine,
and perhaps with justice, that the portrait which
we give of the road-horse represents him as some-
what too tall. He certainly should be of a more
compact form than the hunter, and have more bulk
according to his height ; for he has not merely to
stand an occasional and perhaps severe burst in
the field, but a great deal of e very-day work.

It is of essential consequence that the bones
beneath the knee should be deep and flat, and the
tendon not tied in.

The pastern should be short, and although
oblique or slanting, yet far less so than that of the
race-horse or the hunter. There should be obliquity
enough to give pleasant action, hut not to render
the horse incapable of the wear and tear of con-
stant and sometimes hard work.

The foot is a matter of the greatest conse-
quence m a hackney. It should be of a size cor-
responding v\ith the bulk of the animal, neither
too hollow nor too flat, open at the heels, and free
from corns and thrushes.

The fore -legs should be perfectly straight.
There needs not a moment's consideration to be
convinced that a horse with his knees bent will.

THE HORSE.

249

from a slight cause, and especially if he is over-
weighted, come down.

The back should be straight and short, yet suf-
ficiently long to leave comfortable room for the
saddle between the shoulders and the huck without
pressing on either. Some persons prefer a hollow-
backed horse. He is generally an easy one to go.
■He will canter well with a lady ; but lie will not
carry a heavy weight, nor stand much hard woi'k.

The road-horse should be high in the forehand,
round in the barrel, and deep in the chest ; the
saddle will not then press too forward, but the

girths will remain, without crupper, firmly fi.xed iu
their proper place.

A hackney is far more valuable for the pleas-
antness of his paces, and his safety, good temper,
and endurance, than for his speed. We rai'ely
want to go more than eight or ten miles in an hour ;
and, on a journey, not more than six or seven.
The fast horses, and especially the fast trotters,
are not often easy in their paces, and although
tliey may perform very extraordinary feats, are
disabled and worthless when the slower horse is
in his prime.

THE HACKNET.

The above is the portrait of one that belonged
to an old friend of the author. He was no be.auty,
and yet he was mil of good points. He was never
out of temper ; he never stumbled ; he never
showed that he was tired ; most certainly was
never off Iris feed ; but, being a strange fellow to
eat, he one day, although the groom had a thou-
sand times been cautioned, gorged himself, and
■was immediately taken out by his owner, ignorant
of this, in order to be ridden somewhat far and
fast. At about the middle of the intended journey
he almost stopped : he would after this have gone
on at his usual pace, but it was evident that some-
thing unusual was the matter with him, and his
master stopped at the first convenient place. The
stomach was ruptured, and, two days afterwards,
he died.

l\Iost of our readers probably are horsemen.
Their memories will supply them with many in-
stances of intelligence and fidelity in the horse,
and particularly in the hackney — the eveiy-day

companion of man. A friend rode his horse thirty
miles from home into a country that was perfectly
new to him. The road was diflncult to find, but
by dint of inquiry he at length reached the place
he sought. Two years passed away, and he again
had occasion to take the same journey. Xo one
rode this horse but himself and he was perfectly
assured that the animal had not, since his first
excursion, been in that direction. Three or four
miles before he reached his journey's end he was
benighted. He had to traverse moor and common,
and he could scarcely see his horse's head. The
rain began to pelt. " Well," thought he, " here I
am, apparently far from any house, and I know
not nor can I see an inch of my road. I have
heard much of the memory of the horse ; it is my
my only hope now ; so there," throwing the reins
on his horse's neck, " go on." In half an hour he
was safe at liis friend's gate.

Tlie following anecdote, given on the authority
of Proiessor Kruger of Halle, proves both the sa-

250

THE HOliSE.

gacit}- and fidelhy of the horse. A friend of his,
riding home through a T\ood in a dark night,
struck his head against the branch of a tree, and
fell from his horse stunned. The steed inimedi-
atel}' retunied to the house that they had lately
left, and which was now closed, and the family in
bed, and he pawed at the door until some one rose
and opened it. He turned about, and the man,
wondering at the affair, followed him. The faith-
ful and intelligent animal led him to the place
where his master lay senseless.

A few instances are selected of the speed and
endurance of the hackney.

1793, May 13, a hackney, named Sloven,
milked twenty-two miles in three hours and fifty-
two minutes. In November 1791 she had beaten
the then celebrated pedestrian, James Cotterel, by
walking twenty miles in three hours and forty-one
minutes. It had been previously imagined that
no horse could, in fair walking, contend with a
man who had accustomed himself to this kind of
exercise.

As for the trotting performances of the hack-
ney, they are so numerous, and yet apparently so
extraordinaiy, that some difficulty attends the
selection.

In 1822, there was a match of nine miles be-
tween Mr. Bernard's mare and Captain Colston's
horse, near Gerrard's Cross, for five hundred gui-
neas. It was won easily by the mare, who per-
formed the distance in twenty-seven minutes and
forty-six seconds. The horse went the same dis-
tance in twenty-seven minutes, forty-nine seconds —
which is nearly at the rate of nineteen and a half
miles an hour.

This, however, had been equalled or excelled
some years before. Sir Edward's Astley's Phe-
nomenon mare, when twelve years old, trotted
seventeen miles in fifty-six minutes. There being
some diiference about the fairness of the trotting,
she perfonned the same distance a month after-
wards in less than fifty-three minutes, which was
rather more than nineteen miles an hour. Her
owiier then offered to trot her nineteen and a half
miles an hour ; but it being proved that in the
last match she did one four miles in eleven mi-
nutes, or at the rate of more than twenty-one and
a half miles an hour, the betting men would have
nothing more to do with her.

After this, with shame be it spoken, she lived
a life of dinidgery and starvation, and occasionally
of cniel exertion, until, at twenty-three years old,
she became so changed as to be offered for sale at
seven pounds. Even in that state she trotted nine
miles in twenty-eight minutes and a half, being,
as nearly aa possible, nineteen miles an hour.
Within six months afterwards, it is said that she
won four extraordinary matches in one day, the
particulars of which are not recorded. In her

twenty-sixth year she became the property of the
late Sir R. C. Daniel, by whom she was well fed,
and had no disgraceful tasks imposed upon her;
and in a few months she looked as fresh and clean
upon her legs as in her best days. So far as speed
was concerned, there was nothing in the annals of
trotting comparable to her performances.

Of stoutness, whether confined to this pace, or
the accomplishment of great distances with little
or no rest, there are too many instances ; and the
greater number of them were accompanied by cir-
cumstances of disgraceful barbarity.

Mr. Osbaldeston had a celebrated American
trotting-horse, called Tom Thumb. He matched
him to trot one hundred miles in ten hours and a
half. It seemed to be an amazing distance, and
impossible to be accomplished : but the horse had
done wonders as a trotter ; he was in the highest
condition ; the vehicle did not weigh more than
one hundred pounds, nor the driver more than
ten stone three pounds. He accomplished his
task in ten hours and seven minutes ; his stop-
pages to bait, &c., occupied thirty-seven minutes ;
so that, in fact, the hundred miles were done in
nine hours and a half. He was not at any time
distressed ; and was so fresh at the end of the
ninetieth mile, that his owner offered to take six
to four that he did fourteen miles in the next
hour.

An English-bred mare was aftenvards matched
to accomplish the same task. She was one of
those animals^ rare to be met with, that could do
almost anything as a hack, a hunter, or in harness.
On one occasion, after having, in following the
hounds, and travelling to and from cover, gone
through at least sixty miles of countiy, she fairly
ran away with her j'ider over several ploughed
fields. She accomplished the match in ten hours
and fourteen minutes, or, deducting thirteen mi-
nutes for stoppages, in ten hours and a minute's
actual work, and thus gained the victory. She was
a little tired ; and, being turned into a loose box,
lost no time in taking her rest. On the following
day she was as full of life and spirit as ever.
These are matches which it is pleasant to record,
and particularly the latter ; for the owner had
given positive orders to the driver to stop at once,
on her showing decided symptoms of distress, as
he valued her more than anything he could gain
by her enduring actual suffeiing.

Others, however, are of a different character,
and excite indignation and disgiist. Rattler, an
American horse, was, in 1829, matched to trot ten
miles with a Welsh mare, giving her a minute's
start. He completed the distance in thirty minutes
and forty seconds, being at the rate of rather more
than nineteen miles an hour, and beating the mare
by sixty yards. All this is fair; but when the
same horse was, some time afterwai'd, matched U>

THE HOUSE.

U5l

trot thirty -four miles against another, and is dis-
tressed, and dies in tlie following niglit — when two
hackneys are matched against each other, from
London to York, one hundred and ninety-six miles,
and one of them i-uns one hundred and eiglity-two
of these miles and dies, and the other accomplishes
the dreadful feat in forty houi's and thirty-five
minutes, being kept for more than half the dis-
tance under the influence of wine — when two
brutes in human shape match their hoi-ses, the
one a tall and bony animal and the other a mere
pony, against each other for a distance of sixty-
two miles, and both are run to a complete stand-
still, the one at thirty and the other at eighty yards
from the winning point, and, both being still urged
on, they drop down and die — when we peruse re-
cords like these, we envy not the feelings of the
owners, if indeed they are not debased below all
feeling. We should not have felt satisfied in rid-
ing an animal, that had done much and good ser-
vice, seventy miles when he was thirty-sis years
old ; nor can we sufficiently reprobate the man,
who, in 1827, could ride a small gelding from
Dublin to Nenagh, ninety-five miles, in company
with the Limerick coach ; or that greater delin-
quent who started with the Exeter mail, on a gal-
Iowa}-, under fourteen hands high, and reached
that city a quarter of an hour before the mail,
being one hundred and sevent3'-two miles, and
performed at the rate of I'ather more than seven
miles an hour. The author saw this pony, a few
months aftenvard, strained, ring-boned, and found-
' ered — a lamentable picture of the ingratitude of
some human brutes towai'ds a ^^•illing and faithful
sen-ant.

THE FARMER'S HORSE.

The Farmer's Horse is an animal of all work ;
to be ridden occasionally to market or for pleasure,
but to be principally employed for draught. He
should be higher than the road-horse. About fif-
teen hands and two inches may be taken as the
best standard. A hoi'se with a shoulder thicker,
lower, and less slanting than would be chosen in a
hackney, will better suit the collar ; and collar-work
will be chiefly required of him. A stout compact
animal should be selected, yet not a heavy cloddy
one. Some blood will be desirable ; but the half-
bred horse will generally best suit the farmer's
purpose. He should have weight enough to throw
into the collar, and sufficient activity to get over
the ground.

Farmers are now beginning to be aware of the
superiority of the moderately-sized, strong, active
horse, over the bulkier and slower animal of former
days. It is not only in harvest, and when a frosty
morning must be seized to cart manure, that this
is perceived, but in the every-day work of the farm

the saving of time, and the saving of provender too,
will be very considerable in the course of a year.

Tt has often been said, that a horse used much
for draught is neither pleasant nor safe for the
saddle. The little farmer does not want a showy,
complete hackney. He should be content if he is
tolerably well carried ; and — if he has taken a little
care in the choice of his horse — if he has selected
one with sound feet, shoulders not too thick, and
legs not too much under him ; and if he keeps him
in good condition, and does not scandalously over-
weight him, the five days' carting or harrow work
will not, to any material degree, unfit him for the sad-
dle ; especially if the rider bears in mind, what we
have termed the golden rule of horsemanship, always
a little to feel the mouth of the animal he is upon.

A farmer, and more particularly a small farmer,
will prefer a mare to a gelding, both for riding and
driving. She will not cost him so much at first ;
and he will get a great deal more work out of her.
There can be no doubt, that taking bulk for bulk,
a mare is stronger and more lasting than a gelding ;
and, in addition to this, the farmer has her to breed
from. This, and the profit which is attached to
it, is well known in the breeding counties ; but
why the breeding of horses for sale should be al-
most exclusively confined to a few northern dis-
tricts, it is not easy to explain. Wherever there
are good horses, with convenience for rearing the
colts, the farmer may start as a breeder with a fair
chance of success.

If he has a few useful cart-mares, and crosses
them with a well-knit, half-bred horse, he will
certainly have colts useful for evei-y purpose of
agriculture, and some of them sufficiently light for
the van, post-chaise, or coach. If he has a supe-
rior mare, one of the old Cleveland breed, and puts
her to a bony, three-fourths-bred horse, or, if he
can find one stout and compact enough, a seven-
eighths or a thorough-bred one, he will have a
fair chance to rear a colt that will amply repay
him as a hunter or carriage-horse.

The mare needs not to be idle while she is
breeding. She may be worked moderately almost
to the period of her foaling, and with benefit rather
than otherwise ; nor is there occasion that much
of her time should be lost even while she is suck-
ling. If she is put to horse in June, the foaling-
time will fall, and the loss of labour occur, in the
most leisure time of the year.

There are two rocks on which the farmer often
strikes — he pays little attention to the kind of
mare, and less to the proper nourishment of the
foal. It may be laid down as a maxim in breeding,
how-ever general may be the prejudice against it,
that the value of the foal depends as much on the
dam as on the sire. The Arabs go farther than
this, for no price will buy from them a likely mare
of the highest blood; and they trace back the

252

THE HORSE.

pedigree of their horses not through the sire, but
the dam. The Greek sporting men held the same
opinion, long before the Arab horse was known.
" What chance of winning have I ?" inquired a
youth whose horse was about to start on the Olj'm-
pic course. "Ask the da7n of your horse," was the
reply, founded on experience. '-!=

The fiirmer, however, too frequently thinks that
any mare will do to breed from. If he can find a
great prancing stallion, with a high-sounding name,
and loaded with fat, he reckons on having a valu-
able colt ; and should he fail, he attributes the
fault to the horse and not to bis own want of judg-
ment. Far more depends on the mare than is
dreamed of in his philosophy.

If he has an undersized, or a blemished, or
unsound mare, let him continue to use her on his
farm. She probably did not cost him much, and
she will beat any gelding ; but let him not think
of breeding from her. A sound mare, with some
blood in her, and with most of the good points,
will alone answer his purpose. She may bear
about her the marks of honest work (the fewer of
these, however, the better), but she must not have
any disease. There is scarcely a malady to which
the horse is subject that is not hereditaiy. Con-
tracted feet, curb, spavin, roaring, thick wind,
blindness, notoriously descend from the sii'e or dam
to the foal. Mr. Roberts, in " The Veterinarian,"
says : — " Last summer I was asked my opinion of
a horse. I approved of his formation with the e.x-
ception of the hocks, where there happened to be
two curbs. I was then told his sister was in the
same stable : she also had two curbs. Knowing
the sire to be free from these defects, I inquired
about the dam : she likewise had two confirmed
curbs. She was at this time running with a foal
of hers, two years old, by another horse, and he
also had two curbs."

The foal should be well taken care of for the
first two yeare. It is bad policy to stint or half-
starve the growing colt.

The colt, whether intended for a hunter or
carriage-horse, may be early handled, but should
not be broken-in until three years old ; and then,
the very best breaking-in for the carriage-horse is
to make him earn a little of his living. Let him
be put to harrow or light plough. Going over the
rough ground will teach him to lift his feet well,
and give him that high and showy action, excusable
in a carriage-horse, but not in any other. In the

* Bishop Hall, who wrote in the time of Jamca I., intimated
that such was the opinion of horsemen at that period. He asks in
one of his satires (Lib. iv.)

" dost thou prize

Thy hrute beasts' worth by their dams' qualities?
Say'Sjt thou this colt shalt prove a swift,pac'd steed
Onely because a Jennet did him breed ?
Or say'.st thou this same horse shall win the prize.
Because his dam was swiftest Tranchefice ?"

succeeding winter he will be perfectly ready for the
town or counti-y market.

THE CAVALRY HORSE.

This is the proper place to speak of the Cavalry
Horse. That noble animal whose varieties we are
describing, and who is so admirably adapted to
contribute to our pleasure and our use, was, in the
earliest period of which we have any account of him,
devoted to the destructive purposes of war ; and
the cavalry is, at the present day, an indispensable
and a most effective branch of the service.

The cavalry horses contain a different propor-
tion of blood, according to the nature of the service
required or the caprice of the commanding officer.
Those of the household troops are from half to three-
fourths bred. Some of the lighter regiments have
more blood in them. Our cavaliy horses were
formerly large and heavy. To their imposing size
was added action as imposing. The horse was
trained to a peculiar, and grand, yet beautiful
method of going ; but he was often found deficient
in real service, for this very action diminished his
speed, and added to his labour and fatigue.

A considerable change has taken place in the
character of our troop horses. This necessarily
followed from the change that has occurred in the
thorough-bred horse. If he has lost much of his
muscular form and actual power of endurance, a
similar alteration will take place in the offspring ;
lightness and activity will succeed to bulk and
strength, and for skirmishing and sudden attack
the change will be an improvement. It is particu-
larly found to be so in long and rapid marches,
which the lighter troops scarcely regard, while the
heavier horses, with their more than comparative
additional weight to carry, are knocked up. There
is, however, danger of carrying this too far. It
was proved that in the engagements previous to
and at the battle of Waterloo, our heavy household
troops alone were able to repulse the formidable
charge of the French guard.

There ai'e few things that more imperiously
demand the attention of government. If from the
habit of running short distances, and with light
weights, there is a deterioration in the strength
and stoutness of our thorough-bred horses, they will
become eveiy year less and less fitted for getting
stock sufficiently hardy and powerful to do credit to
the courage and discipline of our cavali-y.

The following anecdote of the memory and dis-
cipline of the troop horse is related on good autho-
rity. The Tyrolese, in one of their insurrections
in 1809, took fifteen Bavarian horses, and mounted
them with so many of their own men : but in a
skirmish with a squadron of the same regiment, no
sooner did these horses hear the trumpet and re-
cognise the uniform of their old masters, than they

THE HORSE.

253

set off at full gallop, and carried their riders, in
spite of all their efforts, into the Bavarian ranks,
where they were made prisoners.

The wounds of a soldier are honourable. The
old war-horse can sometimes exhibit his share of
scars. One of tliera, twenty-seven years old, lately
died at Staugleton Lodge, near Bedford, that had
belonged to one of the regiments of lancers, and
was in the battle of Waterloo, and the engagements
of the two days that preceded it. No fewer than
eight rausket-balls were discovered in him after his
death, and the scars of several wounds by the sabre
and the lance.*

A horse died at Snowhill, near Gainsford, in
1753, that had been in General Carpenter's regi-
ment at the battle of Sherriff-Muir, in 1715, being
at that time seven years old. He was wounded by
a bullet in bis neck in that engagement, and this
bullet was extracted after his death.f

THE CO.\CH-HORSE.t

This animal in external appearance is as dif-
ferent from what he was fifty years ago as it is
possible to conceive. The clumsy-barrelled, cloddy-
shouldered, round-legged, black family horee —
neither a coach nor a dray-horse, but something

between both — as fat as an ox — but, with all his
pride and prancing when he first starts, not equal
to more than six miles an hour, and knocking-up
with one hard day's work, is no more seen ; and
we have, instead of him, an animal as tall, deep-
chested, rising in the withers, slanting in the
shoulders, flat in the legs, with far more strength,
and with treble the speed.

There is a great a deal of deception, however,
even in the best of these improved coach-horses.
They prance it nobly through the streets, and they
have more work in them than the old, clumsy,
sluggish breed; but they have not the endurance
that could be wished, and a pair of poor post-horses
would, at the end of the second day, beat them
hollow.

The knee-action and high lifting of the feet m
the carriage-horse is deemed an excellence, because
it adds to the grandeur of his appearance ; but, as
has already been stated, it is necessarily accompa-
nied by much wear and tear of the legs and feet,
and this is very soon apparent.

The principal points in the coach-horse are,
substance well-placed, a deep and well-proportioned
body, bone under the knee, aud sound, open, tough
feet.

&^t,-A

THE COACH-HOUSE.

''^^^ Cleveland Bay is the origin of the better 1 Yorkshire and Durham, with, perhaps, Lincolnshire
kind of coach-hoz-se, and confined principally to on one side, and Northumberland on the other, but

•Journal des Haras, 1836-7,p, 61. were called ichirlicoles, and were little better than litters or coles

Twmieman s Magazine, Feb. 17o3. (cols) placed on wheels. We are told bv Master John Stowe, that,

» neel carnages, bearing any resemblance to chariots, first " Richard II. be-ing threatened bv the rebels of Kent, rode from the

came mto use in the reign of Richald II. about the year 1381; they Tower of London to the JVIiles'End, and with him his mother ,

254

THE HORSE.

difficult to find pure in either county. The Cleve-
land mare is crossed by a three-fourth or thorough-
bred horse, of sufficient substance and height, and
the produce is the coach-horse most in repute, with
his arched crest and high action. From the tho-
rough-bred of sufficient height, but not of so much
substance, we obtain the four-in-hand and superior
curricle horse.

Professor Low, in bis superb work " Illustra-
tions of the Breeds of the Domestic Animals of the
British Islands," which should adorn the library
of every sportsman and agriculturist, gives the fol-
lowmg account of the Cleveland Bay : —

" It is the progressive mixture of the blood of
horses of higher breeding with those of the com-
mon race, that has produced the variety of coach-
horse usually termed tlie Cleveland Bay ; so called
from its colour and the fertile district of that name
in the North Riding of Yorkshire, on the banks of
the Tees. About the middle of the last century
this district became known for the breeding of a
superior class or powerful horses, which, with the
gi'adual disuse of the hea\7 old coach-horse, be-
came in request for coaches, chariots, and similar
. carriages. The breed, however, is not confined to
Cleveland, but is cultivated through all the great
breeding district of this part of England. It has
been fonned by the progi'essive mixture of the
blood of the race-horse with the original breeds of
the countn'. To rear this class of horses, the same
principles of breeding should be applied as to the
rearing of the race-horse himself. A class of mares,
as well as stallions, should also be used having the
properties sought for. The district of Cleveland
owes its superiority in the production of this beau-
tiful race of horses to the possession of a definite

because she was sick and weak, in a whirlicote ;"' and this is de-
scribed as an ugiy vehirle of four boards put together in a clumsy
manner.

In the following year he married Anne of Luxembourg, who in-
troduced the riding upon side-saddles: and so ""was the riding in
those whirlicotes forsaken, except at coronations and such like
spectacles."

Coaches were not used until the time of Elizabeth, when we are
told {Stowe's Survey of London and Westminster, book i.) "divers
great ladies made them coaches, and rode in them up and down the
countries, to the great admiration of all the beholdei-s." The fashion
soon spread ; and be adds, what is often too tnie in the present day,
"the world rans on wheels with many whose parents were glad to
go on foot."

These coaches were heavy and unwieldy, and probably bore
some rough resemblance to the slate-coaches now used occasion-
ally in court processions.

The rate of travelling was as slow as the clumsiness of the
horses and vehicle would naturally indicate. King George IL
died early on Saturday morning, Oct. 21, 1760: Ihe Duke of De-
vonshire, who was lord chamberlain, arrived in town from Chats-
worth in three days : but a fourth and a fifth day passing over, and
the lord steward, the Duke of Rutland, not making his appearance,
■ although he had not so fiu- to travel by more than thirty miles. Mr.
Speaker Onslow made this apology for him, that "the Duke of
Devonshire travelled at a prodigious rate, not less than fifty miles
a day' I"

To travel in the stage-coach from London to Epsom, sixteen
miles, then took nearly the whole day, and the passengers dined on
the road. The coach from Edinburgh to London started once a

breed, formed not by accidentfJ mixture but by
continued cultivation.

" Although the Cleveland Bay appears to unite
the blood of the hner with that of the larger horses
of the country, to combine action with strength,
yet many have sought a farther infusion of blood
neai'er to the race-horse. They are accordingly
crossed by hunters or thorough-bred horses, and
thus another variety of coach-horse is produced, of
lighter form and higher breeding ; and many of
the superior Cleveland curricle and four-in-hand
horses are now neariy thorough-bred. The bay
colour is in the most general estimation, but the
grey are not unfrequently used."''=

From less height and more substance we have
the hunter and better sort of hackney ; and, from
the half-bred, we derive the machiner, the poster,
and the common carriage horse : indeed, Cleve-
land, and the Vale of Pickering, in the East Riding
of- Yorkshire, may be considered as the most de-
cided bi-eeding countries in England for coach-
horses, hunters, and hackneys. The coach-horse
is nothing more than a tall, strong, over-sized
hunter. The hackney has many of the qualities
of the hunter on a small scale.

Whether we are carrying supposed improve-
ment too far, and sacrificing strength and useful-
ness to speed, is a question not difficult to resolve.
The rage for rapid travelling was introduced by
the improvement in the speed of the racer, and for
a while became the bane of the postmaster, the
destruction of the horse, and a disgrace to the
English character.

The stages were then twelve, sixteen, or even
twenty miles ; the horses stout and tine, but formed
for, and habituated to, a much slower pace ; and

month, and occupied sixteen or eighteen days on the journey. A
person may now leave Edinburgh on Saturday evening, have two
spare days in London, and be back a^ain at the Scotch metropolis
to breakfast on the nest Saturday. Including short stages, one
thousand four hundred coaches a little while ago set out horn Lon-
don every day, the expense of each of which, with four horses,
could not be less than two shillings and sixpence per mile.

Hackney-coaches first appeared in London in 1625, the first
year of the r. ign of t:hai'les I. Sedan-chairs had been introduced
by the Duke of Buckingham six years before.

Among the numerous benefits arising from the 5er^^ces of the
horse, and the improvement of public roads and carriages, is the
speedy and regular correspondence by post. The invention of this
useful establishment is ascribed to Cyrus the Great. It was adopted
by the Greeks and Romans. It was introduced into France by
Louis XI. in 1462, and we first read of it in English history about
the year 1550, under Edwaid VI., when post-houses were estab-
li.sheil, and horses provided at the rate of one penny jier mile. Under
Elizabeth a post-master was nominated by government, and under
Charles I., in 1634, the system assumed its present form. The
charge of postage was then fixed at twopence if under eighty miles ;
fourpence between eighty and one hundred and forty ; and six-
pence if under two hundred and forty miles : but this charge rapidly
increased with the increasing price of horses, and the other expenses
of conveyance, and afterwards it was further raised by taxation like
almost everything else. It is non diminished, with great public
advantage, to a general rate of one penny.

The recent introduction of railroads will efiect much change in
tlie use of the carriage and road hoi"se.

♦ Low's Illustrations, p. 41.

THE HORSE.

255

the iucrease ef tis'o, and even four, miles an hour,
rendered every stage a scene of continuous bar-
barity, and speedily thinned the stables of the post
and stage master. The post-horse has not to the
present moment altogetiier escaped from the system
of barbarity to which he was subjected. He is not
expressly bred for his work — that work is iiTegii-
gular — the pace is iiregular — the feeding and the
time of rest uncertain — and the horse himself,
destined to be the victim of all these means of
annoyance and suffering and impairment of natu-
ral power, is not always or often either speedy or
stout. The coachmaster, on a large scale, has,
however, learned, and, generally speaking, follows
up a system at once conducing to his own profit,
and the health and comfort and prolonged labour
of his horse. He bu3's a good horee, '• one that
has," in the language of the highest authority in
these matters, " action, sound feet and legs, power
and breeding equal to the nature and length of the
ground he will have to work upon, and good wind,
without which no other qualification will long avail
in fast work."-f He feeds him well — he works
him but little more than one hour out of the four-
and-twenty — he rests him one day out of every
five — he has eventhiug comfortable about him in
his stable — and by these means, that which was
once a life of torture is one of comparative, or even
positive, enjoyment. This is now the case in large
and well-conducted concerns, and where the eye of
the master or the confidential manager overlooks
and directs all.

In other establishments, and in too many of
them, there is yet much animal suffering. The
public has to a ven,- considerable extent the power
to distinguish between the two, and to uphold the
cause of humanity.

Reference has been made to the dreadful opera-
tions which the new system of horse management
has introduced. The cauteiy lesions are more nu-
merous and severe than they used to be, in tco
many of our establisliments. The injuries of the
feet and legs are severe in proportion to the in-
creased pace and labour, for where the animal ma-
chine is urged beyond its power, and the torture
continues until the limb or the whole constitution
utterly fails, the lesions must be deep, and the
torture must be dreadful, by means of which the
poor slave is rendered capable of returning to re-
newed exertion.

There is no truth so easily proved, or so pain-
fully felt by the postmaster, at least in his pocket,
as that it is the pace that kills. A horee at a dead
pull, or at the beginning of his exertion, is enabled,
by the force of his muscles, to throw a certain
weight into the collar. If he walks four miles in
the hour, some part of that muscular energy must
be expended in the act of walking; and, conse-

• Xtmrod on the Chase, the RoaH, and the Turf, p. 98.

quently, the power of drawing must be proportion-
ably diminished. If he trot ten miles in the hour,
more animal power is expended in the trot, and
less remains for the draught ; but the draught
continues the same, and, to enable him to accom-
plish his work, he must tax his energies to a serious
degree. Skilful breeding, and high health, and
stimulating food, and a verj' limited time of work,
tan alone enable him to endure the labour long,
on the supposition that the system which has just
been described is resorted to. But the coach pro-
prietor is not always sufficiently enlightened, or
good-hearted, to see on which side his interest lies;
and then the work is accomplished by the over-
strained exertion — the injury — the torture — the
destruction of the team. That which is true of the
coach-horse is equally so of ever)' other. Let the
reader apply it to his own animal, and act as hu-
manity and interest dictate.

Many a horse used on the public roads is un-
able to throw all his natural power or weight into
the collar. He is tender-footed — lame ; but he is
bought at little price, and he is worked on the
bmtal and abominable principle, that he may be
" whipped sound." And so, apparently, he is.
At first he sadly halts ; but, urged by the tortm^e
of the lash, he acquires a peculiar habit of going.
The faulty limb appears to keep pace with the
others, but no stress or labour is thrown upon it,
and he gradually contrives to make the sound
limbs perform among them all the duties of the
unsound one ; and thus he is barbarously " whipped
sound," and cruelty is imdesen-edly rewarded.

After all, however, what has been done ?
Three legs are made to do that which was almost
too hard a task for four. Then they must be
most injuriously strained, and soon worn out, and
the general power of the animal must be rapidly
exhausted, and, at no great distance of time, dis-
ease and death release him from his mercOess
persecutors.

It is said, that between Glasgow and Edin-
burgh, a carrier in a single horse cart, weighing
about seven himdredweight, will take a load of a
ton, and at the rate of twenty-two miles in a day.
The Normandy carriers travel with a team of four
horses, and from fourteen to twenty-two miles in a
day, vrith a load of ninety hundredweight.

An unparalleled instance of the power of a
horse when assisted by art, was shown near Croy-
don. The SuiTey iron railway being completed,
a wager was laid between two gentlemen, that a
moderate-sized horse could draw thirty-six tons
six miles along the road — that he should draw the
weight from a dead pull, as well as turn it round
the occasional windings of the road. A numerous
party of gentlemen assembled near Merstham to
see this extraordinaiy triumph of art. Twelve
waggons laden with stones, each waggon weighing

S56

THE HORSE. -

above three tons, were chained together, and a
horse, taken promiscuously from the timber carts
of Mr. Hai-wood, was yoked to the train. He
started from the Fox public-house, near Mers-
tliam, and drew the immense chain of waggons,
with apparent ease, almost to the turnpike at
Croydon, a distance of six miles, in one hour and
forty one minutes, which is nearly at the rate of
four miles an houi'. In the course of the jom-ney
he was stopped four times, to show that it was
not by any advantage of descent that this power
was acquired ; and after each stoppage he again
drew off the chain of waggons with perfect ease.
Mr. Banks, who had wagered on the power of the
horse, then desired that four other loaded waggons
should be added to the cavalcade, with which the
same horse again started and with undiminished
pace. Still further to show the effect of the rail-
way in facilitating motion, he directed the attend-
ing workmen, to the number of fifty, to mount on
the waggons, and the horse proceeded without the
least distress ; and, in truth, there appeared to be

scarcely any limitation to the power of his draught:
After the trial the waggons were taken to the
weighing-machine, and it appeared that the whole
weight was as follows : —

TON. CWT. QR.

Twelve Waggons first linked together .... 38 4 2

Four Ditto, afterwards attached 13 2 0

Supposed weight of fifty labourers 4 0 0

HEAVY DRAUGHT HORSES.

The Cleveland horses have been known to
carry more than seven hundred pounds sixty miles
in twenty-four hours, and to perform this journey
fom- times in a week ; and mill-horses have car-
ried nine hundred and ten pounds two or three
miles.

Horses for slower draught, and sometimes even
for the carriage, are produced from the Suffolk
Punch, so called on account of his round punchy
foi-m. He is descended from the Norman stallion
and the Suffolk cart mare. The true Suffolk, like

THE SnFFOt.K PUNCH.

the Cleveland, is now nearly extinct. It stood
from fifteen to sixteen hands high, of a sorrel co-
lour ; was liirge headed ; low shouldered, and
thick on the withers ; deep and round chested ;
long backed ; high in the croup ; large and strong
in the quarters ; full in the flanks : round in the
legs ; and short in the pasterns. It was the very
horse to throw his whole weight into the collar,
with sufficient activity to do it effectually and
hardihood to stand a long day's work.

The present breed possesses many of the pe

cuharities and good qualities of its ancestors It
is more or less inclined to a sorrel colour; it is a
taller horse ; higher and finer in the shoulders ;
and is a cross with the Yorkshire half or three
fourths bred.

The excellence, and a rare one, of the old
Suffolk — the new breed has not quite lost it — con-
sisted in nimbleness of action, and the honesty
and continuance with which he would exert him-
self at a dead pull. Many a good draught-horse
knows well what he can effect ; and, after he has

THE HORSE.

il5r

■attempted it and failed, no torture of the whip
will induce him to strain his powers beyond their
natural extent. The Suffolk, however, would tug
at a dead pvdl until he dro]i]ipd. It was beautiful
to see a team of tnie Sutiolks, at a signal from
the driver, and without the whip, down on their
knees in a moment, and drag everj'thing before
them. Brutal wagers were frequentl}' laid as to
their power in this respect, and many a good team
■was injured and ruined. The immense power of
the Suffolk is accounted for by the low position of
the shoulder, which enables liim to throw so much
of his weight into the collar.

Although the Punch is not what he was, and
the Suffolk and Norfolk farmer can no longer
boast of ploughing more land in a day than any
one else, this is undoubtedly a valuable breed.

The Duke of Richmond obtained many excel-
lent carriage horses, with strength, acti\'it3% and
figure, by crossing the Suffolk with one of his best
hunters.

The Suffolk breed is in great request in the
neighbouring counties of Norfolk and Essex. Mr.
Wakefield, of Bamham, in Essex, had a stallion
for which he was offered four hundred guineas.

The Clydesdale is a good kind of draught
horse, and particularly for farming business and in
a hilly country. It derives its name from the dis-
trict on the Clyde, in Scotland, where it is princi-
pally bred. The Clydesdale horse owes its origin
to one of the Dukes of Hamilton, who crossed
some of the best Lanark mares with stallions that
he had brought from Flanders. The Clydesdale
is larger than the Suffolk, and has a better head, a
longer neck, a lighter carcase, and deeper legs ; he
is strong, hardy, pulling true, and rarely restive.
The southern parts of Scotland are principally
supplied from this district ; and many Clydes-
dales, not only for agricultural pui-poses but for
the coach and the saddle, find their way to the
central and even southern counties of England.
Dealers from almost every part of the United
Kingdom attend the mai'kets of Glasgow and Euth-
ergleu.

Mr. Low says, that " the Clydesdale horse, as
it is now bred, is usually sixteen hands high. The
prevailing colour is black, but the brown or bay is
common, and is coutinuall}- gaining upon the other,
and the grey is not unfrequently pi'oduced. They
are longer in the body than the English black
horse, and less weighty, compact, and muscular ;
but they step out more freely, and have a more
useful action for ordinary labour. They draw stea-
dily, and are usually free from vice. The long
stride, chai'acteristic of the breed, is partly the re-
sult of conformation, and partly of habit and train-
ing ; but, however produced, it adds greatly to the
usefulness of the horse, both on the road and in
the fields. No such loads are known to be drawn.

at the same pace, by any horses in the kingdom, as
in the single-horse carts of carriers and others in
the west of Scotland."*

In the opinion of this gentleman, " the Clydes-
dale horses, although inferior in weight and phy-
sical strength to the black horse, and in figure and
showy action to the better class of the draught
horses of Northumberland and Durham, )'«t pos-
sess properties which render them exceedingly
valuable for all ordinary uses. On the road they
perform tasks that can scarcely be surpassed, and in
the fields they are found steady, docile, and safe."t

The Heavy Black Horse is the last variety it
may be necessaiy to notice. It is bred chiefly in
the midland counties, from Lincolnshire to Staf-
fordshire. Many are bought up by the Surrey and
Berkshire fanners at two years old ; and, being
worked moderately until they are four, earning
their keep all the while, they are then sent to the
London market, and sold at a profit of ten or twelve
per cent.

It would not answer the hreeder's purpose to
keep them until they are fit for town work. He
has plenty of fillies and mares on his farm for
eveiy purpose that he can require ; he therefore sells
them to a person nearer the metropolis, by whom
they are gradually trained and prepared. The tra-
veller has probably wondered to see four of these
enormous animals in a line before a plough,, on no
very heavy soil, and where two lighter horses would
have been quite sufficient. The fanner is training
them for their future destiny ; and he does right
in not requiring the exertion of all their strength ;
for their bones are not yet perfectly formed, nor
their joints knit, and were he to urge them too
severely, he would probably injure and deform
them. By the gentle and constant exercise of the
plough, he is preparing them for that continued
and equable pull at the collar which is aften\ards
so necessaiy. These horses are adapted more for
parade and show, and to gratify the desire which
one brewer has to outvie his neighbour, than for anj
peculiar utility. They are certainly noble-looking
animals, with their round fat cai'cases, and their
sleek coats, and the evident pride wliich they take
in themselves ; but they eat a great deal of hay
and corn, and, at hard and long-continued work,
they would be completely beaten by a team of
active muscular horses an inch and a half lower.

The onlj' plea which can be m-ged in their fa-
vour, beside their noble appeai-ance, is, that as
shaft-horses, over the badly-paved streets of the
metropolis, and with the immense loads they often
have behind them, great bulk and weight are ne-
■cessaiy to stand the unavoidable battering and
shaking. Weight must be opposed to weight, or
the horse would sometimes he quite tlu'owu off his

* Low's lUustraUons, p. 45. + lb., p. 46.

258

THE HOKSE.

Ieg3. A large heavy horse must be in the shafts,
and then little ones before him would not look well.
Certainly no one has walked the streets of
London without pitying the poor thill-horse, jolted
from side to side, and exposed to many a bruise,
unless, with admirable cleverness, he accomodates
himself to every motion ; but, at the same time, it
must be evident, that bulk and fat do not always

constitute strength, and that a compact muscular
horse, approaching to sixteen hands high, would
acquit himself far better in such a situation. The
dray-horse, in the mere act of ascending from the
wharf, may display a powerful effort ; but he after-
wards makes little exertion, much of his force
being expended in transporting his own overgrown
carcase.

THE HEATT BLA.CK HORSE.

This horse Was selected from the noble stock of
dray-horsea belonging to Messrs. Barclay, Perkins,
and Co., Loudon, by the author's friend, Mr. E.
Braby. While he is a fine specimen of this breed,
he affords a singular illustration of the mode of
breeding often practised with respect to these horses
and the education which they undergo. He was
bred in Leicestershire ; his grandsire was a Flan-
ders-bred horse, and his grand-dam a Wiltshire
mare ; his sire Avas a Wiltshire horse, and his dam
a Berkshire mare. At two and a half years old he
was sold to a farmer and dealer in Berkshire, on
whose grounds he was worked until he was four
and a half years old. He was then sold at Abing-
don fair to the dealer from whom Messrs. Barclay
purchased him.

These heavy horses, however, are bred in the
highest perfection, as to size, in the fens of Lin-
colnshire, and few cif them are less than seventeen
hands high at two and a half years old. Neither
the soil, nor the produce of the soil, is better than
in other counties ; on the contraiy, much of the

lower part of Lincolnshire is a cold, hungiy clay.
The true explanation of the matter is, that there
are certain situations better suited than others to
different kinds of farming, and the breeding of
different animals ; and that not altogether depend-
ing on richness of soil or pasture. The principal
art of the farmer is, to find out what will best suit
his soil, and make the produce of it most valuable.

The Lincolnshire colts are also sold to the
Wiltshire and Berkshire dealers, as are those that
are bred in Warwickshire and Berkshire, at two
years, or sometimes onlj' one year old, and worked
until the age of four or five years.

A dray-horse should have a broad breast, and
thick and upright shoulders (the more upright
the collar stands on him the better), a low fore-
hand, deep and round bai'rel, loins broad and high,
ample quarters, thick fore-arms and thighs, short
legs, round hoofs broad at the heels, and soles not
too flat. The great fault of the large dray-horse is
his slo\Tness. This is so much in the breed, that
even the discipline of the ploughman, who would.

THE HORSE.

S59

be better pleased to get through an additional
rood in the day, cannot ])ennanently quicken
him. Surely the breeder might obviate this. Let
a dray-mare be selected, as perfect as can be ob-
tained. Let her be put to the strongest, largest,
most compact, thorough-lired horse. If the pro-
duce is a filly, let her be covered by a superior
dray-horse, and the result of this cross, if a colt,
will be precisely the animal requu'ed to breed
from.

The largest of this heavj' breed of black horses
are used as dray-horses. The next in size are sold
as waggon-horses ; and a smaller variety, and ^ith
more blood, constitutes a considerable part of our
cavalry, and is likewise devoted to undertakers'
work.*

All our heavy draught horses, and some even
of the lighter kind, have been lately much crossed
by the Flauders breed, and with evident improve-
ment. Little has been lost in depth and bulk of
carcase: but the forehand has been raised, the
legs have been flattened and deepened, and very
much has been gained in activity. The slow
heavy black, with his two miles and a half an
hour, has been changed into a lighter, but yet ex-
ceedingly powerful horse, that will step four miles
in the same time, with perfect ease, and has con-
siderably more endurance.

This is the very system, as ah-eady described,
wliich has been adopted, and with so much success,
in the blood-liorse, and has made the English
racer and hunter, and the English horse generally,
what they are. As the racer is principally or
purely of Eastern origin, so has the English
draught horse spmng chiefly from Flemish blood,
and to that blood the agriculturist has recourse
for the perfection of the breed. For the dray,
the spirit-waggon, and nut too heavy loads, and for
road work generally, a cross witli the Flanders
will be advantageous ; but if the enormous heavv
horse must be used in the coal-waggon, or the
dray, we must leave our midland black, vaih all
his unwieldy bulk untouched.

As an ordinaiy beast of lighter draught, and
particularly in the neighbourhood of London, the
wom-out hackney and the refuse of tbe coach,
and even of the hackney-coach, is used. In the
hay-markets of Whitechapel and Camden To-mi
are continually seen -m-etched teams, that would
disgrace the poorest district of the poorest coun-

• Mr. Bell, in his "History of British Quadrapeds," very
truly observes, that " the docility of this breed is as complete,
although not perhaps so showy, as that of the lighter and njore
active kinds; and few persons can have long walked Ihe streets of
the metropolis, without witnessing the complete control which the
draymen exercise over their gigantic horses. 1 have often watched
the facility with which one of them will back a waggcm into a
narrow street or archway, hut a few ini;hes wider than the vehicle
itself, and guided only by the voice of the caiman, aided perhaps
by a few slight movements of his hand."

try. The small farmer in the vicinity of the
metropolis, himself strangely inferior to the small
farmer elsewhere, has too easy access to I hat sink
of cruelty, Smithtield. They who are unacquainted
with this part of the country, would scarcely think
it possible, that on the forests and commons wiih-
in a few miles of London, as many ragged, wild,
mongrel horses are to be found, as in any district
of the United Kingdom, and a good "hoi-se is
scarcely by any chance bred there.

GALLOWAYS AND PONIES.

A horse between thirteen and fourteen hands
in height is called a Galloway, from a beautiful
breed of little horses once found in the South of
Scotland, on the shore of the Solway Firth, but
now sadly degenerated, and almost lost, through
the attempts of the farmer to obtain a larger kind,
and better adapted for the purposes of agiicul-
ture. There is a tradition in that country', that
the breed is of Spanish extraction, some horses
having escaped from one of the vessels of the
Grand Armada, that was wrecked on the neioh-
bouring coast. This district, however, so earlv as
the time of Edward L, supplied that monarch
with a great number of horses.

The pure galloway was said to be nearly four-
teen hands high, and sometimes more : of a'bricrht
bay, or brown, with black legs, small liead and
neck, and peculiarly deep and clean legs. Its quali-
ties were speed, stoutness, and sure-footedness
over a very rugged and mountainous country.

Some remains of the old galloways are stUl to
be met with in the Isle of Mull ; but they are al-
together neglected, and fast degenerating from
admixture with inferior breeds.

Dr. Anderson thus describes the galloway : .

" There was once a breed of small elegant horses
in Scotland, similar to those of Iceland and
Sweden, and which were known by the name of
galloways ; the best of which sometimes reached
the height of fourteen hands and a half One of
this description I possessed, it having been bought
for my use when a boy. In point of elegance" of
shape it was a perfect picture ; and in disposition
was gentle and compliant. It moved almost with
a wish, and never tired. I rode this little crea-
ture for twenty-fiTe years, and twice in that time I
rode a hundred and fifty miles at a stretch, with-
out stopping, except to bait, and that not for above
an hour at a time. It came in at the last stage
with as much ease and alacrity as it travelled the
first. I could have undertaken to have performed
on this beast, when it was in its prime, sixty miles
a day for a twelvemonth, running without any e.x-
traordinaiy exertion."

In 1754, Mr. Corkers galloway went one
hundred miles a day, for three successive days,

260

THE HOESE.

over' the Newmarket course, and -without the
slightest distress.

A galloway, belonging to Mr. Sinclair, of
Kirby-Lonsdale, performed at Carlisle the extra-
ordinary feat of a thousand miles in a thousand
hours.

Many of the galloways now in use are pro-
cured either from Wales or the New Forest; but
they have materially diminished in number.

Old Marsk, before his value was known, contri-
buted to the improvement of the Hampshire
breed ; and the Welch ponies are said to be in-
debted to the celebrated Merlin for much of their
form and qualities.

The modern New-foresters, notwithstanding
their Marsk blood, are generally ill-made, large-
headed, short-necked, and ragged-hipped; but
hardy, safe, and useful, with much of their ancient
spirit and speed, and all their old paces. The
catching of these ponies is as great a ti-ial of skill
as the hunting of the wild horse on the Pampas of
South America, and a greater one of patience.

The Welsh pony is one of the most beautiful
little animals that can be imagined. He has a
small head, high withers, deep yet round barrel,
short joints, flat legs, and good round feet. He
will live on any fare, and will never tire.*

A great many ponies of little value used to be
reared on the Wildmoor fens, in the neighbour-
hood of Boston, in Lincolnshire. They seldom
reached thirteen hands ; the head was large and
the forehand low, the back straight, the leg flat
and good; but the foot, even for a Lincolnshire
pony, unnaturally large. They were applied to
very inferior purposes even on the fens, and were
unequal to hard and flinty and billy roads. The

* Pony-hiinting used to be one of the favourite amusements of
the Welsh farmers and peasantry, acentury and a half ago, and it
has not, even now, fallen altogether into disuse. The following
story of one of these expeditions is founded on fact : —

" A farmer named Hugo Garonwy, lived in the neighbourhood
of Llweyn Georie. Although he handled the small tilt plough, and
other farming tools in their due season, yet the catching of the
merlyn, the fox, and the hare, were more congenial pjusuits; and
the tumbles an I thumps which he received, and from which no
pony-hunter was exempt, served but to attach him to the sport.
Rugged, however, as the Merioneddshire coast and its environs
were, and .ibounding with precipices and morasses, he sometimes
experienced worse mishaps — and so it happened with Garonwy.

" He set out one morning with his lasso coiled round his waist,
and attended by two hardy dependants and their greyhounds.
The lasso was then familiar to the Welshman, and as adroitly
managed by him as by any guaco on the plains of South America.
As the hunters climbed the mountain's brow, the distant herd of
ponies took alarm — sometimes galloping onwards, and then sud-
denly halting and wheeling round, snorting as if in defiance of
the intruders, and furiously pawing the ground. Garonwy, with
the assistance of his servants and the greyhounds, contrived to
c :op them up in a corner of the hills, where peipendicular rocks
prevented their escape.

. "Already had he captured three of the most beautiful little
fellows in the world, which hees|)ected to sell for 4/. or 61. each at
the next Bala fair — to him a considerable sum, and amounting to
a fourth of the annual rent which he paid for his sheep-walk.
There remained, however, one most untameable cre.-iture, whose
crested mane, and flowing tail, and wild eye, and distended nostril,

breed became generally neglected, and, at no very
distant time, will be almost extinct.

The Exmoor ponies, although generally ugly
enough, are hardy and useful. A well-known
sportsman says, that he rode one of them half-a-
dozen miles, and never felt such power and action
in so small a compass before. To show his ac-
complishments, he was turned over a gate at
least eight inches higher than his back ; and his
owner, who rides fourteen stone, travelled on him
from Bristol to South Molton, eighty-six miles,
beating the coach which runs the same road.

The horses which are still used in Devonshire,
and particularly in the western and southern dis-
tricts, under the denomination of Pack-horses, are
a larger variety of the Exmoor or Dartmoor breed.
The saddle-horses of Devonshire are mostly pro-
cured from the more eastern counties.

There are still some farms in the secluded
districts in that beautiful part of the kingdom on
which there is not a pair of wheels. Hay, com,
straw, fuel, stones, dung, lime, are carried on
horseback ; and in harvest, sledges drawn by oxen
and horses are employed. This was probably, in
early times, the mode of conveyance throughout
the kingdom ; but it is now rapidly getting into
disuse even in Devonshire.

There is on Dartmoor a race of ponies much
in request in that vicinity, being sure-footed and
hardy, and admirably calculated to scramble over
the rough roads and dreary wilds of that moun-
tainous district. The Dartmoor pony is lai'ger
than the Exmoor, and, if possible, uglier. He
exists there almost in a state of nature. The late
Captain Colgrave, governor of the prison, had a
great desire to possess one of them of somewhat
superior figure to its fellows ; and, having several

showed that he was a perfect Bucephalus of the hills; nor, indeed
was it safe to attack him in the ordinary way. Many of the
three-year-olds had been known to break the legs of their pursuers,
and some had been dismounted and trampled to death.

" Garonwy was determined to give the noble fellow a chase
over the hills, and so overcome him by fatigue before the lasso
was flung. The dogs were unslipped, and off they went, swift as
the winds, Garonwy following, and the two assistants posted on a
neighbouring eminence. Vain was the effort to tire the merlyn.
Hugo, naturally impatient, and without wailing to ascertain that
the coils were all clear, flung the lasso over the head of the wild
horse. The extremity of the cord was twisted round his own
body, and tiglitening as the animal struggled, the compression be-
came unsuppoitable, and, at length, in spite of every effort to dis-
engage himself, Garonwy was dragged from his horse.

" The affrighted merlyn finding himself manacled by the rope,
darted off with all the speed of which he was capable, dragging
poor Garonwy over the rocky ground and stunted brushwood.
This occurred at some distance from the men. They called in
their dogs that the speed of the merlyn might not be increased,
but ere tliey could lurive at the spot at which the accident hap-
pened, the horse and the man had vanished. Whether the suffer-
ings of the hunter were protracted, or he was dashed against some
friendly rock at the commencement of this horrible race, was never
known ; but the wild animal, frenzied and blinded by terror,
rushed over a beetling cliff, at a considerable distance, overhang-
ing the sea-shore, and the hunter and the horse were found at the
bottom, a mis-shapen semblance of what they had been when
living." — Cambrian Quarlerly Magazine.

THE HORSE.

201

men to assist hiiA, they separated it from the
herd. They drove it on some rocks by the side of
a tor (an abrupt pointed hill). A man followed
on horsebai-k, while the captain stood below watch-
ing the chase. The little animal being driven
into a corner, leaped completely over the man and
horse, and escaped.

The Hiijhland pony is far inferior to the gal-
loway. The head is large ; he is low before, long
in the back, short in the legs, upright in the pas-
terns, rather slow in his paces, and not pleasant to
ride, except in the canter. His habits make him
hardy ; for he is rarely housed in the summer or

the winter. The Rev. Mr. Hall, in his " Travels
in Scotland," says, " that when these animals
come to any boggy piece of ground, they first put
their nose to it, and then pat on it in a peculiar
way with one of their fore-feet; and from the
sound and feel of the ground, they know whetlier
it will bear them. They do the same with ice, and
determine in a minute whether they will proceed."
The Shetland jmny, called in Scotland aheltie,
an inhabitant of the extremest northern Scottish
Isles, is a very diminutive animal — sometimes
not more than seven hands and a half in height,
and rarely exceeding nine and a half.

THE SHETLAND PONY.

He is often exceedingly beautiful, with a small
head, good-tempered countenance, a short neck,
tine towards the throttle, shoulders low and thick
— in so little a creature far from being a blemish
— back short, quarters expanded and powerful,
legs flat and fine, and pretty round feet. These
ponies possess immense strength for their size;
will fatten upon almost anything ; and are per-
fectly docile. One of them, nine hands (or three
feet) in height, carried a man of twelve stone
forty miles in one day.

A friend of the author was, not long ago, pre-
sented with one of these elegant little animals. He
was several miles from home, and puzzled how to con-
vey his newly-acquired property. The Sbetlander
■was scarcely more than seven hands high, and as
docile as he was heautiful. " Can we not carry
him in your chaise ?" said his friend. The strange

experiment was tried. The sheltie was placed in
the bottom of the gig, and covered up as well as
could be managed with the apron ; a few bits of
bread kept him quiet ; and thus he was safely
conveyed away, and exhibited the curious spec-
tacle of a horse riding in a gig.

In the southern parts of the kingdom the Shet-
landers have a very pleasing appearance harnessed
to a light garden-chair, or carrying an almost baby-
rider. There are several of them now running in
Windsor Park.

T;iE IRISH HORSE.

In some of the rich grazing counties, as Meath
and Roscommon, a large, long bloocVhorse is
reared, of considerable v.<ilue. He seldom has
the elegance of the English horse ; he is larger-
headed, more leggy, ragged-hipped, angular, yet

Sfi2

THE HORSE.

with great power in the quarters, much depth
beneath the knee, stout and hardy, full of fire and
courage, and an excellent leaper. It is not, how-
ever, the leaping of the English, horse, striding
as it were over a low fence, and stretched at his
full length over a higher one ; it is the proper
jump of the deer, beautiful to look at, difficult to
sit, and, both in height and extent, unequalled by
the English horse.

The common Irish horse is generally smaller
than the English. He is stinted in his growth ;
for the poverty and custom of the countiy have
imposed upon him much hard work at a time when
he is unfit for labour of any kind. He is also de-
ficient in speed.

There are very few horses in the agricultural
districts of Ireland exclusively devoted to draught.
The minute division of the farms renders it im-

possible for them to be kept. The occupier even
of a good Irish farm wants a horse that shall carry
him to market, and draw his small car, and per-
form every kind of drudgery — a horse of all-work ;
therefore the thorough draught-horse, whether
Leicester or Suffolk, is rarely found.

If we look to the commerce of Ireland, there
are few stage-waggons, or drays with large cattle
belonging to them, but almost everything is done
by one-horse carts. In the north of Ireland some
stout horses are employed in the carriage of linen ;
but the majority of the ijarrons used in agricultui-e
or commercial pursuits are miserable and half-
starved animals. In the north it is somewhat
better. There is a native breed in Ulster, hardy,
and sure-footed, but with little pretension to beauty
or speed.*

CHAPTER V.

THE ZOOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE HOUSE.

There are so many thousand species of living
beings, some so much resembling each other, and
others so strangely and altogether different, that it
would have been impossible to have arranged them
in any order, or to have given any descriijtion that
could be understood, had not naturalists agreed on
certain peculiarities of form which should charac-
terise certain classes, and other lesser peculiarities
again subdividing these classes.

The first division of animals is into rertehrated
and invertebrated.

Vertebrated animals are those which have a
cranium, or bony cavity containing the brain, and
a succession of bones called the spine, and the
divisions of it named vertebra, proceeding from
the cranium, and containing a prolongation of the
brain, denominated the spinal marrow.

Invertebrated animals are those which have no
vertebrre.

The horse, then, belongs to the division verte-
brated., because he has a cranium or skull, and a
spine or range of vertebrae proceeding from it.

The vertebrated animals are exceedingly nu-

• Pinkerton. in the second volume of his Travels, gives a cu-
rious aicount of the state of the Irish horses in the island of
Rughcry, tin the northern coast of Antrim, t-arly in Ihe last cen-
tury. \ governinenl survey of ihe coast was taken at that time.
" Yriii must liiiMW," stiys the writer, " that it was hut ihe oiher
<l;!y that the penplc of Rasheiy recollected that a road might be of
some ciinvgiiit-nce to ihrin, so that in our excur>ioii we were
obliged to fuUoiv the old custom of riding over precipices that
would not appear contemptible evetl to a man that enjoyed the use
of his legs. It seems that my horse, though fifteen or sixteen years
old, had never before felt a bridle in his mouth. He had, hi

merous. They include man, quadrupeds of all
kinds, birds, fishes, and many reptiles. We natu-
rally look for some subdivision, and a very simple
line of distinction is soon presented. Certain of
these vertebrated animals have mammce or teats,
with which the females suckle their young. • The
human female has two, the mare has two, the cow
four, the bitch ten or twelve, and the sow more
than twelve.

This class of vertebrated animals having
mammae or teats is called mammalia; and the
horse belongs to the division vertebrata,^ and the
class mammalia.

The class mammalia is still exceedingly large,
and we must again subdivide it. It is stated
(Library of Entertaining Knowledge, vol. i. p. 13),
that " this class of quadrupeds, or mammiferous
quadrupeds, admits of a division into two Tribes.

" I. Those whose extremities are divided into
fingers or toes, scientifically called unguiculata,
from the Latin word for nail; and II. Those
whose extremities are hoofed, scientifically called
ungidata, from the Latin word for Iwof.

borne it good-naturedly and well; hut we were now come to adiffi-
cult part of the road, even the top of a very rugged precipice. He
was evidently irighlened ; and after many attempts to shake oif his
fear, he refused to proceed another step. Tlie re:isoning process
in bis mnid « as evidetil enough, and o'len amused me afler« ards : —
' You may have your whim when you cannot do either yon or my-
self much harm, but I do not ihoi>se to ri>k my neck for yon rprlbr
any one.' The bridle was taken oil', he selected his own path, and
the rider was caiTied over an exceedingly dangerous heap of rocks,
with a degree of caution which Mr. Pinkerton could not help ad-
miring in the midst of his teiTor."

THE HORSE.

203

" The extremities ,of the first are armed with
claws or nails, wliich enable them to grasp, to
climb, or to burrow. The extremities of the second
tribe are employed merely to support and move
the body."

The extremities of the horse are covered with
a hoof by which the body is supported, and with
which he cannot grasp anything, and therefore he
belongs to the tribe ungulata or hoofed.

But there is a great variety of hoofed animals.
The elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus,
the swine, the horse, the sheep, the deer, and many
others, are tingulated or hoofed; tliey admit, how-
ever, of an easy division. Some of them masticate
or chew their food, and it is immediately received
into the stomach and digested ; but in others the
food, previous to digestion, undergoes a very singu-
lar process. It is returned to the mouth to be re-
masticated, or chewed again. These are called
ruminantia, or ruminants, from the food being
returned from one of the stomachs (for they have
four), called the rumen or paunch, for the purpose
of remastication.

The ungulata that do not ruminate are, some-
what improperly, called pac.hydermata, from the
thicliness of their skins. The horse does not ru-
minate, and therefore belongs to the order pachy-
dermata.

The pachydermata, who have only one toe,
belong to the family solipeda — singlefooted.
Therefore the horse ranks under the division
vertebrata — the class mammalia — the tribe un-
gulata— the order pachydermata — and the family
solipeda.

The solipeda consist of several species, as the
horse, the ass, the mule, and the quagga.

First stands the Equus Caballus, or Common
Horse.

Animals are likewise distinguished according
to the number, description, and situation of their
teeth. The horse has six incisors or cutting teeth
in the front of each jaw; and one canine tooth or
tusk.

On each side, above and below — at some dis-
tance from the incisors, and behind the canines,
and with some intervening space — are six molar
teeth or grinders ; and these molar teeth have flat
crowns, with ridges of enamel, and that enamel
penetrating into the substance of the tooth.

The whole is thus represented by natural
historians : — ■

Horse.-

-Incisors -, canines —
6 1-

-1 , 6—6

— , molar - — -.
-1 6—6

Total, forty teeth.

To this short chapter we may properly append

THE SKELETON OF THE HORSE.

s 2

264

THE HORSE.

A The Head.

a The posteriw maxillary or under jaw.

b The superior maxillary or upper jaw. A little lower down than

the letter is a foramen, through which pass the nenee and

blood-vessels which chiefly supply the lower part of the face,
c The orbit, or cavity containing the eye.
d The nasal bones, or bones of the nose.
e The suture dividing the pariettil boues below from the occipital

bones above.
/ The interior maxillary bone, containing the upper incisor teeth.
B The Seven Cervical Vertebrae, or bones of the neck.
C The Eighteen Dorsal Vertebrae, or bones of the back.
D The Six Lumbar Vertebree, or bones of ihe loins.
E The Five Sacral VeitebrEE, or bones of the hauuch.
F The Cdudal Vertebrge, or bones of the tail, generally about

fiftien,
G Tlic Scapula, or shoulder-blade.
H The Sternum, or fore-part of the chest.
I The Costop or i-jhs, seven or eight ai'ticulating with the sternum,

and called the true ribs, and ten or eleven united together

by cartilage, called the/u/«c ribs.
3 The Humerus, or upper bone of the arm.
K The Jladjus, or upper hope of the arm.

L The Uhia, or elbow. The point of the elbow is called the

Olecranon.
M The Carpus or knee, consisting of seven bones.
N The metacar])al bones. The larger metacarpal or cannon or

shank in front, and the smaller matacarpal or spleut bone

behind,
g The fore pastern and foot, consisting of the Os Suffraginis, or

the upper and larger pastern bone, with the sesamoid bones

behind, articulating with the cannon and greater pastern ;

the Os Coronee, or lesser pastern ; the Os Pedis or coflin

bone; and the Os Na^iculare, or navicular, or shuttle-bone,

not seen, and articulating with the smaller pastern and coffin

bones.
h Tlie corresponding bones of the hind-feet.
0 The Haunch, consisting of three portions^ the lUum, the

Ischium, and the Pubis.
P The Femur or thigh
Q The stifle joint with the Patella.
R The Tibia or proper leg bone — behind is a snjall bone called the

fibula.
S The Tarsus or hock, composed of six bones. The prominent

part is the Os Calcis, or point of the hock.
T The Metatarsals of the hjnd leg.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SENSOEIAL FUNCTION.

Beautiful as is the liorse, and identified so
much with our pleasure and our profit, he has
been the object of almost universal regard ; and
there are few persons who do not pretend to be
somewhat competent judges of his form, qualities,
and worth. From the nobleman, with his nume-
rous and valuable stud, to the meanest helper
in the stable, there is scarcely a man who would
not be offended if he were thought altogether
ignorant of horse-flesh. There is no subject on
which he is so positive ; there is no subject on
which, generally speaking, he is so deficient ; and
there are few horses on some points of which these
pretended and self-sufficient judges would not give
a totally opposite opinion.

The truth is, that this supposed knowledge is
rarely founded on principle, or the result of the
slightest acquaintance with the actual stnicture of
the animal — the form and connexion of parts on
which strength, or fieetness, or stoutness, must
necessarily depend.

In speaking of the structure of this animal,
and the points which guide the opinion of real
judges of him, we shall, as briefly and as simply
as we are able, explain those fundamental piin-
eiples on which his usefulness and beauty must
depend. We require one kind of horse for slow
and heavy draught, and another for lighter and
quicker work ; one as a pleasant and safe roadster
— another with more speed and equal continuance,
as a hmiter — and another still is wanted for the
race-com-se. What is the peculiarity of stnicture —
what are the particular points that m\[ fit each for
his proper business, and, to a certain degree, unfit
liim for everything else ? The farmer will require

a horse of all-icork, tliat can carry him to market '
and take him round his farm — on which he can
occasionally ride for pleasure, and which he must
sometimes degrade to the dung-cart or the harrow.
What combination of powers will enable the
animal to discharge most of these duties well, and
all of them to a certain extent profitably '?

Much tinre spent amopg horses, an acquired
love of them, and a little, sometimes possibly too
dearly-bought, experience, may give the agricul-
turist some insight into these matters. We will
tiy whether we cannot assist him in this affair —
whether we cannot explain to him the reason why
certain points must be good, and why a horse
without them must of necessity be good for
nothing. Perhaps some useful rules may thus he
more deeply impressed upon his memorj', or some
common but dangerous prejudices may be dis-
carded, and a considerable degree of en-or,
disappointment, and expense avoided.

If we treat of this at considerable length, let it
be remembered that the horse is our noblest
sei^vant, and that, in describing the stnicture and
economy of his frame, we are in a great measure
describing that of other domestic quadrupeds, and
shall hereafter have to speak only of points of
difference required by the different services and
uses for which they were destined. And further,
let it be remembered, that it is only by being well
acquainted with the stnicture and anatomy of the
horse that we can appreciate his shape and uses,
or understand the different diseases to which he is
liable. It is from the want of this that much of the
mass of ignorance and prejudice which exists as to
the -diseases to which he is subject is to be referred.

THE HOUSE.

265

The nervous system will first pass in review,
for it is the moving power of the whole machine.
It consists of the brain, to wliich all sensation
is referred or carried, and from wliich all voluntary
motion is derived-.— the spinal cord, a prolongation
of the brain, and thus connected \vith sensation
and voluntary motion, governing all the involun-
tary motions of the frame, and by power from
which the heart beats, and the lungs heave, and
the stomach digests ; and one other system of
nerves — the ganglionic — presiding over the func-
tions of secretion and of nutrition, and the repair
and the welfare of the frame generally.

The following cut rejsresents the head of the
horse di^-ided into the numerous bones of which it
is composed, and tlie boundaries of each bone
clearly marked by the sutures which connect it
with those aroimd.

The upper and broadest part is the cranium or
skull in which the brain is contained and by
which it is protected. It is composed of nine
bones : the two frontals, a a ; the two parietals,
c c ; the two temporals, d d ; the occipital, g, and
the ethmoid and sphenoid, which -will be found
delineated at figs, k and I, and which will be better
seen in the cut in the next page.

a a The frontal bones, or bones of

the forehead.
b b The supra-orbital foramina or

holes above the orbit,

thi'ough which the nerves

and blood-vessels supplying

the forehead pass out. The

small holes beneath receives

the vessels which dip into

and supply the bone,
c c The parietal bones, or walls of

the skull.
•^ ^ The temporal bones, or bones i.|V'.

r yoke-shaped

of the tempi
The zygomatic,

arch.
The temporal fossa, or

above the eye.
The occipital bone, or bone of

the hinder part of the head.
, The orbits containing and

defending the eye.
The lachrymal bones belong-
ing to the conveyance of the

tears from the eyes.
The nasal bones, or bones of the

■ The malar, or cheek-bones.
The superior masillarj', or that
portion of the upper jaw
containing the molar teeth
or grinders.
n The infra-orbital foramen — a hole below the orbit, through
which pass branches of nerves and blood-vessels to supply
the lower part of the face.
The inferior maxillary, the lower part of the upper jaw-bone —
a separate bone in quadrupeds, containing the incisor or
cutting teeth, and the upper tushes at the point of union
between the superior and inferior maxillaries.
The upper incisor or cutting teeth.

The openings into the nose, with the bones forming the
palate.

There is an evident intention in this division

of the head into so many bones. When the
foetus — the unborn foal — first begins to have life,
that which afterwards becomes bone is a mere
jelly-like substance. This is gradually changed
into a harder material — cartilage ; and, before the
birth of the animal, much of the cartilage is taken
away by vessels called alisorbents, and bone
deposited in its stead. In flat bones, like those of
the head, this deposit takes place in the centre,
and rays or radiations of bone e.xtend thence in
every direction. Then, by having so many bones,
there are so many centres of radiation; and,
consequently, the formation of bone is carried
on so much the more rapidly, and perfected at the
time when the necessities of the animal require it.
At the period of birth, however, this process is
not completed, but the edges of the bones remain
somewhat soft and pliant, and therefore, in partu-
rition, they yield a little and overlap each other,
and thus, by rendering the birth more easy, they
save the mother much pain> and contribute to the
safety of the foal.

The fii-st of tliese bones, or the first pair of
them, occupving the broad e.xpanse of the fore-
head, are called the frontal bc»ies, a a. They are
imited together by a most curious and intricate
dove-tailing, to defend from injury the brain which
lies beneath the upper part of them. Lower
down, and where the cavity of the nose is to be
defended, their union is sufiicient, but far less
complicated. Thus, at first starting, there is an
evident proof of design, an illustration of that
adaptation to circumstances which will again and
again present itself in the most interesting points
of view. Peculiar strength of union is given where
a most important organ is to be defended — the
suture is there intricate and laboured. AVhere
less important parts are covered, it is of a far
simpler character.

Few things more clearly indicate the breed or
blood of the horse than the form of the frontal
bones. Wlio has not remarked the broad angular
forehead of the blood horse, giving him a beautiful
expression of intelligence and fire, and the face
gradually tapering from the forehead to the
muzzle, contrasted with the large face of the cart
or dray-horse, and the forehead scarcely wider than
the face ?

At /, between the frontal bones, is the pit
or canity above the eye, and by the depth of which
we form some idea of the age of the horse. There
is placed at the back of the eye a considerable
quantity of fatty substance, on which it may
revolve easily and without friction. In aged
horses, and in diseases attended with genei-al loss
of condition, much of this disappeai-s ; the eye
becomes sunken, and the pit above it deepens. It
is said that some of the lower class of horse-dealers
puncture the skin, and with a tobacco pipe or small

266

THE HORSE.

tube blow into the orifice until the depression
is almost filled up. This, with the aid of a
bishopped tooth, may give a false appearance of
j'outh, that will lemain during some hours, and
may deceive the unwary, but the trickery may
easily be detected by pressing on the part.

These bones, howeTer, are not solid, but a
considerable portion of them is composed of two
plates receding from each other, and leaving
numerous and large vacuities or cells. These
vacuities are called the frontal sinuses. They are
shown in the following cut.

SECTION OF THE BEAD

The nasal bone, or bone of the nose.

The frontal bone. The cavities or cells beneath are called Ihe

frontal sinuses.
The crest or ridge of the parietal bones.
The tentorium or bony separation between the cerebrum' and

cerebellum.
The occipital bone.
The li-iament of the neci, orjjacl.u-ax, by which Ihe^head is

chiefly supported.
The .ntlas, sustaining or carrying : the first bone of the neck.
The dentata, looth-like, or second hone of the neck.
The cuneiform, or uetige-shaped '^ process, or base of the occi-
pital bone. Between it and the other portion of the occipital
bone c, lies the great foramen or aperture through which the
prolongation of the brain — Ihe spinal marrow — issues from
the skull.
The sphenoid, tvedge-like, bone, with its cavities.
The ethmoid, sicre-like, bone, with its cells.
, The cerebrum, or brain, with the appearance of its cortical and
medullary substance.
The cerebellum, or little brain, with its beautiful arborescent

appearance.
A portion of the central medullary, nwrrotrUke, substance of
the brain, and the prolongation of it under the name of the
cms cerebri, leg of the hrain, and from which many of the
nerves take their origin.
I The medulla oblongata— the prolongation of the brain after the
medullary substance of the cereljmm and cerebellum have
united, and forming the commencement of the spinal marrow.
The columnar appearance of this portion of the brain is
represented, and the origins of the respiratoiy nerves.
[ The spinal marrow extending through a canal in the centre of
the bones of the neck, back, and loins, to the extremities of
the tail, and from which the nerves of feeling and of motion,
that supply every part of the fi ame except the head, arise.

r The septum narium, or cartilaginous division between the
nostrils.

« The same cut off at the lower part, to show the spongy turbi-
nated, turlan-shaped, bones filling the cavity of the nostril.

( The palate.

u The molar teeth or grinders.

II The inferior maxillary bone, containing the incisor teeth or
nippers.' The canine tooth or tush, is concealed by the
tongue.

w The posterior maxillary, or lower jaw with its incisors.

X The lips.

y The tongue.

r A portion of tJie os hyoides, or bone of the tongue, like a Greek

1 The thyroid, helmet-shaped, cartilage, inclosing and shielding

the neighbouring parts.

2 The epiglottis, or covering of ihe glottis, or apertrae of the

wind-pipe.

3 The arytenoid, funnel-shaped, cartilages, having between them

the aperture leading into the trachea or windpipe.

4 One of the chords vocales, cords or ligaments concerned in the

foimalion of the voice.

5 The saccnlus laryngis, sac or ventricle of the larynx, or throat,

to modulate the voice.

6 The trachea or wind-pipe, with its different rings.

7 The soft palate at the back of the mouth, so constructed as

almost to prevent the possibility of vomiting.

8 The opening from the back part of the mouth into the nostril.

9 The cartilage covering the entrance into the eustachian tube,

or communication between the mouth and internal part of
the ear.

10 The oesophagus, or gullet.

11 The cricoid, rinsr-iiie, cartilage, below and behind the thyroid.

12 Muscles of the neck, covered by the membrane of the back part

of the mouth.

THE HORSE.

267

The sinus on the different sides of the forehead
do not communicate mth each other, but with
other sinuses, in the ethmoid, and sphenoid, and
upper jaw-bones, and also ^vith the cavities of the
nose on their respective sides. These sinuses
afford a somewhat increased protection to the brain
beneath ; and by the continuous and slightly
projecting line which they form, they give
beauty to the forehead ; but their principal use
probably is, like the windings of the French horn,
to increase the clearness and loudness of the neigh-
ing. It will be remarked that they are very
irregular in depth, which at one place is an inch
or more.

In the sheep, and occasionally in the ox —
rarely in the horse — the larvse of maggots pro-
duced by certain species of flies, crawl up the nose,
lodge themselves in these sinuses, and produce
intolerable pain.

Veterinaiy surgeons have availed themselves of
these sinuses, to detect the existence of glanders,
that disease so infectious and so fatal. They may
suspect that a horse respecting which they are
consulted is glandered. It is of great consequence
to be sure about this. The safety of the whole
team may depend upon it. It may be a puzzling
case. There may be no ulceration of the nose
within sight. The glands under the jaw may not
be close to and seemingly sticking to the bone,
which is a common symptom, yet for a considerable
time there may have been a discharge from the
nostril, and the horse is out of condition. On the
other hand, some slight ulceration may be detected
in the nostril, but the horse eats well, works well,
and is in good plight. It is possible that from
the closest examination of the animal, no horseman
or veterinary surgeon can give a decide dopinion.

If, however, the horse is glandered, there will
probably be considerable ulceration in the upper
part of the cavity of the nose, and a collection of
matter there. To ascertain this, the veterinary
surgeon sometimes makes an opening into these
sinuses. He may do it with perfect safety. On
that part of the frontal bone, which lies between
the eye and the pit above it, and above the inner
corner of the eye, there is, on either side, a small
depression or hole (see figure 6, cut, page 265),
which may be easily felt in the living horse. It is
what anatomists call a foramen — the supra-orbital
foramen. It gives passage to the blood-vessels
and nerves of the forehead.

Supposing a \me to be dra^vn across the fore-
head, from one of these depressions to the other on
that line, and about half an inch from the centre
of it — it matters not on which side — the frontal
sinuses will be found an inch in depth (compare
fig. b, pp. 265 and 266). There a perforation may
be easily and safely made. A little way above,
the brain would be endangered ; and, a little be-

low this line, the cavity of the nose would be
pierced. Some warm water may be injected into
this hole, with a common squirt, and it will run
out at the nose. If there is matter in the frontal
sinuses, or any part of the cavity of the nose, below
the indirect opening from the siiuis into the nose
under the superior turbinated tone, it will appear
mixed with the water, and the owner may be as-
sured that the horse is glandered ; but if the
water flows uncoloured, or simply mixed with blood
or mucus, the horse may be considered as free
from this disease. The thick creamy consistence
of pus, its sinking in water, and its capability of
being perfectly, although not readily, mixed with
water, will distinguish it sufficiently from the na-
tural discharge from the nose, which is ropy, lighter
than water, and. when mixed with it, still preserves
a kind of stringiness.

It was formerly the practice to inject various
liquids into the nostrils, in this way, for the
cure of glanders. Some of them were harmless
enough ; but others were cmelly acrid. Tliis prac-
tice is now, however, abandoned by the scientific
practitioner ; for it would only be a portion of the
cells of the head, and a portion only of the cavity
of the nose, and that least likely to be diseased,
with which the fluid could be brought into contact.

As the frontal sinuses are lined by a continua-
tion of the membrane of the nose, they will sym-
pathise with many of the affections of that cavity ;
but the membrane of the sinuses is susceptible of
an inflammation peculiar to itself. The disease is
rare, and the cause of it has not been fully ascer-
tained. It is oftenest metastasis of inflammation
of the brain, — shifting of inflammation from the
brain to the membi-ane of the sinus, or communi-
cation of inflammation from the brain by proximity
of situation.

The attack is usually sudden ; the horse is
dull, lethargic, and almost as cotamose as in sto-
mach-staggers. The first thing that excites suspi-
cion of the actual character of the disease, is heat
in the situation of the frontal sinus when the hand
is placed on the forehead. The lethai'gy soon
passes over, and a state of the highest excitation
succeeds. The conjunctiva and the membrane of
the nose are injected — the pulse is quick and hai-d
— the horse becomes violent and dangerous ; he
kicks, plunges, and, half conscious and half uncon-
scious, he endeavours to do all the mischief that
he can. The disease is now evidently combined with,
or is essentially, inflammation of the bi'ain. It is
distinguished from madness by this half-conscious-
ness, and alto by his being more disposed to bite
than he is in pure phrenitis.

Tlie disease is usually fatal. It rarely lasts
more than eight-aud-forty hours.

The post-mortem appearances ai'e, great inflam-
mation of the brain, with frequent effusions of

268

THE HORSE.

lilood. The sinuses are sometimes filled ■with co-
agulated blood. The brain seems to be affected
just in proportion to the violence which the animal
has exhibited.

The treatment should consist of copious bleed-
ing, application of ice to the head, bhstering the
head, and physic. The trephine is scarcely ad-
missible, from the danger of jjroducing greater
irritation.

Sometimes the disease assumes a more chronic
form. There is ulceration of the membrane, but
not cerebal affection. A purulent discharge then
appears from the nose, evidently not of a glander-
ous character, and none of the submaxillaiy glands
are enlarged. In both the acute and chronic form
it is usually confined to one sinus: We are in-
debted to the late Mr. John Field for the principal
knowledge that we have of this disease.* The
inner plate of the frontal bone covers a consider-
able portion of the anterior part of the brain, and
it is studded with depressions corresponding with
irregularities on the surface of the brain.

Immediately above the frontal, and extending
from the frontal to the poll, are the parietal bones.
They are two, united together by a suture when
the animal is young, but that suture soon becoming
obliterated. They have the occipital, g, p. 265,
above ; the frotitals, a a. below ; and the temporals,
d d, on either side. They are of a closer and
harder texture than the frontals, because they are
most exposed to injurJ^ and more concerned in
defending the brain.

A veiy small poi-tion only of the parietals is
naked, and that is composed of bone even harder
than the other part, and with an additional layer
of bone rising in the form of a crest or ridge ex-
ternally. Every other part of these bones is co-
vered by a thick mass of muscle — the temporal
muscle, which is principally concerned in che\ring
the food, but which likewise, by its yielding resist-
ance, speedily and effectually breaks the force of
the most violent blow. A woolpack himg over the
wall of a fortress, when the enemy is battering to
effect a breach, renders the heaviest artilleiy al-
most harmless. So the yielding resistance of the
temporal muscle affords a sure defence to the
brain, however sudden or violent may the blow
which falls on the parietal. These benevolent
provisions will not be disregarded by the reflecting
mind.

On the side of the head, and under the parie-
tals {d d, p. 265) are the temporal bones, one on
each side,//. These again are divided into two
parts, or consist of two distinct bones ; the petrous
portion, so called from its great or stony hardness,
and containing the wonderful mechanism of the
ear, and. the squamous portion, from the appear-

* The Veteriuarian, vol. iv., p. 198.

ance of its union with the parietal, overlapping it
like a great scale.

From the latter there projects a portion of
bone, e, which unites with the frontal, and forms a
strong arch— the zygomatic — distinctly to be felt
at the side of the head immediately above the eye.
This arch is designed to protect the upper part of
the lower jaw, the motion of which may veiy
plainly be seen beneath it when the horse is feed-
ing. It is very strong, and it ought to be ; for if
it were depressed, or forced inward, the horse
would starve. There is one species of violence
which causes this arch to require no common
strength ; and that is, the bnital manner in which
the collar is often forced over the head.

At the base of the arch is an important cavity
not visible in the cut, receiving into it, and form-
ing a joint -nith, the head of the lower jaw : it
will be presently described.

Having reached the base of the temporal bone,
it is found united to the parietal, not by a simple
suture, as the lower part of the frontals, or the
bones of the nose (see fig. a and j, p. 265), nor by
a dove-tailed suture, as the upper part of the fron-
tals (see the same cut) ; but it is spread over the
parietal in the form of a large scale, and hence, as
before observ-ed, called the squamous portion of the
temporal bone. In fact, there we two plates of
bone instead of one. Was there design in this ?
Yes, evidently so. In the first place, to increase
the strength of the base of the zygomatic ai'ch.
This extensive union between the temporal and
parietal bones resembles the buttress or mass of
masonry attached to the base of every arch, in
order to counteract its lateral pressure. The con-
cussion, likewise, which might be communicated
by a blow on the top of the arch, is thus spread
over a large surface, and consequently weakened
and rendered comparatively hamiless ; and that
surface is composed of the union of two bones of
dissimilar constnictiou. The hard stony structure
of the parietal is veiy different from the tougher
material of the temporal ; and thus, as a finger
acts on a sounding glass, the vibration communi-
cated to the temporal is at once stopped, and the
brain receives no injury.

There is another proof of admirable design.
Where is this squamous portion of the central
bone situated ? On the side of the head. And
what is the figure of the cranium or skull, and
principally that part of it which contains the cere-
bram or brain ? It is an elliptical or oval ai'ch
(see fig. m, n, o, p. 266). If pressure is made on
the crown of that arch — if a blow is received on
the suture between the parietals sufficient to cause
the elastic materials of which the skull is com-
posed to yield — the seat of danger and injuiy is
at the side. If a man receives a violent blow on
the crown or back part of the head, the fracture,

THE HORSE.

2G9

if tkere is any, is general!)' about the temple, and
the extravasation of blood is oftenest found there.
The following figure will explain this : —

Let the line
ABC represent
an elliptical arch,
composed of elas-
tic materials.
Some force shall '
be applied at B /'
sufficient to cause
it to yield. We
cannot compress
it into smaller compass ; but just in proportion as
it yields at B will it spur or bulge out at D, and
give way sometimes as represented at E. In a
dome, the weight of the materials constantly act-
ing may be considered as representing the force
applied at B ; and so great is the lateral pressure,
or tendency to bulge out (vide D and E), that it is
necessary either to dove-tail the materials into one
another, or to pass strong iron chains round them.
For want of sufficient attention to this, " the dome
of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, built in the time
of the Emperor Justinian, fell three times dming
its erection ; and the dome of the cathedral of
Florence stood unfinished an hundi'ed and twenty
years, for want of an architect."

Natui'e, in the construction of the horse's
head, has taken away the pressure, or removed
the probability of injm-y, by giving an additional
layer of bone, or a mass of muscle, where alone
there was danger, and has dove-tailed all the ma-
terials. Farther than this, in order to make assur-
ance doubly sure, she has placed this effectual
girder at the base, in the overlapping of the squa-
mous portion of the temporal bone.

Above the j^arietals, and separated from them
by a suture (fig. g, p. 265, and fig. e, p. 266), is
the occipital bone. Superiorly it covers and pro-
tects the smaller portion of the brain, the cerebel-
lum ; and as it there constitutes the summit or
crest of the head, and is particulai-ly exposed to
danger, and not protected by muscles, it is inter-
esting to see what thickness it assumes. The
head of the horse does not, like that of the human
being, ride upright on the neck, with all its weight
supported by the spinal column, and the only
office of the muscles of the neck being to move
the head forward, or backward, or horizontally on
its pivot ; but it hangs in a slanting position from
the extremity of the neck, and the neck itself
projects a considerable distance from the chest,
and thus the whole weight of the head and neck
ai-e suspended from the chest, and require vei-y
great power in order to support them. In addi-
tion to the simple weight of the head and neck,
the latter projecting from the chest, and the head
hanging from the extremity of the neck, act with

enormous mechanical force, and increase more
than a hundred-fold the power necessary to sup-
port them.

The head and neck of the horse, and particu-
larly of some horses of a coarse breed, are of no
little bulk and weight. It will hereafter be shown
in what breeds and for what purposes a light or
heavy head and neck are advantageous ; but it
may be safely affirmed that, projecting so far from
the chest, and being consequently at so great a
distance from the fulcrum or support, the lightest
head will act or bear upon the joint between the
last bone of the neck and the first rib with a force
equal to many thousand pounds.

How is this weight to be supported ? Is mus-
cular power equal to the task ? The muscles of
the animal frame can act for a certain time with
extraordinary force ; but as the exertion of this
power is attended with the consumption of vital
energy, the period soon arrives when their action is
remitted or altogether suspended. A provision, how-
ever, is made for the pui^pose, simple and complete.
From the back of the occipital bone (fig. /,
p. 266), and immediately below the crest, pro-
ceeds a round cord of considerable bulk, and com-
posed of a ligamentous substance, which reaches
down and is securely attached to the spines of the
vertebrae, or bones of the back ; and by this ligament
— the ligamentuni colli, ligament of the neck, com-
monly called the pack-tca.r — the head is supported.
There are, however, some admirable contriv-
ances connected with this ligament. As it proceeds
from the head, it is in the form of a round cord.
It passes over the atlas, or first bone of the neck,
without touching it, and then, attaching itself
strongly to the second bone, principally supports
the head by its union with this bone. The me-
chanical disadvantage is increased ; but the head
is turned more freely on the first and second
bones. The prmcipal stress is on the dentata or
second bone, so much so, that, in poll-evil, this
ligament may be divided without serious inconve-
nience to the horse. It then suddenly sinks
deeper, aiad communicates with all the other ver-
tebrae. Each of these communications becomes a
separate point of support ; and as they approach
nearer to the base, the mechanical disadvantage,
or the force with which the weight of the head
and neck presses and acts, is materially lessened.
The head, then, whUe the animal is in a state
of rest, is supported by this ligament, without any
aid from muscular energy.

There is, however, something yet wantuig.
The head must not be always elevated. The ani-
mal has his food to seek. In a state of nature
this food lies principally on the gi'ound, and the
head must be lowered to enable the horee to get
at it. How is this effected ? This ligament, as it
has been called, because it resembles in appearance

270

THE HORSE.

the other ligaments of the body, possesses a pro-
perty which tliey have not, and which they must
not have, or they would be useless. No well-knit
joint could exist if it had this property. It is
elastic. It will yield to a force impressed upon it,
and will resume its natural dimensions when that
force is removed. It sustains perfectly the weight
of the head. That portion of tenacity or strength
is given to it which will not give way to the simjile
weight of the head, hut which will yield to a veiy
little additional weight. Its resisting power is so
admirably adjusted to that which it has to sustain,
that when certain muscles, whose action is to de-
press or lower the head, begin to act, and add their
power to the previous weight it had to bear, the
ligament stretches, and when the horse is browsing
it is full two inches longer than when the head is erect.

When the animal has satisfied himself, these
depressing muscles cease to act, and ether muscles
which are designed to assist m raising the head,
begin to exert themselves ; and by their aid — but
more by the inherent elasticity of the ligament —
the head is once more elevated, and remains so
without the slightest exertion of muscular power.
This is one of the many applications of the prin-
ciple of elasticity which will be discovered and ad-
mired in the construction of the animal frame.

The ligament of the neck is inserted into the
centre of the back part of the occipital bone, and
immediately below the vertex or crest of that
bone ; and therefore the bone is so thick at this
part (see fig. e, p. 266).

Many large and powerful muscles are neces-
sary to turn the head in various directions, as well
as to assist in raising it when depressed. The
occipital bone, as will be seen in the cut, presents
a spine nuining down the centre, B, and a large
roughened surface for the attachment of these
muscles C, C.

Lower down, and
still at the back of
the occipital bone,
are two rounded pro-
tuberances D D, by
which the head is
connected with the
atlas, or upper or
first vertebra, or
bone of the neck ;
and these are called
the condyloid, cup-
shaped, processes of the occipital bone. All the
motions of the head are partly, and many of them
wholly, performed by this joint.

Between them is a large hole, the foramen
magnum, or great aperture, E, through which the
continuation of the brain, termed the spinal cord
or marrow, passes out of the skull.

As an additional contrivance to support the

enormous weight of the head, are two other pro-
jections of the occipital bone, peculiar to animals
whose heads are set on in a slanting direction,
and into which powerful muscles are inserted.
They are called the coracoid, beak-like, processes
or prolongations, F, F, of the occipital bone.

Piunning forward, and forming outwardly a
part of the base, and inwardly a portion of the
floor of the skull, is what, from its wedge-like
shape, is called the cuneiform process of the occi-
pital bone (fig. i, p. 266). It is thick, strong, and
solid, and placed at the bottom of the skull, not
only to be a proper foundation for, and to give ad-
ditional strength to, the arch on either side, but
speedily to stop all vibration and concussion.

At the base of the skull, and anterior to or
below the occipital, lies thes phenoid, wedge-like,
bone (fig k, p. 266). Its body, likewise called
the cuneiform, or wedge-shaped process, is a conti-
nuation of the same process of the occipital, and,
like it, is thick and solid, and for the same impor-
tant pui-pose. This bone branches out into four
irregular bodies or plates, two of which are called
the icings, and two iimning to the palate, the legs.
They could not be represented in the cut, and
there is nothing important belonging to them, so
far as this work is concerned. Internally (fig. k),
the sphenoid forms a portion of the cavity of the
skull.

Of the ethmoid — sieve-like — bone, little can
be seen outwardly. A small portion is found in
the back part of the orbit and in the cavity of the
cranium ; but the most important part of it is that
which is composed of a great number of thin plates,
forming numerous cavities or cells (fig. I, p. 266),
lined with the membrane of the nose, and enter-
ing into its cavity. The upper portion is called
the cribriform or sieve-shaped plate, from its
being perforated by a multitude of little holes,
through which the nerve connected with smelling
passes and spreads over the nose.

Altogether these bones form a cavity of an ir-
regular oval shape, but the tentorium penetrating
into it, gives it the appearance of being divided
into two (d, p. 266).

The cavity of the skull may be said to be
arched all round. The builder knows the strength
which is connected with the form of an arch. If
properly constructed, it is equal to a solid mass of
masonry. The arch of the horse's skull has not
much weight to supjiort, but it is exposed to many
injuries from the brutality of those by whom
he should be protected, and from accidental
causes.

The roof of the skull is composed of two plates
of bone : the outer one hard and tough, and the
different parts dove-tailed together, so as not to
be easily fractured : the inner plate being elastic.
Bv tl:e union of these two substances of different

THE HORSE.

271

construction, the vibration is damped or destroyed,
so far as safety requires.

On raising any part of the skull of the horse,
the dense and strong membrane which is at once
the lining of the cranium and the covering of the
brain — the dura mater — presents itself. It is
united to the membranes below by numerous little
cords or prolongations of its substance, conveying
blood and communicating strength to the parts
beneath. Between this membrane, common to
the cranium and the brain, and the proper invest-
ing tunic of that organ, is found that delicate gos-
samers' web, appiropriately called the arachnoid —
the spider's membrane — and which is seen in
other animals, designed either to secrete the fluid
which is interposed, for the purpose of obviating
injurious concussion, or, perhaps, to prevent the
brain from readily sympathising with any inflam-
matory action produced by injury of the skull.

Beneath is the proper investing membrane of
the brain — the jna mater— v.-hich not only covers
the external surface of the brain, but penetrates
into every depression, lines eveiy ventricle, and
clothes every irregularity and part and portion of
the brain.

We now an-ive at the brain itself. The brain
of the horse corresponds with the cavity in which
it is placed {m, p. 266). It is a flattened oval.
It is divided into two parts, one much larger than
the other — the cerebrum or brain, and the cerebel-
lum or little brain (n, p. 266). In the human
being the cerebnim is above the cerebellum, in the
quadruped it is below ; and yet in both they re-
tain the same relative situation. The cerebellum
is nearer to the foramen through which the brain
passes out of the skull (;;, p. 266), and the conti-
nuation of the cerebrum passes under the cere-
bellum [j}, p. 266), in order to anive at this
foramen. In the human head this foramen is at
the base of the skull ; but in the quadruped, in
whom the head is placed slanting, it is necessarily
elevated.

He who for the first time examines the brain
of the horse will be struck with its comparative
diminutive size. The human being is not, gene-
rally speaking, more than one-half or one-third of
the size and weight of the horse ; yet the brain of
the biped is twice as large and as heavy as that of
the quadruped. If it had been the brain of the ox
that had been here exposed, instead of that of the
horse, it would not have been of half the bulk of
that of the horse. If the dog had been the subject,
it woiJd have been very considerably larger, com-
paring the general bulk of each animal. This is
singular. The human brain largest in compara-
tive bulk ; then the brain of the dog, the horse,
the ox. Thus would they be classed in the scale of
intelligence.

If the brain is more closely examined, it will

be found that there is none of the roundness and
the broadness of that in the human being ; it is
comparatively tame and flat. There is some ir-
regularity of surface, some small projections and
depressions; but they, too, are comparatively di-
minutive and inexpressive. Were the brain of
the beaver, or the hare, or the rabbit, or of almost
any bird, substituted for it, there would be no con-
volutions or irregularities at all.

These irregularities are not so bold and so
deep in the ox as in the horse, nor in the horse as
in the dog. We do not know enough of the func-
tions of any part of the brain to associate these
convolutions with any particular powers of mind,
or good or bad propensities, although some persons,
who are wise above that which is written, have
pretended to do so. It would occupy too great a
portion of this volume to enter into these ques-
tions ; but there are some diseases to which the
horse is subject, and a very useful operation — the
division of some of the ner^-es for certain pur
poses, and which could not be understood without
a previous slight account of this important organ.

When the brain is cut, it is found to be com
posed of two substances veiy unlike in appearance
[m, p. 266) ; one, principally on the outside, grey,
or ash-coloured, and therefore called the cortical
(bark-like) from its situation, and cineritious (ashen)
from its colour ; and the other, lying deeper in
the brain, and from its pulpy nature called the
medullary substance. Although placed in appo-
sition with each other, and seemingly mingling,
they never run into the same mass, or change by
degrees into one another, but are essentially dis-
tinct in construction as well as in function.

The medullary portion is connected with the
nervous system. The nen'cs are prolongations
of it, and are concerned in the discharge of all the
offices of life. They give motion and energy to
the limbs, the heart, the hmgs, the stomach, and
every part connected with life. Tliey are the
medium through which sensation is conveyed ;
and they supply the mind with materials to think
and work upon.

The cineritious part has a difl"erent appear-
ance, and is differeiitly constituted. Some have
supposed, and with much appearance of tnith,
that it is the residence of the mind — receiving
the impressions that are conveyed to the brain by
the sensitive nerves, and directing the operation
and action of those wliich give motion to the
limbs. In accordance with this, it happens that,
where superior intelligence is found, the cineri-
tious portion prevails, and where little beside
brute strength and animal appetite exist, the me
dullary portion is enlarged. There is, comparing
bulk with bulk, less of the medullaiy substance in
the horse than in the ox, and in the dog than in
the horse The additional bulk of brain is com-

»72

THE HOESE.

posed of cineritious matter ; and how different is
the character of these animals? — the sluggish,
stupid ox, and the intelligent horse ; the silly
sheep, and the intellectual companionable dog !

In a work like this, it would be somewhat out
of place to enter deeply into any metaphysical
speculation ; but the connexion between the cine-
ritious part of the brain and the intellectual prin-
ciple, and that between the meduUaiy portion
and the mere animal principle, do seem highly
probable. The latter is the medium through
which the impression is conveyed, or the mo-
tion is effected ; the former is the substance to
which that impression is referred — where it is
received, registered, and compared, and by which
the operation of the motor nerves is influenced and

The cortical substance is small in the quad-
ruped ; for in their wild state brutes have no con-
cern and no idea beyond their food and reproduc-
tion ; and in their domesticated state they are
destined to be the servants of man. The acute-
ness of their senses, and the preponderance of
animal power, qualify them for this purpose ; but
were proportionate mtellectual capacity added
to this — were they made conscious of their
strength, they would burst their bonds, and man
would, in his turn, be the victim and the slave.
The cortical part is found in each in the propor-
tion in which it would seem to be needed for our
purposes, in order that intelligence should be added
to animal power. Almost every mental faculty,
and almost every virtue, too, may be traced in the
brute. The difference is in degree, and not in
kind. The one being improved by circumstances

and the other contam^inated, the quadruped is
decidedly the superior.

From the medullai-y substance — as already
stated — proceed certain cords or prolongations,
termed nerves, by which the animal is enabled to
receive impressions from surrounding objects,
and to connect himself with them; and also to
possess many pleasurable or painful sensations.
One of them is spread over the membrane of the
nose, and gives the sense of smell ; another ex-
pands on the back of the eye, and the faculty of
sight is gained ; and a third goes to the internal
stnioture of the ear, and the animal is conscious
of sound. Other nerves, proceeding to different
parts, give the faculty of motion, while an equally
important one bestows the power of feeling.

One division of nerves (h, p. 266) springing
from a prolongation of the brain, and yet within
the skull, wanders to different parts of the frame,
for important purposes connected mth respiration
or breathing. The act of breathing is essential to
life, and were it to cease, the animal would die.
These are nei^ves of involuntary motion; so that,
whether he is awake or asleep, conscious of it or
not, the lungs heave and life is supported. Lastly,
from the spinal cord q — a farther prolongation of
the brain, and running through a cavity in the
bones of the neck, back, and loins, and extending
to the very tip of the tail — other nerves are given
off at certain intei-vals. This cut delineates a
pair of them. The spinal cord a, is combined of
six distinct columns or rods, ninning through its
whole length — three on either side. The two
upper columns — the portion of spinal marrow re-
presented in our cut, is supposed to be placed

with its inner or lower surface toward us — proceed
from those tracks of the brain devoted to sensa-
tion. Numerous distinct fibres spring abruptly
from the column, and which collect together, and,
passing through a little ganglion or enlargement,
d — an enlargement of a nervous cord is called a
ganglion — become a nerve of sensation. From
the lower or inner side, a prolongation of the
track devoted to motion, proceed other fibres.

which also collect gradually together, and form a
nervous cord, c, giving the power of motion. Be-
yond the ganglion the two unite, and form a per-
fect spinal nerve, b, possessing the power both of
sensation and motion ; and the fibres of the two
columns proceed to their destination, enveloped
in the same sheath, and appai-ently one nerve.
Each portion, however, continues to be -(vi'apped
in its own membrane. They are united, yet dis-

THE HORSE.

273

tinct ; they constitute one nerve, yet neither their
substance nor their office is confounded. Our
cut, closely examined, mil give at h some idea of
the manner in which these distinct filires are con-
tinued ; each covered by its own membrane, but
all enveloped in a common envelope.

All these nerves are organs of sensation and
motion alone ; but there are others whose origin
seems to be outside of and below the brain. These
are the sympathetic, so called from their union and
sympathy with all the others, and identified with
life itseK. They proceed from a smalLgauglion or
enlargement in the upper part of the neck, or from
a collection of little ganglia in the abdomen. They
go to the heart, and it beats, and to the stomach,
and it digests. They form a net-work round each
blood-vessel, and the current flows on. They sur-
round the veiy minutest vessels, and the frame is
nourished and built up. They are destitute of
sensation, and they are perfectly beyond the control
of the will.

The reader, we trust, will now comprehend
this wonderful, yet simple machinery, and be able,
by and by, to refer to it the explanation of several
diseases, and particularly of the operation to which
we have referred.

Two of the senses have their residence in the
ca^-ity of the cranium — those of hearing and
sight.

They who know anything of the horse pay
much attention to the size, setting on, and motion
of the ear. Ears rather small than large — placed
not too far apart — erect and quick in motion, indi-
cate both breeding and spirit ; and if a horse is
frequently in the habit of canying one ear forward,
and the other backward, and especially if he does
so on a jom-ney, he will generally possess both
spirit and continuance. The stretching of the ears
in contrary directions shows that he is attentive to
everything that is taking place around liim, and,
^^■hile he is doing this, he cannot be much fatigued,
or likely soon to become so. It has been remarked
that few horses sleep without pointing one ear for-
wai'd and the other backward, in order that they
may receive notice of the approach of objects in
every direction. ='■=

The ear of the horee is one of the most beau-
tiful parts about him, and by few things is the
temper more sm-ely indicated than by its motion.
The ear is more intelligible even than the eye, and
a person accustomed to the horse, and an observer
of him, can tell by the expressive motion of that
organ almost all that he thinks or means. It is a
common saying that when a horse lays his ears flat

• " When horses or mules march in company at night, those in
front direct their ears forwards ; those in the rear direct them back-
ward ; and those in the centre tm-Q them laterally or across ; the whole
troop seeming thus to be actaated by one feeling, which watches
the general safety." — ArnoH's Elements of Physic, vol i. p. 478.

back upon his neck, and keeps them so, he most
assuredly is meditating mischief, and the stander
by should beware of his heels or his teeth. In
play, the ears will be laid back, but not so de-
cidedly, or so long. A quick chang6 in their posi-
tion, and more particularly the expression of the
eye at the time, will distinguish between playful-
ness and vice.

The external ear is formed by a cartilage of an
oval or cone-like shape, flexible, yet firm, and ter-
minating in a point. It has, directed towards the
side, yet somewhat pointing fonvard, a large open-
ing extending from the top to the bottom: The
intention of this is to collect the sound, and con-
vey it to the interior part of the ear.

The hearing of the horse is remarkably acute.
A thousand vibrations of the air, too slight to make
any impression on the human ear, are readily per-
ceived by him. It is well-known to every hunting-
man, that the cry of the hounds will be recognised
by the horse, and his ears will be erect, and he will
be all spirit and impatience, a considerable time
before the rider is conscious of the least sound.
Need anything more be said to expose the ab-
surdity of cropping ?

This custom of cutting the ears of the horse
originated, to its shame, in Great Britain, and for
many years was a practice ci-uel to the animal, de-
priving him of much of his beauty ; and so obsti-
nately pursued, that at length the deformity be-
came in some hereditary, and a breed of horses
born without ears was produced. Fortunately for
this too-often abused animal, cropping is not now
the fashion. Some thoughtless or unfeeling young
men endeavom-ed, a little while ago, again to inti-o-
duce it, but the voice of reason and humanity pre-
vailed.f

This cartilage, the conch or shell, is attached
to the head by ligaments, and sustained by mus-
cles, on which its action depends. It rests upon
another cartilage, round without, and irregular
within, called the annular, ring-like, cartilage, and
conducting to the interior of the ear ; and it is
likewise supported and moved by a third small
cartilage, placed at the fore part of the base of the
conch, and into which several muscles are inserted.
The ear is covered by skin thinner than in
most other parts of the body, and altogether desti-
tute of fat, in order that it may not be too bulky
and heavy, and may be more easily moved. Under
the skin lining the mside of the cartilage are nu-

+ Professor Grognier, in his excellent work, " Precis d'un Coors
d'Hygiene Veterinaire," speaking of this abominable custom, says,
" And thus the English completely destroy or disfigure two organs
which embellish the head of the most beautiful of all animals, and
which, by their various motions, indicate the thoughts that are
passing through his mind — the passions which agitate him, and,
especially, the designs which he may be meditating, and which it
is often of great importance to learn, in order to guard against the
danger which may be at hand."

274

THE HORSE.

merous glands that secrete or throw out a scaly
wliite greasy matter, -which may be nibbed off with
the finger, and is destined to supple this part of
the ear and to keep it soft and smooth. Below
this are other glands which pour out a peculiar,
sticky, bitter fluid — the wax — probably displeasing
to insects, and therefore deterring them from
crawhng down the ear and annoying the animal,
or by its stickiness arresting their progress.

The internal part of the conch is covered with
long hair which stands across the passage in every
direction. This likewise is to protect the ear from
insects, that can with difficulty penetrate through
this thick defence. The cold air is likemse pre-
vented from reaching the interior of the ear, and
the sound is moderated, not arrested — penetrating
readily but not violently — and not striking inju-
riously on the membrane covering the drum of the
ear. Can these purposes be accomplished, when
it is the custom of so many carters and grooms to
cut out the hair of the ear so closely and industri-
ously as they do ? The groom who singes it to
the root with a candle must either be very ignorant
or very brutal. It can scarcely be accomplished
without singeing the ear as well as the hah-. Many
a troublesome sore is occasioned by this ; and
many a horse, that was perfectly quiet before, ren-
dered difficult to handle or to halter, and even
disposed to be otherwise vicious, from a recollec-
tion of the pain which he suffered dm'ing the absm-d
and barbarous operation.

The sound collected by the outer ear, passes
through the lower or annular, ring-shaped, carti-
lage, and through irregularities which, while they
break and modify it, convey it on to another canal,
partly cartilaginous and partly bony, conducting
immediatelj' to the internal mechanism of the ear.
This canal, or passage, is called the external audi-
tory passage, and at the base of it is placed,
stretching across it, and closing it, a thick and
elastic membrane, memhrana tympani, called the
membrane of the drum. This membrane is sup-
plied with numerous fibres, from the fifth pair, or
sensitive nerve of the head, for it is necessary that
it should possess extreme sensibility.

Between this membrane and a smaller one
almost opposite, leading to the still interior part
of the ear, and on which the nei^ve of hearing is
expanded, ai'e four little bones, united to these
membranes, and to each other. Their office is to
convey, more perfectly than it could be done
through the mere air of the cavity, the vibrations
that have reached the membrana tympani.

These bones are highly elastic ; and covered
by a cartilaginous substance, elastic also in the
greatest degree, by means of which the force of the
vibration is much increased.

It is conveyed to a strangely irregular caWty,
filled with an aqueous fluid, and the substance or

pulp of the portio mollis or soft portion of the
seventh pair of nerves, the auditory nerve, expands
on the membrane that lines the walls of this cavity.

Sound is propagated far more intensely through
water than through air ; and therefore it is that an
aqueous fluid occupies those chambers of the ear
on the walls of which the auditory nerve is ex-
panded. By this contrivance, and by others, which
we have not space now to narrate, the sense of
hearing is fully equal to every possible want of the
animal.

The Eye is a most important organ, and comes
next under consideration, as inclosed in the bones
of the skull. The eye of the horse should be large,
somewhat but not too prominent, and the eyelid
fine and thin. If the eye is sunk in the head, and
apparently little — for there is actually a veiy
trifling difference in the size of the eye in animals
of the same species and bulk, and that seeming
difference arises from the larger or smaller open-
ing between the lids — and the lid is thick, and
especially if there is any puckering towards the
inner comer of the lids, that eye either is diseased,
or has lately been subject to inflammation ; and,
particularly, if one eye is smaller than the other,
it has at no great distance of time been inflamed.

The eye of the horse enables us with tolerable
accuracy to guess at his temper. If much of the
white is seen, the buyer should pause ere he com-
pletes his bargain ; because, although it may, yet
very rarely, happen that the cornea or transj)arent
part is unnaturally small, and therefore an unusual
portion of the white of the eye is seen, experience
has shown that this display of white is dangerous.
The mischievous horse is slily on the look out for
opportunities to do mischief, and the frequent back-
ward direction of the eye, when the white is most
perceptible, is only to give surer effect to the blow
which he is about to aim.

A cursory description of the eye, and the uses
of its different parts, must be given.

The eyes are placed at the side of the head,
but the direction of the conoid cavity which they
occupy, and of the sheath by which they are sur-
rounded within the orbit, gives them a prevailing
direction forwards, so that the animal has a very
extended field of vision. We must not assert that
the eye of the horse commands a whole sphere of
vision ; but it cannot he denied that his eyes are
placed more forward than those of cattle, sheep, or
swine. He requires an extensive field of vision to
warn him of the approach of his enemies in his
vdld state, and a direction of the orbits consider-
ably forward, in order to enable him to pursue ivith
safety the headlong com'se to which we sometimes
urge him.

The eye-ball is placed in the anterior and
most capacious part of the orbit, nearer to the
frontal than the temporal side, with a degree of

THE HORSE.

275

prominence varying with different individuals, and
the will of the animal. It is protected by a bony
socket beneath and on the inside, but is partially
exposed on the roof and on the outside. It is,
however, covered and secured by thick and power-
ful muscles — by a mass of adipose matter which is
distributed to various parts of the orbit, upon which
the eye may be readily moved without friction, and
by a sheath of considerable density and firmness,
and especially where it is most needed, on the e.x-
ternal and superior portions.

The adipose matter exists in a considerable
quantity in the orbit of the eye of the horse, and
enables that organ readily to revolve by the slightest
contraction of the muscles. By the absorption of
this fatty matter in sickness or old age, the eye is
not only to a certain degree sunk in the orbit, but
the roof of the orbit posterior to the frontal bone,
being deprived of its support, is considerably de-
pressed. Our work shall not be disgraced by any
farther reference to the rascally contrivance by
which this indication of age is in some degree re-
moved.

In front the eye is supported and covered by
the lids, which closing rapidly, protect it from
many an injury that threatens — supply it with
tliat moisture which is necessary to preserve its
transparency — in the momentary act of closing
give a certain and sufficient respite to a delicate
organ, which would otherwise be fatigued and worn
out by the constant glare of day — defend it when
the eye labours under inflammation from the sti-
mulus of light — and, gradually drooping, permit
the animal to enjoy that repose which natui-e re-
quires.

Extending round both lids, and, it may be
almost said, having neither origin nor insertion,
is a muscle called the ohicularis, or circular muscle.
Its office is to close the lids in the act of winking
or otherwise, but only while the animal is awake.
When he sleeps, this is effected by another and
very ingenious mechanism. The natural state of
the eyelids is that of being closed ; and they are
kept open by the energy of the muscles whose office
it is to raise the upper lid. As sleep steals upon
the animal, these muscles cease to act, and the
lids close by the inherent elasti<;ity of the mem-
bi'ane of which they are composed.

The skin of the lid is, like that of the ear, ex-
ceedingly fine, in order to prevent unnecessary
weight and pi-essure on such a part, and to give
more easy and extensive motion. The lids close
accurately when drawn over the eye, and this is
effected by a little strip of cartilage at the edge of
each of them, which may be easily felt with the
finger, and preserves them in a hoop-like form,
and adapts them closely to the eye and to each
otlier. The lower cartilage, however, does not
present, towards the inner comer of the eye, the

whole of its flat surface to the upper, but it evi-
dently slopes inward, and only the outer edge of
the under lid touches the upper. By this means
a little gutter is formed, through which the super-
fluous moisture of the eye flows to the inner cor-
ner, where there is a canal to convey it away. By
this contrivance it neither accumulates in the eye,
nor unpleasantly runs down the cheek.

Along the edges of the lids are placed nu-
merous little hollows, which can be plainly distin-
guished even in the living horse by slightly turn-
ing down the lid. These are the openings into
numerous small cells containing a thick and unc-
tuous fluid, by means of wliich the eyes are more
accurately closed, and the edges of the lids defended
from the acrimony of the tears.

The horse has no eyebrows, and the eyelashes
are very peculiarly arranged. The rows of hair are
longest and most numerous on the upper lid, and
especially towards the outer or temporal comer,
be(;ause the light comes from above ; and, as the
animal stands, particularly when he is grazing,
and from the lateral situation of his eyes, the
greater portion of the light, and the attacks of in-
sects, and the rolling down of moisture, would
chiefly be from the outside or temples. Towards
the inner comer of the upper lid there is little or
no eyelash, because there is no probable danger or
nuisance in that direction. Only a small quantity
of light can enter from below, and therefore the
lashes are thin and short ; but as, in the act of
gi'azing, insects may more readily climb up and be
troublesome to the eye, towards the inner angle,
there the principal or only hair is found on the
lower lid. These apparently trifling circumstances
will not be overlooked by the careful observer.

They who are unacquainted with tlie absurdities
of stable management, or who have not carefully
examined the abuses that may exist in their own
establishments, can scarcely believe the foolish and
cruel practices of some carters and grooms. When
the groom is anxious that his horse should be as
trim and neat all over as art can make him, the veiy
eye-lashes are generally sacrificed. What has the
poor animal suffered, when, travelling in the noon
of day, the full blaze of the sun has fallen upon his
eyes ; and how many accidents have probably hap-
pened from his being dazzled by the light, wliich
have been attributed to other causes !

If the horse has no eyebrow, there are several
bail's or bristles scattered on the upper eyelid, and
there is a projecting fold of the lid which dis-
charges nearly the same office. It is more conspi-
cuous in old horses than in young ones. Some
horsemen do not like to see it, and associate the
idea of it with weakness or disease of the eye.
This is perfectly erroneous. It is a provision of
nature to accomplish a certain purpose, and has
nothing to do either with health or disease.

276

THE HORSE.

On the lower lid is a useful provision to warn
the horse of the near approach of any object that
might incommode or injure him, in the form of
long projecting hairs or bristles, which are plen-
teously embued with nervous influence, so that the
slightest touch should put the animal on his guard.
We would request our readers to touch veiy slightly
the extremity of one of these hairs. They will be
surprised to observe the sudden convulsive twitch-
ing of the lid, rendering the attack of the insect
absolutely impossible. The grooms, however, who
cut away the eye-lashes, do aiot spare these useful
feelers. ;

The eye is exposed to the action of the atmos-
pheric air, and the jjrocess of evaporation, destnic-
tive of its transparency, is continually going on.
The eye of the horse, or the visible part of the eye,
is, likewise, more prominent and larger than in the
human being, and the animal is often subject to
extreme annoyance from dust and insects, while he
has no hands or other guard to defend liimself from
the torture which they occasion. What is the pro-
vision of nature against this ? Under, and a little
within, the outer corner of the upper lid, is an ir-
regidar body, the lacrymal gland, comparatively
larger than in the human being, secreting an aque-
ous fluid, which, slowly issuing from the gland, or
occasionally pressed out of it in the act of winking,
flows over the eye, supplies it with moisture, and
cleanses it from all impurities. Human ingenuity
could not have selected a situation from which the
fluid could be conveyed over the eye with more
advantage for this purpose.

When this fluid is secreted in an undue quan-
tity, and flows over the eye, it is called tears. An
increased flow of tears is produced by anything
that irritates the eye, and, therefore, a constant
accompaniment and symptom of inflammation. A
horse with any degree of weeping should be re-
garded with much suspicion. In the human being
an unusual secretion of tears is often caused by
bodily pain, and emotions of the mind ; and so it
is occasionally in the horse. We have seen it
repeatedly under acute pain or brutal usage. John
Lawrence, speakmg of the cruelty exercised by
some dealers in what they call " firing" a horse
before he is led out for sale, in order to rouse every
spark of mettle, says, " more than fifty years have
passed away, and I have before my eyes a poor
mare, stone blind, exquisitely shaped, and showing
all the marks of high blood, whom I saw unmerci-
fully cut with the whip a quarter of an hour before
the sale, to bring her to the use of her stif-
fened limbs, while the tears were trickling dou-n
her cheeks."

Having passed over the eye, the fluid is con-
veyed by the little canal to which we have alluded,
formed by the sloping of the under lid, towards the
corner of the eye ; and there are two little orifices

that conduct it to a small reservoir within, and at
the upper part of the lacrymal bone (fig. i, p.
205). A little protuberance of a black or pied
colour, called the caruncle, placed in the veiy cor-
ner of the eye, and to be seen without opening the
lids, is situated between these orifices, and guides
the fluid into them. From this reservoir the tears
are conveyed by a long canal, the lacrymal duct,
partly bony, and partly membraneous, to the lower
part of the nose. A little within the nostril, and
on the division between the nostrils, is seen the
lower opening of this canal ; the situation of wliich
should be carefully observed, and its real use borne
in mind, for not only horsemen, but even some care-
less veterinai-y surgeons, have mistaken it for a
glanderous ulcer, and have condemned a useful and
valuable animal. It is foimd just before the skin
of the muzzle terminates, and the more delicate
membrane of the nostril commences. The opening
of the canal is placed thus low because the mem-
brane of the nose is exceedingly delicate, and
would be irritated and made sore by the frequent
or constant running down of the tears.

There is, however, something yet wanting.
We have a provision for supplying the eye with
requisite moistm'e, and for washing from off" the
transparent part of it insects or dust that may an-
noy the animal. What becomes of these impurities
when thus washed off"? Are they carried by the
tears to the comer of the eye, and so pass down
this duct, and irritate and obstruct it ; or do they
accumulate at the inner angle of the eye ? There
is a beautiful contrivance for disposing of them as
fast as they accumulate. Concealed within the
inner corner of the eye, or only the margin of it,
black or pied, visible, is a triangular-shaped carti-
lage, the haw, with its broad part forwards. It is
concave within, exactly to suit the globe of the eye ;
it is convex without, accm-ately to adapt itself to
the membrane lining the lid ; and the base of it is
reduced to a thin or almost sharp edge. At the
will of the animal this is suddenly protruded from
its hiding-place. It passes rapidly over the eye
and shovels up every nuisance mixed with the
tears, and then, being speedily dravra back, the
dust or insect is wiped away as the cartilage again
passes under the comer of the eye.

How is this managed? The cartilage has no mus-
cle attached to it ; and the limbs and the different
parts of the body, when put into motion by the in-
fluence of the will, are moved invariably by muscles.
The mechanism, however, is simple and effectual.
There is a considerable mass of fatty matter at the
back of the eye, in order that this organ may be
easily moved ; and this fat is particularly accumu-
lated about the inner comer of the eye, and beneath,
and at the point of this cartilage. The eye of the
horse has likewise very strong muscles attached to
it, and one, peculiar to quadrupeds, of extraordi-

THE HOKSF.

277

nai7 power, by whose aid, if the animal has not
hands to ward off the danger that threatens, he is
at least enabled to draw the eye back almost out of
the reach of that danger.

Dust, or gi-avel, or insects, may have entered
the eye, and annoy the horse. This muscle sud-
denly acts : the eye is forcibly drawn back, and
presses upon the fatty matter. Tliat may be dis-
placed, but cannot be reduced into less compass.
It is forced violently towards the inner comer of
the eye, and it drives before it the haw ; and the
haw, having likewise some fat about its point, and
being placed between the eje and an exceedingly
smooth and polished bone, and being pressed upon
by the eye as it is violently di-awn back, shoots out
with the rajiidity of lightning, and, guided by the
eyelids, projects over the eye, and thus carries off
the offending matter.

In what way shall we draw the haw bact again
without muscular action '? Another principle is
called into play, of which mention has already been
made, and of wliich we shall have much to say, —
elasticity. It is that principle by which a body
yields to a certain force impressed upon it, and
returns to its former state as soon as that force is
removed. It is that by which the ligament of
the neck (p. 266), while it supports the head,
enables the horse to graze — by which the heart
expands after closing on and propelling forward
the blood in its ventricles, and the artery con-
tracts on the blood that has distended it, and many
of the most important functions of life are in-
fluenced or governed. This muscle ceases to
act, and the eye resumes its natural situation in

the orbit. There is room for the fatty matter to
return to its place, and it immediately returns by
the elasticity of the membrane by which it is co-
vered, and draws after it this cartilage with which
it is connected, and whose return is as rapid as was
the projection.

The old farriers strangely misunderstood the
nature and design of the haw, and many at the
present day do not seem to be nuich better in-
formed. When, from sympathy with other parts
of the eye labouiing under inflammation, and be-
coming itself inflamed and increased in bulk, and
the neighbouring parts likewise thickened, it is
either forced out of its place, or voluntarily protru-
ded to defend the eye from the action of light and
cannot return, they mistake it for some injurious
e.xcresceuce or tumour, and proceed to cut it out.
The " haw in the eye" is a disease well known to
the majority of grooms, and this sad remedy for it
is deemed the only cure. It is a barbarous prac-
tice, and if they were compelled to walk half a
dozen miles in a thick dust, without being per-
mitted to wipe or to cleanse the eye, they would feel
the torture to which they doom this noble animal.
A little patience having been exercised, and a few
cooling applications made to the eye while the in-
flammation lasted, and afterwards some mild as-
tringent ones, and other proper means being
employed, the tumour would have disappeared, the
haw would have retunied to its place, and the ani-
mal would have discharged the duties required of
him without inconvenience to himself, instead of
the agony to which an unguai'ded and unprotected
eye must now expose him.

A B a supposed object viewed by the animal, and an invertedimage
of which, a, 6, is thrown on the retina at the bacli of the eye.

c c The points where the rays, having passed the cornea and lens,
converge by the refractive power of the lens.

d e The rays proceeding fromtheextremiliesoftheobject tolhe eye.

/ The cornea, or homy and transparent part of the eye, covered
by the conjunctiva, uniting diifercnt parts together.

g The crystalline (ciyslal or glassy) lens, behind the pupil, and
in front of the vitreous humour.

h h Muscles of the eye.

1 The optic neiTe, or nerve of sight.

k The sclerotica (hard firm coat) covering the whole of the eye
except the portion occupied by the cornea, and being a
seeming prolongation of tiie covering of the optic nerve.

The choroides (receptacle or covering), or choroid coat, covered

with a black secretion or paint.
. The iris or rainbow-coloured circular membrane under the

cornea, in front of the eye, and on which the coloin of the

eye depends. The dnplicature behind is the wl'fa, from being

coloured like a grape. The opening in the centre is the

pupil.
The ciliary (hair like) processes.
The retina, or net-like expansion Cff the optic nerve, spread

over the whole of the choroides as far as the leDs.
The vitreous (glass-like) humoin filling thewhole of the cavity

of the eye behind the lens.
The aqueous (waier-hke) humour filling the space between the

cornea and the lens. ,

278

THE HORSE,

The loss of blood occasioned by tlie excision
of the haw ma}' frequently relieve the inflammation
of the eye ; and the evident amendment which
follows induces these wise men to believe that they
have performed an excellent operation ; but the
same loss of blood by scarification of the overloaded
vessels of the conjunctiva would be equally benefi-
cial, and the animal would not be deprived of an
instrument of admirable use to him.

The eye is of a globular figure, yet not a per-
fect globe. It is rather composed of j^arts of two
globes ; the half of one of them smaller and trans-
parent in front, and of the other larger and the
coat of it opaque, behind. We shall most conve-
niently begin with the coats of the eye.

The conjunctiva, f, is that membrane which
lines the lids, and covers the fore part of the eye.
It spreads over all that we can see or feel of the
eye, and even its transparent part. It is itself
transparent, and transmits the colour of the parts
beneath. It is very susceptible of inflammation,
during which the lining of the lids will become in-
tensely red, and the white of the eye will be first
streaked with red vessels, and then covered with a
complete mesh of them, and the cornea will become
cloudy and opaque. It is the seat of vaiious dis-
eases, and, particularly, in it commences that sad
inflammation of the horse's eye which bids defiance
to the veterinary surgeon's skill and almost iuva-
riably terminates in blindness.

The examination of the conjunctiva, by turning
down the lid, will enable us to form an accurate
judgment of the degree of inflammation which
exists in the eye.

Covering the back part of the eye, and indeed
four-fifths of the globe of it, is the sclerotica, k. It
is an exceedingly strong membrane, composed of
fibres interweaving with each other, and almost
defying the possibility of separation. An organ so
delicate and so important as the eye requires
secui-e protection.

It is a highly elastic membrane. It is neces-
sary that it should be so, when it is considered
that the eye is surrounded by several and ver}'
jjowerful muscles, which must temporarily, and
even for the purposes of vision, alter its foi'm.
The elasticity of the sclerotica is usefully exhibited
by its causing the globe of the eye to resume its
former and natural shape, as soon as the action of
the muscle ceases.

The sclerotica has very few blood-vessels — is
scarcely sensible — and its diseases, except when it
participates in general disturbance or disorganiza-
tion, are rarely brought under our notice.

The cornea is, or we should wish it to be, the
only visilile part of the horse's eye, for the exhibi-
tion of' much white around it is a sure symptom
of wickedness. The cornea fills up the vacuity
which is left by the sclerotica in the fore part of

the eye, and, although closely united to the sclero-
tica, may be separated from it, and will drop out
like a watch-glass. It is not round, but wider from
side to side than from the top to the bottom ; and
the curve rather broader towards the inner than
the outer comer of the eye, so that the near eye
may be known from the off one after it is taken
from the head.

The convexity or projection of the cornea is a
point of considerable importance. The prominence
of the eye certainly adds much to the beauty of
the animal, but we shall see presently, when we
consider the eye as the organ of sight, that by
being too prominent the rays of light may be ren-
dered too convergent, and the vision indistinct ; or,
if the cornea is small and flat, the rays may not
be convergent enough, and perfect vision destroyed.
In either case the horse may unpleasantly start, or
suddenly and dangerously turn round. An eye
neither too promment nor too flat will be nearest
to perfection.

It should be perfectly transpai-ent. Any cloud-
iness or opacity is the consequence of disease.
It is an exceedingly firm and dense membrane, and
can scarcely be pierced hy the shai-pest instrument.
The cornea is composed of man}' different plates,
laid over one another ; and between each, at least
in a state of health, is a fluid that is the cause of
its transpai'ency, and the evaporation of which,
after death, produces the leaden or glazed appear-
ance of the eye. When it appears to be opaque,
it is not often, and never at first, that the cornea
has undergone any change.

There is nothing that deserves attention from
the purchaser of a horse more than the perfect
transparency of the cornea over the whole of its
surface. The eye should be examined for this
purpose, both in front, and with the face of the
examiner close to the cheek of the horse, under
and behind the eye. The latter method of look-
ing through the cornea is the most satisfactoiy, so
far as the transparency of that part of the eye is
concerned. During this examination the horse
should not be in the open air, but in the stable,
standing in the doon^'ay, and a little within the
door. If any small, faint, whitish lines appear to
cross the comea, or spread over any part of it,
they are assuredly the remains of prerious inflam-
mation ; or, although the centre and bulk of the
cornea should be perfectly clear, yet if around the
edge of it, where it unites with the sclerotica, there
should be a narrow ring or circle of haziness, the
conclusion is equally true, but the inflammation
occurred at a more distant period. Whether how-
ever the inflammation has lately existed, or several
weeks or months have elapsed since it was subdued,
it is too likely to recur.

There is one caution to be added. The comea
in its natural state is not only a beautifully trans

THE HORSE.

279

parent structure, but it reflects, even in proportion
to its transparency, many of the rays which fall
upon it ; and if there is a white object immediately
before the eye, as a light waistcoat, or much dis-
play of a white necl?cloth, the reflection may
puzzle an experienced observer, and lias misled
many a careless one. The coat should be buttoned
up, and the white cravat carefully concealed.

Within the sclerotica, and connected with it
by innumerable minute fibres and vessels, is the
choroid coat, I. It is a very delicate membrane,
and extends over the whole of the internal part of
the eye, from the optic nerve to the cornea. It
secretes a dark-coloured substance or paint, by
which it is covered ; the intention of which, like
the inside of our telescopes and microscopes, is
probably to absorb any wandering rays of light
which might dazzle and confuse. The black paint,
jnffmentum nigrum, seems perfectlj' to discharge
this function in the humau eye. It is placed
immediately under the retina or expansion of the
optic nerve. The rays of light fall on the retina,
and penetrating its delicate substance, are imme-
diately absorbed or destroj'ed by the black cover-
ing of the choroides underneath. For the per-
fection of many of his best pleasures, and particu-
lai'ly of his intellectual powers, mail wants the
vivid impression which will be caused by the
admission of the rays of light into a perfectly dark
chamber ; and when the light of the sun begins
to fail, his superior intelligence has enabled him to
discover various methods of substituting an
artificial day, after the natural one has closed.
Other animals without this power of kindling
another, although inferior light, have far more
to do with the night than we have. Many of them
sleep through the glare of day, and awake and
are busy duiing the period of darkness. The ox
occupies some hours of the night in grazing ; the
sheep does so when not folded in his pen ; and the
horse, worked during the day for our convenience
and profit, has often little more than the period of
night allotted to him for nourishment and repose.
Then it is necessary that, by some peculiar and
adequate contrivance, these hours of comparative
or total darkness to us should be partially yet
sufficiently illuminated for them ; and therefore in
the horse the dark brown or black coat of the
choroides does not extend over the whole of the
internal part of the eye, or rather it is not found
on any part on which the rays proceeding from the
objects could fall. It does not occupy the smallest
portion of what may be called the field of \'ision ;
but, in its place a bright variegated green is
spread, and more over the upper part than the
lower, because the animal's food, and the objects
which it is of consequence for him to notice, are
usually below the level of his head — thus, by
soft'eriug the impression to remain longer on the

retina, or by some portion of light reflected from
this variegated bed on whicVi the retina reposes, or
in some other inexplicable but efficient way,
enabling the animal, even in comparative darkness,
to possess a power of vision equal to his wants.

The reader may see in the dusk, or even when
duskiness is fast yielding to utter darkness, the
beautiful sea-green reflection from the eye of the
horse. It is that lucid variegated carpet of which
we are now speaking.

Who is unaware that in the fading glimmering
of the evening, and even in the darker shades of
night, his horse can see surrounding objects much
better than his rider; and who, resigning himself
to the guidance of that sagacious and faithful
animal, has not been carried in safety to his jour-
ney's end, when he would otherwise have been
utterly bewildered ?

If the reader has not examined this beautiful
pigment in the eye of the horse, he should take
the earliest opportunity of doing so. He will have
a beautiful illustration of the care which that
Being who gave all tilings life has taken that each
shall be fitted for his situation. The horse has
not the intelligence of man, and may not want for
any purpose of pleasure or improvement the vivid
picture of surrounding objects which the retina of
the human being presents. A thousand minute
but exquisite beauties would be lost upon him.
If, therefore, his sense of vision may not be so
strong during the day, it is made up to liim by the
increased power of vision in the night.

Perfectly white and cream-coloured horses have
a peculiar appearance of the eyes. The pupil is
red instead tif black. There is no black paint or
brilliant carpet. It is the choroid coat itself
which we see in them and not its covering ; and the
red appearance is caused by the numerous blood-
vessels which are found on every part of that coat.

When we have to treat of other domestic
animals, we shall see how this carpet is varied in
colour to suit the situation and necessity of each.
In tlie ox it is of a dark green. He has not many
enemies to fear, or much difficulty in seai-ching
for nourishment, and the colour of the eye is
adapted to his food In the cat and all his
varieties it is yellow. We have heard of tlie eyes
of the lion appearing like two flaming torches in
the night. There are few of our readers who
have not seen the same singular glare from the
eyes of the domestic cat. In the wolf, and like-
wise in the dog, who, in his wild state, prowls
chiefly at night, it is grey. In the poor unjustly-
persecuted badger, who scarcely dares to crawl
forth at night, although sheltered by the thickest
darkness, it is white ; and the ferret, who is des-
tined to hunt his prey through all its winding
retreats, and in what would be to us absolute dark-
ness, has no paint on the choroides.

T 2

'280

THE HORSE.

f Tfacing t1ie choroities towards the fore part of
*lie eye, we perceive that it is reflected from the
side to the edge of the lens, n, and has the appear-
ance of several plaits or folds. They are actually
foldings of the membrane. It is not diminished
in size, but it has less space to cover, and there
must be duplicatures or plaits. They are use-
fully employed in the place in which we find
them. They prevent the passage of any rays of
light on the outside of the lens, and which, pro-
ceeding forward in various directions, and uncon-
densed by the power of the lens, would render
vision confused or imperfect. These folds of the
choroides are called the ciliary processes.

Within the cornea, and occupying the fore part
of the eye, is the aqiwoits Immgur, p, so termed
from its resemblance to pure water. It is that
by which the cornea is preserved in its protube-
rant and rounded form. It e.\:tends to the crys-
talline lens, q, and therefore a portion of it, al-
though a very small one, is behind the iris (m, p.
277). Floating in this fluid is a membrane, with
an oblong aperture, called the Iris. It is that
which gives colour to the eye. The human eye is
said to be black, or hazel, or blue, according to
the colour of this membrane or curtain ; and it is
denominated the iris, or rainbow, from its beauti-
ful, intermingling hues. The colour varies little
in the horse, e.xcept that it always bears some
analogy to that of the skin. We rarely see it
lighter than a hazel, or darker than a brown.
Horses perfectly white, or cream-coloured, have
the iris white and the pupil red. When horses of
other colours, and that are usually pied, have a
wliite iris and a black pitpil, they are said to be
u-all-eyed. Vulgar opinion has decided that a
wall-eyed horse is never subject to blindness, but
this is altogether erroneous. There is no differ-
ence of structure that can produce this exemption;
but the wall-eyed horse, from this singular and
unpleasant appearance, and his frequent want of
breeding, may not be so much used and exposed to
many of the usual causes of inflammation.

The aperture in the iris is termed the pupil,
and through it light passes to the inner chamber
of the eye. The pupil is oblong, and variable in
size. It differs with the intensity or degree of
light that falls upon the eye. In a dark stable
the pupil is expanded to admit a great proportion
of the liglit that falls upon the cornea ; but when
the horse is brought towards the door of the stable
and more light is thrown upon the eye, the pupil
contracts in order to keep out that extra quantity
which would lie painful to the animal, and injurious
to vision. When opposed directly to the sun, the
aperture will almost close.

This alteration of form in the pupil is effected
by the muscular fibres that enter into the compo-
gition of the iris. When these fibres are relaxed,

the pupil must proportionably diminish. The
motions of the iris are not at all under the control
of the will, nor is the animal sensible of them.-
They are produced by sympathy with the state of
the retina. When, however, a deficient portion
of light reaches the retina, and vision is indistinct,
we are conscious of an apparent effort to bring the
object more clearly into view, and the fibres then
corrtract, and the aperture enlarges, and more
light is admitted.

This dilatation or contraction of the pupil gives
a useful method of ascertaining the existence of
blindness in one eye or in both. The cornea and
crystalline lens remain perfectly transparent, but
the retina is pialsied, and is not affected by light ;
and many persons have been deceived when blind-
ness of this description has been confined to one
eye. A horse blind in both eyes will usually have
his ears in constant and rapid motion, directing
them in quick. succession to every quarter. He
will likewise hang back in his halter in a peculiar
way, and will lift his feet high as if he were step-
ping over some obstacle, when there is actually
nothing to obstruct liis passage, and there will be
an evident uucertainty in the putting down of his
feet. Ini blindness of one eye little or nothing of
this characteristic gait and manner can be per-
ceived. Although a one-eyed horse may not
be absolutely condemned for the common business
of the carriage or the road, he is generally dete-
riorated as a hunter, for he cannot measure his
distances, and will run into his leaps.* Many a
sportsman, puzzled and angry at the sudden blun-
dering of his horse, or injured by one or more
stunning falls, has found a very natural although
unexpected explanation of it in the blindness of
one eye, and that perhaps produced through his
own fault, by over-riding his willing and excellent
servant and causing a determination of blood to the
eye, which proved fatal to the delicate texture of
the retina. Even for the carriage or the road he
is considerably deteriorated, for his field of obser-
vation must be materially lessened.

Let the size of both pupils be carefully noticed
before the horse is removed from the stable, and,
as he is led to the door, observe whether they both
contract, and equally so, with the increase of liglit.
If the horse should be first seen in the open air,
let it be observed whether the pupils are pre-
cisely of the same size; then let the hand be
placed over each eye alternately and held there

* Ml-. W. Percivall, however, in his excellent Lectures on the
Veterinary Art, vol. iii. p. 201, says, " The less of one eye does not
enfeeble sight, because the other acquires greater energy, though
it much contiacts the field of vision. It is said to render the con-
ception erring, and the case of misjudgment of distances is the one
commonly brought forward to show this. All I can say on Ibis
point is, that the best hunter I ever possessed, a horse gifted with
exlraordiniiry powers for lea])ing, was a one-eyed horse, and tiiis
animal cari-ied me through a hunting season, without, to my recol-
lection, making one single blunder in leaping."

THE HORSE.

281

f(ir a little wliile, and let it lie observed whether
the pupil dilates with the abstraction of light, and
equally in each eye.

Hanging from the upper edge of the pupil of
the horse, are two or three round black substances,
as large as millet seeds. When the horse is sud-
denly brought into an intense light, and the pupil
is closed, they present a singular appearance,
as they are pressed out from between the edges of
the iris. An equal number, but much smaller,
are attached to the edge of the lower portion of the
iris. Their general use is probably to intercept
rays of light which would be troublesome or inju-
rious, and their principal function is accomplished
during the act of grazing. They are larger on the
upper edge of the iris, and are placed on the outer
side of the pupil, evidently to dischai'ge the same
function which we have attributed to the eyelashes,
viz. to obstruct the light in those directions in
which it would come with greatest force, both from
above and even from, below, while, at the same
time, the field of view is perfectly open, so far as
it regards the pastui'e on which the horse is
grazing.

In our cut m gives a duplicature of the iris, or
the back surface of it. This is called the ui-ea,
and it is covered with a thick coat of black mucus,
to arrest the rays of light, and to prevent them
from entering the eye in any other way than
thi'ough the pupil. The colour of the iris is, in
some unknown way, connected with this black
paint behind. Wall-eyed horses, whose iris is
white, have no uvea.

AVe now arrive at a body on which all the im-
portant uses of the eye mainly depend, the cri/stal-
liiie lens, g, so called from its resemblance to a
piece of crystal or transparent glass. It is of a
yielding jelly-like consistence, thicker and firmer
towards the centre, and conve.x. on each side, but
more convex on the inner than the outer side. It
is enclosed in a delicate transparent bag or capsule,
and is placed between the aqueous and the vitreous
humours, and received into a hollow in the vitreous
humour, with which it exactly corresponds. It
has, from its density, and its double convexity, the
chief concern in converging the rays of light which
pass into the pupil.

The lens is very apt to be affected from long
or violent inflammation of the conjunctiva, and
either its capsule becomes cloudy, and imperfectly
transmits the light, or the substance of the lens
becomes opaque. The examination of the horse,
with a view to detect this, must either be in the
shade, or at a stable door, where the light shall fall
on the animal from above, and in front ; and in
conducting this examination we would once more
caution the intended purchaser against a superfitiity
of white about his neck. Holding the head of the
animal a little up, and the light coming in the direc-

tion that has been described, the condition of the lens
will at once be evident. The confirmed cataract,
or the opaque lens of long standing, will exhibit a
pearly appearance, that cannot be mistaken, and
will frequently be attended with a change of form —
a portion of the lens being forced fonvards into
the pupil. Although the disease may not have
proceeded so fiir as this, yet if there is the slightest
cloudiness of the lens, either generally, or in the
form of a minute spot in the centre, and with
or without lines radiating from that spot, the horse
is to be condemned ; for, in ninety-nine cases out
of a hundred the disease will proceed, and cataract,
or complete opacity of the lens, and absolute
blindness, will be the result.

Cataract in the human being may, to a very
co'Asiderable extent, be remedied. The opaque
lens may be extracted, or it may be forced into the
vitreous humours, and there existing as a foreign
body, it will soon be absorbed and disappear.
These operations are impossible in the horse, for,
in the first place, there is a muscle of which we
have already spoken, and to be presently more
particularly described, that is peculiar to quad-
rupeds, and of such power as generally to draw
back the eye too far into its socket for the surgeon
to be enabled to make his incision; or could the
incision be made, the action of this muscle would
force out the greater part of the contents of the
eye, and this organ would speedily waste away.
If, however, the opaque lens could be withdrawn
or depressed, and the mechanism of the eye were
not otherwise injured, the operation would be to-
tally useless, for we could not make the horse
wear those convex glasses whose converging
power might compensate for the loss of the lens.

Behind the lens, and occujlying four-fifths of
the cavity of the eye, is the vitreous humour (glassy,
or resembling glass). It seems, when first taken
from the eye, to be of the consistence of a jelly,
and of beautiful transparency ; but if it is pvmc-
tured a fluid escapes from it as limpid and as thin
as water, and when this has been suffered com-
pletely to ooze out, a mass of membraneous bags
or cells remains. The vitreous humour consists of
a watery fluid contained in these cells : but the
fluid and the cells form a body of considerably
greater density than the aqueous fluid in the front
of the eye.

Last of all, between the vitreous humour and
the choroid coat, is the retina, a, or net-like mem-
brane. It is an expansion of the substance, g. of
the optic nerve. When that neiTO has reached
the back of the eye, and per.etrated through the
sclerotic and choroid coats, it first enlarges into a
little white prominence, from which radiations or
expansions of nervous matter prjceed, vhich
spread over the whole of the choroid coat, and
form the thu'd investment of the eve. The mem-

282

THE HORSE.

brane by wbicb tbis nei"vous pulp Is supported, is
so exceedingly tbin and delicate, tbat it vnW tear
witb the sligbtest touch, and break even ^vith its
own weight. The membrane and the pulp are
perfectly transparent in the living animal. The
pupil appears to be black, because in the day-time
it imperfectly reflects the colour of the choroid
coat beneath. In the dusk it is greenish, be-
cause, the glare of day being removed, the actual
green of the paint appears.

On this expansion of nervous pulp, the rays of
light from surrounding objects, condensed by the
lens and the humours, fall, and, producing a cer-
tain image corresponding with these objects, the
animal is conscious of their existence and pre-
sence.

It may, however, so happen that from the too
great or too little convexity of the eye or a por-
tion of it, the place of most distinct vision may
not be immediately on the retina, but a little be-
fore or behind it. In proportion as this is the
case, the sight will be indistinct and imperfect ;
nor shall we be able to offer any remedy for this
defect of sight. There is a shying, often the re-
sult of cowardice or playfulness, or want of work,
but at other times proving, beyond contradiction,
a defect of sight even more dangerous than blind-
ness. A blind horse ^\^ll resign himself to the
guidance of his rider or driver; but against the
misconception and starting of a shying horse there
is no defence. That horses grow shy as they
grow old no one accustomed to them will deny;
and no intelligent person will be slow in attribut-
ing it to the right cause — a decay in the organ of
vision, — a loss of convexity in the eye, lessening
the convergency of the rays, and throwing the
perfect image beyond, and not on, the retina.
There is a striking difference in the convexity of
the cornea in the colt and the old horse ; and
both of them, probably, may shy from opposite
causes — the one from a cornea too prominent, and
the other from one too flat. In the usual exami-
nation of the horse previously to purchase, suffi-
cient attention is not always paid to the convexity
of the cornea.

The remedy for shying will be considered
when we speak of the vices of horses.

There is a provision yet wanting. The horse
has a veiy extended field of view, but many persons
are not perhaps aware how little of it he can com-
mand at a time. There is not one of our readers
who can make out a single line of our treatise
without changing the direction of the eye. It is
curious to follow the motion of the eyes of a rapid
reader. Nature has given no less than seven
muscles to the horse, in order to turn this little
but important organ ; and, that they may act
with sufficient power and quickness, no ifewer than
6LX nerves are directed to the muscles of the eye

generally, or to particular ones — while the eye
rests on a mass of fat, that it may be turned with
little exertion of power, and without friction.

MUSCLES OF THE EYE.

There are four straight muscles, three of
which, d, e, and /, are represented, in our cut,
rising from the back of the orbit, and inserted

into the ball of the eye, opposite to, and at equal
distances from each other. One, d, runs to the
upper part of the eye, just behind the transparent
and visible portion of it, and its office is clearly to
raise the eye. Wlien it contracts, the eye must
be drawn upward. Another,/, is inserted exactly
opposite, at the bottom of the eye ; and its office
is as clearly to depress the eye, or enable the
animal to look downwards. A third, e, is inserted
at the outer comer, and by means of it the eye is
turned outward, and, from the situation of the eye
of the horse, Considerably backward ; and the
fourth is inserted at the inner corner, turning the
eye inward. They can thus rotate or turn the
eye in any direction the animal wishes, and by the
action of one, or the combined power of any two
of them, the eye can be immediately and accu-
rately directed to every point.

These muscles, however, have another duty to
discharge. They support the eye in its place. In
the usual position of the head of the horse, they
must be to a certain degree employed for this pur-
pose ; but when he is grazing or feeding, the prin-
cipal weight of the eye rests upon them. Another
muscle is therefore added, peculiar to quadrupeds,
called the retractor {drawer-back), or the siispen-
sorius (suspensory) muscle, g. It arises from the
edge of the foramen through which the optic nerve
enters the orbit — surrounds the nerve as it pro-
ceeds forward, and then, partially dividing into
four portions, is attached to the back part of the
eye. Its office is evidently to support the eye
generally, or, when suddenly called into powerful
action, and assisted by the straight muscles, it
draws the eye back out of the reach of threatening
danger, and in the act of drawing it back causes
the haw to protmde, as an additional defence.

The power of this muscle is very great. It
renders some operations on the eye almost impos-

THE HOUSE.

28a;

sible. It is an admirable substitute for tlie want
of hands, to defend the eye from many things
that would injure it ; and, being partially separated
into four divisions, it assists the straight muscles
in turning the eye.

These muscles discharge another and a most
important office. If we examine near and distant
objects through a telescope, we must alter the
focus ; i. e., we must increase or diminish the
length of the tube. We must shorten it a little
when we examine distant objects, because the
rays, coming to us from them in a less divergent
direction, are sooner brought to a point by the
power of the lens. Thus the straight and retrac-
tor muscles drawing back the eye, and forcing
it upon the substance behind, and in a slight de-
gree flattening it, bring the lens nearer to the
retina, and adapt the eye to the observation of dis-
tant objects.

Still, however, being constantly employed in
supporting the weight of the eye, these muscles
may not be able to turn it so rapidly and so exten-
sively as the wishes or wants of the animal re-
quire ; therefore two others are superadded, which
are used solely in turning the eye. Tliey are
called oblique muscles, because their course is
obliquely across the eye. The upper one is most
curiously constructed, a, b. It comes from the
back part of the orbit, and takes a direction up-

wards and towards the inner side, and there, just
under the ridge of the orbit, it passes through a
perfect mechanical pulley, and, turning round,
proceeds across the eye, and is inserted rather be-
yond the middle of the eye, towards the outer
side. Thus the globe of the eye is evidently di-
rected inward and upward. Something more,
however, is accomplished by this singular me-
chanism. The eye is naturally deep in the orbit,
that it may be more perfectly defended ; but it
may be necessary occasionally to bring it forward,
and enlarge the field of vision. The eye is ac-
tually protruded under the influence of fear. Not
onl}' are the lids opened more widely, but the eye
is brought more forward. How is this accom-
plished ? There are no muscles anterior to, or be-
fore the eye — there is no place for their insertion.
The object is readily effected by this singular
pulley, b, c. By the power of this muscle — the
trochlearis, or pulley-muscle — and the straight
muscles at the same time not opposing it, or only
regulating the direction of the eye, it is really
brought somewhat forward; The lower oblique
muscle rises just within the lacrymal bone (t, p.
d65), and, proceeding across the eye, is fixed into
the part of the sclerotica opposite to the other ob-
lique muscle, and it tm-ns the eye in a contrary
direction, assisting, however, the upper oblique in
bringing the eye forward from its socket.

CHAPTER VII.

INJURIES AND DISEASES OF THE SKULL THE BRAIN — THE EARS AND THE EYES.

We have now arrived at a convenient resting-
place in our somewhat dry but necessary descrip-
tion of the structure of the horse, and we willingly
turn to more practical matter. We will consider
the injuries and diseases of the parts we have
surveyed. In entering, however, on this division
of our work, we would premise, that it is impiossi-
ble for us to give the farmer such an account of
the nature and treatment of the diseases of horses
as will enable him with safety to practise for him-
self, except in the commonest cases. The causes
of most diseases are so obscure, their symptoms so
variable, and their connexion with other maladies
so complicated and mysterious, that a life devoted
to professional study will alone qualify a man to
become a judicious and successful practitioner on
the diseases of the horse and other domestic
animals. Our object will be to communicate suffi-
cient instruction to the farmer to enable him to
act with promptness and judgment when he cannot

obtain professional assistance, to qualify him to
form a satisfactory opinion of the skill of the vete-
rinary surgeon whom he may employ, and, more
especially, to divest him of those strange and ab-
surd prejudices which in a variety of cases not
only produce and prolong disease, but bring it to a
fatal termination.

FRACTURE.

We have described the ca\-ity of the skull of
the horse as being so defended by the hardness of
the parietal bones, and those bones so covered by
a mass of muscle, and the occipital bone as so ex-
ceedingly thick (see above), that a fracture of
the skull is almost impossible. It can only occur
from brutal violence, or when a horse falls in the
act of rearing. When, however, fracture of the
skull does occur, it is almost invariably fatal. A
blow of sufficient violence to break these bones
must likewise irreparably injure the delicate and
important organ which they protect.

284

THE HORSE.

The ridge, or outer and upper part of the orbit
of the eye, is occasionally fractured. It happens
from falling, or much oftener from violent blows.
The slightest e.^amination v.ill detect the loosened
pieces; but a professional man alone can render
effectual assistance.

Mr. Pritehard, in the second volume of the
" Veterinarian," relates an interesting case of frac-
ture of the orbit of the eye. " A chesnut mare,"
he says, •" received a blow which fractured the
orbit from the superciliaiy foramen, in a line
through the zygomatic processes of the temporal
and ma-lar bones to the outer angle of the eye.
The detached bone, together with the divided in-
tegument, hung over the eye so as to intercept
vision. On examining the place where the acci-
dent occurred, two portions of bone were found
belonging to the orbital ai-ch. After carefully in-
specting the wound, and finding no othei' detached
portions, nor any spicules which might irritate or
wound, the adjacent portions of the skin were
carefully drawn togetlier, and secured by a silver
wire, which closed the -wound, and confined the de-
tatched portion of bone in its proper place. A
mash diet was oi'dered.

" On the following day there was considerable
inflammation. The eye was bathed with warm
water, and a dose of phj'sic administered. On
the third day the inflammation and sw«H.ing had
still more increased. Blood was abstracted from
the vein at the angle of the eye. The swelling
and inflammation now speedily abated ; and on
the 15th day the woimd had quite healed."

If a fracture of this kind is suspected, its ex-
istence or non-e.xistencevjnay be easily dete^'mined
by introducing the thum^ under, and keeping the
fore-finger upon the edg_e of the orbit.

EXOSTOSIS.

Bony enlargements of,' the orbital arch some-
times arise from natural predisposition or local
injury. They should be attacked in the earliest
stage, for they are two apt rapidly to increase.
Some preparation of iodine, as described in the
account of medicines, will be useful in this case.

CAKIES.

Inflammation .and enlargenient of the injured
bones, followed by abscess and the production of
certain bony growths, are of occasional occurrence.
A skilful practitioner can alone decide whether a
cure should be attempted, or the sufferings of the
animal terminated by death.

COMPRESSION OF THE BRAIN.

Hydatids are often found within the cranial
cavity, and lying upon or imbedded in the brain of
oxen and sheep. Their existence is usually fatal
to the animal. There is no well-authenticated
account of the existence of qn hydatid in the cranial

cavity of the horse ; but cysts, containing a serous
or viscid fluid, are occasionally observed. The
following is the history of one : — A horse exhi-
bited symptoms of vertigo, or staggers, which dis-
appeared after copious bleeding and purgatives.
About twelve months afterwards the same com-
plaint was evident. He carried his head low and
inclined to the right side, He staggered as he
walked, and the motion of his linrbs was marked
by a peculiar convulsive action, confined to the
fore extremities. He moved by a succession of
spasmodic boundings. He was completely deaf,
and rapidly lost flesh, though he ate and drank
voraciously. He remained in this state, to the
shame of the owner and the practitioner, several
months, and then he had a fresh attack of vertigo,
and died suddenly. On examination of the brain,
its membranes were found to be completely red-
dened ; and, between the two lobes of the brain,
was a round cyst as large as a pullet's egg. The
pressure of this was the manifest cause of the
mischief.

PRESSURE ON THE BRAIN.

This may be produced by some fluid thrown
out between the membranes, or occupying and dis-
tending the ventricles of the brain. In the full-
grown horse it rarely occurs ; but it is well known
to breeders as an occasional disease of the foal,
.uiider the name of "water in the head." The
head is either much enlarged, or strangely de-
formed, or both ; and the animal dies, either in
the biith, or a few days after it.

MEGRIMS.

There is another kind of pressure on the brain,
resulting from an unusual determination or flow of
blood to it. This organ requires a large supply of
blood to enable it to discharge its important func-
tions. Nature, in the horse more than in many
other animals, has made some admirable provisions
to cause this stream to flow into the brain with
little velocitj, and thereby to lessen the risk of
suddenly overloading it or mpturing its vessels.
The arteries pursue their course to tbe brain in a
strangely winding and circuitous manner ; and
they enter the skull through bony apertures that
will admit of the enlargement of the vessels only
to a very limited extent. From various causes,
however, of wliich the most common is violent
exercise on a hot day, and the horse being fat and
full of blood, more than the usual quantity is sent
to the head ; or, from some negligence about the
harness— as the collar being too small, or the
curb-rein too tight — the blood is prevented from
returning from the head. The larger vessels of
the brain will then be too long and injuriously
distended ; and, what is of more consequence, the
small vessels that permeate the substance of the
brain will be enlarged, and the bulk of the brain

THE HORSE.

285

increased, so that it will press upon the origins of
the nei-ves, and produce, almost without warning,
loss of power and consciousness.

The mildest affection of this kind is known hy
the name of Megrims. It comparatively rarely
happens when the horse is ridden ; but should he
be driven, and perhaps rather quickly, he may
perform a part of his journey with his usual cheer-
fulness and ease : he will then suddenly stop,
shake his head, and .^xli)jit evident giddiness, and
half-unconsciousness. In a. minute or two tlii?
will pass over, and he wiilgP on again aa if nothing
had happened.

Occasionally, however,^ the attack will be of a
more serious nature. He wili fall without the
slightest warning, or suddenly run round once or
twice, and then fall. He will either lie'isi a state of
complete insensibility, or stmggle with the utmost
violence. In five or ten minutes beLwill begin
gradually to come to himself; he will get up and
proceed on his journey, yet somewhat dull, and
evidently affected and exhausted by what had hap-
pened, although not seriously or permanently ill.

At the moment of attack, a person who is
competent to the task should abstract three or
four quarts of blood from the neck-vein ; or cut
the bars of the palate in the manner to be ex-
plained when we describe that part, and whence a
considerable and sufficient quantity of blood may
be readily obtained. The driver should pat and
soothe the animal, loosen the curb-rein, if possible
ease the collar, and pursue his journey as slowly
as cu-cumstances will permit. When he gets
home, a dose of physic sliould be administered
if the horse can be spared, the quantity of dry
food lessened, and mashes given, or green meat,
or he should be turned out to grass for two or
three months.

Is all this necessary because a horse has hap-
pened to have a fit of the megrims ? Yes, and
more too in the mind of the prudent man ; for it
is seldom that a horse has the megrims without
the predisposition to a second attack remaining.
These over-distended vessels may be relieved for
a while, but it is long before they perfectly recover
their former tone. It requires but a little increased
velocity or force in the vital current once more to
distend them, and to produce the same dangerous
effects. The testimony of experience is uniform
with regard to this ; and he would not do justice
to himself or his family who trusted himself behind
a horse that had a second attack of megrims.

APOPLEXY.

Megrims is apoplexy under its mildest form.
In the latter affection, the determination of blood,
if not so sudden, is greater, or differently directed,
or more lasting. It is seldom, however, that there
are not timely warnings of its approach, if the

cartefc or the groom had wit enough to obser\'e
them. The horse is a little off his feed — he is
more than usually dull — there is a degree of
stupidity about him, and, generally, a somewhat
staggering gait. This goes off when he has been
out a little while, but it soon returns under a more
decided character, until, at length, it forces itself
on the. attention of the most careless.

The actual illness is perhaps first recognised
by the Horse standing with his head depressed. It
bears upon, or is forced against the manger or the
wall, and a considerable part of the weight of the
animal is evidently supported by this pressure of
the head. As he thus stands, he is balancing
himself from one side to the other as if he were
ready to fall; and it is often dangerous to stand
near to him, or to move him, for he falls without
warning. If he can get his muzzle into a comer,
herwill soxnetimes contfaiue there motionless for a
considerable time, and then drop as if he were
shot ; but, the next moment, he is up again TOth
his feet almost in the rack. He sleeps or seems
to do so as he stands, or at least he is nearly or
quite unconscious of surrounding objects. When
he is roused, he looks vacantly around him. Per-
haps ho will take a lock of hay if it is offered to
him ; but ere it is half masticated, the eye closes,
and he sleeps again with the food in his mouth.
Soon aftern'ai'ds he is, perhaps, roused once more.
The eye opens, but it has an unmeaning glare.
The hand is moved before him, but the eye closes
not ; he is spoken to, but he hears not. The last
act of voluntaiy motion which he will attempt is
usually to drink ; but he has little power over
the muscles of deglutition, and the fluid returns
through the nostrils.

He now begins to foam at the mouth. His
breathing is laborious and loud. It is performed
by the influence of the organic nen-es, and those
of animal life no longer lend their aid. The pulse
is slow and oppressed — the jugular vein is dis-
tended almost to bursting — the muzzle is cold,
and the discharge of the feces involuntary. He
grinds his teeth — t-nitchiugs steal over his face
and attack his limbs — they sometimes proceed to
con^^.^lsions, and dreadful ones too, in which the
horse beats himself about in a tenible manner ;
but there is rarely disposition to do mischief. In
the greater number of cases these convulsions last
not long. All the powers of life are oppressed,
and death speedily closes the scene.

On examination after death, the whole venous
system is usually found in a state of congestion,
and the vessels of the brain are peculiarly turgid
with black blood. Occasionally, however, there is
no inflammation of the brain or its membranes ;
but either the stomach contains a more than usual
quantity of food, or the larger intestines ai-e loaded
with foul matter. .

280

THE HORSE.

This disease is found more frequently in the
stable of the postmaster and the farmer than any-
where else. Thirty years ago it was the very pest
of these stables, and the loss sustained by some
jjersons was enormous ; but, as veterinaiy science
progressed, the nature and the causes of the
disease were better understood, and there is not
now one case of staggers where twenty used to
occur.

Apoplexy is a determination of blood to the
head, and the cause is the over-condition of the
animal and too great fulness of blood. Notions of
proper condition in the horse now prevail very
different from those by which our forefathers were
guided. It no longer consists in the round sleek
carcase, fat enough for the butcher, but in fulness
and hardness of the muscular fibre, and a compara-
tive paucity of cellular and adipose matter — in
that which ■svill add to the power of nature, and
not oppress and weigh her down.

The system of exercise is better understood
than it used formerly to be. It is proportioned to
the quantity and quality of the food, and more
particularly the division of labour is more rational.
The stage-horse no longer nins his sixteen or
eighteen, or even two-and-twenty miles, and then,
exhausted, is turned into the stable for the next
twenty hours. The food is no longer eaten vora-
ciously ; the comparatively little stomach of the
animal is no longer distended, before nature has
been able sufficiently to recniit herself to carry on
the digestive process ; the vessels of the stomach
are no longer oppressed, and the flow of blood
through them arrested, and, consequently, more
blood directed to other parts, and to the brain
among the rest.

The farmer used to send his horses out early
in the morning, and keep them at plough for six
or eight hours, and then they were brought home
and suffered to overgorge themselves, and many of
them were attacked by staggers and died. If the
evil did not proceed quite to this extent, the far-
mers horse was notoriously subject to fits of
heaviness and sleepiness — he had half-attacks of
staggers. From this frequent oppression of the
brain — this pressure on the topic nerves as well as
other parts, another consequence ensued, unsus-
pected at the time, but far too prevalent — the
horse became blind. The farmer was notorious
for having more blind horses in his stable than
any other person, except, perhaps, the postmaster.

The system of horse management is now essen-
tially changed. Shorter stages, a di-vdsion of the
labour of the day, and a sufficient interval for
rest, and for feeding, have, comparatively speak-
ing, banished slfepi/ star/gers from the stables of
the postmaster. The di^'ision of the morning and
afternoon labour of the farmer's horse, with the
introduction of that simple but invaluable contri-

vance, the nose-hag, have rendered this disease
comparatively rare in the establishment of the
agriculturist. To the late Professor Coleman we
are indebted for some of these most important
improvements.

Old horses are more subject to staggers than
young ones, for the stomach has become weak by
the repetition of the abuses just described. It has
not power to digest and expel the food, and thus
becomes a source of general, and particularly of
cerebral, disturbance.

Horses at grass are occasionally attacked by
this disease ; but they are generally poor, hard-
worked, half-starved animals, turned on richer
pasture than their impaired digestive organs are
equal to. Perhaps the weather is hot, and the
sympathy of the brain with the undue labour
of the stomach is more easily excited, and a de-
termination of blood to the brain more readily
effected.

Mr. Percivall gives a very satisfactoiy illustra-
tion of the production of staggers in this way. He
says that " when his father first entered the
service of the Ordnance, it was the custom to
turn horses which had become low in condition,
but were still well upon their legs, into the
marshes, in order to recruit their strength. Dur-
ing the months of Jul_y, August, and September,
nothing was more common than an attack of
staggers among these horses, and which was
naturally attributed to the luxuriant pasture they
were turned into, combined with the dependent
posture of the head, and the sultry heat to which
they were exposed."

Occasionally it will be necessaiy for the owner
or the veterinary attendant to institute very care-
ful inquiry, or he will not detect the real causes of
the disease. Does it arise from improper manage-
ment, to which the horse has been in a manner
habituated ? Had he been subjected to long
labour and fasting, and had then the opportunity
of gorging to excess ? Did it proceed from acci-
dental repletion — from the animal having got
loose in the night, and found out the corn or the
chaff bin, and filled himself almost to bm'sting ?
There is nothing in the appearance of the animal
which will lead to a discoveiy of the cause — no
yellowness or tnitchings of the skin, no local
swellings, as some have described ; but the prac-
titioner or the o^Tier must get at the truth of
the matter as well as he can, and then proceed
accordingly.

As to the treatment of staggers, whatever be
the cause of the disease, bleeding is the first
measure indicated — the overloaded vessels of the
brain must be relieved. The jugular vein should
be immediately opened. It is easily got at — it is
large — the blood may be drawn from it in a full
stream, and, being also the vessel through which

THE HORSE.

287

the blood is retiinied from the liead, the greater
part of the quantity obtained will be taken imme-
diately from the overloaded organ, and therefore
■nill be most likely to produce the desired effect.
No definite quantity of blood should be ordered to
be abstracted. The effect produced must be the
guide, and the bleeding must be continued until
the horse faltei-s, or begins to blow — or, perhaps,
■with more assured success, until he falls. Some
persons select the temporal artery. This is very
unscientific practice. It is diflficult, or impossible,
to obtain from this vessel a stream that promises
any decisive success. It is likewise difficult to
stop the bleeding from this artery, and, after all,
the blood is not drawn from the actual seat of the
disease — the brain.

The second step is to ascertain what is the
cause of the apoplexy. Has the animal got at the
com or the chaff bin ? Had he been overfed on
the evening before, and is his stomach probably
distended to the utmost by what he has eaten?
In such a case, of what avaU can physic he, in-
troduced into a stomach already crammed with
indigestive food? Or what effect can twelve or
twenty drachms of aloes produce, a small portion
only of which can penetrate into the stomach?
Recourse must be had to the stomach-pump, one
of the most valuable discoveries of modem times,
and affording the means of combating several
diseases that had pre^^ously set all medical skill
at defiance. Warm water must be injected. The
horse is now incapable of offering much resistance,
and the injection may be continued not only until
the contents of the stomach are so far diluted that
a portion of them can escape through the lower
orifice of that viscus. but until the obstruction to
vomiting offered by the contracted entrance of the
stomach is overcome, and a portion of the food is
returned through the nostrils or mouth.

This being effected, or it having been ascer-
tained that there was no extreme distension of the
stomach, recourse should be had to aloes, and from
eight to twelve drachms of it may be administered.
It will be proper to add some stimulating medicine
to the aloes, with a view of restoring the tone of
the stomach, and inducing it to contract on its
contents. Gentian and ginger are most likely to
effect this purpose.

The after-treatment must be regulated by cir-
cumstances. For some time the horse should be
put on a restricted diet ; mashes should be given ;
green meat in no great quantity ; a moderate
allowance of hay, and very little com. AVhen sufla-
ciently recovered, he may be turned out with ad-
vantage on rather bare pasture. One circumstance,
however, should never be forgotten — that the horse
who lias once been attacked with staggers is liable
to a return of the complaint from causes that other-
wise would not affect him. The distended vessels

are weakened — the constitution is weakened, and
prudence would dictate that such an animal cannot
be too soon disposed of.

Let no farmer delude himself with the idea
that apoplexy is contagious. If his horses have
occasionally slight fits of staggers, or if the disease
carries off several of them, he may be assured that
there is something wrong in his management.
One horse may get at the corn-bin and cram him-
self to bursting ; but if several are attacked, it is
time for the owner to look about him. The general
cause is too voracious feeding — too much food given
at once, and perhaps without water, after hard
work and long fasting.

There is one consequence of this improper
treatment, of which persons do not appear to be
sufficiently aware, although they suffer severely
from it. A horse that has frequent half-attacks of
staggers very often goes blind. It is not the com-
mon blindness from cataract, but a peculiarly
glassy appearance of the eye. If the historv of
these blind horses could be told, it would be found
that they had been svibject to fits of drooping and
dulness, and these produced by absurd manage-
ment respecting labour and food.

PHRENITIS.

Primaiy inflammation of the brain or its mem
branes, or both, sometimes occurs, and of the
membranes oftenest when both are not involved.

Whatever be the origin of phrenitis, its early
symptoms are scarcely different from those of
apople.xy. The horse is drowsy, stupid ; his eye
closes ; he sleeps while he is in the act of eating,
and doses until he falls. The pulse is slow and
creeping, and the breathing oppressed and labo-
rious. This is the description of apoplexy. The
symptoms may differ a little in intensity and con-
tinuance, but not much in kind.

The phrenitic horse, however, is not so per-
fectly comatose as another that labours under apo-
plexy. The eye will respond a little to the action
of light, and the animal is somewhat more ma-
nageable, or at least more susceptible, for he -nill
shrink when he is struck, while the other fre-
quently cares not for the whip.

In the duration of the early symptoms there is
some difference. If the apople.xy proceeds from
distension of the stomach, four-and-twenty or six-
and-thirty hours will scarcely pass without the
cure being completed, or the stomach ruptured, or
the horse destroyed. If it proceeds more from
oppression of the digestive organs that from abso-
lute distension of the stomach, and from that sym-
pathy which subsists between the stomach and the
brain, the disease \vill go on — it will become worse
and worse eveiT horn-, and this imperfect comatose
state will remain during two or three days. The
apoplexy of the phrenitic horse will often iim its
course in a few hours.

288

THE HORSE.

In a case of evident phrenitis, tlood-letting and
.physic must be early carried to their full extent.
The horse will often he materially relieved, and,
perhaps, cured by this decisive treatment ; but, if
the golden hour has been suffered to pass, or if
remedial measures have become ineffectual, the
scene all at once changes, and the miost violent
jeactiou succeeds. The eye brightens — strangely
so ; the membrane of the eye becomes suddenly
reddened, and forms a" frightful contrast with the
transparency of the cornea ; the pupil is dilated to
the utmost ; the nosti-il, before scarcely moving,
expands and quivera, and labours ; the respiration
becomes short and quick ; the ears are erect, or
beut forward to' catch the slightest sound ; and the
horse, becoming more irritable' every instant,
trembles at the slightest motion. The irritability
of the patient increases — it may be said to. change
to ferocity — but the animal has no aim or object
in what he does. , He dashes himself violently
about, plunges in evei^' direction, rears on his hind
legs, whirls round and round, and then falls back-
ward with dreadful force. ' He lies for a while ex-
hausted— there is a remission of the symptoms,
but perhaps only for a minute or two, or possibly
for a quarter of an hour.

Now is the surgeon's golden time, and his
courage and adroitness will be put to the test. He
must open, if he can, one or both jugulars : but
let him be on his guard, for the paroxysm will re-
turn with its former violence and without the
slightest warning.

The second attack is more dreadful than the
first. Again the animal whirls round and round,
and plunges and falls. He seizes his clothing and
rends it in pieces ; perhaps, destitute of feeling
and of consciousness, he bites and tears himself
He darts furiously at everything -s^ithin his reach ;
-but no mind, no design, seems to mingle with or
govern his fury.

Another and another remission and a return of
the exacerbation follow, and then, wearied out, he
becomes quiet ; but it is not the quietness of re-
turning reason — it is mere stupor. This continues
for an uncertain period, and then he begins to
stmggle again ; but he is now probably unable to
rise. He pants — he foams — at length, com-
pletely exhausted, he dies.

There are but two diseases with which phre-
nitis can be confounded, and they are cliolic and
rabies. In cholic, the horse rises and falls ; he
rolls about and kicks at his belly ; but his strug-
gles are tame compared with those of the phrenitic
horse. There is no involuntary spasm of any of
the limbs ; the animal is perfectly sensible, and,
looking piteously at his flanks, seems designedly
to indicate the seat of pain. The beautiful yet
fearfully excited countenance of the one, and the
piteous, anxious gaze cf the .other, are sufficiently

distinct ; and, if it can be got at, the rapid bound-
ing pulse of the one, and that of the other scarcely
losing its natural character in the early stage,
cannot be mistaken.

In rabies, when it does assume the ferocious
form, ihereis even more violence than in phre-
nitis ; but there is method, and treachery too, in
that violence. There is the desire of mischief for
its own sake, ftnd there is frequently the artful
stratagem tci allure the victim within the reach of
destruction. There is not a motion of which the
rabid horse is not conscious, nor a person whom
he does not recognise-; but he labours under one
all-absorbing feeling — the intense longing to de-
vastate and destroy.

The post-mortem appearances are altogether
uhceAain-." There is usually very great injection
and inflammation of the membranes of the brain,
and even of portiwis of the Substance of the brain ;
but in other cases there ' is scarcely any trace of
inflammation, or even of mcreased vascularity.

.The' treatment of phrenitis has been very
shortly hinted at. The first — the indispensable
proceeding — is to bleed ; to abstract as much blood
as can be obtained ; to let the animal bleed on
after he is down ; -and indeed not to pin up the
vein of the phrenitic horse at all. The patient
will never be lost by this decisive proceeding, but
the inflammation may be subdued, and here the
first blow is the whole of the battle. The physic
should be that which is most readily given and
will most speedily act. The farina of the croton
will, perhaps, have the preference. Half a drachm
or two scmples of it may be fearlessly adminis-
tered. The intense inflammation of the brain
gives suflicient assui'ance that no dangerous in-
flammation will be easily set up in the intestinal
canal. This medicine can be formed into a very
little ball or drink, and in some m&mentary remis-
sion of the symptoms, administered by means of
the probang, or a stick, or the horn. Sometimes
the phrenitic horse, when he will take nothing
else, and is unconscious of eveiything else, will
drink with avidity gniel or water. Repeated doses
of purgative medicine may perhaps be thus given,
and they must be continued until the bowels re-
spond. The forehead should be blistered, if it can
in any way be accomplished ; yet but little service
is to be expected from this manipulation. The
bowels having been well opened, digitalis should
be administered. Its first and most powerful
action is on the heart, diminishing both the num-
ber and strength of its pulsations. To this may
be added emetic tartar and nitre, but not a particle
of hellebore ; for that drug, if it acts at all, pro-
duces an increased determination of blood to the
brain.

While the disease continues, no attempt must
be made to induce the horse to feed ; and even

THE HORSE.

289

■when appetite returns with the abatement of in-
flammation, great caution must be exercised both
witli regard to the quantity and quality of the food.

RABIES, on M.4.DNESS.

This is another and fearful disease, of;, the
nervous s^ystem. It results from the. bite -of a
rabid animal, and, most commonly, of the com-
panion and friend of the horse — the coach-dog.
The account no>v given of this- malady is .gxtj^acted
from lectures which the author q£ the present svork
delivered to his class. _ ' y

" Tliere is occasional warning of the approacji
.of this disease in the horse, or rather of the esist-
ence of some uimsual malady, the real nature-pf
which is probably mistaken. A marij, :belonging
to Mr. Karslake, had during ten days before the
recognition of the disease been drooping, refusing
her food, heaving at the flaiiks, and pawing occa-
sionally. It was plain enough^-that she was indis-
posed, but at length the furious fit came upon her,
and she destroyed alnips.teverything in the st^le
in the course of an hour. "Tjie late \h, Mone^y-
nient had a two-years old «jlt brought to big esta-
blishment It was taken ill in the afternoon of
the preceding day, when it fu-stattracted attention
by refusing its food, and throwing itself down and
getting up again immediately. Fi'om such a de-
cription, Mr. Moneyment concluded that in was.a
case of cholic ; but, when he went into the. yard;
and saw the pony, and observed his wild and
anxious countenance, and his excessive nervous sen-
sibility, he was convinced that something uncom-
mon was amiss with him, although he did not at
first suspect the real nature of the case.

"The early symptoms of rabies in the horse
have not been carefully observed or well recorded;
but, in the majority of cases, so far as our I'ecords
go, there will not often be premonitory sj-mptoms
sufBciently decisive to be noticed by the groom.

" The horse goes out to his usual work, and,
fur a certain time and distance, performs it as
well as he had been accustomed to do ; then he
stops all at once — trembles, heaves, paws, staggers,
and falls. Almost immediately he rises, drags his
load a little farther, and again stops, looks about
him, backs, staggers, and falls once more. This
is not a fit of megrims — it is not a sudden deter-
mination of blood to the brain, for the horse is not
for a single moment insensible. The sooner he is
led home the better, for the progress of the disease
is as rapid as the first attack is sudden ; and, pos-
sibly, he will fall twice or thrice before he reaches
his stable.

" In the great majority of cases — or rather, with
veiy few e.xceptions — a state of excitation ensues,
which is not exceeded by that of the dog under the
most fearful form of the malady, but there are in-
tervals when, if he had been naturally good tera-

pered and had b6en attached to his rider or his
groom, he will recognise his former friend and seek
his caresses, artd betid on him one of those piteous,
searching looks which, once observed, will never
be forgotten ; but there is danger about this.
Presently succeeds anolJier paroxysm, without
warning and without control ; and there is no
safety for him who had previously the most com-
plete mastery over the animal.

" I was once attendingarabid horse. The owner
■would not have him. degtroyed^ uijder the vain hope
that I had mistaken a case of phrenitis for one of
rabi«a,'; an'cf that the disfejise migi^t yield to the
profuse abstraction of blood that I had been pre-
vailed on to elTect, and the purgative influence of
the farina of the cfotonnut with which he had been
abundantly supplied in an early stage o^the malady.
I insisted upon his being sluing, : so that we were
protected fronvinjury .from his ^ickitig.or plunging.
H(? ^uld beud;hj$ ga'ze upon we sW if he would
search me through and through, and;WOuld prevail
on me, if I could, to relieve him fi-om some dread-
ful fvil by which he was threatened. He would
then_ press. lii^ head against m;Bibosom, and keep it
there a minute or more. All 9t once, however,
the paroxysm would ret^Jrn. He did not attempt
to bite.me ; bjit, had it not been for the sling, he
would have plunged furiously about, and I might
have found it difficult to escape.

" I had previously attended another horse, which
the owner refused to have destroyed, and to which
attendance I only consented on condition of the
animal being slung. He had been bitten in the
near hind-leg. When I approached him on that
side, he did not attempt to bite me, and he could
not othenvise injure me ; but he was agitated and
trembled, and straggled as well as he could ; and
if I merely touched him with my finger, the pxd-
sations were quickened full ten beats in a minute.
When, however, I went round to the off" side, he
permitted me to pat him, and I had to encounter
his imploring gaze, and his head was pressed
against me — and then presently ■would come the
paroxysm ; but it came on almost before I could
touch him, when I approached him on the other
side.

" These mild cases, however, are exceptions to a
general rule. They are few and far between. The
horse is the servant, and not the friend of man ;
and if bis companion, yet an oppressed one. In
proportion to his bulk he has far less of that por-
tion of the brain with which intelligence is con-
nected— less attachment — less gratitude. He is
nevertheless a noble animal. 1 am not speaking
dispai-agingly of him ; but I am comparing him
with — next to man — the most intellectual of all
quadrupeds. There is neither the motive for, nor
the capability of, that attachment which the dog
feels for his master, and therefore, under the in-

290

THE HORSE.

fluence of this disase, lie abandons himself to all
its dreadful excitenient.

" The mare of Mr. Karslake, when the disease
■was fully developed, forgot her former drooping,
dispirited state : her respiration was accelerated —
her mouth was covered with foam — a violent per-
spiration covered ever}' part of her, and her screams
would cow the stoutest heart. She presently de-
molished all the wood-work of the stable, and then
she employed herself in beating to pieces the frag-
ments, no human being daring to expose himself
to her fury.

" The symptoms of the malady of Mr. Money-
ment's pony rapidly increased ; he bit everything
within his reach, even diflerentparts of his own body ;
he breathed laboriously ; his tail erect ; screaming
dreadfully at short intervals, striking the ground
with his fore-feet, and perspiring most profusely.
At length he broke the top of his manger, and
rushed out of the stall with it hanging to his
halter. He made immediately towards the medi-
cal attendant, and the spectators who were standing
by. They fortunately succeeded iu getting out of
his way, and he turned into the next stall, and
dropped and died.

" A young veterinary friend of mine veiy incau-
tiously and fool-hardilj' attempted to ball a rabid
hoi'se. The animal had previously shown himself
to be dangerous, and had slightly bitten a person
who gave him a ball on the preceding evening :
he now seized the young student's hand, and lifted
him from the ground, and shook him as a terrier
would shake a rat. It was with the greatest diffi-
culty, and not until the grooms had attacked the
ferocious animal with their pitchforks, that they
could compel him to relinquish his hold ; and,
even then, not before he had bitten his victim
to the bone, and nearly torn away the whole of the
flesh from the upper and lower surfaces of the
hand.*

" There is also in the horse, whose attachment
to his owner is often comparatively small, a degree
of treachery which we rarely meet with in the
nobler and more intellectual dog. A horse that
had shown symptoms of great ferocity was standing
in the comer of his box, with a heaving flank, and
every muscle quivering from the degree of excite-
ment under which he laboured. A groom, pre-
suming on the former obedience of the animal,
ventured in, and endeavoured to put a headstall
upon him. Neither the master nor myself could
persuade him to forbear. I was sure of mischief,
for I had observed the ear lying flat upon the
neck, and I could see the backward glance of the
eye ; I therefore anned myself with a heavy twitch
stick that was at hand, and climbed into the man-

* In the Museum nf the Veterinary School at Alfort, is the
lower jaw of a rabid horse, which was fractured in the violent ef-
Torts ol' the animal to do mischiel'.

ger of the next box. The man had not advanced
two steps into the bo.x before I could see the shift-
ing position of the fore feet, and the preparation
to spring upon his victim ; and he would have
sprang upon him, but my weapon fell, with all the
force I could urge, upon liis head, and he dropped.
The man escaped, but the brute was up again in
an instant ; and we trembled lest the partition of
the box should yield to his violence, and he would
realize the graphic description of Mr. Blaine,
when he speaks of the rabid horse as ' levelling
everj'thing before him, himself sweating, and
snorting, and foaming amidst the ruins.'

" I have had occasion, more than once, to wit-
ness the evident pain of the bitten part, and the
manner in which the horse, in the intervals of his
paroxysms, employs himself in licking or gnawing
the cicatrix. One animal had been bitten in the
ciiest ; and he, not in the intervals between the
exacerbation, but when the paroxysm was most
violent, would bite and tear himself until his breast
was shockingly mangled, and the blood flowed
from it in a stream.

" The most interesting and satisfactoiysjTnptom
is the evident dread of water which exists in the
decided majority of cases, and the impossibility of
swallowing a.nj considerable quantity. Professor
Dupuy gives an account of this circumstance : —
' A rabid horse was confined in one of the sick
boxes. His food was given to him through an
opening over the door ; and a bucket was sus-
pended from the door, and supplied with water by
means of a copper tube. As soon as he heard the
water falling into the pail, he fell int<3 violent con-
vulsions, seized the tube, and crushed it to pieces.
When the water in his bucket was agitated, the
convulsions were renewed. He would occasionally
approach the bucket as if he wished to drink, and
then, after agitating the water for an instant, he
would fall on his litter, uttering a hoarse cry ; but
he would rise again almost immediately These
symptoms were dreadfully increased if water was
thrown upon his head. He would then endeavour
to seize it as it fell, and bite with fury at every-
thing within his reach, his whole frame being
dreadfully convulsed.'

"As the disease progresses, not only is the ani-
mal rapidly debilitated, but there is the peculiar
staggering gait which is obser\'able in the dog —
referable to evident loss of power in the muscles
of the lumbar region. I once saw a mare sitting
on her haunches and unable to rise, yet using her
fore feet with the utmost fury, and suffering no
one to come within her reach. She, too, would
sometimes plunge her muzzle into the offered pail,
and immediately withdraw it in evident terror,
while every limb trembled. At other times the
lowering of the pail would affright her, and she
would fall on her side and struggle furiously. Al-

THE HORSE.

S91

tliough this symptom is not often observed in the
dog, it is a satisfactory identification of the disease,
^vhen it is so frequently seen in the horse, and so
invariably in the human being.

" The earliest and perhaps the most derisive
symptom of the near approach of the rabies in
the horse, is a spasmodic movement of the upper
lip, particularly of the angles of the Hp. Close
following on this, or contemporaneous with it,
is the depressed and an.xious countenance and
inquiring gaze, suddenly however lighted up, and
becoming fierce and menacing from some unknown
cause, or at the approach of a stranger. From
time to time ditferent parts of the frame — the
eyes — the jaws — particular limbs — will be con-
vulsed. The eye will occasionally wander after
some imaginary object, and the horse will snap
again and again at that which has no real exist-
ence. Then will come the irrepressible desire to
bite the attendants or the animals within its reach.
To this will succeed the demolition of the rack,
the manger, and the whole furniture of the stable,
accompanied by the peculiar dread of water which
has been already described.

" Towards the close of the disease there is gene-
rally paralysis, usually confined to the loins and
the hinder extremities, or involving those organs
which derive their nervous influence from this
portion of the spinal corel ; hence the distressing
tenesmus which is occasionally seen.

" The disease rarely extends beyond the third
day.

" After death, there is uniformly found inflam-
mation at the back part of the mouth, and at the
top of the windpipe, and likewise in the stomach,
and on the membrane covering the lungs, and
where the spinal marrow first issues from the
brain."

When the disease can be clearly connected
with a previous bite, the sooner the animal is de-
stroyed the better, for there is no cure. If the
symptoms bear considerable resemblance to rabies,
although no bite is suspected, the horse should at
least be slung, and the medicine, if any is admin-
istered, given in the form of a di'ink, and with the
hand well protected ; for if it should be scratched
in balling the horse, or the skin should have been
previously broken, the saliva of the animal is ca-
pable of communicating the disease. Several far-
riers have lost their lives from being bitten or
scratched in the act of administering medicine to
a rabid horse.

It is always dangerous to encourage any dogs
about the stable, and especially if they become
fond of the horses, and are in the habit of jumping
up and licking them. The corners of the mouth
of the horse are often sore from the pressure of the
bit; and when a coach-dog in a gentleman's sta-
ble— and it is likely to happen in every stable and

with eveiy dog — becomes rabid and dies, the horse
too frequently follows him at no great distance of
time.

If a horse is bitten by a dog under suspicious
circumstances, he should be carefully examined,
and every wound, and even the slightest scratch,
well burned with the lunar caustic (nitrate of sil-
ver). The scab should be removed and the opera-
tion repeated on the third day. The hot iron does
not answer so well, and other caustics are not so
manageable. In the spring of 18:i7, four horses
were bitten, near Hyde Park, by a mad dog. To
one of them the lunar caustic was twice severely
applied : he lived. The red-hot iron was unspar-
ingly used on the others, and they died. The
caustic must reach every part of the wound. At
the expiration of the fourth month the horse may
be considered to be safe.

TET.\NtJS, OR LOCKED JAW.

Tetanus is one of the most dreadful and fatal
diseases to which the horse is subject. It is called
LOCKED JAW, because the muscles of the jaw are
earliest affected, and the mouth is obstinately and
immovably closed. It is a constant spasm of all
the voluntary muscles, and particularly of those of
the neck, the spine, and the head. It is generally
slow and treacherous in its attack. The horse, for
a day or two, does not appear to be quite well ; he
does not feed as usual ; he partly chews his food,
and drops it ; and he gulps his water. The owner
at length finds that the motion of the jaws is con-
siderably limited, and some saliva is drivelling
from the mouth. If he tries he can only open the
mouth a very little way, or the jaws are perfectly
and rigidly closed ; and thus the only period at
which the disease could have been successfully
combated is lost. A cut of a horse labouring under
this disease is here given, which the reader will
do well to examine carefully.

The first thing that strikes the observer is a
protrusion of the muscle, and stiffness of the neck ;
and, on passing the hand down it, the muscles
will be found singularly prominent, distinct, hard,
knotty, and unyielding. There is diflBculty in
bringing the head round, and still greater difficulty
in bending it. The eye is drawii deep within the
socket, and. in consequence of this, the fatty mat-
ter behind the eye is pressed forward ; the haw is
also protruded, and there is an appearance of stra-
bismus, or squinting, in an outward direction.

The ears are erect, pointed forward, and im-
movable ; if the horse is spoken to, or threatened
to be struck, they change not their position. Con-
sidering the beautiful play of the ear in the horee
when in health, and the kind of convereation
which he maintains by the motion of it, there is
not a more characteristic symptom of tetanus than
this immobility of the ear. The nostril is expanded

298

THE HORSE.

to the utmost, and there is little or no play of it,
as in hurried or even natural breathing. The
respiration is usually accelerated, yet not always
so ; but it is uniformly laborious. The pulse gives
little indication of the severity of the disease. ' It
is sometimes scarcely affected. It will be rapidly
accelerated when any one approaches the iiuimal
and offers to touch him ; but it presently quiets
down again almost to its natural standard. After
a while, however, the heart begins to sympathise
with the general excitation of the system, and the
pulse increases in frequency and force until the
animal becomes debilitated, when it beats yet
quicker and quicker, but diminishes in power, and
gradually flutters and dies away.

The countenance is eager, anxious, haggard,
and tells plainly enough wliat the animal suffers.

The stiffness gradually e.xtends to the back.
If the horse is in a narrow stall, it is impossible
to turn him ; and, even with room and scope
enough, he turns altogether like a deal-board.

The extremities begin to participate in the
spasm — the hinder ones generally first, but never
to the extent to which it exists in the neck and
back. The horse stands with his hind legs strad-
dling apart in a singular way. The whole of the
limb moves, or rather is dragged on, together, and
anxious care is taken that no joint shall be flexed
more than can possibly be helped. The fore limbs
have a singular appearance ; they are as stiff as
they can possibly be, but stretched forward and
straddling. They have not unaptly been compared
to the legs of a form.

The abdominal muscles gradually become in-
volved. They seem to contract with all the power
they possess; and there is a degree of "hide-
bound" appearance, and of tucking up of the belly,
which is seen under no other complaint. The tail
becomes in constant motion from the alternate
and violent action of the muscles that elevate and
depress it.

Constipation, and to an almost insurmountable
degree, now appears. The abdominal muscles are

so powerfully contracted, that no portion of the
contents of the abdomen can pass on and be
discharged.

By degrees the spasm extends and becomes
everywhere more violent. The motion of the whole
frame is lost, and the horse stands fixed in the
unnatura,! posjture which he has assumed. The
countenance becomes wilder and more haggard —
its -expression can never be effaced from the me-
mory, of him who cares about the feelings of a
brute. The violent cramp of a single muscle, or
set of muscles, makes the stoutest heart quail, and
drarws forth the most piteous cries ; what, then,
must it be for this tortm'e to pervade the whole
frame, and to continue, with little respite, from
day to day, and from week to week ! When his
attendant approaches and touches him, he scarcely
moves : but the despairing gaze, and the sudden
acceleration of the pulse, indicate what he feels
and fears.

Tetanus then is evidently an affection of the
nerves. A small fibre of some nen-e has been
injured, and the effect of that injury has spread to
the origin of the nerve ; the brain then becomes
affected, and universal diseased action follows.
Tetanus is spasm of the whole frame — not merely
of one set of muscles, but of their antagonists also.
The fixidity of the animal is the effect of opposed
and violent muscular contraction. It belongs to
the lower column of nerves only. The sensibility
is unimpaired — perhaps it is heightened. The
horse would eat if he could ; he tries to suck up
some moisture from his mash ; and the avidity
with which he lends himself to assist in the ad-
ministering of a little giniel, shows that the feelings
of hunger and thirst remain unimpaired.

If the disease terminates fatally, it is usually
from the sixth to the eighth day, when, if there has
been no remission of tlie spasms, or only a slight
one, the horse dies, exhausted by hard work. The
task extorted by the whip and spur of the most
brutal sportsman is not to be compared with it.

About or a little before this time, there are

THE HORSE.

293

Occasionally evident remissions. The spasm does
not quite subside, but its force is materially les-
sened. The jaw is not sufficiently relaxed to enable
the animal to eat or to drink, or for advantage to be
taken of an opportunity for the administration of
medicine, while the slightest disturbance or fright
recalls the spasmodic action with all its violence.
If, however, the remission returns on the following
day, and is a little lengthened, and particularly if
there is more relaxation of the lower jaw, there yet
is hope. If the patient should recover it will be
very slowly, and he will be left sadly weak, and a
mere walking skeleton.

Ou post-mortem examination, the muscular fibre
will exhibit sufficient proof of the labour which
has been exacted from it. The muscles will
appear as if they had been macerated — their tex-
ture will be softened, and they will be torn with
the greatest ease. The lungs will, in the majority
of cases, be highly inflamed, for they have been
laboming long and painfully to furnish arterial
blood in sufficient quantity to support this great
expenditure of animal power. The stomach will
contain patches of inflammation, but the intestines,
in most cases, will not exhibit much depaiture
from the hue of health. The examination of the
brain will be altogether unsatisfactoiy. There
may be slight injection of some of the membranes,
but, in the majority of cases, there wUl not be
any morbid change worthy of record.

Tetanus is usually the result of the injury of
some nervous fibre, and the effect of that lesion
propagated to the brain. The foot is the most
frequent soui'ce or focus of tetanic injuiy. It has
been pricked in shoeing, or wounded by something
on the road. The horse becomes lame — the injury
is carelessly treated, or not treated at all — the
lameness, however, disappears, but the woimd has
not healed. There is an mihealthiness about it,
and at the expiration of eight or ten days, tetanus
appears. Some nervous fibre has been irritated or
inflamed by the accident, slight as it was.

Docking and nicldng, especially when the stumji
was seared too severely in the former, or the ban-
dage had not been loosened sufficiently early in
the latter, used to be frequent causes of tetanus.
It is frequently connected with castration, when
the colt had not been properly prepared for the
operation, or the searing iron has been applied too
severely, or the animal has been put to work too
soon after the operation, or exposed to unusual
cold. The records of veterinary proceedings con-
tain accounts of tetanus following labour, brutally
exacted beyond the animal's natural strength, in
the draught of hea^'y loads. Horses that have
been matched against time have too frequently
died of tetanus a little while afterwards. Sudden
exposm-e to cold after being heated by exercise
has produced this dreadful state of nervous ac-

tion, and especially if the horse has stood in a
partial draught, or cold water has been dripping
on the loins.

The treatment of tetanus is simple, and would
be oftener successful if carried to its full extent.
The indication of cure is plain enough — the system
must be tranquillized. The grand agent in accom-
plishing this is the copious abstraction of blood.
There is not a more powerful sedative in cases of
muscular spasm than venesection. A double pur-
pose is eff'ected. The determination of blood to
the origins of the nerves, and by which they were
enabled to secrete and to pour out this torrent of
nervous influence, is lessened. The supply of
blood to the muscular system is also diminished.
The pabulum of the nervous and muscular system
— the life of both of them — the capability of acting
in the one, and of being acted upon by the other,
is taken away. The proper course to be pursued,
whether theory or e.xperience are consulted, is, ou
the first access of tetanus, to bleed, and to bleed
until the horse falters or falls. No attention
should be paid to any specific quantity of blood to
he abstracted, but the animal should bleed on
untn he drops, or the pulse evidently falters.
Twenty pounds have been taken before the object
of the practitioner was accomplished, but he never
had occasion to repent of the course which he
pursued. Inflammatoi-y action like this must be
subdued by the promptest and most efficient
means ; and there is one unerring guide — the
pulse. While that remains firm, the bleeding
should continue. The practitioner is attacking the
disease, and not in the slightest degree hazarding
the permanent strength of the patient.

Next in order, and equal in importance, is
physic. The profuse bleeding just recommended
will generally relax the muscles of the jaw so far
as to enable a dose of physic to be given. Eight
or ten drachms of aloes should be administered.
If the remission of the spasm is slight, there is
another purgative — not so certain in its action,
but more powerful when it does act — the farina of
the Croton nut. There is little or no danger of
exciting inflammation of the mucous membrane
of the intestines by this prompt and energetic
administration of purgative medicine, for there is
too much determination of vital power towards the
nervous system — too much irritation there — to
leave cause for dreading the possibility cf metas-
tasis elsewhere. It would be desu-able if a certain
degree of inflammation could be excited, because
to that extent the irritation of the nervous system
might be allayed. There is another reason, and a
very powerful one — time is rapidly passing. The
tetanic action may extend to the intestines, and
the co-operation of the abdominal muscles in
keeping up the peristaltic motion of the bowels,
and expelling their contents, may be lost.

29i

THE HORSE.

Clysters will be useful in assisting t"he action
■of the purgative. A solution of Epsom salts will
constitute the safest and best injection. As to
iiiediciiie, opium is not only a valuable drag, but
it is that on which alone dependence can be placed
in this disease. It will be borne in doses, from
half a drachm to two drachms.

Blisters are completely out of the question
in a disease the very essence of which is nervous
irritability.

The application of sheep-skins warm from the
animal, and applied along the whole course of the
spine, may somewhat unload the congested vessels
of the part, and diminish the suflerings of the
animal. They should be renewed as soon as they
become offensive, and the patient should be covered
from the poll to the tail with double or treble
clothing.

There is one kind of external application that
h.as not been so much used, or so highly valued as
it deserves, — gentle friction with the hand over
the cour.se of the spine, beginning with the
slightest jjossible pressure and never increasing
it much. The horse is a little frightened at first,
but he soon gets reconciled to it, and when at the
same time an opiate liniment is used, relief has
been obtained to a very marked degree.

One thing should not be forgotten, namely,
that a horse with locked jaw is as hungry as when
in health, and eveiy possible contrivance should
be adopted to furnish him with that nutriment
which will support him under his torture, and
possibly enable him to weather the storm. If a
pail of good gruel is placed within liis reach, how
will he nuzzle in it, and contrive to drink some of
it too ! If a thoroughly wet mash is placed before
him in a pail, he will bury his nose in it, and
manage to extract no small portion of nutriment.
By means of a small horn, or a bottle with a very
narrow neck, it will often be possible to give him
a small quantity of gruel ; hut the flexible pipe
that accompanies Read's patent pump will render
this of easier accomplishment, for the nutriment
may be administered without elevating the head
of the horse, or inflicting on him the extreme
torture wiiich used to accompany the act of drench-
ing. If the jaw is ever so closely clenched, the
pipe may be introduced between the tushes and
the grindei's, and carried tolerably far back into
the moutii, and any quantity of gruel or medicine
introduced into the stomach.

It will also be good practice to let a small por-
tion of food be in the manger. The horse will not
at iirst be able to take up the slightest quantity,
but he will attemjit to do so. Small portions may
be placed between his grinders, and they will pre-
sently-drop from his mouth scarcely or at all
masticated : but some good will be done — there is
the attempt to put the muscles of the jaw to their

proper use. On the following day he will succeed
a little better, and make some trifling advance
towards breaking the chain of spasmodic action.
Experience will teach the careful groom the value
of these minutife of practice ; and the successful
tennination of many a case may be traced to the
careful nursing of the patient.

When the horse is getting decidedly better,
and the weather will permit, there can be no
better practice than to turn him out for a few
hours in the middle of the day. His toddling
about will regain to him the use of his limbs ;
the attempt to stoop in order to graze will diminish
the spasm in his neck ; the act of grazing will
relax the muscles of the jaws ; and he can have
no better food than the fresh grass.

This is a sudden, involuntary, and painful
spasm of a particular muscle or set of muscles.
It differs from tetanus in its shorter duration, and
in its occasionally attacking the muscles of organic
life. It may be termed a species of transitory
tetanus, affecting mostly the hind extremities. It
is generally obsen'ed when the horse is first
brought out of the stable, and especially if he has
been hardly worked. One of the legs appears
stiff, inflexible, and is, to a slight degree, dragged
after the animal. After he has proceeded a lew
steps, the stiffness nearlj- or quite disappears, or
only a slight degree of lameness remains during
the greater part- of the day.

Cramp j)roceeds from an accumulation of irri-
tability in the muscles of the extensors, and is a
sudden spasmodic action of them in order to
balance the power which their antagonists have
gained over them during the night.

If a certain degree of lameness remains, the
attendant on the horse should endeavour to find
out the muscle chiefly affected, which he may
easily do by a feeling of hardness, or an exjjressiou
of pain, when he presses on the extensors of the
hock somewiiat above that joint. He should then
give plenty of good hand-rubbing, or a little more
attention to the grooming generally, or a wider or
more comfortable stall, as the circumstances of the
case may ajipear to require.

STRING HALT.

This is a sudden and spiasmodic action of some
of the muscles of the thigh when the horse is
first led from the stable. One or both legs are
caught up at every step with great rapidity and
violence, so that the fetlock sometimes touches
the belly ; but, after the horse has been out a
little wiiile, this usuall}' goes off, and the natural
action of the animal returns. In a few cases it
does not perfectly disappear after exercise, but the
horse continues to be slightly lame.

THE HORSE.

Zd^'.

Strin'ghalt is not a perfectly involuntary action
of a certain muscle, or a certain set of muscles.
The limb is flexed at the command of the will,
but it acts to a greater extent and with more
violence than the will had prompted. There is au
accumulation of excitability in the muscle, and the
impulse which should have called it into natural
and moderate action causes it to take on a spas-
modic and, perhaps, a painful one.

Many ingenious but contradictory theories have
been advanced iu order to account for this pecu-
liarity of gait. What muscles are concerned ?
Clearly those by which the thigh is brought under
the belly, and the hock is flexed, and the pasterns
are first flexed and then extended. But by which
of them is the effect principally jiroduced ? What
muscle, or, more properly, what nerve is concerned?
Instead of entering into any useless controversy on
this point, a case shall be related, and one of the
most interesting there is on record : the author
was personally cognisant of every particular.

Guildford, first called Roundhead, and then
Landlord, was foaled in 18;i0. He was got by
Hampden out of a Sir Harry Dimsdale mai'e. In
18QS, and being two years old, and the property
of the Duke of Richmond, he won a fifty pound
plate at Goodwood. In 18-^9, and belonging to
Lord AV. Lennox, he won fifty-five guineas at
Hampton. Being then transferred to Mr. Cole-
man, he won fifty guineas at Guildford; and in
the same year, having been purchased by Mr.
Pearce, he won sixty guineas at Basingstoke.

In the course of this year stringhalt began to
appear in a slight degree, and it evidently, al-
though slowly, increased. There soon began to
be a little difficulty in getting him off'; but when
he had once started, neither his speed nor his
stoutness appeared to be in the slightest degree
impaired. He continued o\\ the turf until 1836,
and won for his different owners seventeen races,
the produce of which, exclusive of bets, amounted
to £1435.

The difficulty and loss of advantage in stalling
had now increased to a degree which rendered it
pinident to withdraw him from the turf, and he
came into the possession of Dockeray, who used
him for the purpose of leading the young horses
that he had under training. This is well known
to be hard work, and his rider was a man of some
weight. In addition to this, he was generally
hunted twice in the week. His first starting into
a gallop had something singular about it. It was
a horrible kind of convulsive action, and so violent
that he frequently knocked off his shoes on the
very day that they were put on : but when he got
a little warmed all this disappeared. He galloped
beautifully, and was a ver}' sure fencer. The sport,
Lowever, being over, and he returning to a slow
pace, the stringhalt was as bad as ever.

At length the old horse became artful, and it
was with great difficulty that he could be made to
lead. Sometimes he refused it altogether. la
consequence of this he was sent to St. Martin's-
Lane to be sold. The highest bidding for hiin was
three pounds fourteen shillings, and the hero of
the turf and the field was doomed to the omnibus.
There he was cruelly used, and this spasmodic
convulsion of his hind legs sadly aggravated his
torture. The skin was presently rubbed from his
shoulders, his hips and haunches were liruised in
every part, and his stifles were continually and
painfully coming in contact with t'-.e pole.

In this situation he was seen by the veterinary
surgeon to " The Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals." There is a fund at the
disposal of that society for the purchase of worn-
out horses, who are immediately released from
their misery by the pole-axe of the Imacker. The
horse was bought for this purpose, another and
laudable motive influencing the purchase, — the
wish to ascertain what light the dissection of an
animal that had had stringhalt to such an aggra-
vated extent, and for so long a period, would cast
on the nature of this disease.

The author of this work saw him a little while
before he was slaughtered. He was still a noble-
looking animal, and seemed to possess all his
former strength and spirit unimpaired ; but he
was sadly scarred all over, in consequence of his
being put to a kind of work for which his spasmodic
complaint so entirely incapacitated him. So aggra-
vated a case of stringhalt had rarely been seen.
Both hind legs were affected, and both in au equal
degree ; and the belly was fori:-ibly struck by the
pastern joints every time the hind feet were lifted.
The belly and the pastern joint were both denuded
of hair, in consequence of this constant battering.

He was' destroyed by the injection of prussic
acid into the jugular vein, and the dissection of
him was conducted by Professor Spooner, of the
Royal Veterinary College.

On taking otf the skin, all the muscles pre-
sented their perfect healthy character. There was
not the slightest enlargement or discolouration of
the fasciiE. The muscles of both extremities were
dissected from their origins to their tendinous
terminations, and their fibrous structure carefully
examined. They were all beautifully developed,
presenting no inequality or irregularity of structure,
nor aught that would warrant the suspicion that
any one of them possessed an undue power or
influence beyond the others. The only abnormal
circumstance about them was tliat they were of a
rather darker yellow in colom- than is usually
found. This referred to them generally, and not
to any particular muscle or sets of muscles.

The lumbar, crm-al, and sciatic uen-es were
examined from the spot at which thev emerge from

u -i

296

THE HORSE.

the spinal cord to their ultimate distributions.
The crural and lumbar nerves were perfectly heal-
thy. The sciatic nei-ve, at the aperture through
•which it escapes from the spine, was darker in
colom- than is usual, being of a yello\vish-bro^\Ti
hue. Its texture was softened, and its fibrillas
somewhat loosely connected together. The nei-ve
was of its usual size ; but on tracing it in its course
through the muscles of the haunch, several spots
of ecchymosis presented themselves, and were more
particularly marked on that part of the nerve which
is connected with the sacrosciatic ligament. As
the nerve approached the hock, it assumed its na-
tural colour and tone ; and the fibres given oft' from
it to the muscles situated inferior to the stifle-joint
were of a perfectly healthy character.

On dissecting out a portion of the nerve where
it appeared to be in a diseased state, it was found
that this ecchymosis was confined to the membra-
neous investiture of the nerve, and that its sub-
stance, when pressed from its sheath, presented a
perfectly natural character.

The cavity of the cranium, and the whole ex-
tent of the spinal canal, were next laid open. The
brain and spinal marrow were deprived of their mem-
braneous coverings, and both the tliecfe and their
contents diligently examined. There was no lesion
in any part of them, not even at the lumbar region.

The articulations of every joint of the hind ex-
tremities then underwent inspection, and no disease
could be detected in either of them.

Professor Spooner was of opinion that this pe-
culiar affection was not referrible to any diseased
state of the brain or spinal cord, nor to any local
affection of the muscles of the limbs, but simply to
a morbid affection of the sciatic nerve. He had
not dissected a single case of stringhalt in which
he had not found disease of this nerve, which
mainly contributes to supply the hind "extremities
with sensation and the power of voluntaiy motion.
Now comes a very important question. What
connexion is there between stringhalt and the sup-
posed value or deterioration of the horse? Some
experienced practitioners have maintained that it
is a pledge of more than usual muscular power.
It is a common saying that " there never was a
horse with stringhalt that was incapable of doing
the work required of him." Most certainly we
continually meet with horses having stringhalt that
pleasantly discharge all ordinary, and even extra-
ordinaiy, service ; and although stringhalt is excess
or irregular distribution of nervous power, it at
least shows the existence of that power, and the
capability in the muscular system of being acted
upon by it. Irregular distributions of vital energy
are not, however, things to be desired. They argue
disease and derangement of the system, and a
predisposition to greater derangement. They ma-
terially interfere with the speed of tlie horse.

This was decidedly the case with regard to the
poor fellow whose history has been related.

Stringhalt is decided unsoundness. It is an
irregular supply of the nervous influence, or a dis-
eased state of the nervous or muscular system, or
both. It prevents us from suddenly and at once
calling upon the horse for the full exercise of his
speed and power, and therefore it is imsoimdness ;
but generally speaking, it so little interferes with
the services of the animal, that although an un-
soundness, it would not weigh a great deal against
other manifest valuable qualities.

CHOEEA.

This is a convulsive involuntary twitching of
some muscle or set of muscles. A few, and very
few, cases of it in the horse are recorded. Profes-
sor Gohier relates one in which it attacked both
fore legs, and especially the left, but the affection
was not constant. During five or six minutes the
spasms were most violent, so that the horse was
scarcely able to stand. The convulsions then be-
came weaker, the interval between them increased,
and at length they disappeared, leaving a slight
but temporary lameness. All means of cure were
fruitlessly tried, and the disease continued until
the horse died of some other complaint. In ano-
ther case it followed sudden suppression of the
discharge of glanders and disappearance of the en-
larged glands. This also was intermittent during
the life of the animal.

FITS, OE EPILEPSY.

The Stream of nervous influence is sometimes
rapid, or the suspensions are considerable. This
is the theory of Fits, or Epilepsy. Fortunately
the horse is not often afflicted with this chsease,
although it is not unknown to the breeder. The
attack is sudden. The animal stops— trembles-
looks vacantly around him, and falls. Occasionally
the convulsions that follow are slight; at other
times they are terrible. The head and fore part
of the horse are most affected, and the contortions
are veiy singular. In a few minutes the convul-
sions cease ; he gets up ; looks around him with a
kind of stupid astonishment; shakes his ears;
urines ; and eats or drinks as if nothing had hap-
pened.

The only hope of cure consists in discovering
the cause of the fits : and an experienced practi-
tioner must be consulted, if the animal is valuable.
Generally spealdug, however, the cause is so diffi-
cult to discover, and the habit of having fits is so
soon formed, and these fits will so frequently return,
even at a great distance of time, that he who values
his own safety, or the lives of his family, will cease
to use an epileptic horse

PALSY.

The Stream of nervous influence is sometimes

THE HORSE.

297

stopped, and llieiice results palsy. The power of
tlie muscle is unimpaired, but the nervous energy
is deficient. In the human being general palsy
sometimes occurs. The whole body — every organ
of motion and of sense is paralysed. The records
of oiu' practice, however, do not afford us a single
instance of this; but of partial paralysis there are
several cases, and most untractable ones they were.
The cause of them may be altogether unknown.
In the human being there is 3^61 another distinction,
Hemiplegia, and Paraplegia. In the former the
affection is confined to one side of the patient ; in
the latter the posterior extremity on both sides is
affected. Few cases of hemiplegia occur in the
horse, and they are more manageable than those of
paraplegia; but if the affection is not removed,
they usually degenerate into paraplegia before the
death of the animal. It would ajjpear singular
that this should be the most common form of palsy
in the human being, and so rarely seen in the qua-
drupled. There are some considerations, however,
that will partly account for this. Palsy in the horse
usually proceeds from injury of the spinal cord ;
and that cord is more developed, and far larger
than in the human being. It is more exposed to
injury, and to injui-y that will affect not one side
only, but the whole of the cord.

Palsy in the horse generally attacks the hind
extremities. The reason of this is plain. The
fore limbs are attached to the trunk by a dense
mass of highly elastic substance. This was placed
between the shoulder-blade and the ribs for the
purjjose of preventing that concussion, which would
be annoying and even dangerous to the horse or
his rider. Excepit in consequence of a fall, there
is scarcely the possibility of any serious injury to
the anterior portion of the spine. The case is very
different with regard to the hind limbs and their
attachment to the trunk; they are necessarily
liable to many a shock and sprain injurious to the
spine and its contents. The loins and the back
oftenest exhibit the lesions of palsy, because there
are some of the most violent muscular efforts, and
there is the greatest movement and the least sup-
port. It may, consequently, be taken as an axiom
to guide the judgment of the practitioner that palsy
in the horse almost invariably proceeds from dis-
ease or injury of the spine.

On inquiry it is almost invariably found that
the horse had lately fallen, or had been worked
exceedingly hard, or that, covered with perspiration,
he had been left exposed to cold and wet. It
commences geiaerally in one hind leg, or, perhaps,
both are equally affected. The animal can scarcely
walk ; he walks on his fetlocks instead of his soles ;
he staggers at every motion. At length he falls.
He is raised with difficult)', or he never rises again.
The sensibility of the part seems for a while to be
dreadfully increased ; but, in general, this gradually

subsides, it sinks below the usual standard, it
ceases altogether.

If he is examined after death, there will usually,
about the region of the loins, be inflammation of
the membranes of the spinal cord, or of the cord
itself. The medullai^ matter will be found of a
yellow colour, or injected with spots of blood, or it
will be softened, and have become semifluid.

The treatment is simple enough. It should
commence with bleeding, and, as has been already
recommended in inflammatory cases, until the cir-
culation is evidently affected, until the pulse begins
to falter or the horse to reel. To this should follow
a dose of physic, strong compared with the size of
the animal. The loins should be covered with a
mustard poultice frequently renewed. The patient
should be warmly clothed, supplied plentifully with
mashes, but without a grain of corn in them ; and
frequent injections should be had recourse to. This
will soon render it evident whether the patient will
recover or die. If favourable symptoms appear,
the horse must not be in the slightest degree ne
glected, nor the medical treatment suspended. There
is no disease in which the animal is more liable to
a relapse, or where a relapse would be so fatal. No
misapprehension of the disease, or false humanity,
should induce the attendant to give the smallest
quantity of corn or of tonic medicine. Palsy in the
horse is an inflammatory complaint, or the result
of inflammation.

If the heat and tenderness are abating, and the
animal regains, to a slight degree, the use of his
limbs, or if it is becoming a case of chronic palsy,
an extensive and stimulating charge over the loins
should be immediately applied. It will accomplish
three purposes : there will be the principle of
counter-irritation, a defence against the cold, and
a useful support of the limbs.

RHEUMATISM.

It is only of late years that this has been ad-
mitted into the list of the diseases of the horse,
although it is in truth a very common affection.
It is frequent in old horses that have been early
abused, and among younger ones whose powers have
been severely ta.xed. The lameness is frequently
excessive, and the pain is evidently exciniciating.
The animal dares not to rest the slightest portion
of its weight on the limb, or even to touch the
ground with his toe. He is heaving at the flanks,
sweating profusely, his countenance plainly indi-
cative of the agony he fVels ; but there is at first
no heat, or swelling, or tenderness. With proper
treatment, the pain and the lameness gradually
disappear ; but in other instances the fascias of
the muscles become thickened — the ligaments
are also thickened and rigid — the capsules of the
joint are loaded with a glairy fluid, and the joint
is evidently enlai'ged. This is simply rheiima-

.293

THE HORSE.

tism ; Imt if it is neglected palsy soon associates
itself with, or succeeds to. the complaint; and the
loss of nervous po^Yer follows the difficulty or pain
of moving.

Every horseman will recollect cases in which
the animal that seemed on the preceding day to be
perfectlj' sound becomes decidedly lame, and
limps as though he had lost the use of his limbs ;
yet there is no thickening of the tendons, nor any
e.xternal inflammatory action to show the seat of
the complaint. Mr. Cooper, of Coleshill, relates
a case very applicable to the present subject. A
farmer purchased a horse, to all appearance sound,
and rode him home, a distance of ten miles. He
was worked on the two following days, without
showing the least lameness. On the third day it
was with great difficulty that he managed to limp
out of the stable. Mr. Cooper was sent for to
examine him. The horse had clean legs and ex-
cellent feet. The owner would have him blistered
, all round. It was done. The horse was turned
out to grass for two months, and came up per-
fectly sound. The weather soon afterwards be-
came wet and cold, and the horse again was lame ;
in fact, it presently appeared that the disease was
entirely influenced by the changes of the atmo-
sphere. " Thus," adds JNIr. C, " in the summer
a horse of this description will be mostly sowid,
while in the winter he will be generally lame."

An account of acute rheumatism, by Mr.
Thompson, of Beith, is too valuable to be
omitted: "I have had," says he, "fourteen
cases of this disease. The muscles of the shoul-
ders and arms were generally the parts affected.
The cure was effected in a few days, and consisted
of a good bleeding from the jugular, and a sharp
-purge.

" One of these cases was imcommonly severe.
The disease was in the back and loins. The horse
brought forward his hind legs under his flanks,
reached his back, and drew up his flanks with a
convulsive twitch accompanied by a piteous groan,
almost eveiy five minutes. The sympathetic
fever was alarming, the pulse was 90, and there
was obstinate constipation of the bowels. The
horse literally roared aloud if any one attempted
to shift him in the stall, and groaned excessively
when lying. He was bled almost to fainting;
and three moderate doses of aloes were given in
the course of two days. Injections were adminis-
tered, and warm fomentations were frequently ap-
plied to the back and loins. On the third day
the physic operated briskly, accompanied by con-
siderable nausea and reduction of the pulse. From
that time the animal gradually recovered.

" These horses are well fed, and always in good
condition ; but they are at times worked without
mercy, which perhaps makes them so liable to
these attacks."

NEDEOTOMT.

To enable the horse to accomplish many of the
tasks we exact from him, we have nailed on his
feet an iron defence. Without the protection of
the shoe, he would not only be unable to travel
over our hard roads, but he would speedily become
useless to us. While, however, the iron protects
his feet from being battered and bruised, it is ne-
cessarily inflexible. It cramps and confines the
hoof, and often, without great care, entails on our
valuable servant bad disease and excessive torture.

The division of the nerve, as a remedy for in-
tense pain in any part of the frame, was systema-
tically practised by human surgeons more than a
century ago. Mr. Moorecroft has the honour of
introducing the operation of neurotomy in the
veterinaiy school.

He had long devoted his powerful energies to
the discovery of the causes and the cure of lame-
ness in the fore-foot of the horse. It was a sub-
ject worthy of him, for it involved the interest of
the proprietor and the comfort of the slave. He
found that, partly from the faulty constraction of
the shoe, and more from the premature and cruel
exaction of labour, the horse was subject to a
variety of diseases of the foot : all of them accom-
panied by a greater or less degree of pain — often
of a very intense nature, and ceasing only with the
life of the animal.

He frequently met with a strangely formidable
disease, in what was called " coffin-joint lameness,"
but to which Mr. James Turner afterwards gave
the verj' appropriate name of " navicular-joint dis-
ease." It was inflammation of the synovial mem-
brane, either of the fle.\or tendon or navicular bone,
or both, where the tendon plays over that bone ;
and it was accompanied by pain, abrasion, and gra-
dual destruction of these parts.

For a long time he was foiled in every attempt
which he made to remove or even to alleviate the
disease. At length he turned his thoughts to the
probability of subduing the increased sensibility of
the part, by diminishing the proportion of nervous
influence distributed on the foot. He laid bare one
of the metacarpal nerves, and divided it with a pair
of scissors. There was always an immediate and de-
cided diminution of the lameness, and, sometimes,
the horse rose perfectly sound. This happy result,
however, was not always permanent, for the lame-
ness returned after the lapse of a few weeks, or on
much active exertion. He next cut out a small
piece of the nerve. The freedom from lameness
was of longer duration, but it eventually returned.

He then tried a bolder experiment. He ex-
cised a portion of the nerves going both to the
inner and outer metacarpals. We transcribe his
own account of the result of the first case of com-
plete neurotomy — excision of the nerve on both
sides of the leg — that ever was performed.

THE HORSE.

299

" Tlie animiil, on rising, trotted boldly and
without lameness, but now and then stumbled
with the foot operated on. The wounds healed in
a few days, and the patient was put to grass. Some
weeks afterwards a favourable account was received
of her soundness ; but she was soon brought again
to us, on account of a large sore on the bottom of
the foot operated on, and extending from the point
of the frog to the middle and back part of the pas-
tern. Tlie mare, in galloping over some broken
glass bottles, had placed her foot upon a fragment
of the bottom of one of them, and which had cut
its way through the frog and tendon into the joint,
and stuck fast in the joint for some seconds, while
the animal continued its course apparently regard-
less of injury. The wound bled profusely, but the
mare was not lame. Many days had elapsed before
1 saw her, and large masses of loose flesh were cut
from the edges of the wound, without the animal
showing the slightest sign of suffering pain. The
processes usually attending sores went on, with the
same appearances that took place in sores of parts
not deprived of sensibility. Such extensive injury,
however, had been done to the joint as rendered the
preservation of free motion iu it very improbable,
even were the opening to close, which was a matter
of doubt, and therefore she was destroyed. It ap-
peared clearly from this, that hy the destruction of
sensibility the repairing powers of the part icere not
injured; but that the natural guard against injury
being taken away by the division of both the nerves,
an accident was rendei'ed destructive which, in the
usual condition of the foot, might have been less
injurious."*

A The melacaTpal nerve on the inside

of Ihe off leg at tlie edge of the

shank bone, and behind the vein

and artery.
B The continuation of the same nerve

on the pastern, and proceeding

downward to supply the back

part of the foot with feeling.
C The division of the nerve on the

fetlock joint.
D The branch which .supplies with

feeling the fore part of the foot.
E The artery between the vein and

F The continuation of the artery on

the pastern, close to, and before

the nerve.
G The vein before the artery and

H The same vein spreading over

the pastern.
I One of the flexor tendons, the

perforatum (perforated).
J The deeper flexor tendon, the per-

forans ^perforating, contained

within the other).
K The tendinous band in which the

flexors work.
L One of the extensors of the foot.
M The internal or sensible frog.
N The posterior lateral ligament.
O The fleshy or sensible lamina covering the coflin bone, the

horny crust being removed.
P The horny crust. Q The sole.

• Veler.naiian, vol. ix. p. 363.

The cut in the preceding column gives a view of
the nerve inside of the leg, as it approaches the fet-
lock. It vdW be seen that branches are given oiT above
the fetlock, which go to the fore part of the foot and
supply it ■nith feeling. The continuation of the
nei-ve below the fetlock is given principally to the
quarters and hinder part of the foot. The grand
consideration, then, with the operator is — does he
wish to deprive the whole of the foot of sensation,
oris the cause of lameness principally in the hinder
part of the foot, so that he can leave some degree
of feeling in the fore part, and prevent that alter-
ation in the tread and going of the horse, which
the horseman so much dislikes ?

The horse must be cast and secured, and the
limb to be operated on removed from the hobViles
and extended — the hair having been previously
shaved from the part. The operator then feels for
the throbbing of the artei-y, or the round firm body
of the nerve itself, on the side of the shank bone
or the larger pastern. The vein, artery, and nerve
here nin close together, the vein nearest to the
front of the leg, then the artery, and the nerve
behind. He cautiously cuts through the skin for
an inch and a half in length. The vessels will
then be brought into view, and the neive will be
distinguished from them by its lying behind the
others, and by its whiteness. A crooked needle,
armed with silk, is then passed under it, in order
to raise it a little. It is dissected from the cellu-
lar substance beneath, and about three quarters of
an inch of it cut out : the first incision being made
at the upper part, in which case the second inci-
sion will not be felt. The horse must then be
turned, and the operation performed on the other
side ; for there is a nenous trunk on both sides.
The wornids are now closed vdlh strips of adhesive
plaster, a bandage placed over them, the head tied
up for a couple of days, and the animal kept rather
low, and as quiet as possible. The incisions will ge-
nerally rapidly heal ; and in three weeks or a month,
and sometimes earlier, the horse will be fit for work.
For ring-bone — the side cartilages becoming
bony, and there being partial stiffness of the pas-
tern and coffin-joints — the operation of nei-ving
will probably be beneficial. The sense of pain
being taken away, the animal will use these parts
more, and they will gradually recover their natm'al
action and motion. For the same reason, in old
contraction of the feet, it is highly beneficial. The
torture occasioned by the pressure of the homy
crust on the sensible parts within being no longer
felt, and the foot coming fully and finnly in con-
tact with the gi-ound, not only is lameness relieved,
but the elasticity and form of the foot partially re-
stored. Where lameness has long existed, unat-
tended with heat of the foot or alteration of shape,
and the seat of which could not be ascertained,
although probably existing between the nawular
bone and the back tendon that plaj-s over it. next-

300

THE HORSE.

rotomy may be resorted to \vith decided advan-
tage.

Mifchief, however, ■will result from the opera"
tion, if the j astern or coffin-joints are perfectly
stiff, because the concussion occasioned by the
forcible contact of the foot with the ground, and
unbroken by the play of the joints, must necessa-
rily still more injure the bone. When the sole of
the foot is convex or ]nimiced, the effect of neuro-
tomy will be most destructive. The sole, scarcely
able to bear the pressure of the coffin-bone, even
when pain induces the animal to put his foot as
gently as possible on the ground, being forced be-
low its natural situation, would be speedily worn
through and destroyed. So if inflammation existed,
although its pain might be removed, yet its pro-
gress would be quickened by the bruising to which
the parts might be subjected; and more especially
would this be the case, if there was any ulceration
of the ligaments or cartilages.

The unfettered shoe of Mr. Turner being
adopted, at leastso far as we can have it unfettered —
attached to the foot on one side alone, and the in-
ner quarter being left free — the foot gradually re-
gains its original healthy form, and when, in process
of time, a new portion of nen-e is produced, and
the sensibility of the foot re-established, the horse
continues to be sound. To some extent, immediate
good effect is produced as it regards the actual
disease. We remove that general constitutional
irritability which long-continued pain occasions,
and which heightens and pei-petuates local disease.
We obtain for the patient an interval of repose,
and every local ailment soon subsides or disappears,
and the whole constitution becomes invigorated.

Mr. Percivall relates two valuable cases of this.
A mare with contracted feet was never subject to
periodical oestnim, and her owner lamented in
vain that he could not breed from her. She un-
derwent the operation of neurotomy and became
an excellent brood mare. A stallion with many a
good point about him was useless in the stud : he
was suffering from some disease in the feet. A
portion of the nerve was excised : his constitution
undeiTvent a complete change, and he became sire
to a numerous and valuable progeny.

By the operation of neurotomy we destroy
pain ; and we may safely calculate on the simple
effect of that, whether local or constitutional ; and,
limiting our expectations to this, we shall rarely
be disappointed.

The operation of neurotomy having been per-
formed, has the veterinary surgeon nothing else to
do '? He has got rid of the pain which attended
the ossified cartilage — the ring-bone and the an-
ch}-losis of the pastern and the coffin-jomts ; shall
he be satisfied with the benefit he has obtained,
great as it is? He will, or he should now tiy
whether Ins former means and appliances have not
more power. He will see whether, by means of

his blister or his firing-iron — the effect of which
humanity forbade him to put to the full test before
— he cannot rouse the absorbents to increased and
more efficient action, and not only arrest the pro-
gress of the b<iny tumour, but remove it. He will
not merely sutler the usefulness of his patient to
depend on the continued suspension of feeling, but
he will assure it by the partial or total removal of
the morbid growth.

In contraction of the foot, shall he be satisfied
with removing the agony occasioned by the con-
stant pressm'e of the hom on the sensitive sub-
stance interposed between it and the coffin-bone ?
Shall he leave future improvement to the slow
process of nature, or shall he not take advantage
of the insensibility which he has produced, and pare
the sole thoroughly out, and rasp the quarters to
the verj' quick, and apply the unfettered shoe?
When he has produced a disposition to contraction,
and some degree of it, should he not actively blister
the coronets, and use all other fitting means to
hasten the growth of the hom to its pristine dimen-
sions and its original quality ?

In navicular disease, after he has removed, by
the application of neurotomy, that imtation which
had so much to do with the perpetuation, if not the
origin, of the complaint, should he not, with the
assured hope of success, pass his seton needle
through the frog, in order to get rid of every re-
maining lurking tendency to inflammation? The
blister and the firing-iron will have as much power
in abating inflammation and producing a healthy
state of the foot, after that foot had been rendered
insensible to pain, as it had before. We should
fearlessly say that it would have much more effect,
one grand source of irritation having been removed.
The veterinary surgeon and the owner of the horse
are becoming more and more convinced of this ;
and the dawning of a better day has commenced.

The principle of neurotomy is plain and sim-
ple— it is the removal of pain, laken on this
ground, it is a noble operation. It is that in
which every friend of humanity will rejoice. It
may be abused. If no auxiliaiy means are adopted
— if in canker or quitter, or infiammation of the
laminse, no means are used to lessen the concus-
sion and the pressure — the destniction of the part
and the utter ruin of the horse are the inevitable
consequences. The primary result is the removal
of pain. It is for the operator to calculate the
bearing of this on the actual disease, and the
future usefulness of the animal.

On the question of the reproduction of the
nen-es there is no doubt. A horse is lame, and
he undergoes the operation of neurotomy. At the
expiration of a certain time the lameness returns,
and he is probably destroyed. In the majority of
cases it is foimd that the nerves had imited, or
rather that a new veritable nei-vous substance had
been interposed. The time at which this is effected

THE HORSE.

301

is unkno'^vn. Tliere have not been any definite
experiments on tlie point.

Can the horse that has undergone the operation
of neurotomy be afterwards passed as sound ?
Most certainly not. There is altered, impaired
structure ; there is impaired action ; and there is
the possibility of the return of lameness at some
indefinite period. He has been diseased. He
possibly is diseased now ; but the pain being re-
moved, there are no means by which the mischief
can always be indicated. Beside, by the veiy act
of neurotomy, he is peculiarly exposed to various
injui-ies and affections of the foot from which he
would otherwise escape.

There is no doubt that the animals which we
have subjugated possess many of the same mental
faculties as the human being — volition, memoiy,
attachment, gratitude, resentment, fear, and hatred.
Who has not witnessed the plain and manifest
display of these principles and feelings in our
quadmped dependants ? The simple possession of
these faculties implies that they may be used for
purposes good or bad, and that, as in the human
being, they may be deranged or destroyed by a
multitude of causes which it is not necessary to
pai-ticularise. In the quadruped as in the biped,
the lesion or destmction of a certain part of the
brain may draw after it the derangement, or dis-
tm-bance, or pei-version of a certain faculty of the
mind. It is only because the mental faculties,
and good as well as bad properties of the inferior
beings, have been so lately obsen-ed and acknow-
ledged, that any doubt on this point can for a mo-
ment be entertained. The disordered actions, the
fury, the caprices, the vices, and more particulai'ly
the frenzy and total abandonment of i^eason, which
are occasionally shown by the bmte, are in the
highest degree analogous to certain acts of insanity
in man. It is merely to complete our subject that
they are here introduced.

The reader is indebted to Professor Rodet, of
Toulouse, for the anecdotes which follow : — A
horse, seven years old, was remarkable for an
habitual air of stupidity, and a peculiar wandering
expression of countenance. When he saw any-
thing that he had not been accustomed to, or heard
any sudden or unusual noise, whether it was near
or at a distance, or sometimes when his com was
thrown into the manger without the precaution of
speaking to him or pattuig him, he was frightened
to an almost incredible degree ; he recoiled preci-
pitately, every limb trembled, and he struggled
violently to escape. After several useless efforts
to get away, he would work himself into the highest
degree of rage, so that it was dangerous to approach
him. This state of excitement was followed by
dreadful convidsions, which did not cease until he

had broken his halter, or otherwise detached him-
self from his trammels. He would then be-
come calm, and suffer himself to be led back to
his stall : nor would anything more be seen but an
almost continual inquietude, and a wandering and
stupid expression of countenance. He had belonged
to a bmtal soldier who had beaten him shamefully,
and before which time he had been perfectly quiet
and tractable.

A Piedmontese officer possessed a beautiful
and in other respects serviceable mare, but which
one peculiarity rendered exceedingly dangerous —
that was a decided aversion to paper, which she
recognised the moment she saw it, and even in the
dark if two leaves were rubbed together. The
effect produced by the sight or sound of it was so
prompt and violent, that she several times unhorsed
her rider. She had not the slightest fear of ob-
jects that would terrify most horses ! She regarded
not the music of the band, the whistling of the
balls, the roaring of the cannon, the fire of the
bivouacs, or the glittering of arms. The confusion
and noise of an engagement made no impression
upon her; the sight of no other white object affected
her. No other sound was regarded ; but the view
or the rustling of paper roused her to madness.

A mare was perfectly manageable and betrayed
no antipathy to the human being, nor to other
animals, nor to horses, except they were of a
light-grey colour ; but the moment she saw a grey
horse she rushed towards it, and attacked it witla
the greatest fuiy. It was the same at all times
and everywhere. She was all that could be wished
on the parade, on the route, in the ranks, in
action, and in the stable ; but if she once caught a
glimpse of a grey or white horse, she rested not
until she had thrown her rider or broken her
halter; and then she rushed on her imagined foe
with the greatest fury. She generally contrived to
seize the animal by the head or throat, and held
him so fast that she would suffocate him if ha
were not promptly released from her bite.

Another mare exhibited no terror except of
white inanimate objects, as white mantles or coats,
and particularly white plumes. She would fly
from them if she could ; but if she was unable to
accomplish tliis, she would rush furiously upon
them, strike at them with her fore feet, and tear
them with her teeth.

These instances are selected from various others^
because they approach so nearly to what would be
termed uisauity in the human being. It is con-
fined to one object — it is a spiecies of monomania,
and as decided insanity as ever the biped dis-
covered. One of these horses, the second, was by
long and kind attention divested of this insane
terror, and became perfectly quiet and useful ; but
the other three bid defiance to all means of cure,
and to coercion among the rest. If sufficient at-

302

THE HORSE:

tention were paid to the subject, manj- of the obsti-
nate caprices and inexplicable aversions, which we
can neither conquer nor change, would be classed
under the term insanity. There cannot be a more
remarkable analogy than that which sometimes
exists between the insanity of man and these sin-
gularly capricious fancies in animals. The sulyect
is worthy of attention. Has the principle of here-
ditary predisposition been applied to any of these
anomalies ?

DISEASES OF THE EYE.

The diseases of the eye constitute a very im-
portant, but a most unsatisfactory division of our
work ; for the maladies of this organ, although few
in number, are frequent in their appearance : they
are sadly obstinate, and often baffle all skill.

We have spoken of Fracture of the orbit, and
its treatment. Occasionally a wound is inflicted
by a passionate or careless servant. The eye itself
is rarely injured. It is placed on a mass of fat,
and it turns most readily, and the prong of the
fork glances off; but the substance round the eye
may be deeply wounded, and very considerable
inflammation may ensue. This should be abated
by poultices, and bleeding, and physic ; but no
probe should be used under the foolish idea of
ascertaining the depth of the wound in the lid,
supposing that there should be one ; for, from the
constant motion of the eye, it is almost impossible
to pass the probe into the original wound, and the
effort to accomplish it would give a great deal of
pain, and increase the inflammation.

The eyelids are subject to occasional inflamma-
tion from blows or other injuries. Fomentation
with warm water will be serviceable here.

The horse has occasionally a scaly eruption on
the edges of the eyelids, attended with great itch-
ing, in the effort to allay which, by rubbing the
part, the eye may be blemished. The nitrated
ointment of quicksilver, mixed with an equal quan-
tity of lard, may be slightly rubbed on the edges
of the lids with considerable good effect.

The eyelids will sometimes become oedema-
tous. Horses that are fed in low and humid
pastures are subject to this. It is also the conse-
quence of inflammation badly treated. The eyelids
are composed of a lax structure, and the tissue is
Bomewhat deficient in vitality — hence this disposi-
tion to enfiltration. Sometimes the collection of
fluid accumulates so rapidly, and so extensively,
that the eyes are closed. They should be well
bathed with warm water mingled with an aromatic
tincture. The cellular substance of the lids will
thus be disposed to contract on their contents and
cause their absorption.

Old carriage horses are subject to this oedema;
and it frequently accompanies both clu-onic and
common ophthalmia.

Weakness and dropping of the upper lid is
caused by diminution or loss of power in its
muscles. Dry frictions and aromatic lotions will
frequently restore the tone of the parts.

The eyelids are subject to occasional injury
from their situation and office. In small incised
wounds of them great care should be taken that
the divided edges unite by the first intention.
This will hasten the cure and prevent deformity.
If any of the muscles are divided, it is usually the
ciliary or orbicularis palpebrarum. This lesion
must be healed, if possible, by the first intention,
and either by means of adhesive plaster or the
suture. The suture is probablj' the preferable agent.
Suppurating wounds in the eyelids may be the
consequence of the necessary abstraction of a consi-
derable surface of the skin in the removal of warts
or tumours. The principal thing to be attended to
is the frequent removal of the pus by means of tow
or cotton wool. The rest may generally be left to
nature.

Inversion of the lids is of very rare occurrence
in the horse.

Warts are sometimes attached to the edges of
the lids, and are a source of great irritation. When
rubbed they bleed ; and the common opinion is
true, that they are propagated by the blood. They
should be taken off with a sharp pair of scissors,
and their roots touched with the lunar caustic.

The membrane which covers the haw is subject
to inflammation ; it is, indeed, a continuation of
the conjunctiva, the inflammation of which con-
stitutes ophthalmia. An account of this inflam-
mation will be better postponed until the nature
and treatment of ophthalmia comes under particu-
lar notice.

The haw, or membrana nictitans, is subject to
inflammation peculiar to itself, arising from the
introduction of foreign bodies, or from blows or
other accidents. The entire substance of the haw
becomes inflamed : it swells and protrudes from
the inner angle of the eye. The heat and redness
gradually disappear ; but the membrane often con-
tinues to protrude. The inflammation of this
organ assumes a chronic character in a very short
time, on account of the structure of the parts,
which are in general little susceptible of reaction.

The ordinary causes of this disease in the
horse are repeated and periodical attacks of oph-
thalmia, and blows on the part. Young and old
horses are most subject to it.

Emollient applications, bleeding, and restricted
diet, will be proper at the commencement of the
disease; and, the inflammation being abated, slight
astringents will be useful in preventing, the en-
gorgement of the part. Rose-water, with subace-
tate of lead, will form a proper collyrium. If the
protruding body does not diminish after proper
means have been tried, and for a sufficient period,

THE HORSE.

308

it must be removed with a curved pair of scissors.
No danger will attend this operation if it is per-
formed iu time ; but, if it is neglected, ulceration
of the part, and the growth of fungous vegetations,
will give a serious character to the affair. A second
operation may also be necessarj-, and even a third,
and fungus hismatodes will probably be estab-
lished.

Ulceration and caries of the cartilage will
sometimes be accompanied by ulceration of the
conjunctiva. This will frequently prove a very
serious affair, demanding, at least, the removal of
the haw.

The caruncula lacrj-malis, or tubercle, by means
of which the tears are directed into the canal
through which they are to escape from the nostril,
is sometimes enlai-ged in consequence of inflam-
mation ; and the puncta lacrymalia, or conduits
into which the tears pass from the eye, are par-
tially or completely closed. The application of
warm and emollient lotions will generally remove
the collected mucus or the inflammation of the
parts ; but if the passage of a stylet, or other
more complicated means, are required, the assist-
ance of a vetermaiy surgeon should be immediately
obtained. The lacrymal sac into which the tears
pass from the puncta has occasionally participated
in the inflammation, and been distended and rup-
tured by the tears and mucus. This lesion is
termed fistula lacrymalis. It has occasionally ex-
isted in colts, and will require immediate and
peculiar treatment.

COMMON INFLAMMATION OF THE EYE.

The conjunctiva is occasionally the seat of
great disease, and that which is too often destruc-
tive to the eye. Inflammation of the eye may be
considered under two forms — the common and
manageable, and the specific and fatal. The com-
mon infiammation is generally sudden in its at-
tack. The lids will be found swelled, and the
eyes partially closed, and some weeping. The
inside of the lid will be red, some red streaks
visible on the white of the eye, and the cornea
slightly dim. This is occasionally connected with
some degree of catarrh or cold ; but it is as often
unaccompanied by this, and depends on external
irritation, as a blow, or the presence of a bit of
hay-seed or oat-husk within the lid, and towards
the outer comer where the haw cannot reach it ;
therefore the lids should always be carefully ex-
amined as to this possible source of the complaint.
The health of the animal is generally imaffected :
he feeds well, and performs his work with his
usual spirit. Cooling applications to the eye, as
Goulard's extract or tincture of opium, with mash-
diet and gentle physic, will usually abate the eNdl :
or the inflammation will subside without medical
treatment.

SPECIFIC OPHTHALMIA, OR MOON-BLrNDNESS.

Should three or four days pass, and the in-
flammation not be abated, we may begin to suspect
that it is the ophthalmia, especially if the eye is
very impatient of light, and the cornea is consi-
derably clouded. The aqueous humour then often
loses its transparency — even the iris changes its
colour, and the pupil is exceedingly contracted.
The veterinary surgeon has now an obstinate dis-
ease to combat, and one that will generally main-
tain its ground in spite of all his eft'urts. For
tlu'ee, or four, or five weeks, the inflammation will
remain undiminished ; or if it appears to yield on
one day, it will return with redoubled violence on
the next. At length, and often unconnected with
any of the means that have been used, the eye
begins to bear the light, the redness of the mem-
brane of the lid disappears, the cornea clears up,
and the only vestige of disease which remains is a
slight thickening of the lids, and apparent uneasi-
ness when exposed to a verj' strong light.

If the owner imagines that he has got rid of
the disease, he will be sadly disappointed ; for, in
the course of six weeks or two months, either the
same eye undergoes a second and similar attack,
or the other one becomes affected. All again seems
to pass over, except that the eye is not so per-
fectly restored, and a slight, deeply-seated cloudi-
ness begins to appear ; and after repeated attacks,
and alternations of disease from eye to eye, the
affair terminates in opacity of the lens or its cap-
sule, attended with perfect blindness either of one
eye or both. This affection was formerly known
by the name of moon-blindness, from its periodical
return, and some supposed influence of the moon.
That body, however, has not, and cannot have,
anything to do with it.

WTiat is the practitioner doing all this while ?
He is an anxious and busy, but almost powerless
spectator. He foments the eyes with waiTn water,
or applies cold lotions with the extract of lead or
opium, or poultices to which these drugs may be
added ; he bleeds — not from the temporal artery,
for that does not supply the orbit of the eye — but
from the angular rein at the inner comer of the
eye ; or he scarifies the lining of the lid. or sub-
tracts a considerable quantity of blood from the
jugular vein. The scarifjing of the conjunctiva,
which may be easily accomplished without a twitch,
by exposing the inside of the lids, and drawing a
keen lancet slightly over them, is the most effectual
of all ways to abate inflammation ; for we are then
immediately unloading the distended vessels. He
places his setons in the cheek, or his rowels under
the jaw ; and he keeps the animal low, and gives
physio or fever medicine (digitalis, nitre, and
emetic tartar). The disease, however, ebbs and
flows, retreats and attacks, until it reaches its

304

THE HOESE.

iiatiu'al termiuation, blindness of one or both
eyes.

The horse is more subject to this disease from
the age of four to six years than at any other
period. He has then completed his growth. He
is full of blood, and liable to inflammatory com-
plaints ; and the eye is the organ attacked from
a jieculiar predisposition in it to inflammation, the
nature or cause of which cannot always be explained.
Every affection of the eye appearing about this
age must be regarded with much suspicion.

It is a comnion opinion that black horses are
more subject to blindness than others. There is
consideralale doubt about this, or rather it is pro-
bable that that colour has no influence either in
producing Or aggravating the disease.

As this malady so frequently destroys the
sight, and there are certain periods when the in-
flammation has seemingly subsided, and the inex-
perienced person would be deceived into the be-
lief that all danger is at au end, the eye should
be most carefully observed at the time of purchase,
and the examiner should be fully aware of all the
minute indications of previous or approaching dis-
ease. They are a slight thickening of the lids, or
puckering towards the inner comer of the eye ; a
difference in the apparent size of the eyes ; a
cloudiness, although perhaps scarcely perceptible,
of the surface of the cornea, or more deeply seated,
or a hazy circle roimd its edge ; a gloominess of
eye generally, and duluess of the iris ; or a minute,
faint, dusky spot in the centre, with or without
minute fibres or lines diverging from it.

The cause of this inflammation is undoubtedly
a strong predisposition to it in the eye of the
horse, but assisted by the heated and empoisoned
air of many stables. The heated air has much to
do with the production of the disease ; the em-
poisoned air a great deal more: for every one
must have observed, on entering a close stable
early in the morning, strong fumes of haitshom
which were painful to his eyes and caused the
tears to flow. What must be the constant action
of tliis on the eyes of the horse ? The dung of the
horse, and the litter of the stables, when becom-
ing putrid, emit fumes of volatile alkali or harts-
horn. Often, very soon after they are voided,
tliey begin to yield au immense quantity of this
pungent gas. If we are scarcely able to bear this
when we stand in the stable for only a few mi-
nutes, we need not wonder at the prevalence of
inflammation in the eye of the stabled horses, nor
at the difficulty of abating inflammation while this
organ continues to be exposed to such painful ex-
citement. Stables are now much better ven-
tilated than they used to be, and ophthalmia
is far from being so prevalent as it was fifty years
ago.

The farmer may not be aware of another cause

of blindness, to which liis horse is more particularly
exposed, -viz., confinement m a dark stable. Many
stables in the country have no glazed windows,
but there is a flap which is open for a few hours in
the day, or while the carter is employed in the
stable, and when that is shut down almost total
darkness prevails. Let our reader consider what
are his sensations when he suddenly emerges
from a dark room into the full glare of light. He
is dazzled and bewildered, "and some time passes
before his vision is distinct. Let this be rejaeated
several times daily, and what will be the conse-
quence ? The sight will be disordered, or the eye
irreparably injured. Then let him think of his
poor horse, who often stumbles and starts through
no fault of his o^\ti, although he is corrected for
his blundering, but because his eyes are necessa-
rily weakened by these sudden transitions, and
disposed to take on sudden inflammation wth all
its fatal results.

The propagation of various diseases, and this'
more than any other, from the sire to his progeny,
has not been sufficiently considered by breeders.
Let a stallion that is blind, or whose sight is de-
fective, jiossess eveiy other point and quality that
can be wished, yet he is worse than useless, for a
very considerable proportion of his offspring will
most assuredly inherit weak eyes or become totally
blind. There is no fact better established than
this.

Mr. Baker of Reigate puts this in a very strong
point of view. . He was called upon to examine a
foal only a few days old, which seems to have
some affection of the head, as from its bu'th it was
totally unconscious of any oliject, although it ap-
peared to the owner to have good eyes. It ran
its head against the wall and the standers by, in
such a way as to convince the surgeon that it was
quite blind, and on examining the pupil of each
eye, he found them greatly dilated and motionless,
but beyond this thei'e was no unhealthy ap-
pearance.

He inquired about the sire, and found that his
vision was very defective, and that of all the
stock which he got in that part of the country, not
one colt escaped the direful effects of his imper-
fect sight. He persuaded the o\^'ner to have the
youngster destroyed, and in tracing the optic neiTe
Ln its passage from the base of the brain, he found
it in a complete state of atrophy. There was
scarcely any nervous substance within the tube
that led ft-om the brain to the eye.

The most frequent consequences of this disease
are cloudiness in the eye, and cataract. The
cloudiness is singular in its nature. It will change
m twenty-four hours from the thinnest film to the
thickest opacity, and, as suddenly, the eye will
nearly regain its perfect transparency, but only to
lose it, and as rapidly, a second time

THE HORSE.

305

The most barbarous metliods have been re-
sorted to for the purpose of removing this cloudi-
ness. Chalk, and salt, and sugar, and even
pounded glass, have been introduced into the eye
mechanically to rub oft' the film. It was forgot-
ten that tlie cloudiness was the etfect of inflamma-
tion— that means so harsh and cruel were very
likely to recall that inflammation — that these
rough and sharp substances must of necessity in-
flict e.xcruciating pain ; and that, after all, it ge-
nerally was not a film on the surface of the cornea,
but a dimess pen'ading its substance, and even
sinldng deep within it, and therefore not capable
of being removed. WTiere the cloudiness can be
removed, it will be best effected by first abating
inflammation, and then exciting the absorbents to
take up the grey deposit, by washing the eye with
a very weak solution of corrosive sublimate.

Opacity of the lens is another consequence of
inflammation. A white speck appears on the
centre of the leus, which gradually spreads over
it, and completely covers it. It is generally so
white and pearly as not to be mistaken — at other
times it is more hazy, deceiving the inexperienced,
and occasioning doulit in the mind of the profes-
sional man. We have seen many instances in
which the sight has been considerably aff"ected or
almost lost, and yet the horse has been pro-
noimced sound by very fair judges. The eye
must be exposed to the hght, and yet under the
kind of shelter which has been already described,
in order to discover the defect. The pupil of the
liorse is seldom black, like that of the human
being, and its greyish hue conceals the recent or
thin film that may be spreading over the lens.

Confirmed cataract in the eye of the horse
admits of no remedy, for two obvious reasons :
the retractor muscle draws the eye back so power-
fully and so deeply into the socket that it would
be almost impossible to perform any operation ;
and, coidd an operation be performed, and the
opaque lens removed, the sight would be so imper-
fect, from the rays of light not being sufficiently
converged, that the horse would be worse to us
than a blmd one. The man who has undergone
the operation of couching may put a new lens be-
fore his eye, in the form of a convex spectacle ;
but we cannot adapt spectacles to the eye of the
horse, or fix them there.

Since the publication of the first edition of
"The Horse," some controversy has taken place
with regard to the occasional appearance and dis-
appearance of cataract mthout any connexion with
the common moon-blindness. Mr. Clay deposed
in evidence, that cataracts might be formed in a
fortnight or three weeks — that he had Ivnown
many instances in which they had been completed
in less time, and without any previous apparent
disease of the eyes ; and that he had detected

them when the owners had not the slightest sus-
picion of disease in the eye.*

Mr. Cartwright adds, that he has known two
similar cases. The first was of a horse that had
two cataracts in each eye — two of them of the size
of a large pin's head, and the other two treble
that size. . There was no vestige of former inflam-
mation ; and the person who bred him said that he
never had been subject to inflammation of the
eye. In December 1S31, these cataracts were
plain enough; but in the autumn of 183'2 they
had completely vanished.

In November 1833, Mr. Cartwright saw a five-
years old mare, and detected a cataract in the
right eye, of the size of a coriander seed. He
advised the owner to get rid of her, thinking that
she would go blind ; but, being a useful animal,
he kept her. In August 1833, Mr. Cartwright
saw her again. The cataract had disappeared,
and the eyes were perfect.^

That excellent veterinarian, Mr. Percivall,
had a somewhat similar case. A gentleman
brought a horse one morning to the hospital, in
consequence of its ha%'ing fallen in lus way to town,
and grazed his eyebrow. On examining him care-
fully, the cornea was partially nebulous, and a
cataract was plainly visible. Neither of these
defects was sufficient to attract the notice of any
unprofessional observer, and both were uncon-
nected with the slight braise produced by the
fall. The owner was told that the corneal opacity
might possibly be removed ; but as for tlie cata-
ract, he might regard this as beyond the reach of
medicine. He returned with his horse on the
fifth day, saying that the physic had operated
well, and that he thought the eye was as clear as
ever. Mr. Percivall examined the eye, and coidd
discover no relic either of the corneal opacity or
of the cataract.

The opinion respecting cataract is therefore
essentially modified. It is not necessarily the re
sidt of previous inflammation, although in the
great majority of cases it is so, nor does it alwavs
lead to blindness. Still it is a serious thing "at
all times, and, although existing in the minutest
degree, it is unsouudness, and very materially
lessens the value of the horse.

" Were I asked," says Mr. Percivall, " how
the practitioner could best distinguish a cataract
of the above description from that which is of
ordinary occurrence, and known by us all to con-
stitute the common termination of periodical
ophthalmia, I shoidd say that the mmsually lucid
and healthy aspect which every other part of the
eye presents is our best diagnostic sign : the
slightest indication, however, or the slightest sus-
picion of prior or present inflammation, being a

* Veterinarian, vol. vii. p. 41.
+ Veterinarian, vol. vii. p. 44.

306

THE HORSE.

reason for coming to a different conclusion. As
to tlie period of time a cataract of this species,
supposing it to be membranous, woidd require for
its formation, I sbould apprehend that its pro-
duction might be, as its disappearance often would
seem to be, the work of a very short interval,
perhaps not more than five or six days." As to
the cause and treatment of it, we are at present
completely in the dark. If it does not soon dis-
appear, the hydriodate of potash administered in-
ternally might offer the best prospect of success.

GUTTA SERENA.

Another species of blindness, and of which
mention was made when describing the retina, is
Gutta Serena, commonly called glass eye. The
pupil is more than usually dilated : it is im-
movable, and bright, and glassy. This is palsy
of the optic nen-e, or its expansion, the retina ;
and is usually produced by determination of blood
to the head. We have described it as a conse-
quence of staggei-s. So much pressure has been
occasioned on the base of the brain, that the
nei-ve has been injured, and its function destroyed.
The treatment of Gutta Serena is quite as diffi-
cult as that of cataract. We have heard of suc-
cessful cases, but we never saw one ; nor should
we be disposed to incur much expense in endea-
vouring to accomplish impossibilities. Reason-
ing from the cause of the disease, we should bleed
and physic, and administer the strychnine in
doses, commencing at half a grain, and not ex-
ceeding two grains, morning and night — very
carefully watching it. If we succeed, it must be
by constitutional treatment. As to local treat-
ment, the seat of disease is out of our reach.

DISEASES OF THE EAR.

Wounds of the ear are usually the conse-
quence of careless or brutal treatment. The
twitch may be applied to it, when absolutely ne-
cessity requires this degree of coercion ; but trou-
blesome ulcere and braises have been the conse-
quence of the abuse of this species of punish-
ment, and more especially has the farrier done ir-
reparable mischief when he has brutally made use
of his plyers.

'I'hese bruises or wounds will generally — for-
tunately for the animal, and fortunately, perhaps,
for the brate that inflicted the injury — speedily
heal ; but occasionally sinuses and abscesses will
result that bid defiance to the most skilful treat-
ment. A simple laceration of the cartilage is
easily remedied. The divided edges are brought
into apposition, and the head is tied up closely for
a few days, and all is well ; but, occasionally, ul-
ceration of the integument and cellular substance,
and caries of the cartilage, will take place— deep
sinuses will be fonned, and the wound will bid

defiance to the most skilful treatment. The
writer of this work had once a case of this kind'
mider his care more than two months, and he
was at length compelled to cut off the ear, the
other ear following it, for the sake of uniformity of
appearance. The lunar caustic, or the muriate
of antimony, or the heated iron, must be early
employed, or the labour of the practitioner will be
vain.

It has been the misfortune of the same person
to witness two cases in which the auditory passage
was closed and the faculty of hearing destroyed, by
blows on the eai' violently inflicted. No punish-
ment can be two severe for these brutes in human
shape. Whenever there is considerable swell-
ing about the root of the ear, and the fluctuation
of a fluid within can be detected, it should be im-
mediately opened with a lancet, and the purident
fluid liberated.

The abscess usually begins to form about the
middle of the conch, or rather nearer the base
than the point. The incision should be of consi-
derable length, or the opening will close again in
four-and-twenty hom-s. The punilent matter hav-
ing been evacuated, the incision should not be
permitted to close until the parietes of the ulcer
have adhered' to each other, and the abscess is
obliterated.

The size and the carrying of the ear do not
always please. The ears may be larger and more
dependent than fashion requires them to be, and
this is remedied bj' jjaring or clipping them to the
requisite size. On either side of the projection of
the occipital bone, and in a straight line fonvard
and backward, a fold of the skin is pinched up
and cut awa}'. The divided edges on either side
are then brought together, and confined by two or
three stitches — they presently unite, and, the
owner has a better-looking horse, and soon for-
gets or cares not about the punishment which
he has inflicted on him.

The ears of otlier horses may be supposed to
be too close to each other. This fault is cor-
rected by another piece of cruelty. Similar slips
of skin are cut away on the outside of the base of
the ear, and in the same direction. The edges of
the wound are then brought together, confined by
sutures, and the ears are drawn further apart from
each other, and have different directions given to
them. A very alight examination of either of the
horses will readily detect the imposition.

DEAFNESS.

Of the occasional existence of this in the
horse, there is no doubt. The beautiful play of
the ears has ceased, and the horse hears not the
voice of his master, or the sound of the whip.
Much of the apparent stupidity of a few horses is
attributable to their imperfect hearing. It occa-

THE HORSE.

sionali)' appears to follow the decline of various
diseases, and especially of those that affect the
head and the respiratory passages. It has been
the consequence of bnital treatment closing the
conduit of the ear, or rupturing the tympanum ;
and it is certainly, as in other domesticated ani-
mals, the accompaniment of old age.

In the present state of veterinary knowledge
it is an incurable complaint ; the only thing that
can be done is not to punish the poor slave for his
apparent stupidity, produced perhaps by over-
exertion in our service, or, at least, the natural
attendant of the close of a life devoted to us.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ANATOMY AND DISEASES OF THE NOSE AND MOUTH.

We now proceed to a description of the face, or
lower part of the head of the horse. The nasal
bones, or bones of the nose [j j, p. 265, and a,
p. 266), are connected with the frontal bones
above, and with the lacrymal, i i, and the bones of
the upper jaw, II, on either side. They are united
together by a plain suture, which is a continuation
of the frontal, and they terminate in a point at
the nostril (p, p. 265). They are rounded and
arched above, because they are exposed to occa-
sional violence and injury, which the arch-form
will enable them best to resist ; and, at the base
of the arch, where the main strength should be,
they are overlapped by the upper jawbone, as the
temporal bone overlaps the base of the parietal.
These bones form a principal part of the face ; and
the length, or shortness, and the character of the
face, depend upon them. Sometimes there is an
appearance of two little arches, with a depression
between them along the sutures. This is often
found in the blood-horse, with his comparatively
broad head and face. The single elevated arch is
found in the long and narrow face of the heavy
draught-horse.

The nasal bones pursue their course down the
face, in some horses in a straight line ; in others,
there is a slight prominence towards the upper
part ; while, in a considerable number, a depres-
sion is oliserved a little lower do^^Tl. Some persons
have imagined that this deviation in the line of
the face affords an indication of the temper of the
animal, and there may be a little truth in this.
The horse with a straight profile may be good or
bad tempei-ed, but not often either to any great
excess. The one with the prominent Roman nose
will generally be an easy, good-tempei'ed kind of
beast, hardy, ready enough to feed, not always,
perhaps, so ready to work, but may be made to do
his duty without any ciiiel urging, and having no
extraorcUnary pretension to speed or blood. On
the other hand, a depression across the centre of
the nose generally indicates some breeding, espe-
cially if the head is small, but occasionally accom-
panied by a vicious, uncontrollable disposition.

There is another way, however, in which the
nasal bones do more certainly indicate the breed,
viz. by their comparative length or shortness.
There is no surer criterion of a well-bred horse
than a broad angular forehead, prominent features,
and a short face ; nor of a horse with little breed-
ing than a narrow forehead, small features, and
lengthened nose. The comparative development
of the head and face indicates, with little error,
the preponderance of the animal or intellectual
principle.

Fracture of the nasal bones of the horse will
sometimes occur from falling, or a kick from the
companion, or the brutality of the attendant. It
is generally followed by laceration of the lining
membrane of the nostrils, and by hsemoiThage.
The haemorrhage may usually be arrested by the
application of cold water externally. In sponta-
neous hcemorrhage this does not often succeed
until a considerable quantity of blood is lost.

In cases of fracture of the nasal bones, the
assistance of a veterinaiy surgeon is indispensable.
He alone knows the jirecise anatomy of the paints,
and will have recourse to the elevator or the tre-
phine, as circumstances may require.

The owner must not be too sanguine with re-
gard to cases of this kind; for ozena — ulcera-
tion attended by a peculiar and almost in-
sufferable stench — is too often the consequence,
or foundation may he laid for the appearance of
glanders.

Spontaneous bleeding from the nose must be
carefully attended to. It may proceed from over-
fulness of the capillaries of the membrane of the
nose, or determination of blood to the head, or
general plethora of the system. Those that are
overfed and overfat are most liable to it, as troop-
horses, brewers' horses, and horses kept for plea-
sure. It is not common in young hoi-ses, or in
such as are out of condition, or worked hardly.
It is always desirable to know whence the bleed-
ing proceeds ; if from the nostril alone, it will
usually be confined to one side ; if from the lungs,
the discharge is from both nostrils, and generally

308

THE HOESE.

mingled with mucus or spume ; there is also a
quickened respiration, and more or less cough.

If it is apparently connected with some slight
cause, a dose of physic and quietness for a day or
two vnll be sufficient ; and, if necessary, a slight
solution of alum may be injected up the nostril.
If the bleeding is apparently from the lungs, a
more serious evacuation will be required.

These bones form the roof of an important
cavity (see a, p. 266). The sides are constituted
above by the nasal bones, and, lower down, by the
upper jawbones (superior maxillaries), while jjlates
from these latter bones project and compose the

palate, which is both the floor of the nose and the
roof of the mouth (t, p. 266). Above (near fig. 8),
not visible in our cut, is a bone called the palatine,
although it contributes very little to the formation
of the palate. It is the termination of the palate,
or the border of the opening where the cavities of
the mouth and nose meet (fig. 8). The frontal
sinuses, ft, and large vacuities in the upper jaw-
bone, and in the aethmoid, /, and sphenoid bones,
k, commmiicate with and enlarge the cavity of
the nose.

This cavity is divided into two parts by a car-
tilage called the septum (see a, p. 266). It is of

considerable thickness and strength, and divides
the cavity of the nose into two equal parts. It is
placed in the centre for the purpose of strength,
and it is formed of cartilage in order that, by its
gradually yielding resistance, it may neutralise
almost any force that may be applied to it.

When we opien the nostril we see the mem-
brane by which the cartilage, and the whole of the
cavity of the nose, is Imed, and by the colour of
which, much more than by that of the lining of
the eyelids, we judge of the degree of fever, and
particularly of inflammation of the lungs, or any
of the air-passages. The above cut shows the
ramifications of the blood-vessels, both arterial
and venous, on the membrane of the nose. It
beautifully accounts for the accurate connexion
which we trace between the colour of the nasal
membrane and various diseases or states of the cir-
culation. By the sore places or ulcerations dis-
covered on this membrane we likewise determine
respecting the existence of glanders ; and the
interposition of the septum is a wise and benevo-
lent provision to hinder the spread of the mischief
by cutting off all communication with the neigh-
bouring parts, and also to preserve one nostril
pervious when the other is diseased or obstructed.
The nasal cavity is, on either side, occupied by
two bones, which, from their being rolled up
somewhat in the form of a turban, are called the
turbinated, or tiirhan-iliaped bones, s s, p. 266;

part of the cartilage is cut away in our cut in order
to display them. They are as thin as gauze, and
perforated, like gauze, with a thousand holes.
Between them ai'e left sufficient passages for
the axe.

If they were unrolled they would present a
very considerable surface ; and on every part of
them is spread the substance or pulp of the olfac-
tory, or first pair of nei^ves. These bones, lined
with delicate membranes, and covered by the ol-
factory nerves, are the seat of smell ; and they are
thus expanded because the sense of smell in the
horse must, to a very considerable degree, supply
the place of the sense of touch and the lessons of
experience in the human being. By this alone he
is enabled to select, amongst the nutritive and
poisonous herbage of the meadow, that which would
support and not destroy him. Tlic troops of wild
horses are said to smell the approach of an enemy
at a very considerable distance. In his domestic
state the horse does not examine the different food
which is placed before him with his eye, but with
his nose ; and if the smell displeases him, no
coaxing will induce him to eat. He examines a
stranger by the smell, and, by very intelligible
signs, expresses the opinion which he forms of him
by this inquisition. The horse will evidently recog-
nise his favourite gi'oom when he has nothing else
to indicate his approach but the sense of smell.
These cavities are likewise organs of voice. The

THE HORSE.

d09

sound reverberates through them, and increases in
loudness, as througli tho windings of a French
hoiTi.

The extension of the nostril at the lower part
of these cavities is an important part of the face,
and intimately connected with breeding, courage,
and speed. The horse can breathe only through
the nose. All the air which goes to and returns
from the lungs must pass through the nostrils.
In the common act of breathing these are suffi-
ciently large ; but when the animal is put on his
speed, and the respiration is quickened, these pas-
sages must dilate, or he will be much distressed.
The expanded nostril is a strildng feature in the
blood-horse, especially when he has been excited
and not overblown. The sporting man mil not
forget the sudden effect wliich is given to the
countenance of the hunter, when his ears become
erect and liis nostrils dilate as he fu'st listens to
the ciy of the hounds, and snorts and scents them
afai- off. The painful aud spasmed stretching of
this pait, in the poor over-driven post-horse, will
show how necessary it is that the passage to the
lungs should be free and open. The nostrils
should not only be large, but the membranous
substance which covers the entrance into the nose
should be thin aud elastic, that it may more

readily yield when the necessity of the animal re-
quires a greater supply of air, and afterwards
return to its natural tlimeusions. Therefore, na-
tui-e, which adapts the animal to his situation and
use, has given to the cart-horse, that is seldom
blown, a confined nostril, aud suiTOunded by much
cellular substance, aud a thick skin ; and to the
horse of more breeding, whose use consists in his
speed and his continuance, a wider nostril and
one much more flexible.

The inhabitants of some countries were accus-
tomed to slit the nostrils of their horses, that they
might be less distressed in the severe and long-
continued exertion of their speed. The Icelanders
do so to the present day. There is no necessity
for this ; for nature has made ample provision for
all the ordinary and even extraordinary exertion
we can require from the horse.

Some very powerful muscles proceed from dif-
ferent parts of the face to the neighbom'hood of
the nostrils, in order to draw them back and dilate
them. Four of these are given in tins cut, which
is introduced to complete our present subject, and
which will be often referred to in the course of
our work ; I, m, o, and p, ax& muscles employed
for this purpose.

THE MUSCLES, NEEVES, AND BLOOD-VESSELS OF THE HEAD AND UPPER PART OF THE NECK

a The upper part of the ligament of the neck.

b The levator humeri (elevator of the shoulder), arising from the
tubercle of the occiput, the mastoid (nipple shaped) process
of the temporal bone, and the transver-e processes (cross
pro-ections) of the lour first bones of the neck, and the liga-
ment of the neck, and going to the muscles of the shoulders,
and the upper bone of the ann : to draw forward the
shoulder and arm ; or turn the head and neck ; and, when
the two levators act, to depress the head.

c The tendon common to the complexus major (larger complicated)
and spknius (splint-like): — to the mastoid process of the
temporal bone ; to hold up the head ; or, the muscles on
one side alone acting, to turn it.

d The sterno maxUlaris (belonging .to the .breasl-bone) and upper

VOL«I.

jaw, from the cartilage in front of the chest to the angle of
the lower jaw ; to bend the head ; or, if one only acts, to
bend it on one side.

e The stijlo-maxUlarit, from the styloid (pencil-shaped), or cora-
coid (beak-shaped) process of the occiput, to the angle of
the jaw: to pull the jaw backward and open iu

/ The suhscapulo hyoideus, from under the shoulder-blade, to the
body of the os hyoides (the bone at the root of the tongue
formed like a Greek u, i*): to draw back that bone.

g The masscter (chewing); a most powerful muscle, constituting
the cheek of the horse: — from the upper jaw-bone into the
the rough surface round the angle of the lower : in con-
junction with tlic temporal muscle to close the mouth and
chewthe fooJ,

SlO

THE HORSE.,

h The orbicularis (circular) surrounding the eye and closing the

lids.
i The xygomalinis, from the zygomatic arch and masseter to the

comer of the mouth, to draw hack the angle of the mouth.
,'c The luccinator (trampeter), from the inside of the mouth and

cheeks, to the angle of the mouth, to draw it hack.

1 The nasalis labii superioris (belonging to the nose and upper

lip), from a depression at the juncticm of the superior max-
illary and malar hones, to the angle of the nostril : — to
raise the lip, and dilate the nostrils.

m Dilator naris lateralis (side dilator of the nostril), reversed to
show tlie vessels and nerves which it covers, going from
the covering of the nasal and frontal hones, to the angle of
the mouth, and side of the nostril : — to retract the upper
lip and dilate the nostrils.

n Dilator magnus (great dilator), assisting in the same office.

o Depressor labii inferioris (puller down of the under lip), to the
sides of the under lip : to pull it down.

p Orbicularis oris (circular muscle of the mouth), surrounding the
moulh : to close the lips, and dilate the nostrils.

q The upper portion of the parotid gland (gland near the ear) re-
versed, to show the blood-vessels and nerves beneath it.

r The parotid duct piercing the cheek, to discharge the saliva
into the moulh.

s The maxillary gland (gland of the lower jaw) with its duct.

t The jugQlar (neck) vein, after the two branches have united.

M At this letter, the submaxillary artery, a branch of the jugular,
and the parotid duct, pass under and within the angle of
the lower jaw; they come out again at w, and climb up
the cheek to be distributed over the face.

V The vein and artery, passing under the zygomatic arch.

X A branch of the fifth pair, the sensitive nerve of the face, emerg-
ing from under the parotid gland.

y The main branch of the portio tiura (hard portion) of the se-
venth pair, the motor (moving) nerve of the face coming
out from beneath the parotid gland, to spread over the
face.

2 Branches of both nerves, with small blood-vessels.

There are also fotir distinct cartilages attached
to the nostrils, which, by their elasticity, bring
back the nostrils to their former dimensions, as
soon as the muscles cease to act. The bones of
the nose (a a, p. 265, and ^), 266) are also sharp-
ened off to a point, to give wider range for the ac-
tion of the muscles ; while the cartilages are so
contrived, as not only to discharge the office we
have mentioned, but to j)rotect this projection of
bone from injury.

There are two circumstances, which, more than
any others, will enable the veterinary surgeon,
and the ow-ner of a horse, accurately to judge of
the character and degree of many diseases, and to
which veiy few persons pay sufficient attention ;
these are the jjulse, of which we shall presently
speak, and the colour of tlie membrane of the
nose. It is the custom of most veterinary sur-
geons and horsemen to lift the upper eyelid, and
to form their opinion by the colour which its lin-
ing presents. If it is very red, there is consi-
derable fever; — if it is of a pale pinkish hue, there
is little danger. The nose, however, is more
easily got at ; — the surface presented to the view
is more extensive ; its sympathy with almost all
the important organs is greater; — and the changes
produced by disease are more striking and more
conclusive. Let the reader first make himself
^yell acquainted with the unifonn pale pink ap-
pearance of that portion of the membrane which

covers the lower part of the cartilaginous partition
between the nostrils, when the horse is in health
and quiet ; then the increased blush of red, be-
tokening some excitement of the system — the
streaked appearance of inflammation commenced,
and threatening to increase — the intense florid
red, of acute inflammation — the pale ground with
patches of vivid red, showing the half-subdued,
but still existing fever — the uniform colour, al-
though somewhat redder than natural, predicting
a return to healthy circulation^ the paleness ap-
proaching to white, marking the stage of debility,
and sometimes intermingled with radiations of
crimson, inducing the suspicion of lurking mis-
chief; and the dark livid colour of approaching
stagnation of the vital current. These, with all
their shades of difference, will be guides to his
opinion and treatment, which every one, who has
studied them, will highly appreciate.

KASAL rOLYPUS.

By a polypus is meant an excrescence or tu-
mour, varying in size, structure, and consistence,
and attached by a pedicle to a mucous surface.
The true polypus is attached to mucous mem-
branes, and is usually found in the nostrils, the
phar3'nx, the uterus, or the vagina. Tumours
have been seen hanging loose in the veins and
ventricles of the heart ; and in the larger blood-
vessels there have been accumulations of the
fibrine of the blood, with peduncular attachments.

• The nasal polypus usually adheres to some
portion of the superior turbinated bone, or it has
come from some of the sinuses connected with
that cavity. It escaped, while small, through the
valvular opening under the superior turbinated
bone into the cavity of the nose, and there attained
its full growth.

No better account, however, can be given of
the cause of their appearance than that of tumours
in other parts of the body. They evidently have
a constitutional origin : they are frequently here-
ditary, and the animal in which they have once ap-
peared is subject to a return of them.

By some means, probably the increasing weight
of the tumour, and being in a dependent situation,
the polypus is gradually detached from its base,
and forces with it the soft and easily distensible
membrane of the nose. As it continues to de-
scend, this portion of membrane is farther elon-
gated, and forms the pedicle or root of the tumour;
— if that may be termed a root which is a mere
duplicate of its investing membrane.

The polypus, when it hangs free in the nasal
cavity, is usually of a pyriform or pear-like shape ;
and it varies in weight, from a few drachms to
three or four pounds.

How is the surgeon to proceed ? Can he lay
hold of the polypus by the finger, or the forceps,

THE HOUSE.

311

or (for these tumours do not possess much sensi-
bility) the tenaculum ? To ascertain this, he wUl
cast the horse, and fix the head in a position to
take the greatest advantage of the light. If he
cannot fairly get at the tumour by any of these
means, he will let it alone. It will continue to
grow — the membrane constituting the pedicle will
be lengthened — and the pol3'pus will at length de-
scend, and be easily got at. Time and patience
will effect wonders iu this and many similar cases.

Supposing it to have grown, and the surgeon
is endeavouring to e.x:tract it, he must not use any
great force. It must not be torn out by the root.
The tumour must be gently brought down, and a
ligature passed round the pedicle, as high up as it
can conveniently be placed. If the polypus can
then be returned to the nose, the animal will suffer
very little inconvenience ; and in a few days it
will slough off, and the pedicle will contract, and
gradually disappear.

If the polypus is so large that it cannot be
well returned after it has been brought down, we
must, notwithstanding, use the ligature, passing
it round the pedicle sufiiciently tightly to cut off
the supply of blood to the tumour. We may
then immediately excise it. Except the ped-
icle is exceedingly thick, there will be little or no
haemorrhage. Should some bleeding occur, it will
probably soon stop, or may be stopped by the
cautery, which should however be avoided if pos-
sible, for our object is to produce as little irritation
as may be in the membrane, and the actual
cauteiy will be applied with considerable difficulty
in the cavity of the nose.

In very bad cases, when the tumour cannot be
drawn out of the nose, it may be necessary to slit
up the ala or side of the nostril. It will be better,
however, not to cut through the false nostril, for
that consists of a duplicature of such thin integu-
ment, that the stitches can hardly be retained in
it, when the horse will be continually snorting
at the least inconvenience. It will also be difficult
to bring the edges of this thin membrane accu-
rately together again, or, if this be effected, there
is scarcely life enough in it for the parts readily to
unite. The false nostril should be avoided, and
the incision made along the lateral edge of the
nasal bone, beginning at its apex or point. The
flap will then conveniently tm'n down, so as to ex-
pose the cavity beneath ; and there will be suffi-
cient muscular substance to secure an almost cer-
tain union by the first intention. The nostril being
opened, the pedicle will probably be displayed,
and a ligature may be passed rouud it, as already
recommended ; or if it is not actually in sight, it
may probably gradually be brought within reach.

NASAL GLEET, OR DISCHARGE FROM THE KOSE.

There is a constant secretion of fluid to lubri-

cate and moisten the membrane that lines the
cavity of the nose, and which, under catarrh or
cold, is increased in quantity, and altered in ap-
pearance and consistence. This will properly be-
long to the account of catarrh or cold ; but that
which is immediately under consideration is a con-
tinued and oftentimes profuse discharge of thick-
ened mucus, when every symptom of catarrh and
fever has passed away. If the horse is at grass,
the discharge is almost as green as the food on
which he lives ; — or if he is stabled, it is white,
or straw-coloured, or brown, or even bloody, and
sometimes purulent. It is either constantly run-
ning, or snorted out in masses many times a day ;
teasing the horse, and becoming a perfect nuisance
in the stable, and to the rider. This has been
known to continue several months, and eventually
to destroy the horse.

If the discharge is not offensive to the smell,
nor mixed ydib. purulent matter, it is probably
merely an increased and somewhat vitiated secre-
tion from the cavities of the nose ; and, all fever
having disappeared, will frequently yield to small
doses of blue vitriol, given twice in the day. If
fever or cough remains, the cough medicine that
will hereafter be described must be combined with
the tonic. If the discharge is mingled with pus,
and very offensive, the vegetable tonics, gentian
and ginger, may be added to the copper ; but there
is now reason to apprehend that the discharge will
not be controlled, and will terminate in glanders.
Turning into a salt marsh will occasionally eff'ect
a cure, when both the mineral and the vegetable
tonics have failed.

Ozena is ulceration of the membrane of the
nose not always or often visible, but recognised by
the discharge of muco-purulent matter, and the
peculiar foetor from which the disease derives its
name. It resembles glanders in being confined
in most instances to one nostril, and the submax-
illary gland on the same side being enlarged ; but
differs from it, in the gland not being adherent,
and the discharge, from its earliest stage, being
purulent and stinking.

There is sometimes a fcetid discharge from the
nostril iu consequence of inflammation of the
lungs, or produced by some of the sequels of
pneumonia ; distinguished, however, from ozena
by its usually flowing irregularly, being coughed up
in great quantities, more decidedly purulent, and
the gland or glands seldom affected. The dis-
charge from ozena is constant, muco-purulent, and
attended by enlargement of the glands. It is of
immense consequence that we should be enabled
to distinguish the one from the other ; for while
ozena may, sometimes at least, be manageable, the
other is too frequently the precursor of death.

318

THE HORSE.

The cause of ozena cannot always be dis-
covered. Chronic inflammation of the membrane
may assume another and malignant character. In
severe catarrh the membrane may become abraded,
and the abrasions may degenerate into foul and
fcetid ulcers. It is not an unfrequent consequence
of epidemic catarrh. It has been produced by
caustic applications to the lining membrane of the
nose. It has followed haomorrhage, spontaneous,
or the consequence of injury.

In some cases, and those as obstinate as any,
it cannot perhaps be traced to any probable cause,
and the health of the animal has not appeared to
be in the slightest degree affected.

The membrane of the nose is highly sensitive
and irritable, and an ulcer, in whatever way formed
on it, does not readily heal. It often runs on to
gangrene and destroys not only the membrane but
the bone beneath and even the cartilaginous sep-
tum. This is rarely the case in glanders ; and the
ravages of the chancrous ulcers are usually con-
fined to the membrane. The ulceration proceeds
to a certain point — its progress is then arrested,
usually by nature alone — the discharge gradually
lessens — it loses its offensive chai-acter, and at
lengh ceases.

Local applications are seldom available in the
treatment of this disease ; for we know not the si-
tuation of the ulcer, and if we did, we probably
could not get at it. Some have recommended se-
tous. Where are they to lie applied '? If the seat
of ulceration is unknown, the seton may only give
useless pain. Several post-mortem examinations
have sho\Mi tliat the frontal sinuses ai-e a frequent
seat of the disease. Yet w-hat injection could we
use? An emollient one vsould be thrown away. A
stimulating injection might convert ozena into
glanders. Other examinations have shown that
the superior portion of the central meatus was dis-
eased. What instnmient can be contrived to
reach that? Internal medicines are almost thrown
away in this complaint : yet something, perhaps,
may be done under the form of a local applica-
tion. The discarded nose-bag (undervalued at
least by too many practitioners) will afford the
means of employing an emollient fomentation.
The steam from a bran-mash, scalding hot, will
probably reach every part of the nasal cavity, and
so affurd some chance of being beneficially applied
to the ulcer. It will, at least, thoroughly cleanse
the part. By means of the nose- bag and the
warm mash the chloride of lime may be introduced
into the cavity, not only combining with the extri-
cated gases, and removing the fcetor, but an-esting
the tendency to decomposition.

Then there is a digestive— a gentle stimulus
to abraded and ulcerated surfaces, rousing them
to healthy action, and without too much irritating
them— turpentine. This may be applied in the

form of vapour, and in the best of all ways, by
using the fresh yellow deal shavings instead of
bran. This digestive may be brought into contact
with every part of the Schneiderian membrane,
and has been serviceable.

There is another resource, and one that bids
fairer to be successful than any other with which
we are acquainted — the spring grass. It is the
finest alterative, depurative, and restorative in our
whole materia medica; and if it is accessible in the
form of a salt marsh, there is no better chance of
doing good.

GLANDERS.

The most formidable of all the diseases to
which the horse is subject is Glanders. It has
been recognised from the time of Hippocrates of
Cos ; and few modem veterinary writers have
given a more accurate or complete account of its
symptoms than is to be found in the works of the
father of medicine. Three-and-twenty hundred
years have rolled on since then, and veterinaiy prac-
titioners are not yet agreed as to the tissue pri-
marily affected, nor the actual nature of the dis-
ease : we only know that it is at the present day,
what it was then, a loathsome and an incurable

We shall therefore, in treating of this disease,
pursue our course slowly and cautiously.

The earliest symptom of glandera is an in-
creased discharge from the nostril, small in quan-
tity, constantly flowing, of an aqueous character
and a little mucus mingling with it.

Connected with this is an error too general,
and highly mischievous with regard to the charac-
ter of this discharge in the earliest stage of the
disease, when, if ever, a cure might be effected,
and when, too, the mischief from contagion is most
frequently produced. The dischai'ge of glanders
is not sticky when it may be first recognised. It
is an aqueous or mucous, but small and constant
discharge, and is thus distinguished from catarrh,
or nasal gleet, or any other detluxion from the
nostril. It should be impressed on the mind of
every horseman that this small and constant de-
fluxion, overlooked by the groom and by the owner,
and too often by the veterinaiy surgeon, is a most
suspicious circumstance.

Mr. James Turner deserves much credit for
having first or chiefly directed the attention of
horsemen to this important but disregarded symp-
tom. If a horse is in the highest condition, yet
has this small aqueous constant discharge, and
especially from one nostril, no time should be lost
in separating him from his companions. No harm
will he done by this, although the defluxion should
not ultimately betray lurking mischief of a worse
character.

Mr. Turner relates a case very much in point

'VKnUk

THE HOUSE.

313

A farmer asked Lis opinron respectinf; a marc in
excellent conilition, with a sleek coat, and in full
work. He had had her seven or eij^ht months,
and during the whole of that time there had been
a discharge from the right nostril, but in so slight
a degree as scarcely to be deemed worthy of notice.
He now wanted to sell her, but, like an honest
man, he wished to know whether he might warrant
her. Mr. Turner veiy properly gave it as his
opinion, that the discharge having existed for so
long a time, he would not be justified in sending
her into the market. A farrier, however, whose
ideas of glanders had always been connected with
a sticky discharge and an adherent gland, bought
her, and led her away.

Three mouths passed on, when Mr. Turner,
examining the post-horses of a neighbouring inn,
discovered that two of them were glandered, and
two more farcied, while, standing next to the first
that was attacked, and his partner in work, was
his old acquaintance the farmer's mare, with the
same discharge from her nostril, and who had, be-
yond question, been the cause of all the mischief.

The peculiar viscidity and gluiness which is
generally supposed to distinguish the discharge of
glanders from all other mucous and prevalent
secretions belongs to the second stage of the dis-
ease, and, for many months before this, glanders
may have existed in an insidious and highly con-
tagious form. It must be acknowledged, however,
that, in the majority of cases, some degree of
stickiness does characterise the discharge of glan-
ders from a very early period.

It is a singular circumstance, for which no
satisfactory account has yet been given, that when
one nostril alone is attacked, it is, in a great ma-
jority of cases, the near, or left. M. Dupuy, the
director of the veterinary school at Toulouse, gives
a very singular account of this. He says that, out
of eighty cases of glanders that came under his no-
tice, only one was affected in the right nostril.
The difference in the affected nostril does not exist
to so great an extent in Great Britain ; but, in two
horses out of three, or three out of four, the dis-
charge is from the left nostril alone. We might
account for the left leg failing oftener than the
right, for we mount and dismount on the left side ;
the horse generally leads with it, and there is more
wear and tear of that limb : but we cannot satisfac-
torily account for this usual affection of the left
nostril. It is true that the reins are held in the
left hand, and there may be a little more bearing
and pressure on the left side of the mouth ; but
this applies only to saddle-horses, and even with
them does not sufficiently explain the result.

This discharge, in cases of infection, may con-
tinue, and in so slight a degree as to be scarcely per-
ceptible, formany months, oreventwoorthree years,
unattended by any other disease, even ulceration

of the nostril, and yet the horse being decidedly
glandered from the beginning, and capable of pro-
pagating the malady. In process of time, however,
pus mingles with the discharge, and then another
and a characteristic symptom appears. Some of
this is absorbed, and the neighbouring glands Ije-
come affected. If there is discharge from both
nostrils, the glands within the under jaw will been
both sides enlarged. If the discharge is from one
nostril only, the swelled gland will be found on that
side alone. Glanders, however, will fre([u(»iitly exist
at an early stage without these swelled glimds, and
some other diseases, as catarrh, will jiroduce them.
Then we must look out for some peculiarity about
these glands, and we shall readily find it. The
swelling may be at first somewhat lai-ge and dif-
fused, but the surrounding enlargement soon goes
off, and one or two small distinct glands remain ;
and they are not in the centre of the channel, but
adhere closely to the jaw on the affected side.

The membrane of the nose should now be ex-
amined, and will materially guide om- opinion. It
will either be of a dark purplish hue, or almost of
a leaden colour, or of any shade between the two ;
or if there is some of the redness of inflammation,
it ^-ill have a purple tinge : but there ^rill never be
the faint pink blush of health, or the intense and
vivid red of usual inflammation. Spots of ukera-
tion -svill probably appear on the membrane cover-
ing the cartilage of the nose — not mere sore places,
or streaks of abrasion, and quite supei-ficial, but
small ulcers, usually approaching to a circular
form, deep, and \\ith the edges abrupt and promi-
nent. When these appearances are observed, there
can be no doubt about the matter. Care shoidd be
taken, however, to ascertain that these ulcers do
actually exist, for spots of mucus adhering to the
membrane have been more than once taken fur
them. The finger should, if possible, be passed
over the supposed ulcer, in order to determine
whether it can be wiped away ; and it should be
recollected, as was hinted when describing the duct
that conveys the tears to the nose, that the orifice
of that duct, just within the nostril, and on the
inner side of it, lias been mistaken for a chanci-ous
ulcer. This orifice is on the continuation of the
common skin of the muzzle which runs a little way
up the nostril, while the ulcer of glanders is on the
proper membrane of the nose above. The line of
separation between the two is evident on the
slightest inspection.

When ulcers begin to appear on the membrane
of the nose, the constitution of the horse is soon
evidently affected. The patient loses flesh — his
belly is tucked up — his coat unthrifty, and readily
coming off— the appetite is impaired — the strength
fails — cough, more or less urgent, may be heard —
the discharge from the nose will increase in quan-
tity ; it wUl be discoloured, bloody, offensive to the

814

THE HOESE.

smell — the ulcers in the nose will become larger
and more numerous, and the air-passages being
obstructed, a grating, choking noise will be heard
at every act of breathing. There is now a peculiar
tenderness about the forehead. The membrane
lining the frontal sinuses is inflamed and ulcerated,
and the integument of the forehead becomes
thickened and somewhat swelled. Farcy is now
superadded to glanders, or glanders has dege-
nerated into farcy, and more of the absorbents are
involved.

gland, but he will not be misled by its looseness,
nor even by its absence altogether.

Glanders have often been confounded with
strangles, and by those who ought to have known
better. Strangles are peculiar to young horses.
The early stage resembles common cold, with some
degree of fever and sore throat — generally with
distressing cough, or at least frequent wheezing ;
and when the enlargement appears beneath the
jaw, it is not a single small gland, but a swelling
of the whole of the substance between the jaws.

At or before this time little tumours appear growing harder towards the centre, and, after a
about the muscles, and face, and neck, following the while, appearing to contain a fluid, and breaking,
course of the veins and the absorbents, for they ran In strangles, the membrane of the nose will be

side by side ; and these the tumours soon ulcerate
Tumours or buds, still pursuing the path of the
absorbents, soon appear on the inside of the thighs.
They are connected together by a corded substance.
This is the inflamed and enlarged lymphatic ; and
ulceration quickly follows the appearance of these
buds. The deeper-seated absorbents are ne.Kt
affected ; and one or both of the hind-legs swell to
a great size, and become stiff, and hot, and tender.
The loss of flesh and strength is more marked
every day. The membrane of the nose becomes
of a dirty livid colour. The membrane of the
mouth is strangely pallid. The eye is infiltrated
with a yellow fluid ; and the discharge from the
nose becomes more profuse, and insufferably offen-
sive. The animal presents one mass of putrefac-
tion, and at last dies exhausted.

The enlargement of the submaxillary glands,
as connected -svith this disease, may, perhaps, re-
quire a little farther consideration. A portion of
the fluid secreted by the membrane of the nose,
and altered in character by the peculiar inflamma-
tion there existing, is absorbed ; and, as it is con-
veyed along the lymphatics, in order to arrive at
the place of its destination, it inflames them, and
causes them to enlarge and suppurate. There is,
however, a peculiarity accompanying the inflamma-
tion which they take from the absorption of the
virus of glanders. They are rarely large, except
at first, or hot, or tender ; but they are charac-
terised by a singular hardness, a proximity to the
jaw-bone, and, frequently, actual adhesion to it.
The adhesion is produced by the inflammatory
action going forward in the gland, and the effusion
of coagulable lymph. This hardness and adhesion
accompanying discharge from the nostril, and being
on the same side with the nostril whence the dis-
charge proceeds, aflbrd proof not to be controverted
that the horse is glandered. Notwithstanding
this, however, there are cases in which the glands
are neither adherent nor much enlarged, and yet
there is constant discharge from one or both nos-
trils. The veterinary surgeon would have little
hesitation in pronouncing them to be cases of

intensely red, and the discharge from the nose
profuse and purulent, or mixed with matter almost
from the first. When the tumour has burst, the
fever will abate, and the horse will speedily get
well.

Should the discharge from the nose continue,
as it sometimes does, for a considerable time after
the horse has recovered from strangles, there is no
cause for fear. Simple strangles need never de-
generate into glanders. Good keep, and small
doses of tonic medicine, will gradually perfect the
cure.

Glanders have been confounded with catarrh
or cold ; but the distinction between them is plain
enough. Fever, and loss of appetite and sore
throat, accompany cold — the quidding of the food
and gulping of the water are sufficient indications
of the latter of these ; the discharge from the nose
is profuse, and perhaps puralent ; the glands vinder
the jaw, if swelled, are moveable, there is a thick-
ening around them, and they are tender and hot.
With proper treatment the fever abates ; the
cough disappears ; the swellings under the throat
subside ; and the discharge from the nose gi'adu-
ally ceases, or, if it remains, it is usually very
different from that which characterizes glanders.
In glanders, there is seldom cough of any conse-
quence, and generally no cough at all.

A running from the nose, small in quantity,
and, from the smallness of its quantity, drying
about the edges of the nostril, and presenting
some appearance of stickiness, will, in a few cases,
remain after severe catarrh, and especially after
the influenza of spring : and these have gradually
assumed the character of glanders, and more par-
ticularly when they have been accompanied by en-
larged glands and ulceration in the nose. Here
the aid of a judicious veterinary surgeon is indis-
pensable ; and he vrill sometimes experience consi-
derable difficulty in deciding the case. One cir-
cumstance will principally guide him. No disease
will run on to glanders which has not, to a consi-
derable and palpable degree, impaired and broken
down the constitution ; and erery disease that does

glanders. He will trust to the adhesinr n{ the \ this mil run onto (/landers. He wfll look then to the

THE HORSE.

'315

general state and condition of the horse, as well as
to the situation of the glands, the nature of the
discharge, and the character of the ulceration.

If, after all, he is in doubt, an experiment may
be resorted to, which wears indeed the appearance
of cruelty, and which only the safety of a valu-
able animal, or of a whole team, can justify. He
will inoculate an ass, or a horse already con-
demned to the hounds, with the matter discharged
from the nose. If the horse is glandered, the
symptoms of glanders or farcy will appear in the
inoculated animal in the course of a few days.

The postmortem examination of the horse will
remove every doubt as to the character of the
disease. The nostril is generally more or less
blanched, with spots or lines of inflammation of
considerable intensity. Ulceration is almost inva-
riably found, and of a chancrous character, on the
septum, and also on the iethmoid and turbinated
bones. The ulcers evidently follow the course of
the absorbents, sometimes almost confined to the
track of the main vessel, or, if scattered over the
membrane generally, thickest over the path of the
lymphatic. The aethmoid and turbinated bones
are often filled with pus, and sometimes eaten
through and carious ; but, in the majoiity of cases,
the ulceration is confined to the external mem-
brane, although there may be pus within. In
aggravated cases the disease extends through all
the cells of the face and head.

The path of the disease down the larynx and
windpipe is easily traced, and the ulcers follow one
line — that of the absorbents. In aggravated cases,
this can generally be traced on to the lungs. It
produces inflammation in these organs, character-
ised in some cases by congestion ; but in other
cases, the congestion having gone on to hepatisa-
tion, in which the cellular texture of the lungs is
obliterated. Most frequently, when the lungs are
affected at all, tubercles are found — miliary tuber-
cles— minute granulated spots on the surface, or
in the substance of the lungs, and not accompanied
by much inflammation. In a few cases there are
larger tubercles, which soften and burst, and ter-
minate in cavities of varying size.

In some cases, and showing that glanders is
not essentially or necessarily a disease of the lungs,
there is no morbid affection whateverin thoseorgaus.

The history thus given of the symptoms of
glanders will clearly point out its nature. It is an
affection of the membrane of the nose. Some say,
and at their head is Professor Dupuy, that it is
the production of tubercles, or minute tumours in
the upper cells of the nose, which may long exist
undetected, except by a scarcely perceptible nni-
ning from the nostril, caused by the irritation which
they occasion. These tubercles gradually become
more numerous ; they cluster together, suppurate
and break, and small ulcerations are formed. The

ulcers discharge a poisonous matter, whicli is ab-
sorbed and taken up by the neighbouring glands,
and tliis, with greater or less rapidity, vitiates the
constitution of the animal, and is capable of com-
municating the disease to others. Some content
themselves with saying that it is an inflammation
of the membrane of the nose, which may assume
an acute or chronic form, or in a very short time,
or exceedingly slowly, run on to ulceration.

It is inflammation, whether specilic or com-
mon, of the lining membrane of the nose — possi-
bly for months, and even for years, confined to that
membrane, and even to a portion of it — the health
and the usefulness of the animal not being in the
slightest degree impaired. Then, from some un-
known cause, not a new but an intenser action is set
up, the inflammation more speedily runs its course,
and the membrane becomes ulcerated. The inflam-
mation spreads on either side down the septum, and
the ulceration at length assumes that peculiar
chancrous form which characterises inflammation
of the absorbents. Even then, when the discharge
becomes gluey, and sometimes after chancres have
appeared, the horse is apparently well. There are
hundreds of glandered horses about the countiy
with not a sick one among them. For months or
years this disease may do no injuiy to the general
health. The inflammation is purely local, and is
only recognised by the invariable accompaniment
of inflammation and increased secretion. Its
neighbours fall around, but the disease affects not
the animal whence it came. At length a consti-
tutional inflammation appears ; farcy is established
in its most horrible form, and death speedily closes
the scene.

What, then, is the cause of this insidious
dreadful disease ? Although we may be in a
manner powerless as to the removal of the malady,
yet if we can trace its cause and manner of action,
we may at least be able to dp something in the
way of prevention. Much has been accomplished
in this way. Glanders does not commit one-tenth
part of the ravages which it did thirty or forty
years ago, and, generally speaking, it is naw only
found as a frequent and prevalent disease where
neglect, and filth, and want of ventilation e.xist.

Glanders may be either bred in the horse, or
communicated by contagion. What we have far-
ther to remark on this malady will be arranged
under these two heads.

Improper stable management we believe to be
a far more frequent cause of glandere than conta-
gion. The air which is necessary to respii'ation is
changed and empoisoned in its passage through
the lungs, and a fresh supply is necessary for the
support of life. That supply may be suflicient
barely to support life, but not to prevent the
vitiated air from again and again passing to the
lungs, and producing irritation and disease. The

316

THE HORSE.

membrane of the nose, possessed of extreme sen-
sibility for the pui-poses of smell, is easily irritated
by this poison, and close and ill-ventilated stables
oftenest witness the ravages of glanders. Professor
Coleman relates a case which proves to demonstra-
tion the rapid and fatal agency of this cause. " In
the expedition to Quiberon, the horses had not
been long on board the transports before it became
necessary to shut dow-n the hatchways for a few
hours ; the conseiiuence of this was, that some of
them were sutfocated, and that all the rest were
disembarked either glandered or farcied."

In a close stable, the air is not only poisoned
by being repeatedly bi-eathed, but there are other
and more powerful sources of mischief. The dung
and the urine are suffered to remain fermenting,
and giving out injurious gases. In many dark and
ill-managed stables, a portion of the dung may be
swept away, but the urine lies for days at the bot-
tom of the bed, the disgusting and putrefying
nature of which is ill concealed by a little fresh
straw which the lazy horsekeeper scatters over the
top.

The stables of the gentleman are generally
kept hot enough, and far too hot, although, in
many of them, a more rational mode of treatment
is beginning to be adopted ; but they are lofty and
roomy, and the horses are not too much crowded
together, and a most scnipulous regard is paid to
cleanliness. Glanders seldom prevail there. The
stables of the farmer are iU -managed and filthy
enough, and the ordm-e and urine sometimes
remain from week to week, until the horse lies
on a perfect dunghill. Glanders seldom prevail
there ; for the same carelessness wliich pemiits
the filth to accumulate leaves many a cranny
for the wind to enter and sweep away the dele-
terious fumes from this badly-roofed and unceiled
place.

The stables of the horse-dealer are hot enough ;
but a principle of strict cleanliness is enforced,
for there must be nothing to offend the eye or the
nose of the customer, and there glanders are
seldom found ; but if the stables of many of our
post-horses, and of those employed on our canals,
are examined, almost too low for a tall horse to
stand upright in them, — too dark for the accumu-
lation of filth to be perceived, — too far from tlie
eye of the master, — ill drained and ill paved, —
and governed by a false principle of economy,
which begradges the labour of the man, and the
cleanliness and comfort of the animal ; these will
be the very hotbeds of the disease, and in many
of these establishments it is an almost constant
resident.

Glanders may be produced by anything that
injures, or for a length of time acts upon and
weakens, the vital energy of this membrane. They
have been known to follow a fractm'e of the bones

of the nose. They have been the consequence of
violent catarrh, and particularly the long-continued
discharge from the nostrils, of which we have
spoken. They have been produced by the injec-
tion of stimulating and acrid substances up the
nostril. Everj'thing that weakens the constitution
generally will lead to glanders. It is not only
from bad stable management, but from the hard-
ships which they endure, and the exhausted state
of their constitution, that post and machine horses
are so subject to glanders ; and there is scarcely
an inflammatory disease to which the horse is
subject that is not occasionally womid up and ter-
minated by the appearance of glanders.

Among the causes of glanders is want of
regular exercise. The connexion, althougli not
evident at first glance, is too certain. When
a horse has been worked with peculiar severity,
and is become out of spirits, and falls away in
flesh, and refuses to eat, a little rest and a few
mashes would make all right again ; but the groom
plies him with cordials, and adds fuel to fire, and
aggravates the state of fever that has commenced.
What is the necessary consequence of this '! The
weakest goes to the wall, and either the lungs or
the feet, or this membrane — that of the nose —
the weakest of all, exposed day after day to the
stimulating, debilitating influences that have been
described, becomes the principal seat of inflamma-
tion that terminates in glanders.

It is in this way tliat glanders have so fre-
quently been known to follow a hard day's chase.
The seeds of the disease may have previously
existed, but its progress will be hastened by the
general and febrile action excited, the absurd
measures which are adopted not being calculated
to subdue the fever, but to increase the stimulus.

Every exciting cause of disease exerts its chief
and its worst influence on this membrane. At the
close of a severe campaign, the horses are more
than decimated by this pest. At the termination
of the Peninsular war the ravages of this disease
were dreadful. Eveiy disease will predispose the
membrane of the nose to take on the inflammation
of glanders, and with many, as strangles, catarrh,
bronchitis, and pneumonia, there is a continuity of
membrane, an association of function, and a thou-
sand sympathies.

There is not a disease which may not lay the
foundation for glanders. Weeks, and months, and
years, may intervene between the predisposing
cause and the actual evil ; but at length the whole
frame may become excited or debilitated in many
a way, and then this debilitated portion of it is
the first to yield to the attack. Atmospheric
influence has somewhat to do with the prevalence
of glanders. It is not so frequent in the summer
as in the winter, partly attributable, perhaps, to
the different state of the stable in the summer

THE HORSE.

317

months, neitlier the air so close or so foul, nor the
alternations of tempei'ature so great.

There are some remarkable cases of the con-
nexion of moisture, or moist exhalations, that
deserve record. When new stabling was built for
the troops at Hj-the, and inhaljited before the
walls were perfectly dry, many of the horses that
had been removed from an open, diy, and healthy
situation, became aflected with glanders ; but,
some time having passed over, the horses in these
stables were as healthy as the others, and glanders
ceased to appear. An inn-keeper at Wakefield
built some extensive stabling for his horses, and,
inhabiting them too soon, lost a great proportion of
his cattle from glanders. There are not now more
healthy stables in the place. The immense range
of stables under the Adelphi, in the Strand, where
light never enters, and the supply of fresh air is
not too abundant, were for a long time notoriously
unhealthy, and many valuable horses were destroyed
by glanders ; but now they are filled with the finest
waggon and dray-horses that the metropolis or the
couutiy contains, and they are fully as healthy as
in the majority of stables above-ground.

There is one more cause to be slightly men-
tioned— hereditaiy predisjwsition. This has not
been sufficiently estimated, with regard to the
question now under consideration, as well as with
respect to everything connected with the breeding
of the horse. There is scarcely a disease that does
not run in the stock. There is that in the struc-
ture of various parts, or their disposition to be
affected by certain influences, which perpetuates
in the offspring the diseases of the su-e ; and thus
contraction, ophthalmia, roaring, are decidedly
hereditary, and so is glanders. M. Dupuy relates
some decisive cases. A mare, on dissection, ex-
hibited every appeai-ai c ; of glanders ; her filly,
who resembled her in form and in her vicious
propensities, died glandered at six years old. A
second and a third mare and their foals presented
the same fatal proof that glanders are hereditary.

Glanders are highly contagious. The farmer
cannot be too deeply impressed with the certainty
of this. Considering the degree to which this
disease, even at the present day, often prevails,
the legislature would be justified in interfering by
some severe enactments, as it has done in the case
of the small-pox in the human subject.

The early and marked symptom of glandere is
a discharge from the nostrils of a peculiar charac-
ter ; and if that, even before it becomes purulent,
is rubbed on a wound, or on a mucous surface, as
the nostrils, it will produce a similar disease. If
the division between two horses were sufficiently
high to prevent all smelling and snorting at each
other and contact of every kind, and they drank
not out of the same pail, a sound horse might live
for years, uninfected, by the side of a glandered

one. The matter of glanders has been mixed up
into a ball, and given to a healthy horse, without
effect. Some horses have eaten the hay left l)y
those that were glandered, and no bad consequence
has followed ; but others have been speedily in-
fected. The glanderous matter must come in
contact with a wound, or fall on some membrane,
thin and delicate like that of the nose, and throufh
which it may be absorbed. It is easy, then, accus-
tomed as horses are to be crowded together, and
to recognise each other by the smell — eating out
of the same manger, and drinking from the same
pail — to imagine that the disease may be very
readily communicated. One horse has passed
another w'heu he was in the act of snortino, and
has become glandered. Some fillies have received
the infection from the matter blown by the wind
across a lane, when a glandered horse, in the
opposite field, has claimed acquaintance by neigh-
ing or snorting. It is almost impossible for an
infected horse to remain long in a stable with
others without iiTeparable mischief

If some persons underrate the danger, it is
because tlie disease may remain unrecognised in
the infected horse for some months, or even years,
and therefore, when it appears, it is attributed to
other causes or to after inoculation. No glandered
horse should be employed on any farm, nor should
a glandered horse be permitted to work on any
road, or even to pasture on any field. Mischief
may be so easily and extensively effected, that the
public interest demands that eveiy infected animal
should be summarily destroyed, or given over for
experiment to a veterinary sm-geou, or recocmised
veterinary establishment.

There are a few instances of the spontaneous
cure of chronic glanders. The discharge has
existed for a considerable time. At length it has
gradually diminished, and has ceased ; and this
has occm-red under every kind of treatment, and
without any medical treatment: but in the majority
of these supposed cases, the matter was only pent
up for a while, and then, bursting from its confine-
ment, it flowed again in double quantity: or, if
glanders have not reappeared, the horse, in eifhteeu
or twenty-four months, has become farcied, or con-
sumptive, and died. These supposed cures are
few and far between, and ai'e to be regai-ded with
much suspicion.

As for medicine, there is scai-cely a dru" to
which a fair trial has not been given, and many of
them have had a temporaiy reputation ; but they
have passed away, one after the other, and are no
longer heard of. The blue vitriol and the Spanish-
fly have held out longest: and in a few cases
either nature or these medicines have done won-
ders, but in the majority of instances they have
palpably failed. The diniodide of copper has
lately acquired some reputation. It has been of

318

The horse.

great service in cases of farcy, but it is uot to be
depended npon in glanders.

Where the life of a valuable animal is at
stake, and the owner adopts every precaution to
prevent infection, he may subject the horse to
medical treatment ; but every humane man will
indignantly object to the slitting of the nostril,
and the scraping of the cartilage, and searing of
the gland, and firing of the frontal and nasal
bones, and to those injections of mustard and
capsicum, corrosive sublimate and vitriol, by which
the horse has been tortured, and the practitioner
disgraced. At the veterinary school, and by veteri-
nary surgeons, it will be most desirable that every
experiment should be tried to discover a remedy
for this pest ; but, in ordinary instances, he is not
faithful to his own interest or that of his neigh-
bours who does not remove the possibility of
danger in the most summary way.

If, however, remedial measures are resorted
to, a pure atmosphere is that which should first be
tried. Glanders is the peculiar disease of the
stabled horse, and the preparation for, or the foun-
dation of, a cure must consist in the perfect
removal of every exciting cause of the malady.
The horse must breathe a cool and pure atmos-
phere, and he must be turned out, or placed in a
situation equivalent to it.

A salt marsh is, above all others, the situation
for this experiment ; but there is much caution
required. No sound horse must be in the same
pasture, or a neighbouring one. The palings or
the gates may receive a portion of the matter,
which may harden upon them, and, many a month
afterwards, be a source of mischief — nay, the \'irus
may cling about the very herbage and empoison
it. Cattle and sheep should not be trusted with a
glandered horse, for the experiments are not suffi-
ciently numerous or decided as to the exemption
of these animals from the contagion of glanders.

Supposing that glanders have made their ap-
pearance in the stables of a farmer, is there any
danger after he has removed or destroyed the
infected horse? — Certainly there is, but not to the
extent that is commonly supposed. There is no
necessity for pulling down the racks and mangers,
or even the stable itself, as some have done. The
poison resides not in the breath of the animal, but
in the nasal discharge, and that can only reach
certain parts of the stable. If the mangers, and
racks, and bales, and partitions, are first well
scraped, and scoured with soap and water, and
then thoroughly washed with a solution of the
chloride of lime (one pint of the chloride to a
pailful of water), and the walls are lime-washed,
and the head-gear burned, and the clothing baked
or washed, and the pails newly painted, and the
iron-work exposed to a red heat, all danger will

Little that is satisfactory can be said of the
prevention of glanders.

The first and most effectual mode of pre-
vention will be to keep the stables cool and well
ventilated, for the hot and poisoned air of low and
confined stables is one of the most prevalent
causes of glanders.

Next to ventilation stands cleanliness ; for the
foul air from the fermenting litter, and urine, and
dung, must not only be highly injurious to health
generally, but irritate and predispose to inflamma-
tion that delicate membrane which is the primary
seat of the disease. If to this be added regular
exercise, and occasional green meat during the
summer, and carrots in the winter, we shall have
stated all that can be done in the way of pre-
vention.

Glanders in the human being. — It cannot be
too often repeated, that a glandered horse can
rarely remain among sound ones without serious
mischief ensuing ; and, worse than all, the man
who attends on that horse is in danger. The cases
are now becoming far too numerous in which the
groom or the veterinary surgeon attending on
glandered horses becomes infected, and in the
majority of cases dies. It is, however, somewhat
more manageable in the human being than in the
quadi-uped. Some cases of recovery from farcy
and glanders stand on record with regard to the
human being, but they are few and far between.

Farcy is intimately connected with glanders ;
tliey will run into each other, or their symptoms
will mingle together, and before either arrives
at its fatal termination its associate will almost
invariably appear. An animal inoculated with the
matter of farcy will often be afflicted with glanders,
while the matter of glanders will frequently
produce farcy. They are different types or stages
of the same disease. There is, however, a very
material difference in their symptoms and progress,
and this most important one of all, that while
glanders are generally incurable, farcy, in its early
stage and mild form, may be successfully treated.

While the capillaiy vessels of the arteries are
everywhere employed in building up the frame,
the absorbents ai'e no less diligently at work in
selecting and carrying away every useless or worn-
out portion or part of it. There is no surface —
there is no assignable spot on which thousands of
these little mouths do not open. In the discharge
of their duty they not only remove that which
is become useless, and often that which is healthy,
but that which is poisonous and destructive. They
open upon the surface of every glanderous chancre.
They absorb a portion of the virus which is secreted
by the ulcer, and as it passes along these little tubes,
they suffer from its acrimonious quality ; hence

THE HORSE.

319

the corded veins, as they are called by the farrier,
or, more properly, the thickened and inflamed
absorbents following the course of the veins.

At certain distances in the course of the
absorbents are loose duplicatures of the lining
membrane, which are pressed against the side
of the vessel and permit the fluid to pass in a
direction towards the chest, but belly out and
impede or arrest its progress from the chest. The
virus at these places, and the additional inflamma-
tion there excited, is to a greater or less degree
evident to the eye and to the feeling. They are
usually first observed about the lips, the nose, the
neck, and the thighs. They are very hard — even
of a scirrhous hardness, more or less tender, and
with perceptible heat about them.

The poisonous matter being thus confined and
pressing on the part, suppuration and ulceration
ensue. The ulcers have the same character as the
glanderous ones on the membrane of the nose.
They are rounded, with an elevated edge and a
pale surface. They are true chancres, and they
discharge a virus as infectious and as dangerous
as the matter of glanders. While they remain in
their hard prominent state, they are called buttons
or farcy buds ; and they are connected together
by the inflamed and corded veins.

In some cases the horse will droop for many a
day before the appearance of the corded veins or
buds — his appetite will be impaired — his coat will
stare — he will lose flesh. The poison is evidently at
work, but has not gained sufficient power to cause
the absorbents to enlarge. In a few cases these
buds do not ulcerate, but become hard and diffi-
cult to disperse. The progress of the disease is
then suspended, and possibly for some months the
horse will appear to be restored to health ; but he
bears the seeds of the malady about him, and
in due time the farcy assumes its virulent form,
and hurries him off. These buds have sometimes
been confounded with the little tumours or lumps
termed surfeit. They are generally higher than
these tumours, and not so broad. They have a
more knotty character, and are principally found
on the inside of the limbs, instead of the outside.

Few things are more unlike, or more perplex-
ing, than the different forms which farcy assumes
at different times. One of the legs, and particu-
larly one of the hinder legs, will suddenly swell to
an enormous size. At night the horse will appear
to be perfectly well, and in the morning one leg
will be three times the size of the other, with
considerable fever, and scarcely the power of
moving the limb.

At other times the head will be subject to this
enlargement, the muzzle particularly will swell,
and an offensive discharge will proceed from the
nose. Sometimes the horse will gradually lose
flesh and strength ; he will be hide-bound ; mangy

eruptions will appear in different parts ; the legs
will swell ; cracks will be seen at the heels, and
an inexperienced person may conceive it to be
a mere want of condition, combined with grease.

By degrees the affection becomes general.
The virus has reached the termination of the
absorbents, and mingles with the general circu-
lating fluid, and is conveyed with the blood to
every part of the frame. There are no longer any
valves to impede its progress, and consequently
no knots or buds, but the myriads of capillary
absorbents that penetrate every part become
inflamed, and thickened, and enlarged, and cease
to discharge their function. Hence arises enlarge-
ment of the substance of various parts, swellings
of the legs, and chest, and head — sudden, painful,
enormous, and distinguished by a heat and tender-
ness which do not accompany other enlargements.

It is a question somewhat difficult to answer,
whether farcy can exist without previous glanders.
Probably it cannot. There is the long-continued
insidious progress of glanders — the time which
may elapse, and often does, before the owner is
aware or the veterinary surgeon sure of it — the
possibility that minute ulceration may have for a
long while existed in some of the recesses of the
nose — or that the slight discharge, undreaded and
unrecognised, yet vitiated, poisoned, and capable
of communicating the disease, may have been long
travelling through the frame and affecting the
absorbents, and preparing f(5r the sudden display
of farcy.

One thing, however, is undeniable, that farcy
does not long and extensively prevail without
being accompanied by glanders — that even in the
mild stages of fai'cy, glanders may be seen if
looked for, and that it never destroys the animal
without plainly associating itself with glanders.
They are, in fact, stages of the same disease.

Glanders is inflammation of the membrane of
the nose, producing an altered and poisonous
secretion, and when sufficient of this -N-itiated
secretion has been taken up to produce inflamma-
tion and ulceration of the absorbents, farcy is
established. Its progress is occasionally very
capricious, continuing in a few cases for months
and years, the vigour of the horse remaining
unimpaired ; and, at other times, running on to
its fatal termination with a rapidity perfectly
astonishing.

Farcy has been confounded with other diseases ;
but he must be careless or ignorant who mistook
sprain for it. The inflammation is too circum-
scribed and too plainly connected with the joint or
the tendon.

It may be readOy distinguished from grease or
swelled legs. In grease there is usually some
crack or scurfiness, a peculiar tenseness and red-
ness and glossiness of the skin, some ichorous

320

THE HORSE.

discharge, and a singular spasmodic catching up of
the leg.

In farcy the engorgement is even more ^dden
than that of grease. The horse is well to-day, and
to-morrow he is gorged from the fetlock to the
haunch, and although there is not the same red-
ness or glossiness, there is great tenderness, a
huniing heat in the limb, and much general fever.
It is simultaneous inflammation of all the absorb-
ents of the limb.

Surfeit can scarcely he confounded with farcy
or glanders. It is a pustular eruption — surfeit-
humps as they are called, and terminating in des-
quamation, not in ulceration, although numerous,
yet irregularly placed, and never following the
com-se of the absorbents, but scattered over the
skin.

Local dropsy of the cellular membrane, and
particularly that enlargement beneath the thorax
which has the strange appellation of water-farcy,
have none of the characters of real farcy. It is
general debility to a greater or less degree, and
not inflammation of the absorbents. If properly
treated, it soon disappears, except that, occasionally,
at the close of some serious disease, it indicates a
breaking up of the constitution.

Farcy, like glanders, springs from infection and
from bad stable management. It is produced by
all the causes which give rise to glanders, with this
ditference, that it is more frequently generated, and
sometimes strangely prevalent in particular dis-
tricts. It will attack, at the same time, several
horses in the same ill-conducted stable, and others
in the neighbourhood who have been exposed to
the same predisposing causes. Some have denied
that it is a contagious disease. They must have
had little experience. It is true that the matter
of farcy must come in contact with a wound or sore,
in order to commmiicate the disease ; but accus-
tomed as horses are to nibble and play with each
other, and sore as the corners of the mouth ai'e
frequently rendered by the bit, it is easy to imagine
that this may be easily effected ; and experience
tells us, that a horse having farcy ulcers cannot be
suffered to remain with others without extreme
risk.

The treatment of farcy differs with the form
that it assumes. Asa general rule, and especially
when the buttons or buds are beginning to appear,
a mild dose of physic should first be administered.
The buds should then be carefully examined, and
if any of them have broken, the budding-iron, at a
dull red heat, should be applied. If pus should
be felt in them, showing that they are disposed to
break, they should be penetrated with the iron.
These wounds should be daily inspected, and if,
when the slough of the cautei-y comes off, they
look pale, and foul, and spongy, and discharge a
thin matter, they should be frequently washed with

a strong lotion of corrosive sublimate, dissolved in
rectified spirit. When the wounds begin to look
red, and the bottom of them is even and firm, and
they discharge a thick white or yellow matter, the
Friar's balsam will usually dispose them to heal.

As, however, the constitution is now tainted,
local applications will not be sufficient, and the
disease must be attacked by internal medicine as
soon as the physic has ceased to operate.

Corrosive sublimate used to be a favourite medi-
cine, combined with tonics, and repeated moniing
and night until the ulcers disappeared, unless the
mouth became sore or the horse was violently
purged, when the sulphate of copper was substi-
tuted for the corrosive sublimate. During this
treatment the animal was placed, if possible, in a
large box, with a free circulation of air ; and green
meat or carrots, and particularly the latter, were
given, with a full allowance of corn. If he could
be turned out in the day, it was deemed highly
advantageous. It is related by Mr. Blaine, that a
horse, so reduced as not to be able to stand, was
drawn into a field of tares, and suffered to take his
chance. The consequence was that, when he had
eaten all within his reach, he contiived to move
about and search for more, and eventually reco-
vered. Many horses recover under the use of the
sublimate, but the great majority of them die.

Mr. Vines introduced a more effective medicine
— cantharides, in combination likewise with the
vegetable bitters — as a cure for farcy and glanders.
It cannot be denied, that many animals labouring
under the former, and a few under the latter, were
to all appearance radically cured. The medicine
was suspended for a while if affection of the kid-
neys supervened.

A still more effectual medicine has been intro-
duced by Professor Morton, namely, the diniodide
of copper, and it has been found of essential service
in farcy and in diseases simulating glanders. He
says that its action is that of a stimulant to the
absorbent vessels, and a tonic. The gentian root
is usually combined with it. Cantharides, in small
quantities, may be advantageously added. An in-
dication of its influence is a soreness of the diseased
pai-ts, arising from the absorbent vessels being
roused into increased action : the agent should then
be for a time withheld.*

• A very interesting case of the cure of farcy in the human
being occurred in January, 1840, in the practice of Mr. Curtis, a
respectable surgeon of Camden Town : —

" Mr. G., a student at the Vetcrinaiy College, had, about three
weeks before, received a slight wound on the forehuger of the right
hand, while dissecting a glandered horse. The wound healed ;
but, about nine days afterwards, a small abscess formed in the part,
which he would not consent to have opened ; the pus was therefore
absorbed, and the finger got well, and neither the lymphatics nor
the glands appeared to be afiected.

" Ten days afterwards, he was attacked wilh giddiness while
attending the lccl\u-e, and obliged to leave the room. He immedi-
ately applied to Mr. Curtis. He had three blotches of indammalion
of the skin of the right leg, varying in extent from two to lou

THE HORSE.

321

Water-farcy, confounded by name with the
common farcy, and by which much confusion has
been caused, and a great deal of mischief done, is
a dropsical affection of the skin, either of the chest
or of the limbs, and belongs to another part of our
subject.

THE Lirs.

The lips of the horse are far more important
organs than many suppose. They are the hands
of the animal ; and if any one will take the trouble
to observe the manner in which he gathers up his
corn with them, and collects together the grass
before he divides it with his nippers, he will be
satisfied that the horee would be no more able to
convey the food to his mouth without them, than
the human being could without his hands. This
has even been put to the test of experiment. The
nei-ves which supply the lips were divided in a
poor ass, to illustrate some point of physiology.
The sensibility of the lips was lost, and he knew
not when he touched his food with them. The
motion of the lips was lost, and he could not get
the oats between his teeth, although the manger
was full of them : at length, driven by hunger, he
contrived to lick up a few of them with his tongue ;
but when they were on his tongue, the gi'eater part
of them were nibbed off before he could get them
into his mouth.

It is ou account of this use of the lips, and that
they may be brought into contact with the food
without inconvenience or injury to other parts of
the face, that the heads of most quadrupeds are so
lengthened. Several muscles go to the lips from
difierent parts of the jaw and face. Some of them
are shown in the cut, p. 309. The orbicularis or
circular muscle, p, employed in pushing out the
lips and closing them, and enabling the horse to
seize and hold his food, is particularly evident ;
and in the explanation of the cut, the action of
other muscles, i, k, m, and o, was described. The
nerves likewise, y, taking their course along the
cheek, and principally supplying the lips with the
power of motion, and those z, proceeding from
the foramen or hole in the upper jaw, deserve at-
tention.

The lips are composed of a muscular substance
for the sake of strength, and a multitude of small
glands, which secrete a fluid that covers the inside
of the lips and the gums, in order to prevent fric-

iDches in diameter. The leg was very painful when he walked ;
and he had also some small blotches ou the left leg. He had head-
ache and thirst. His case was sufficiently })lain — farcy was begin-
ning to develop itself. Aperient medicine was administered.

" On the following day, tliere were numerous small blotches
over both legs and thighs. In many of them the centre was of a
pale green colour, having a somewhat gangrenous appearance. The
headache was worse ; there was a sensation of weiglit over the eyes,
and tenderness over the left frontal.

" Mr. Curtis determined to put him under a cotirse of iodine, of
the tincture of which eight minims were orilered every fourth hour,
he bowels being kept iu a relaxed state.

tion, and likewise furnish a portion of the moisture
so necessaiy for the proper chewing of the food.
The skin covering the lips is exceedingly thin, in
order that their peculiar sensibility may be pre-
served, and for the same purjiose they are scantily
covered witli hair, and that hair is fine and short.
Long hairs or feelers, termed the beard, are super-
added with the same intention. The horse is
guided and governed principally by the mouth, and
therefore the lips are endowed with very great
sensibility, so that the animal feels the slightest
motion of the hand of the rider or driver, and
seems to anticijiate his veiy thoughts. The fine-
ness or goodness of the mouth consists in its exqui-
site feeling, and that depends on the thinness of
this membrane.

The lips of the horse should be thin, if the
beauty of the head is regarded ; yet, although tliin,
they should evidently possess power, and be
strongly and regularly closed. A firm, compressed
moutli gives a favourable and no deceptive idea of
the muscular power of the animal. Lips apart
from each other and hanging down, indicate weak-
ness or old age, or dulness and sluggislmess.

The depth of the mouth, or the distance from
the fore-part to the angle of the lips, should be
considerable. A short protuberant mouth would
be a bad finish to the tapering face of the blood-
horse. More room is likewise given for the open-
ing of the nostril, which has been shown to be an
important consideration. The bridle will not be
carried well, and the horse will hang heavy on
hand, if there is not considerable depth of mouth.

The comers or angles of the lips ai'e frequently
made sore or wounded by the smallness, or short-
ness, or peculiar twisting of the snafBe, 'and the
unnecessary and cruel tightness of the bearing-rein.
This rein was introduced as giving the horse a
grander appearance in harness, and placing the
hend in that position in which the bit most effec-
tually presses upon the jaw. There is no possibi-
lity of safely driving without it, for, deprived of
this control, many horses would hang their heads
low, and be disposed every moment to stumble,
and would defy all pulling, if they tried to run
away. There is, and can be no necessity, however,
for using a bearing-rein so tight as to cramp the
muscles of the head, or to iujnre and excoriate the
angles of the lips.

"On the fourth day, the centre of the blotches, which were still
green, appeared to form cavities, containing a fluid, from about the
size of a shiUing to that of a half-crown. The blotches were sur-
rounded by hard, defined edges, covered with cuticle, but the thick-
ening of which was gradually disappearing.

" Two days after this, the fluid in the cavities was absorbed, but
round their edges were lumps, or tubercles, about the size of peas.
Several weeks passed before the tubercles quite disappeared.

" Mr. Curtis remarks, that so far as a single case will go, the
intractable nature of Uiis disease seems to arise rather from neglect
in its early stage, than from any impossibility of subduing it." —
2'he Veterinarian, Tol. xiii. p. 353.

322

THE HOKSE.

The following is the opinion of Nimrod, and to
a more competent judge we could not appeal : —
" As to the universal disuse of the hearing-rein
•with English horses, it can never take 2'lace. The
charge against it of cruelty at once falls to the
ground, because ifi make a team work together in
fast work, every horse's head must be as much re-
strained by the coupling-rein as it would be and is
by the bearing-rein. Its excellence consists in
keeping horses' mouths fresh — in enabling a
coachman to indulge a horse with liberty of rein,
without letting him be all abroad, which he would
be with his head quite loose, and of additional
safety to the coaoh-horse, as proved by the fact of
either that or the crupper always giving way when
he falls down. There are, however, teams in which
it may be dispensed with, and the horses have an
advantage in their working against hills. As to
the comparison of the road coach-horses on the
Continent and our own, let any one examine the
knees of the French dUigence and post horses,
which are allowed jierfect liberty of head, and he
will be convinced that the use of the bearing-rein
does not keep them on their legs."-''

The mouth is injui-ed much oftener than the
careless owner suspects by the pressure of a sharp
bit. Not only are the bars wounded and deeply
ulcerated, but the lower jaw, between the tush and
the grinders, is sometimes worn even to the bone,
and the bone itself affected, and portions of it torn
away. It may be necessary to have a sharp bit
for the headstrong and obstinate beast ; yet if that
bit is severely and unjustifiably called into exercise,
the animal may rear, and endanger himself and his
rider. There can, however, be no occasion for a
thousandth part of the torment which the trappings
of the mouth often inflict on a willing and docile
servant, and which either render the mouth hard,
and destroy all the pleasure of riding, or cause the
horse to become fretful or vicious.

Small ulcers are sometimes found in various
parts of the mouth, said to be produced by rusty
bits, but oftener arising from contusions inflicted
by the bit, or from inflammation of the mouth. If
the curb-bit is in fault, a snaffle or Pelham-bit
should be used. If there is inflammation of the
mouth, a little cooling medicine may be adminis-
tered ; and to the ulcers themselves, tincture of

* New Sporting Magazine, vol. xiii. p. 99.

The author of the " Essay on Humanity to Brntes," takes the
same view of the subject. " It is not," says he, " to the extent that
has been supposed an instrument of torture. It is absolutely neces-
sary in fast work, and useful on level ground. The objection to it
is tlie tightness with which it is sometimes applied, and then it is a
sad confinement to the head, and a source of very great pain. It is
also disadvantageous when the horse is going up-hill, because it
prevents .him from throwing his whole weight into the collar. It
cannot, however, be done without, especially in the horse that is
once accustomed to it ; but the poor animal needs not to be so tiglillj
reined.— TAc Obligation and Extent of Humanity to Brutes, by
W. Youait, p. 149.

myrrh, diluted with water, or alum dissolved in
water, may be applied with advantage.

THE BONES OF THE MOUTH.

The bones in, and giving form to the mouth,
are the superior maxillary or upper jaw (6, p. ^63,
and I, p. 266), containing the grinders; the ante-
rior maxillary, or lower part of the upper jaw (6,
p. 263, n, p. 265, r, p. 266), containing the upper-
nippers or cutting-teeth ; the palatine bone (below
8, p. 266), and the posterior maxillary or under
jaw (a, p. 263, and w, p. 266), containuig all the
under teeth.

The superior maxillary is, with the exception
of the lower jaw, the largest bone in the face. It
unites above with the laciymal bone (i, p. 265);
and, more on the side, with the malar or cheek
bone, k ; and a portion of it, continued upward and
underneath, enters into the orbit. Above, and on
the front of the face, it unites with the bones of
the nose, j, and below, ■with the inferior maxillary
n. That which most deseiTes notice in it exter-
nally is the ridge or spine, seen at b, p. 263, but
better delineated in the cut of the head, p. 266,
continued from the base of the zygomatic arch,
and across the malar bone. It and the surface
beneath ser\-e to give attachment to the masseter
muscle, concerned, almost as much as the tempo-
ral one, in the act of che\ring. The dark spot {m,
p. 265, and seen likewise at p. 263) marks the
foramen or hole, through which a branch of the
fifth pair of nerves proceeds to give sensibility to
the lower part of the face. As it approaches the
teeth this bone separates into two plates, and
these are divided by long partitions, which con-
tain and firmly hold the upper grinders. The
lower plate then projects inwards, and forms (t,
p. 266) the principal portion of the roof of the
mouth, and the floor of the cavity of the nose.
The corresponding bone, on the other side, meets
its fellow in the centre of the palate. The upper
jaw-bone contains in it large cavities besides those
for the teeth, and these open into and enlarge the
cavity of the nose. They are connected with the
voice, but not with the smell ; for the expansion
of the olfactory or smelling nerve has never been
traced be3'ond the bones and membranes of the
proper cavity of the nose. -The maxillary sinuses
are generally filled with matter in bad cases of
glanders.

Below these are the anterior maxillary bones
(f, p. 263, a, p. 263), containing the upper cutting
teeth, with the tushes belonging both to the upper
and anterior bones. These are the bones to
which (see cut, p. 266) the upper lip is attached.
The superior and anterior maxillary bones are
separated in animals with long faces, like the
horse, that, by overlapping each other, strength
might be gained.

THE HOKSE.

323

The palatine bone forms but a very small por-
tion of the palate. It
surrounds the edge of
the communication be-
tween the cavity of the
nose and the back
parts of the mouth.

THE PALATE.

Adhering to a por-
tion of the three bones
just described, and
constituting the lining
of the roof of the
mouth, is the palate
{t, p. 266), composed
of an elastic and dense
substance divided into
several ridges called
Bars. This cut gives
a view of them.

It will also point
out the bleeding place,
if it should occasion-
ally be deemed advi-
sable to abstract blood
from the mouth ; or if
the horse should be |
attacked with megrims on a journey, and the
driver, having no lancet, should be compelled
to make use of his knife, the incision should
be made between the central and second nip-
pers on either side, about an inch within the
mouth, and cutting through the second bar. A
stream of blood will be thus obtained, which will
usually cease to flow when two or thi'ee quarts
have escaped, or may generally be arrested by the
application of a sponge filled with cold water.

This, however, is a make-shift sort of bleeding
that may be allowable on a journey, and possibly
in some cases of lampas, but which is decidedly
objectionable as the usual mode of abstracting
blood. The quantity withdra\^^l cannot be mea-
sured, the degree of inflammation cannot be ascer-
tained by the manner in which it coagulates ; and
there may be difficulty to the operator, and an-
noyance and pain to the horse, in stopping the
bleeding.

This cut likewise depicts the appearance of
the roof of the mouth if the bars were dissected off,
and of the numerous vessels, arterial and venous,
which ramify over it.

The bars occasionally swell, and rise to a level
with, and even beyond the edge of, the teeth.
They are very sore, and the horse feeds badly on
account of the pain he suffers from the pressure of
the food on them. This is called the lampas. It may

arise from inflammation of the gums, propagated
to the bars, when the horse is shedding his teeth
— and young horses are more subject to it than
others — or from some slight febrile tendency in
the constitution generally, as when a young horse
has lately been taken up from grass, and has been
over-fed, or not sufiiciently exercised. At times
it appears in aged horses ; for the process of
growth, in the teeth of the horse, is continued
dming the whole life of the animal.

In the majority of cases the swelling will soon
subside without medical treatment ; or a few mashes
and gentle alteratives -will relieve the animal. A
few slight incisions across the bars with a lancet
or penknife will relieve the inflammation and
cause the swelling to subside ; indeed, this scarifi-
cation of the bars in lampas will seldom do harm,
although it is far from being so necessary as is sup-
posed. The brutal custom of the farrier, who
sears and bums down the bars with a red-hot iron,
is most objectionable. It is torturing the horse
to no purpose, and rendering that part callous on
the delicate sensibility of which all the pleasure
and safety of riding and driving depend. It may
be prudent in case of lampas to e.tamine the
grinders, and more particularly the tushes, in
order to ascertain whether either of them is mak-
ing its way through the gum. If it is so, two
incisions across each other should be made on the
tooth, and the horse will experience immediate
relief.

THE LOWEK JAW.

The posterior or lower jaw may be considered
as forming the floor of the mouth («, p. 863, or
IV, p. 266). The body or lower part of it contains
the under cutting teeth and the tushes, and at the
sides are two flat pieces of bone containing the
grinders. On the inside, and opposite to a, p. 263,
is a foramen or hole through which blood-vessels and
nerves enter to supply the teeth, and some of
which escape again at another orifice on the out-
side, and near the nippers. The branches are
broader and thinner, rounded at the angle of the
jaw, and terminating in two processes. One, the
coracoid, from its shai-pness or supposed resem-
blance to a beak, passes under the zygomatic arch
(see p. 263) ; and the temporal muscle, arising from
the whole surface of the parietal bone (see p. 268),
is inserted into it and wrapped romid it, and by
its action, principally, the jaw is moved and the
food is ground. The other, the condyloid, or
rounded process, is received into the glenoid
(shallow) cavity of the temporal bone, at the base
of the zygomatic arch, and forms the joint on
wliich the lower jaw moves. This joint is easily
seen in the cut at p. 263 ; and being placed so
near to the insertion of the muscle, or the centre
of motion, the temporal muscle must act with very

324

THE HORSE.

considerable mechanical advantage, and, conse-
quently, must possess immense power.

This joint is admirably contrived for the pur-
pose which the animal requires. It will admit
freely and perfectly of the simple motion of a
hinge, and that is the action of the jaw in nipping
the herbage and seizing the corn. But the grass,
and more particulai-ly the corn, must be crushed
and bruised before it is fit for digestion. Simple
champing, which is the motion of the human lower
jaw, and that of most beasts of prey, would very
imperfectly break down the com. It must be put
into a mill ; it must be actuiilly ground.

It is put into the mill, and as perfect a one as
imagination can conceive.

The following cut represents the glenoid cavity,
in a carnivorous or flesh-eating, and herbivorous
or grass-eating animal, viz. the tiger and the horse :
the one requiring a simple hinge-like motion of
the lower jaw to tear and crush the food ; the
other, a lateral or grinding motion to bring it into
a pulpy form. We first e.\amine this cavity in
the tiger represented at B. At the root of the
zygomatic process D, is a hollow with a ridge
along the greater part of the upper and inner side
of it, standing to a considerable height, and curl-
ing over the cavity. At the lower and opposite
edge of the cavity, but on the outside, is a similar
ridge, E, likewise rising abruptly and cm-ling over.
At C is another and more perfect view of this cavity

in a different direction. The head of the lower
jaw is received into this hollow, and presses
against these ridges, and is partially surrounded
by them, and forms with them a veiy strong joint
where dislocation is scarcely possible, and the
hinge-like or cranching motion is admitted to its
fullest extent ; permitting the animal violently to
seize his prey, to hold it fiimly, and to crush it to
pieces ; but from the extent and curling form of
the ridges, forbidding, except to a very slight de-
gree, all lateral and grinding motion, and this,
because the animal does not want it.

As before mentioned, the food of the horse
must be ground. Simple bruising and champing
would not sufficiently comminute it for the pur-
poses of digestion. We then observe the different
construction of the parts to effect this. A gives
the glenoid cavity of the horse. First, there is
the upper ridge assuming a rounded form, F,
and therefore called the mastoid process; and —
a peculiaiity in the horse — the mastoid process
of the squamous portion of the temporal bone :
sufficiently strong to support the pressure and
action of the lower jaw when cropping the food or
seizing an enemy, but not encircling the head of
that bone, and reaching only a little way along the
side of the cavity, where it terminates, having its
edges rounded off so as to admit, and to be evi-
dently destined for, a circular motion about it.
At the other and lower edge of the cavity, and on
the outside, G is placed — not a curling ridge as in
the tiger, but a mere tubercle : and for what rea-

son? evidently to limit this lateral or circular
motion — to permit it as far as the necessities of
the animal require it, and then to arrest it. How
is this done ? Not suddenly or abruptly ; but the
tubercle, of which we have already spoken as
strengthening this portion of the zygomatic arch,
now discharging another office, has a smooth and
gradual ascent to it, up which the lower jaw may
climb to a certain extent, and then, by degrees, be
stopped. We speak not now of the moveable
cartilage which is placed in this cavity, and be-
tween the bones, to render the motion easier and
freer. It is found in this joint in eveiy quad-
ruped ; and it is found wherever motions are rapid
and of long continuance.

So great is the conformity between the struc-
ture of the animal and his destination, that a
tolerable student in comparative anatomy, by a
mere inspection of the glenoid cavity, would at.
once determine whether the animal to which it
belouged wa? carnivorous, and wanted no lateral
motion of the jaw ; or omnivorous, living occasion-
ally on all kinds of food, and requiring some degree
of grinding motion ; or herbivorous, and needing
the constant use of this admirably-constructed
mill.

At ff. p. 309, is represented the masseter mus-
cle, an exceedingly strong one, constituting the
cheek of the horse — arising from the superior
maxillary under the ridge continued from the
zygomatic arch, and inserted into the lower jaw,
and particularly round the rough border at the

THE HORSE.

;J25

angle of the jaw. This acts with the temporal
muscle in closing the jaw, and in giving the direct
cutting or champing motion of it.

Within the lower jaw, on either side, and occu-
pying the whole of the hollowed portion of them,
and opposite to the masseters, are the pter3'goid
muscles, going from the jaws to bones more in the
centre of the channel, likewise closing the mouth,
and also, by their alternate action, giving that
grinding motion which has been described.

The space between the branches of the lower
jaw, called the channel, is of considerable conse-
quence. It may be a little too wide, and then the
face will have a clumsy appearance : but if it is
too narrow, the horse will never he able to bend
his head freely and gracefully ; he will be always
pulling or boring upon the hand, nor can he pos-
sibly be well reined in.

The jaws contain the teeth, which are the
millstones employed iu comminuting the food.
The mouth of the horse at five years old contains
forty teeth, viz. si.'i nippers or cutting teeth in
front, a tush on each side, and six molars, or
grinding teeth, above and below. They are con-
tained in cavities in the upper and lower jaws,
surrounded by bony partitions, to which they are
accurately fitted, and by which they are firmly
supported. For a little way above these bony
cavities, they are sm-rounded by a hard sub-
stance called the gum, so dense, and adhering so
closely to the teeth and tlie jaws as not to be se-
parated without very great difficulty — singularly
compact, that it may not be wounded by the hard
or sharp particles of the food, and almost devoid of
feeling, for the same purpose.

Seven or eight months before the foal is bom,
the germs or beginnings of the teeth are visible
in the cavities of the jaws. The tooth grows, and
presses to the surface of
the gum, and forces its
way through it ; and, at
the time of birth, the fii-st
and second grinders have
appeared, large compai^ed
with the size of the jaw,
and seemingly filling it.
In the course of seven or
eight days the two central
nippers are seen as here
represented. They like-
wise appeal- to be large, and to fill the front of the
mouth ; although they will afterwards be found to
be small, compared with the permanent teeth that
follow. In the course of the first month the
third grinder appears above and below, and, not
long after, and generally before six weeks have
expired, another incisor above and below vAW. be
seen on each side of the two first, which have now
considerably grown, but not attained their perfect

height. This cut will represent the appearanc-o
of the mouth at that time.

At two months, the
central nippers will have
reax^hed their natural le\-el,
and between the second
and third month the second
pair will have overtaken
them. They will then be-
gin to wear away a little,
and the outer edge, which
was at firet somewhat raised
and sharp, is brought to a
level with the inner one,
and so the moutli continues until some time be-
tween the sixth and ninth month, when another
nipper begins to appear on each side of th^ two
first, making six above and below, and completing
the colt's mouth ; after which, the only obseiwable
difference, until between the second and third
year, is in the wear of these teeth.

The term nipper is familiar to the horseman
and the farrier, and much better expresses the
action of these teeth than the word incisor or cut-
ter, which is adopted by anatomists. Whoever has
observed a horse iu the act of browsing, and the
twitch of the head which accompanies the separa-
tion of each portion of grass, will perceive that it
is nipped or torn rather than cut off.

These teeth are covered with a polished and
exceedingly hard substance, called the enamel.
It spreads over that portion of the teeth which ap-
pears above the gum, and not only so, but as they
are to be so much employed in nipping the grass,
and gathering up the animal's food, and in such
employment even this hard substance must be
gradually worn away, a portion of it, as it passes
over the upper surface of the teeth, is bent inward,
and sunk into the body of the teeth, and forms a
little pit in them. The inside and bottom of this
pit being blackened by the food, constitutes the
mark of the teeth, by the gradual disappeai'ance of
which, in consequence of the wearing dowii of the
edge, we are enabled, for several yeai-s, to judge
of the age of the animal.

The colt's nipping teeth are rounded in front,
somewhat hollow towards the mouth, and present
at first a cutting surface, with the outer edge rising
in a slanting direction above the inner edge. This,
however, soon begins to wear down until both Siu:-
faces are level, and the mark, which was originally
long and narrow, becomes shorter, and wider, and
fainter. At six months the four nippers are be-
ginning to wear to a level. The annexed cut will
convey some idea of the appearance of the teeth at
twelve months. The four middle teeth are almost
level, and the coraer ones becoming so. The
mark in the two middle teeth is wide and faint ;
iu the two next teeth it is dai'ker, and longer.

;)-40

THE HORSE.

and narrower ; and in the comer teeth it is
darkest, and longest, and narrowest.

The back teeth, or
grinders, will not guide
us far in ascertaining the
age of the animal, for we
cannot easily inspect
them; but there are
s»me interesting parti-
culars connected with
them. The foal is bom
with two grinders in
each jaw, above and
below ; or they ajjpear
within three or four

days after the birth. Before the expiration of a
month they are succeeded by a third, more back-
ward. The crowns of the grinders are entirely
covered with enamel on the top and sides, but
attrition soon weai-s it away from the top, and there
remains a compound surface of alternate layers of
cnisted petraser, enamel, and ivoiy, which are em-
ployed in grinding down the hardest portion of the
food. Nature has, therefore, made an additional
provision for their strength and endurance.

This cut represents a grinder sawed across.
It seems to be a most in-egular and intricate
structure ; but the .explanation of it is not diffi-
cult. The tooth is formed
and prepared in cavities
within the jaw-bones. A
delicate membranous bag,
containing a jelly-like
substance, is found, in
the unborn animal, in a
little cell within the jaw-
bone. It assLinis.^:, by 'degrees, the form of the
tooth that is tq^pear, and then the jelly within
the membrane tiegins to change to bony matter,
and a hard aii4>:heautiful crystallization is formed
on the membrane without, and so we have the
cutting tooth covered by its enamel. In the form-
ation, however, of each of the grinders of the horse,
there are originally five membranous bags in the
upper-jaw, and four in the lower, filled with jelly.
This, by degrees, gives place to bony matter,
which is thrown out by little vessels penetrating
into it, and is represented by the darker portions
of the cut with central black spots. The crystal-
lization of enamel can be traced around each, and
there would be five distinct bones or teeth. A
third siibstfince, however, is now secreted (which
is represented by the white spaces), and is a
powerful cement, uniting all these distinct bones
into one body, and making one tooth of the five.
This being done, another coat of enamel spreads
over the sides, but not the top, and the tooth is
completed. By no other contrivance could we have
the grinding tooth capable, without injury and

without wearing, to rub down the hay, and oats,
and beans, which constitute the stable-food of horses.

The grinders in the lower jaw, having origi-
nally but four of these bags or shells, are smaller,
and narrower, and more regular, than the upper
ones. They are not placed horizontally in either
jaw ; but in the lower, the higher side is within,
and shelving gradually outward ; in the upper jaw
the higher side is without, and shelving inward,
and thus the grinding motion is most advanta-
geously performed. There is also an evident dif-
ference in the appearance and structure of each of
the grinders, so that a careful observer could tell
to which jaw every one belonged, and what situa-
tion it occupied.

At the completion of the first year, a fourth
grinder usually comes up, and the yearling has
then, or soon afterwards, six nippers, and four
grinders above and below in each jaw, which, with
the alteration in the appearance of the nippers
that we have just described, will enable us to cal-
culate nearly the age of the foal, subject to some
variations arising from the period of weaning, and
the nature of the food.

At the age of one year and a-half, the mark
in the central nippers will be much shorter and
fainter ; that in the two other pairs will have un-
dergone an evident <=~-^

change, and all the
nippers will be flat.

At two years this
Avill be more manifest.
The accompanying cut
deserves attention, as
giving an accurate re-
presentation of the
nippers in the lower
jaw of a two-years-old
colt.

About this period a fifth grinder will appear>
and now, likewise, will commence another process-
The first teeth are adapted to the size and wants
of the young animal. They are sufficiently large
to occupy and fill the colt's jaws ; but when these
bones have expanded with the increasing growth
of the animal, the teeth are separated too far from
each other to be useful, and another and larger
set is required. Evident provision is made for
them, even before the colt is foaled. In cavities
in the jaw, beneath the first and temporaiy teeth,
are to be seen the rudiments of a second and per-
manent set. These gradually increase, some with
greater rapidity than others, and, pressing upon
the roots or fangs of the first teeth, do not, as
would be imagined, force out the former ones,
but the portion pressed upon gradually disappears.
It is absorbed — taken up and carried away, by
numerous minute vessels, whose office it is to get
rid of the worn-out or useless part of the system.

THE HORSE.

327

This absorption continues to proceed as the second
teeth grow and press upwards, until the whole of
the fang is gone, and the crown of the tooth, or that
part of it which was above the gum, having no
longer firm hold, drops out, and the second teeth
appear, larger and stronger and permanent. In a
few instances, however, the second teeth do not
rise immediately under the temporary or milk
teeth, but somewhat by their side ; and then, in-
stead of this gradual process of absorption and dis-
appearance from the point of the root upwards,
the root being compressed sidewaj's, diminishes
throughout its whole bulk. The crown of the
tooth diminishes with the root and the whole is
pushed out of its place, to the fore part of the first
grinder, and remains for a considerable time, un-
der the name of a wolf's tooth, causing swelling
and soreness of the gums, and frequently wounding
the cheeks. They would be gradually quite ab-
sorbed, but the process might be slow and the
annoyance would be great, and, therefore, they are
extracted.

The change of the teeth commences in those
which earliest appeared, and, therefore, the front
or first grinder gives way at the age of two years,
and is succeeded by a larger and permanent tooth.

During the period between the falling out of
the central milk nippers, and the coming up of the
permanent ones, the colt, having a broken mouth,
may find some difficulty in grazing. If he should
fall away considerably in condition, he should be
fed with mashes and corn, or cut meat.

The next cut will represent a three-years-old
mouth. The central teeth are larger than the

being actually four months over the two years, if
they have been well nursed and fed, and ai-e strong
and large, they may, with the inexperienced, have
an additional year put upon them. The central nip-
pers are piuiched or drawn out, and the others
appear three or four months earlier than they other-
wise would. In the natural process, they could
only rise by long pressing upon, and causing the
absorption of, the first set. But opposition from
the first set being removed, it is easy to imagine
that their progress will be more rapid. Three or
four months \\ii\ he gained in the appearance of
the teeth, and these three or four months may
enable the breeder to term him a late colt of a
preceding year. To him, however, who is accus-
tomed to horses, the general form of the animal —
the little development of the fore-hand — the con-
tinuance of the mark on the next pair of nippers —
its moi'e evident existence in the comer ones, some
enlargement or irregularity about the gums from
the violence used in forcing out the teeth — the
small growth of the first and fifth grinders and the
non-appearance of the sixth grinder, which if it is
not through the gum at three years old, is swel-
ling under it, and preparing to get through — any
or all of these circumstances, carefully attended to,
will be a sufficient security against deception.

A horse at three years old ought to have the
central permanent nippers growing — the other two
pairs wasting — six grinders in each jaw, above and
below — the first and fifth level with the others, and
the sixth proti-uding. The sharp edge of the new
incisors, although it could not be well expressed in
the cut, will be very evident when compared with
the neighbouring teeth.

As the permanent nippers wear, and continue
to grow, a narrower portion of the cone-shaped
tooth is exposed to the attrition, and they look as
if they had been compressed, but it is not so. The
mark, of com-se, gradually disappears as the pit is
worn awa}'.

At three years and a half, or between that and
four, the next pair of nippers will be changed, and

others, with two grooves in the outer convex sur-
face, and the mark is long, narrow, deep and black.
Not having yet attained their full growth, they are
rather lower than the others. The mai-k in the
two next nippers is neaiiy worn out, and it is
wearing away in the comer nippers. Is it possible
Xo give this mouth to an early two-years-old ? The
ages of all horses used to be reckoned from May, the mouth at that time cannot be mistaken. The
but some are foaled even so eai-ly as January, and ' central nippers will have attained ueaiiy their full

Y '2

328

THE HORSE.

growth. A vacuity will be left where the second
stood, or they will begin to peep above the gum,
and the comer ones will be diminished in breadth,
worn down, and the mark becoming small and
faint. At this period, likewise, the second pair of
grinders will be shed. Previously to this may be
the attempt of the dealer to give to his three-
years-old an additional year, but the fraud will be
detected by an examination similar to that which
has been ali-eady described.

At four years, the central nippei^s will be fully
developed : the shai'p edge somewhat worn off, and
the mark shorter, wider, and fainter. The next
pair will be up, but they will be small, with the
mark deep, and extending quite across them. The
comer nippers will be larger than the inside ones,
yet smaller than they were, and flat, and the mark
nearly effaced. The sixth grinder will have risen
to a level with the others, and the tushes will be-
gin to appear.

Now, more than at any other time, will the
dealer be anxious to put an additional year upon
the animal, for the difference between a four-years-
old colt, and a five-years-old horse, in strength,
utility, and value, is veij great ; but, the want of
wear in the other nippers — the small size of the
comer ones — the little growth of the tush — the
smallness of the second grinder — the low forehand
— the legginess of the colt, and the thickness and
little depth of the mouth, will, to the man of com-
mon experience among horses, at once detect the
cheat.

The tushes (see p. 323) are four in number,
two in each jaw, situated between the nippers and
the grinders — much nearer to the former than the
latter, and nearer in the lower jaw than in the
upper, but this distance increasing in both jaws
with the age of the animal. In shape it somewhat
resembles a cone ; it protrudes about an inch from
the gum, and has its extremity sharp-pointed and
curved. At the age now under consideration, the
tushes are almost peculiar to the horse, and castra-
tion does not appear to prevent or retard their de-
velopment. All mares, however, have the germs
of them in the chambers of the jaw, and they
appear externally in the majority of old mares.
Their use is not evident. Perhaps in the vnld
state of the animal they are weapons of offence,
and he is enabled by them more firmly to seize,
and more deeply wound his enemy.

The breeder often attempts to hasten the
appearance of the tush, and he cuts deeply through
the gum to remove the opposition which that
would afford. To a little extent he succeeds. He
may possibly gain a few weeks, but not more.
After all, there is much uncertainty as to the
appearance of the tush, and it may vary from the
fourth year to four years and six months. It
belongs, in the upper jaw, both to the inferior and

superior maxillary bones (see w, p. 265); for,
while its fang is deeply imbedded in the inferior
maxillarj', the tooth penetrates the process of the
superior maxillary at the union of those bones.

At four years and a-half, or between that and
five, the last important change takes place in the
mouth of the horse. The comer nippers are shed,
and the permanent ones begin to appear. The
central nippers are considerably worn, and the
next pair are commencing to show marks of usage.
The tush has now proti-uded, and is generally a
full half-inch in height ; externally it has a
rounded prominence, with a groove on either side,
and it is evidently hollowed within. The reader
needs not to be told that after the rising of the
comer nipper the animal changes its name — the
colt becomes a horse, and the filly a mare.

At five years the horse's mouth is almost
perfect. The comer nippers are quite up, with
the long deep mark irregular on the inside ; and

the other nippers bearing evident tokens of
increasing wearing. The tush is much grown —
the grooves have almost or quite disappeared, and
the outer surface is regularly convex. It is still
as concave within, and with the edge nearly as
sharp, as it was six months before. The sixth
molar is quite up, and the third molar is wanting.
This last circumstance, if the general appearance
of the animal, and particularly his forehand and
the wearing of the centre nippers, and the growth
and shape of the tushes, are likewise carefully
attended to, will prevent deception, if a late four-
years-old is attempted to be substituted for a five.
The nippers may be brought up a few months
before their time, and the tushes a few weeks, but
the grinder is with difficulty displaced. The three
last grinders and the tushes are never shed.

At six yeai'S the tnark on the central nippers
is worn out. There will stiU be a difference of
colour in the centre of the tooth. The cement
filling the hole, made by the dipping in of the
enamel, will present a browner hue than the other
part of the tooth, and it will be evidently sur-
rounded by an edge of enamel, and there will even
remain a little depression in the centre, and also

THE HORSE.

329

a depression round the case of enamel : but the
deep hole in the centre of the teeth, with the
blackened surface which it presents, and the
elevated edge of enamel, will have disappeared.

Persons not much accustomed to horses have been
puzzled here. They expected to find a plain
surface of a uniform colour, and knew not what
conclusion to draw when there was both discolou.r-
ation and irregularity.

In the next incisors the mark is shorter,
broader, and fainter ; and in the corner teeth the
edges of the enamel are more regular, and the
surface is evidently worn. The tush has attained
its full growth, being nearly or quite an inch
in length ; convex outward, concave within ; tend-
ing to a point, and the extremity somewhat
curved. The third grinder is fairly up ; and all
the grinders are level.

The horse may now be said to have a perfect
mouth. All the teeth are produced, fully grown,
and have hitherto sustained no material injury.
During these important changes of the teeth, the
animal has suffered less than could be supposed
possible. In children, the period of teething
is fraught with danger. Dogs are subject to con-
vulsions, and hundreds of them die, from the
irritation caused by the cutting or shedding of
their teeth ; but the horse appears to feel little
inconvenience. The gums and palate are occa-

sionally somewhat hot and swollen ; but the slight-
est scarification will remove this. The teeth of

the horse are more necessary to him than those of
the other animals are to them. The child may
be fed and the dog will bolt his food; but that
of the horse must be well ground down, or the
nutriment cannot be extracted from it.

At seven years, the mark, in the way in which
we have described it, is worn out in the four
central nippers, and fast wearing away in the
comer teeth ; the tush also is Ijeginnincf to be
altered. It is rounded at the point ; rounded at
the edges ; still round -without ; and beginning to
get round inside.

At eight years old, the tush is rounder in
every way ; the mark is gone from all the bottom
nippers, and it may almost be said to be out of the
mouth. There is nothing remaining in the
bottom nippers that can afterwards clearly show
the age of the horse, or justify the most expe-
rienced examiner in giving a positive opinion.

Dishonest dealers have been said to resort to a
method of prolonging the mark in the lower
nippers. It is called bishoping, from the name of
the scoundrel who invented it. The horse of
eight or nine years old is thro^vn, and with an
engraver's tool a hole is dug in the now almost
plain surface of the comer teeth, and in shape and

depth resembling the mark in a seven-yeai-s-old
horse. The hole is then burned \\-ith a heated iron,
and a permanent black stain is left. The next pair-
of nippers are sometimes lightly touched. An
ignorant man would be very easily imposed on by
this trick : but the irregular appeai-auce of the
cavity — the diffusion of the black stain aromid the
tushes, the shai-pened edges and concave iuner
sm-face of which can never be given again — the
marks on the upper nippers, together \rith the
general confoiTnation of the horee, can never
deceive the careful exammer.

Horsemen, after the animal is eight yeai's
old, ai'e accustomed to look to the nippei-s in the
upper jaw, and some conclusion has been drawn
from the appearances which they present. It
cannot be doubted that the mark remains in
them some yeare after it has been obliterated
from the nippers in the lower jaw ; because the

330

THE HOESE.

hard substance, or kind of cement, by which the
pit or funnel in the centre of the tooth is occupied,
does not reach so high, and there is a greater
depth of tooth to be \vorn away in order to come
at it. To this it may be added, that the upper
nippers are not so much exposed to friction and
wear as the under. The lower jaw alone is moved,
and pressed forcibly upon the food : the upper jaw
is without motion, and has only to resist that
pressure.

There are various opinions as to the intervals
between the disappearance of the marks from the
different cutting-teeth in the upper jaw. Some
have averaged it at two years and others at one.
The author is inclined to adopt the latter opinion,
and then the age will be thus determined : at nine
years the mark will be worn out from the middle
nippers — from the next pair at ten, and from all
the upper nippers at eleven. During these periods
the tush is likewise undergoing a manifest change
— it is blunter, shorter, and rounder. In what
degree this takes place in the different periods,
long and most favourable opportunities for obser-
vation can alone enable the horseman to decide.

The tushes are exposed to but little wear and
tear. The friction against them must be slight,
proceeding only from the passage of the food over
them, and from the motion of the tongue, or from
the bit ; and their alteration of form, although
generally as we have described it, is frequently
uncertain. The tush will sometimes be blimt
at eight ; at other times it will remain pointed at
eighteen. The upper tush, although the latest in
appearing, is soonest worn away.

Are there any circumstances to guide our
judgment after this ? There are those which will
prepare us to guess at the age of the horse, or to
approach within a few years of it, until he becomes
very old ; but there are none which will enable us
accurately to determine the question, and the
indications of age must now be taken from the
shape of the upper surface of the nippers. At
eight, they are all oval, the length of the oval
running across from tooth to tooth; but as the
horse gets older the teeth diminish in size, and
this commencing in their width, and not in their
thickness. They become a little apart from each
other, and their sm-faces are rounded. At nine,
the centre nippers are evidently so ; at ten, the
others begin to have the oval shortened. At
eleven, the second pair of nippers are quite
rounded ; and at thirteen the comer ones have
that appearance. At fourteen, the faces of the
central nippers become somewhat triangular. At
seventeen, they are all so. At nineteen, the
angles begin to wear off, and the central teeth are
again oval, but in a reversed direction, viz., from
outward; inward ; and at twenty-one tliey all wear
this form. This is the opinion of some Conti-

nental veterinary surgeons, and Mr. Percivall first
presented them to us in an English dress.

It would be folly to expect perfect accuracy at
this advanced age of the horse, when we are bound
to confess that the rales which w^e have laid down for
determining this matter at an earlier period,
although they are recognised by horsemen gene-
rally and referred to in courts of justice, will not
guide us in every case. Stabled horses have the
mark sooner worn out than those that are at grass ;
and a crib-biter may deceive the best judge by one
or two years. The age of the horse, likewise, being
formerly calculated from the first of May, it was
exceedingly difficult, or almost impossible, to
deteiTQine whether the animal was a late foal
of one year, or an early one of the next. At nine
or ten, the bars of the mouth become less promi-
nent, and their regular diminution will designate
increasing age. At eleven or twelve, the lower
nippers change their original upright direction,
and project forward or horizontally, and become
of a yellow colour. They are yellow, because the
teeth must grow in order to answer to their wear
and tear ; but the enamel which covered their
surface when they were first produced cannot be
repaired, and that which wears this yellow colour
in old age is the part which in youth was in
the socket, and therefore destitute of enamel.

The genera] indications of old age, indepen-
dent of the teedi, are, deepening of the hollows
over the eyes ; grey hairs, and particularly over
the eyes and about the muzzle ; thinness and
hanging do^vn of the lips ; sharpness of the
withers ; sinking of the back ; lengthening of the
quarters ; and the disappearance of wndgalls,
spavins, and tumours of every kind.

Of the natural age of the horse we should
form a very erroneous estimate from the eai'ly
period at which he is now worn out and destroyed.
Mr. Blaine speaks of a gentleman who haa tnree
horses that died at the ages of thirty-five, thirty-
seven, and thirty-nine. Mr. Cully mentions one
that received a hall in his neck, at the battle of
Preston, in 1715, and which was extracted at his
death, in 1758 ; and Mr. Percivall gives an
account of a barge-horse that died in his sLxty
second j'ear.

There cannot be a severer satire on the Eng
lish nation than this, that, from the absurd prac
tice of running our race-horses at two and three
3'ears old, and working others, in various ways,
long before their limbs are knit or their strength
developed, and craelly exacting from them services
far beyond their powers, their age does not ave-
rage a sixth part of that of the last-mentioned
horse. The scientific author of the " Animal
Ivingdom" declai'es that " it may be safely asserted,
that more horses are consumed in England, in
everj' ten years, than in any other country in the

THE HOUSE.

331

world in ten times that period, except those which
perish in war."

This affair has, with the English, been too
long considered as one of mere profit and loss ;
and it has been thonght to be cheaper to bring
the young horse earlier into work, and prema-
turely to exhaust his strength, than to maintain
him for a long period, and at a considerable
expense, almost useless. The matter requires
much consideration, and much reformation too.

DISEASES OF THE TEETH.

Of the diseases of the teeth in the horse we
know little. Carious or hollow teeth are occasion-
ally but not often seen ; but the edges of the
grinders, from the wearing off of the enamel
or the irregular growth of the teeth, become
rough, and wound the inside of the cheek ; it is
then necessary to adopt a summary but effectual
method of cure, namely, to rasp them smooth.
Many bad ulcers have been produced in the mouth
by the neglect of this.

The teeth sometimes grow in-egularly in
length, and this is particularly the case with the
grinders, from not being in exact opposition to
each other when the mouth is shut. The growth
of the teeth still going on, and there being no
mechanical opposition to it, one of the back teeth,
or a portion of one of them, shoots up considerably
above the others. Sometimes it penetrates the
bars above, and causes soreness and ulceration :
at other times it interferes partially, or altogether,
with the grinding motion of the jaws, and the
animal pines away without the cause being sus-
pected. Here the saw should be used, and the
projecting portion reduced to a level with the
other teeth. The horse that has once been
subjected to this operation should afterwards be
frequently examined, and especially if he loses
condition : and, indeed, evei-y horse that gets thin
or out of condition, without fever, or other appa-
rent cause, should have his teeth and mouth
carefully examined, and especially if, without
any indication of sore throat, he quids — partly
chewing and then dropping — his food, or if he
holds his head somewhat on one side, while he
eats, in order to get the food between the outer
edges of the teeth. A horse that has once had
veiy irregular teeth is materially lessened in
value, for, although they may be sawn down
as carefully as possible, they will project again at
no great distance of time. Such a horse is to all
intents and purposes unsound. In order to be fit
for service, he should be in possession of his full
natural powers, and these powere cannot be sus-
tained without perfect nutrition, and nutrition
would be rendered sadly imperfect by any defect
in the operation of mastication. Not only do
some diseases of the teeth render the act of

mastication difficult and troublesome, but, from
the food acquiring a foetid odour during its deten-
tion in the mouth, the horse acquires a distaste
for aliment altogether.

The continuance of a carious tooth often pro-
duces disease of the neighbouring ones, and of the
jaw itself. It should therefore be removed, as soon
as its real state is erident. Dreadful cases of
fungus hsematodes have arisen from the irritation
caused by a carious tooth.

The mode of extracting the teeth requires
much reformation. The hammer and the punch
should never be had recourse to. The keyed in-
strument of the human subject, but on a larger
scale, is the only one that should bs permitted.

This is the proper place to speak more at
length of the effect of dentition on the system ge-
nerally. Horsemen in general think too lightly
of it, and they scarcely dream of the animal suffer-
ing to any considerable degree, or absolute illness
being produced ; yet he who has to do with young
horses will occasionally discover a considerable
degree of febrile affection, which he can refer to
this cause alone. Fever, cough, catarrhal affec-
tions generally, disease of the eyes, cutaneous
affections, diarrhcea, dysentery, loss of appetite,
and general derangement, will frequently be traced
by the cai'eful observer to irritation from teetliing.

It is a rule scarcely admitting of the slightest
deviation, that, when young horses ai'e labouring
under any ferbrile affection, the mouth should be
examined, and if the tushes are prominent and
pushing against the gimis, a crucial incision
should be made across them. " In this way,"
says Mr. Percivall, " I have seen catarrhal and
bronchial inflammations abated, coughs relieved,
lymphatic and other glandular tumours about the
head reduced, cutaneous eruptions got rid of, de-
ranged bowels restored to order, appetite returned,
and lost condition repaired."*

THE TONGUE.

The tongue is the organ of taste. It is also
employed in disposing the food for being ground
between the teeth, and afterwards collecting it to-
gether, and conveying it to the back part of the
mouth, in order to be swallowed. It is likewise
the main instrument in deglutition, and the canal
through which the water passes in the act of drinTi-
ing. The root of it is firmly fixed at the bottom
of the mouth by a variety of muscles ; the fore
part is loose in the mouth. It is covered by a
continuation of the membrane that lines the
mouth, and which, doubling beneath, and confin-
ing the motions of the tongue, is called its fmnum,
or bridle. On the back of the tongue, this mem
brane is thickened and roughened, and is covered

• PenMvairs Hippopathology, vol. ii., p. 173.

332

THE HORSE.

witli numerous conical j^cipilltr, or little eminences,
on which the fibres of a branch of the fifth pair of
neiTes exj^and, communicating the sense of taste.
The various motions of the tongue are accom-
plished by means of the ninth pair of nerves. The
substance of the tongue is composed of muscular
fibres, with much fatty matter interposed between
them, and which gives to this organ its peculiar
softness.

DISEASES OF THE TONGUE.

The tongue is sometimes exposed to injmy
from carelessness or violence in the act of drench-
ing or administering a ball, it being pressed
against and cut by the edges of the grinders. A
little diluted tincture of myrrh, or alum dissolved
in water, or even nature unassisted, will speedily
heal the wound. The horse will sometimes bite
his tongue, most frequently in his sleep. If the
injury is tiifling, it requires little care ; but, in
some instances, a portion of the tongue has been
deeply, lacerated or bitten off. The assistance of
a veterinary practitioner is here required.

There are some interesting accounts of the
results of this lesion. Mr. Dickens of Kimbolton
found a portion of the tongue of the mare, e.^tend-
ingas far as the fraenulum beneath, lying in the
manger in a strangely lacerated condition, and
fast approaching to decomposition. He had her
cast, and, excising all the unhealthy portions, he
dressed the wound with chloride of soda and tinc-
ture of myrrh. In less than a week the laceration
was nearly healed, and, soon afterwards, she could
eat with veiy little difficulty, and keep herself in
good condition. The injui-y was proved to have
been inflicted by a brutal horsebreaker, in re-
venge for some slight aiJront.*

A curious case is recorded in the Memoirs of
the Society of Calvados. A horse was difficult to
groom. The soldier who had the care of him, in
order the better to manage him, fixed in his
mouth and on his tongue a strong chain of iron,
deeply serrated, while another man gave to this
chain a terrible jerk whenever the hoi'se was dis-
posed to be rebellious. The animal, under such
torture, became unmanageable, and the man who
held the chain sawing away with all his strength,
the tongue was completely cut off at the point
which separates its base from the free portion of
it. The wound healed favourably, and he was
soon able to manage a mash. After that some
hay was given to him in small quantities. He
took it and formed it into a Idnd of pellet with
his lips, and then, pressing it against the bottom
of his manger, he gradually forced it sufficiently
back into the mouth to be enabled to seize it with
bis grinders.

• Velerinarian, vol. vi., p. 22.

Another horse came to an untimely end in a
singular way. He had scarcely eaten anything
for three weeks. He seemed to be unable to
swallow. The channel beneath the lower jaw had
much enlargement about it. There was not any
known cause for this, nor any account of violence
done to the tongue. At length a tumour- ap-
peared under the jaw. Mr. Young of Muirhead
pmictured it, and a considerable quantity of puni-
lent matter escaped. The horse could drink his
gruel after this, but not take any solid food. A
week afterwards he was found dead. Upon sepa-
rating the head from the tnink, and cutting trans-
versely upon the tongue, nearly opposite to the se-
cond grinder, a needle was found lying longitudi-
nally, and which had penetrated from the side to
the inferior portion of the tongue. It was an
inch and a quarter in length, and the neighbour-
ing substance was in a state of gangrene.

Vesicles will sometimes appear along the un-
der side of the tongue, which will increase to a
considerable size. Ihe tongue itself will be
much enlarged, the animal will be unable to
swallow, and a gi'eat quantity of ropy saliva will
drivel from the mouth. This disease often exists
without the nature of it being suspected. If the
mouth is opened, one large bladder, or a succes-
sion of bladders, of a purple hue, will be seen ex-
tending along the whole of the under side of the
tongue. If they are lanced freely and deeply,
from end to end, the swelling will veiy rapidly
abate, and any little fever that remains may be
subdued by cooling medicine. The cause of this
disease is not clearly known.

THE SALIVARY OLANDS.

In order that the food may be properly com-
minuted preparatory to digestion, it is necessary
that it should be previously moistened. The food
of the stabled horse, however, is dry, and his meal
is generally concluded without any fluid being
offered to him. Nature has made a provision for
this. She has placed in the neighbourhood of the
mouth various glands to secrete, and that plenti-
fully, a limpid fluid, somewhat saline to the taste.
This fluid is conveyed from the glands into the
mouth, by various ducts, in the act of chewing,
and, being mixed with tlie food, renders it more
easily ground, more easily passed afterwards into
the stomach, and better fitted for digestion.

The principal of these is the parotid gland
(see cut, p. .309). It is placed in the hollow which
extends from the root of the ear to the angle of
the lower jaw. A portion of it, q, is represented
as turned up, to show the situation of the blood-
vessels underneath. In almost every case of cold
connected witli sore throat an enlai-gement of the
parotid gland is evident to the feeling, and even
to the eye. It is composed of numerous small

THE HORSE.

3'6»

glands connected together, and a minute tube pro-
ceeding from each, to carry away the secreted
riuid. These tubes unite in one common duct. At
the letter u, the parotid duct is seen to pass under
the angle of the lower jaw, together with the sub-
maxillary artery, and a branch of the jugular
vein, and they came out again at w. At r, the
duct is seen separated from the other vessels,
climbing up the cheek, and piercing it to discharge
its contents into the mouth, opposite to the second
grinder. The quantity of fluid thus poured into
the mouth from each of the parotid glands amounts
to a pint and a half in an hour, during the action
of mastication ; and, sometimes, when the duct
has been accidentally opened, it has spirted out to
the distance of several feet.

The parotid gland sympathises with every in-
flammatory affection of the upper part of the
throat, and therefore it is found swollen, hot, and
tender, in almost every catarrh or cold. The ca-
tarrh is to be treated in the usual wa}' ; while a
stimulating application, almost amounting to a
blister, well rubbed over the gland, will best sub-
due the inflammation of that body.

In bad strangles, and, sometimes, in violent
cold, this gland will be much enlarged and ul-
cerated, or an obstruction will take place in some
part of the duct, and the accumulating fluid will
burst the vessel, and a fistulous ulcer be formed
that will be very difficult to heal. A veterinary
surgeon alone will be competent to the treatment
of either case ; and the principle by which he will
be guided, will be to heal the abscess in the gland
as speedily as he can, and, probably, by the appli-
cation of the heated iron : or, if the ulcer is in the
duct, either to restore the passage through the
duct, or to form a new one, or to cut off the flow
of the saliva by the destruction of the gland.

A second source of the saliva is from the sub-
maxillary glands, or the glands under the jaw.
One of them is represented at s, p. 310. The
submaxillary glands occupy the space underneath
and between the sides of the lower jaw, and consist
of numerous small bodies, each with its proper
duct, uniting together, and forming on each side
a common duct or vessel that pierces through the
muscles at the root of the tongue, and opens in
little projections, or heads, upon the freeman, or
bridle of the tongue, about an inch and a half
from the front teeth. When the horse has catarrh
or cold, these glands, like the parotid gland, en-
large. This is often to be observed after strangles,
and several distinct kernels are to be felt under
the jaw. It has already been stated that they
may be distinguished from the swellings that ac-
company or indicate glanders, by their being
larger, generally not so distinct, more in the centre
of the channel, or space between the jaws, and
never adhering to the jaw-bones. The farriers

call them vivos, and often adopt cruel and absurd
methods to disperse them, — as burning them with
a lighted candle, or hot iron, or even cutting them,
out. They will, in the majority of instances,
gradually disperse in proportion as the disease
which produced them subsides ; or they will yield
to slightly stimulating embrocations ; or, if they
are obstinate in their continuance, they are of
no further consequence, than as iudicating that
the horse has laboured under severe cold or
strangles.

During catarrh or inflammation of the mouth,
the little projections marking the opening of
these ducts on either side of the bridle of the
tongue are apt to enlarge, and the mouth under
the tongue is a little red, and hot and tender. The
farriers call these swellings barbs or paps ; and as
soon as they discover them, mistaking the effect
of disease for the cause of it, they set to work to
cut them close off. The bleeding that follows
this operation somewhat abates the local inflam-
mation, and affords temporary relief; but the'
wounds will not speedily heal. The saliva con-
tinues to flow from the orifice of the duct, and,
running into the irregularities of the wound, causes
it to spread and deepen. Even when it heals, the
mouth of the duct being frequently closed, and the
saliva continuing to be secreted by the submax-
illary gland, it accumulates in the duct, until that
vessel bm-sts, and abscesses are formed which eat
deeply under the root of the tongue and long
torment the poor animal. When, after a great
deal of trouble, they are closed, they are apt to
break out again for months and years aftei-wards.

All that is necessary with regard to these paps
or barbs is to abate the inflammation or cold that
caused them to appear, and they will verj- soon
and perfectly subside. He who talks of cutting
them out is not fit to be trusted with a horee.

A third source of saliva is from glands under
the tongue — the subliinjiial glands, which open by
many little orifices under the tongue, resembling
little folds of the skin of the mouth, hanging
from the lower surface of this organ, or found on
the bottom of the mouth. These likewise some-
times enlarge during catai-rh or inflammation of
the mouth, and are called giffs, and bladders, and
flaps in the mouth. They have the appearance of
small pimples, and tlie farrier is too apt to cut:
them away, or bum them off. The better way is
to let them alone — for in a few days they will ge-
nerally disappear. Should any ulceration remain,
a little tincture of myrrh, or a solution of alum,
will readily heal them.

Besides these three principal sources of saliva,
there are small glands to be found on every pait
of the mouth, cheeks, and lips, which pom- out a
considerable quantity of fluid, to assist in moisten-
ing and preparing the food.

334

THE HORSE.

STRANGLES.

This is a disease principally incident to j'oung
horses — usually appearing between the fourth and
fifth year, and oftener in the spring than in any
other part of the year. It is preceded by cough,
and can at first be scarcely distinguished from
common cough, except that there is more discharge
from the nostril, of a yellowish colour, mixed with
pus, and generally without smell. There is like-
wise a considerable discharge of ropy fluid from
the mouth, and greater swelling than usual under
the throat. This swelling increases vnth uncer-
tain rapidity, accompanied by some fever, and dis-
inclination to eat, partly arising from the fever,
butmore from the pain which the animal feels in the
act of mastication. There is considerable thirst,
but after a gulp or two the horse ceases to drink,
yet is evidently desirous of continuing his draught.
In the attempt to swallow, and sometimes when not
drinking, a convulsive cough comes on, which
almost threatens to suffocate the animal — and
thence, probably, the name of the disease.*

The tumour is under the jaw, and about the
centre of the channel. It soon fills the whole of
the space, and is evidently one uniform body, and
may thus be distinguished from glanders, or the
enlarged glands of catarrh. In a few days it be-
comes more prominent and soft, and evidently con-
tains a fluid. This rapidly increases ; the tumour
bursts, and a great quantity of pus is discharged.
As soon as the tumour has broken, the cough sub-
sides, and the horse speedily mends, although
some degree of weakness may hang about him for
a considerable time. Few JJorses, possibly none,
escape its attack ; but, the disease having passed
over, the animal is free from it for the remainder
of his life. Catarrh may precede, or may predis-
pose to, the attack, and, undoubtedly, the state of
the atmosphere has much to do with it, for both
its prevalence and its severity are connected with
certain seasons of the year and clianges of the
weather. There is no preventive for the disease,
nor is there anything contagious about it. Many
strange stories are told with regard to this ; but
the explanation of the matter is, that when several
horses in the same farm, or in the same neigh-
bourhood, have had strangles at the same time,
they have been exposed to the same powerful but
unknown exciting cause.

Messrs. Percivall and Castley have come the
nearest to a satisfactory view of the nature of
strangles. Mr. Castley f says, that " the period

•OldGervaseMarkhampvcs the followiDg description of this
disease, and of the origin of its name: — " Ills," says he, " a great
and hard swelling between a horse's nether chaps, upon the rootes
of his tongue, and about his throat, which swelling, if it be not
prevented, will stop the horses mndpipe, and so stranak or
ehoakehim: from which effect, and none other, the name of this
disease tooke its derivation."

+ Veterinarian, iii., 406, and vi., 607.

of strangles is often a much more trying and criti-
cal time for young horses than most people seem to
be aware of ; that when colts get well over this com-
plaint, they generally begin to thrive and improve
in a remarkable manner, or there is sometimes as
great a change for the worse : in fact, it seems to
effect some decided constitutional change in the
animal."

Mr. Percivall adds, "the explanation of the
case appears to me to be, that the animal is suffer-
ing more or less from what I would call strwigle-
fever, — a fever the disposition and tendency of
which is to produce local tumour and abscess, and,
most commonly in that situation, underneath the
jaws, in which it has obtained the name of
strangles."

Professor Dick, of Edinburgh, adds that which
is conclusive on the subject, that " although the
disease commonly terminates by an abscess under
the jaw, 3'et it may, and occasionally does, give
rise to collections of matter on other parts of the
surface."

To this conclusion then we are warranted in
coming, that strangles is a specific affection to
which horses are naturally subject at some period
of their lives, and the natural cure of which seems
to be a suppurative process. From some cause, of
the nature of which we are ignorant, this suppu-
rative process usually takes place in the space be-
tween the branches of the maxillary bone, and
occurring there it appears in the mildest form, and
little danger attends. When the disease is ushered
in by considerable febrile disturbance, and the
suppuration takes place elsewhere, the horse too
frequently sinks under the attack.

The treatment of strangles is veiy simple. As
the essence of the disease consists in the forma-
tion and suppuration of the specific tumour, the
prineijial, or almost the sole attention of the prac-
titioner, should be directed to the hastening of
these processes : therefore, as soon as the tumour
of strangles is decidedly apparent, the part should
be actively blistered. Old practitioners used to
recommend poultices, which, from the thickness
of the horse's sldn, must have very little effect,
even if they could be confined on the part ; and
from the difficulty and almost impossibility of this,
and their getting cold and hard, they necessarily
weakened the energies of nature, and delayed the
ripening of the tumour. Fomentations are a little
more effectual. A blister will not only secure the
completion of the process, but hasten it by many
days, and save the patient much pain and exhaus-
tion. It will produce another good effect — it will,
previously to the opening of the tumour, abate the
internal inflammation and soreness of the throat,
and thus lessen the cough and wheezing.

As soon as the swelling is soft on its summit,
and evidently contains matter, it should be freely

THE HORSE.

33*

and deeply lanced. It is a bad, although frequent
practice, to suffer the tumour to burst naturally,
for a ragged ulcer is formed, very slow to heal,
and difficult of treatment. If the incision is deep
and large enough, no second collection of matter
will be formed : and that which is already there
may be suffered to run out slowly, all pressure
^vith the fingers being avoided. The pai't should
be kept clean, and a little friar's balsam daily in-
jected into the wound.

The remainder of the treatment will depend
on the symptoms. If there is much fever, and
evident affection of the chest, and which should
carefully be distinguished from the oppression and
choking occasioned by the pressure of the tumour,
it will be proper to bleed. In the majority of
cases, however, bleeding will not only be unneces-
sary, but injurious. It will delay the suppuration
of the tumour, and increase the subsequent de-
bility. A few cooling medicines, as nitre, emetic
tartar, and perhaps digitalis, may be g^iven, as the
case requires. The appetite, or rather the abilit}'
to eat, will return \vith the opening of the abscess.
Bran-mashes, or fresh-cut grass or tares, should
be liberally supplied, which will not only afford
sufficient nourishment to recruit the strength of
the animal, but keep the bowels gently open. If
the weakness is not great, no farther medicine
will be wanted, except a dose of mild phj-sic in
order to prevent the swellings or eruptions which
sometimes succeed to strangles. In cases of
debility, a small quantity of tonic medicine, as
chamomile, gentian, or ginger, may be adminis-
tered.*

THE PHARYNX.

Proceeding to the back of the mouth, we find
the pharynx (carrying or conveying the food to-
wards the stomach). It commences at the root of
the tongue (see 7, 8, and 9, p. 266) ; is separated
from the mouth by the soft palate (7), which hangs
down from the palatine bone at 8, and extends to

* Mr. Percivall gives the following desmplion of some unto-
ward cases : — '* The submaxillary tumour is often knotted and di-
Tided on its first appearance, as if the glands received the primary
attack. As it spreads, it becomes diffused in the cellular tissue
included in the space between the sides and branches of the lower
jaw, involving all the subcutaneous parts contained in that interval
indiscriminately in one uniform mass of tumefaction. While this
general turgescence is going on, various parts in the immediate
vicinity oflen take on the same kind of action. In particular, the
salivary glands, the parotid, sublingual, the throat, the pharynx
and larynx, the nose, the lining membrane, the nostrils, the
sinuses, the mouth, the tongue, tlie cheeks, the lips — in fine, in
some violent cases, the whole head appears to be involved in one

the epiglottis or covering to the windpipe. WTien
the food has been sufficiently ground by the teeth,
and mixed with the saliva, it is gathered together
by the tongue, and by the action of the cheeks and
tongue, and back part of the mouth, forced against
the soft j)alate, which, giving way, and being raised
upwards towards the entrance into the nostrils,
prevents the food from proceeding that way. It
passes to the pharynx, and the soft palate again
falling doAMi, prevents its return to the mouth,
and also prevents, except in extreme cases, the act
of vomiting in the horse. Whatever is returned
from the stomach of the horse, passes through the
nose, as the cut will make evident.

The sides of the pharynx are lined with
muscles which now begin powerfully to contract,
and by that contraction the bolus is forced on until
it reaches the gullet (10), which is the terminar
tion of the phaiynx. Before, however, the food
proceeds so far, it has to jiass over the entrance
into the windpipe (3), and should any portion of it
enter that tube, much inconvenience and danger
might result ; therefore, this opening is not only
lined by muscles which close it at the pleasure of
the animal, but is likemse covered by a heart-like
elastic cartilage, the epiglottis (2), -nith its back
towards the phai^ynx, and its hollow towards the
aperture. The epiglottis yields to the pressure of
the bolus passing over it, and lying flat over the
opening into the windpipe, and prevents the possi-
bility of anything entering into it. No sooner,
however, has the food passed over it, than it rises
again by its own elasticity, and leaves the upper
part of the windpipe once more open for the pur-
pose of breathing. The voice of animals is pro-
duced by the passage of air through this aperture,
communicating certain vibrations to certain folds
of the membrane covering the part, and these vi-
brations being afterwards modified in their passage
through the cavities of the nose. In order to un-
derstand the diseases of these parts, the anatomy
of the neck generally must be considered.

general mass of tumefaction, while every vent is running over with
discharge. The patient experiencing this violent form of disease
is in a truly pitiable plight. WTiile purulent matter is issuing in
profusion from his swollen nostrils, and slaver foams out from be-
tween his tumefied lips, it is distressing to hear the noise thai he
makes in painful and laboured efforts to breathe. There is immi-
nent danger of suffocation in such a case as this ; and even al-
though some relief, so far as the breathing is concerned, may be
obtained from the operation of hronclwtomy, yet, from the pain and
irritation he is suffering, added to the impossibility of getting
aliment into his stomach, he must speedily sink to rise no more.'*
— Veterinarian, vol. vi. p. 611.

336

THE HORSE.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ANATOIIT AND DISEASES OF THE NECK AND NEIGHBOURING PAETS.

The neck of the horse, and of every animal be-
longing to the class mammalia, except one species,
is composed of seven bones called vertebra, move-
able or turning upon each other (see cut, p. 263).
They are connected together by strong ligaments,
and form so many distinct joints, in order to give
sufficiently extensive motion to this important
part of the body. The bone nearest to the skull
is called the atlas (see cut, p. 263, and g, p. 266),
because, in the human being, it supports the
head. In the horse the head is suspended from
it. It is a mere ring-shaped bone, with broad
projections sideways ; but without the sharp and
irregular processes which are found on all the
others. The pack-wax, or ligament, by which the
head is principally supported (/, p. 266), and which
is strongly connected with all the other bones,
passes over this without touching it, by which
means the head is much more easily and e.\ten-
sively moved. The junction of the atlas with the
head is the seat of a very serious and troublesome
ulcer, termed

POLL-EVII..

From the horse rubbing and sometimes strik-
ing his poll against the lower edge of the manger,
or hanging back in the stall and bruising the part
with the halter — or from the frequent and painful
stretching of the ligaments and muscles by unne-
cessary tight reining, and, occasionally, from a
violent blow on the poll, carelessly or wantonly
inflicted, inflammation ensues, and a swelling ap-
pears, hot, tender, and painful. It used to be a
disease of frequent occui-rence, but it is now, from
better treatment of the animal, of comparatively
rare occurrence.

It has just been stated, that the ligament of
the neck passes over the atlas, or first bone, with-
out being attached to it, and the seat of inflamma-
tion is between the ligament and the bone be-
neath ; and being thus deeply situated, it is seri-
ous m its nature and difficult of treatment.

The first thing to be attempted is to abate the
inflammation by bleeding, ph3'sio, and the applica-
tion of cold lotions to the part. In a very early
period of the case a blister might have considerable
effect. Strong purgatives should also be employed.
By these means the tumom- will sometimes be
dispersed. This system, however, must not be
pursued too far. If the swelling increases, and
the heat and tenderness likewise increase, matter
will form in the tumour ; and then our object
should be to hasten its formation by warm fomen-

tations, poultices, or stimulating embrocations.
As soon as the matter is formed, which may be
known by the softness of the tumour, and before
it has time to spread ai'ound and eat into the
neighbouring parts, it should be evacuated. Now
comes the whole art of treating poll-evil ; the open-
ing into the tumour must be so contrived that all
the matter shall run out, and continue afterwards
to run out as quickly as it is formed, and not col-
lect at the bottom of the ulcer, irritating and cor-
roding it. This can be effected by a seton alone.
The needle should enter at the tojj of the tumour,
penetrate through its bottom, and be brought out
at the side of the neck, a little below the abscess.
Without anytliing more than this, except frequent
fomentation with warm water, in order to keep
the part clean, and to obviate inflammation, poll-
evil in its early stage will frequently be cured.

If the ulcer has deepened and spread, and
threatens to eat into the ligaments of the joints of
the neck, it may be necessary to stimulate its
surface, and perhaps painfully so, in order to bring
it to a healthy state, and dispose it to fill up. In
extreme cases, some highly stimulating appli-
cation may be employed, but nothing resembling
the scalding mLxture of the farriers of the olden
time. This is abominable ! horrible ! ! All mea-
sures, however, will be ineffectual, unless the
pus or matter is, by the use of setons, perfectly
evacuated. The apjilication of these setons will
require the skill and anatomical knowledge of
the veterinary surgeon. In desperate cases, the
wound may not be fairly exposed to the action
of the caustic without the division of the ligament
of the neck. This may be eff'ected with perfect
safety ; for although the ligament is carried on to
the occipital bone, and some strength is gained
by this prolongation of it, the main stress is on the
second bone ; and the head will continue to be'
supported. The divided ligament, also, will soon
unite again, and its former usefulness will be
restored when the wound is healed.

The second bone of the neck is the dentata,
having a process like a tooth, by which it forms a
joint with the first bone. In the formation of
that joint, a portion of the spinal marrow, which
runs through a canal in the centre of all these
bones, is exposed or covered only by ligament ;
and by the division of the maiTOw at this spot an
animal is instantly and humanely destroyed. The
operation is called jnthing, from the name (the
pith) given by butchers to the spinal marrow.

The other neck, or rack bones, as they are

THE HOUSE.

337

denominated by the farrier, (B, p. 303,) are of
a strangely irregular shape, yet bearing consider-
able resemblance to each other. They consist of
a central bone, perforated for the passage of the
spinal marrow with a ridge on the top for the
attachment of the ligament of the neck, and four
irregular plates or processes from the sides, for
the attachment of muscles ; at the base of one of
which, on either side, are holes for the passage of
the large arteries and veins. At the upper end of
each, is a round head or ball, and at the lower end,
a cavity or cup, and the head of the one being
received into the cup of the other, they are united
together, forming so many joints. They are like-
wise united by ligaments from these processes, as
well as the proper ligaments of the joints, and
so securely, that no dislocation can take place
between any of them, except the first and second,
the consequence of which would be the immediate
death of the animal.

The last, or seventh bone, has the elevation
on the back or top of it continued into a long and
sharp prolongation {a spinous process), and is the
beginning of that ridge of bones denominated the
withers (see cut, pp. 263 and 344) ; and as it is
the base of the column of neck bones, and there
must be a great pressure on it from the weight of
the head and neck, it is curiously contrived to
rest upon and unite with the two first ribs.

THE MUSCLES AND PEOPEB FORM OF THE NECK.

The bones of the neck serve as the frame-
work to which numerous muscles concerned in the
motions of the head and neck are attached. The
weight of the head and neck is supported by
the ligament without muscular aid, and without
fatigue to the animal ; but in order to raise the
head higher, or to lower it, or to turn it in every
direction, a complicated system of muscles is
necessarj'. Those whose office it is to raise the
head are most numerous and powerful, and are
placed on the upper and side part of the neck.
The cut in p. 309 contains a few of them.

c marks a tendon common to two of the most
important of them, the spJenius or splint-like
muscle, and the complexits major, or larger com-
plicated muscle. The splenius constitutes the
principal bulk of the neck above, arising from the
ligament of the neck all the way down it, and
going to the processes of all the bones of the
neck, hut the first, and tendons running from the
upper part of it, to the first bone of the neck, and
to a process of the temporal bone of the head. Its
action is sufficiently evident, namely, very power-
fully to elevate the head and neck. The principal
-beauty of the neck depends on this muscle. It
was admirably developed in the horse of whose
neck the annexed cut gives an accurate delinea-
tion.

If the curve were quite regular from the
poll to the withers, we should call it a perfect
neck. It is rather a long neck, and we do not
like it the less for that. In the carriage horse, a
neck that is not half concealed by the collar is
indispensable, so far as appearance goes ; and it
is only the horse with a neck of tolerable length
that will bear to be reined up, so as to give this
part the arched and beautiful appearance which
fashion demands. It is no detriment to the
riding-horse, and there are few horses of extraor-
dinary speed that have not the neck rather long.
The race-horse at the top of his speed not only
extends it as far as he can, that the air-passages
may be as straight as he can make them, and that
he may therefore be able to breathe more freel)',
but the weight of the head and neck, and the
effect increasing with their distance from the
trunk, add materially to the rapidity of the
animal's motion. It has been said, that a horse
with a long neck will bear heavy on the hand ;
neither the length of the neck nor even the bulk
of the head has any influence in causing tliis.
They ai-e botli counterbalanced by the power of
the ligament of the neck. The settinff on of
the head is most of all connected with heavy
bearing on the hand, and a short-necked horse
will bear heavily, because, from the thickness
of the lower part of the neck, consequent on
its shortness, the head cannot be rightly placed,
nor, generally, the shoulder.

Connected \vith the s/)/(?»!i(s muscle, and partly
produced by it, are the thickness and muscularity
of the neck, as it springs from the shoulders,
in this cut ; the height at which it comes out from
them forming nearly a line \Tith the withers ; and
the manner in which it tapers as it approaches the
head. The neck of a well-formed horse, however
fine at the top, should be muscular at the bottom,
or the horse will generally be weak and worthless.

Necks devoid of this muscularity are called

338

THE HORSE.

loose necks by liorsemen, and are alwaj's considered
a very serious objection to the animal. If the
neck is thin and lean at the upper part, and
is otherwise well shaped, the horse will usually
carry himself well, and the head will be properly
curved for beauty of appearance and ease of
riding. When an instance to the contrary occurs,
it is to be traced to veiy improper management,
or the space between the jaws being unnaturally
small.

The sphnius muscle, although a main agent
in raising the head and neck, may be too large, or
covered with too much cellular substance or fat,
thus giving an appearance of heaviness or even
clumsiness to the neck. This peculiarity of form
constitutes the distinction between the perfect
horse and the mare, and also the gelding, unless
castrated at a very late period.

This tendon, c, belongs also to another muscle,
which makes up the principal bulk of the lower
part of the neck, and is called the complexity major,
or larger complicated muscle. It arises partly as
low as the transverse processes of the four or five
first bones of the back, and from the five lower
bones of the neck ; and, the fibres from these
various sources uniting together, form a very large
and powerful muscle, the largest and strongest in
the neck. As it approaches the head, it lessens in
bulk, and terminates partly with the splenius, in
this tendon, but is principally inserted into the
back part of the occipital bone, by the side of the
ligament of the neck. In the cut, (p. 309,) almost
its whole course can be distinctly traced. Its office
is to raise the neck and elevate the head ; and
being inserted into such a part of the occiput, it
will more particularly protinide the nose, while it
raises the head. Its action, however, may be too
powerful ; it may be habitually so, and then it may
produce deformity. The back of the head being
pulled back, and the muzzle protruded, the horse
cannot by possibility carry his head well. He will
become what is technically called a stai'-gazer ; —
heavy in hand, boring upon the bit, and unsafe.
To remedy this, recourse is had, and in the
majority of cases ivithout avail, to the mai'tingale,
against which the horse is continually fighting,
and which is often a complete anno3'ance to the
rider. Such a horse is almost useless for harness.

Inseparable from this is another sad defect, so
far as the beauty of the horse is concerned ; — he
becomes eive-necked, i. e., he has a neck like a ewe
— not arched above, and straight below, until near
to the head, but hollow above and projecting
below ; and the neck rising low out of tlie chest,
even lower sometimes than the pomts of the
shoulders. There can scarcely be anything more
unsightly in a horse. His head can never be got
fairly down ; and the bearing rein of harness must
be to him a source of constant torture. In regard-

ing, however, the length and the form of the neck,
reference must be had to the purpose for which
the horse is intended. In a hackney few things
can be more abominable than a neck so dispropor-
tionable, so long that the hand of the rider gets
tired in managing the head of the horse. In
a race-horse this lengthening of the neck is a
decided advantage.

Among the muscles employed in raising the
head, are the complexus minores (smaller compli-
cated), and the recti (straight), and the oblique
muscles of the upper part of the neck, and be-
longing principally to the two first bones of the
neck, and portions of which may be seen under
the tendon of the $2}leHius c, and between it and
the ligament a.

Among the muscles employed in lowering the
head, some of which are given in the same cut, is
the ste7-no-ma.riUaiis, d, belonging to the breast-
bone, and the upper jaw. It can likewise be
traced, although not quite distinctly, in the cut,
p. 337. It lies immediately under the skin. It'
arises from the cartilage projecting from, or con-
stituting the front of the breast-bone (H, p. 263),
and proceeds up the neck, of no great bulk or
strength. At about three-fourths of its length
upwai-d, it changes to a flat tendon, which is seen
{d, p. 309) to insinuate itself between the parotid
and submaxillaiy glands, in order to be inserted
into the angle of the lower jaw. It is used in
bending the head towards the chest.

Another muscle, the tennination of which is
seen, is the levator humeri, raiser of the shoulder,
b. This is a much larger muscle than the last,
because it has more duty to perform. It rises
from the back of the head and four first bones of
the neck and the ligament of the neck, and is car-
ried down to the shoulder, mixing itself partly
with some of the muscles of the shoulder, and
finally continued down to and terminating on the
humenis (J, p. 263). Its office is double. If the
horse is in action, and the head and neck are fixed
points, the contraction of this muscle will draw
forward the shoulder and arm ; if the horse is
standing, and the shoulder and arm are fixed
points, this muscle will depress the head and
neck.

The muscles of the neck are all in pairs. One
of them is found on each side of the neck, and the
office which has been attributed to them can only
be accomplished when both act together ; but sup-
posing that one alone of the elevating muscles
should act, the head would be raised, but it would
at the same time be turned towards that side. If
one only of the depressor muscles were to act, tlie
head would be bent downwards, but it would like-
wise be turned towards that side. Then it will be
easily seen that by this simple method of having the
muscles in pairs, provision is made for eveiy kind

THE HOUSE.

339

of motion, upwards, downwards, or on either side,
for which the animal can possibly have occasion.
Little more of a practical nature could be said of
the muscles of the neck, although thej' are proper
and interesting studies for the anatomist.

This is the proper place to speak of the mane,
that long hair whicli covers the crest of the neck,
and adds so much to the beauty of the animal.
This, however, is not its only praise. In a wild
state the horse has many battles to fight, and his
neck deprived of the mane would be a vulnerable
part. The hair of the mane, the tail, and the legs,
is not shed in the same manner as that on the
body. It does not fall so regularly nor so often ;
for if all were shed at once, the parts would be left
for a long time defenceless.

The mane is generally dressed so as to lie on
the right side — some pereons divide it equally on
both sides. For ponies it used to be cut off near
the roots, only a few stumps being left to stand
perpendicularly. This was termed the hog-mane.
The groom sometimes bestows a great deal of pains
in getting the mane of his hoi-se into good and
fashionable order. It is wetted, and plaited, and
loaded with lead ; and every hair that is a little
too long is pulled out. The mane and tail of the
heavy draught-horse are seldom thin, but on the
well-bred horse the thin well-arranged mane is
very ornamental. *

THE BLOOD-VESSELS OF THE KECK.

Running down the under part of the neck are
the principal blood-vessels going to and returning
from the head,. with the windpipe and gullet. Our
cut could not give a view of the arteries that cany
the blood from the heart to the head, beause' they
are too deeply seated. The external arteries are
the carotid, of which there are two. They ascend
the neck on either side, close to the windpipe,
until they have reached the middle of the neck,
where they somewhat diverge, and lie more deeply.
They are covered by the stemo-maxillaris muscle,
which has been just described, and are separated
from the jugulars by a small portion of muscular
substance. Having reached the laiynx, they divide
into two branches, the external and the internal ;
the first goes to every part of the face, and the
second to the brain

The vertebral arteries run through canals in
the bones of the neck, supplying the neighbouring
parts as they climb, and at length enter the skull
at the large hole in the occipital bone, and ramify
on and supply the braifl.

Few cases can happen in which it would be
either necessary or justifiable to bleed from an
artery. Even in mad-staggers the bleeding is
more practicable, safer, and more effectual, from
the jugular vein than from the temporal or any

• Stewart's Stable CEconomy, p. 110.

other arter)'. If an artery is opened in the direc-
tion in which it runs, there is sometimes very
great difficulty in stopping the bleeding; it has
even been necessary to tie the vessel in order to
accomplish this purpose. If the artery is cut
across, its coats are so elastic that the two ends
are often immediately drawn apart under the flesh
at each side, and are thereby closed; and after the
first gush of blood no more can be obtained.

THE VEINS OF THE NECK.

The external veins which return the blood from
the head to the heart are the jugulars. The horse
has but one on either side. The human being and
the ox have two. The jugular takes its rise from
the base of the skull ; it then descends, receiving
other branches in its way towards the angle of the
jaw and behind the parotid gland ; and emerging
from that, as seen at t, p. 309, and being united
to a large branch from the face, it takes its course
down the neck. Veteriuai-y surgeons and horse-
men have agreed to adopt the jugular, a little way
below the union of these two branches, as the
usual place for bleeding ; and a veiy convenient
one it is, for it is easily got at, and the vessel is
large. The manner of bleeding, and the states of
constitution and disease in which it is proper, will
be hereafter spoken of ; an occasional consequence
of bleeding being at present taken under consider-
ation.

INFLAMMATION OF THE VEIN.

It is usual and proper, after bleeding, to bring
the edges of tlie woimd carefully together, and to
hold them in contact by inserting a pin through
the skin, with a little tow twisted round it. In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the wound
quickly heals, and gives no trouble : but in a few
instances, from using a blunt instrument, or a dirty
or rusty one ; or striking too hard and bruising the
vein ; or, in the act of pinning up, pulling the skin
too far from the neck and suffering some blood to
insinuate itself into the cellular texture ; or ne-
glecting to tie the horse up for a little while, and
thus enabling him to rub the bleeding place
against tlie manger and tear out the pin ; or from
the animal being worked immediately aften\ard ;
or the reins of the bridle rubbing against it ; or
several blows having been clunisUy given, and a
large and ragged wound made ; or from some dis-
position to iutlammation about the horse (for the
bleeder is not always in fault) the wound does not
heal, or if it closes for a little while, it re-opens.
A slight bleeding appears — some tumefaction com-
mences— the edges of the orifice separate, and he-
come swollen and red— a dischai-ge of sanious
bloody fluid proceeds from the wound, followed,
perhaps, in a few days by punilent matter. The
neck swells, and is hot and tender both above and
below the incision. The lips of the wound become
everted — the swelling increases, particularly above

340

tHE HORSE.

the -wouncl, where the vein is most hard and cordy
— the horse begins to loathe his food, and little
abscesses form round the orifice. The cordiness
of the vein rapidly increases. Not only the vein
itself has become obstructed and its coats thick-
ened, but the cellular tissue inflamed and hardened,
and is an additional source of irritation and torture.

The thickening of the vein extends to the bi-
furcation above : it occupies both branches, and
extends downwards to the chest — even to the vei-y
heart itself, and the patient dies.

The two grand questions here are, the cause
and the cure. The first would seem to admit of
an easy reply. A long list of circumstances has
been just given which would seem to refer the
matter entirely to the operator ; yet, on the other
hand, experience tells us that he has little to do
with these morbid effects of bleeding. Mr. Perci-
vall states, that Mr. Cherry tried several times to
produce inflammation by the use of msty lancets,
and escharotics of various kinds, and ligatures, and
frequent separation and friction of the granulating
edges, but in vain. Professor Spooner tried to
produce the disease, but could not.

On the other hand, it is well knowii that while
inflammation rarely or never follows the operation
of bleeding by some practitioners, others are con-
tinually getting into scrapes about it, The writer
of this work had three house-pupils, two of whom
he used to trust to bleed his patients, and no un-
toward circumstance ever occurred ; but as surely
as he sent the third, he had an inflamed vein to
take care of.

There is something yet undivulged in the pro-
cess of healing the vein, or in the circumstances
by which that healing is prevented. The most
powerful causes probably are, that the lips of the
woimd have not been brought into immediate ap-
position, or that a portion of the hair — a single
hair is sufficient — has insinuated itself. The
horse has not, perhaps, had his head tied up to
the rack after bleeding, which should always be
done for at least an hour, during which time
the extravasated blood will become firmly coagula-
ted, and the flow of blood to the heart will estab-
lish its uninternipted course. It is also probable
that atmospheric agency may be concerned in the
affair, or a diseased condition of the horse, and
particularly a susceptibility of taking on inflamma-
tory action, although the exciting cause may be
exceedingly slight.

Of the means of cure it is difficult to speak
confidently. The wound should be carefully ex-
amined— the divided edges brought into exact
apposition, and any hair interposed between them
removed— the pin withdra\vn or not, according to
circumstances — the part carefully and long fo-
mented, and a dose of physic administered. If
two or three days have passed and the discharge

still remains, the application of the budding-iron —
not too large or too hot — may produce engorge-
ment of the neighbom-ing parts, and union of the
lips of the wound. This should be daily, or every
second day, repeated, according to circumstances.
A blister applied over the orifice, or as far as the
mischief extends, will often be serviceable. Here,
likewise, the parts will be brought into contact
with each other, and pressed together, and union
may be effected. " Sometimes," says Mr. Cart-
wright, " when the vein is in an ulcerative state, I
have laid it open, and applied caustic dressing,
and it has healed up. I have lately had a case in
which five or six abscesses had formed above the
original wound, and the two superior ones burst
through the parotid gland, the extent of the ulcer-
ation being evident in the quantity of saliva that
flowed through each orifice."*

The owner of the horse will find it his interest
to apply to a veterinary practitioner as soon as a
case of inflamed vein occurs.

Should the vein be destroyed, the horse will
not be irreparably injm-ed, and perhaps, at no
gieat distance of time, scarcely injured at all ; for
nature is ingenious in making provision to cany on
the circulation of the blood. All the vessels con-
veying the blood from the heart to the different
parts of the frame, or bringing it back again to the
heart, communicate with each other by so many
channels, and in such various ways, that it is im-
possible by the closure or loss of any one of them
long materially to impede the flow of the vital
current. If the jugular is destroyed, the blood
will circulate through other vessels almost as freely
as before ; but the horse could not be considered
as sound, for he might not be equal to the whole
of the work required of him.

THE PAIATE (RESDMED).

At the back of the palate (see p. 266), and at-
tached to the crescent-shaped border of the pala-
tine bone, is a dense membranous curtain. Its
superior and back surface is a continuation of the
lining membrane of the nose, and its anterior or
inferior one that of the palate. It is called the
velum palati, or veil of the palate. It extends as
far back as the larynx, and lies upon the dorsum
of the epiglottis, and is a perfect veil or curtain
interposed between the cavities of the nose and
mouth, cutting off all communication between them.
Tied by its attachment to the palatine bone, it will
open but a little way, and that only in one direction.
It will permit a pellet of food to pass into the
cesophagus ; but it will close when any pressure is
made upon it from behind. Two singular facts
necessarily follow from this : the horse breathes
through the nostrils alone, and these are capacious
and easily expansible to a degree seen in no other

♦Abstract of the Veterinary Medical Association, vol. iv. p. 185.

THK lIOltSK.

:^ i I

niiimal, aiiil full}' commen-mrate to the wants of
the animal.

It is also evident that, in the act of vomiting,
the contents of the stomach must be returned
through the nostril, and not through the mouth.
On this account it is that the horse can with great
difficulty be excited to vomit. There is a structure
at the entrance to the stomach wliich, except under
very peculiar circumstances, prevents its return to
the throat, and consequently to the mouth.

The muscles of this singular curtain are very
intelligibly and correctly described by Mr. Perci-
vall, in his " Anatomy of the Horse," to which the
reader is referred. The same remark is applicable
to a very singular and important bone, and its
muscular apparatus, the os hyoides.

THE LARYNX

Is placed on the top of the windpipe (see 1, p.
266), and is the inner guard of the limgs if any
injurious substance should penetrate so far; it is
the main protection against the passage of food into
the respiratory tubes, and it is at the same time
the instrument of voice. In this last chai'acter it
loses much of its importance in the quadruped,
because in the dumb animal it is a beautiful piece
of mechanism.

The Epiglottis (see 2, p. 266) is a heart-shaped
cartilage, placed at the extremity of the opening
into the windpipe, with its back opposed to the
pharynx, so that when a pellet of food passes from
the pharynx in its way to the oesophagus, it jJresses
down the epiglottis, and by tliis means, as already
described, closes the aperture of the larynx, and
prevents any portion of the food from entering it.
Tlie food having passed over the epiglottis, from
its own elasticity and that of the membrane at its
base, and more particularly the power of the hyo-
epiglotideus muscle, rises again and resumes its for-
mer situation.

The Thyroid Cartilage (see 1, p. 266) occupies
almost the whole of the external jiart of the larynx,
both anteriorly and laterally. It envelopes and
protects all the rest ; a point of considerable im-
portance, considering the injury to which the
larynx is exposed, by our system of curbing and
tight reining. It also forms a point of attachment
for the insertion of the greater part of the delicate
muscles by which the other cartilages are moved.

The beautiful mechanism of the larynx is go-
verned or worked by a somewhat complicated sys-
tem of muscles, for a description of which the
reader is referred to the 5th vol. of the Veterin-
arian, p. 447. It is plentifully supplied with
nerves from the respiratory system, and there are
also frequent anastomoses with the motor nerves
of the spinal cord. The sole process of respiration
is partly under the control of the will, and the
muscles of the ]ar\-nx concerned in one stage of it

are likewise so, hut they al-in net iMdfpendently of
the will, for during sleep aud uuconsciousne.s.s the
machine continues to work.

The origin of the artery which supplies these
parts with blood is sometimes derived from the
main trunk of the carotid, but oftener it is a bi-anch
of the thyroideal artery.

The lining membrane is a continuation of that
of the pharynx above and the trachea below. It
is covered with innumerable follicular glands, from
whose mouths there oozes a mucous fluid that
moistens and lubricates its surface. It is pos-
sessed of very great sensibility, and its function
requires it. It is, as has been already stated, the
inner guard of the lungs, and the larynx must un-
dergo a multitude of changes of form in order to
adapt itself to certain changes in the act of respi-
ration, and in order to produce the voice. The
voice of the horse is, however, extremely limited,
compared with that of the human being : the same
sensibility, therefore, is not required, and exposed
as our quadruped slaves are to absurd and barba-
rous usage, too great sensibility of any part, and
particularly of this, would be a curse to the animal.

THE TRACHEA OR WINDPIPE.

The course of the inspired air from the larynx
to the lungs is now to be traced, and it will be
found to be conveyed through a singularly con-
structed tube (6, p. 266), passing along the ante-
rior portion of the neck, and reaching from the
lower edge of the cricoid cartilage (11, p. 266) to
the hmgs. In the commencement of its coarse
it is somewhat superficially placed, but as it de-
scends towards the thorax it becomes gradually
deeper, and more concealed. In order to dis-
charge its functions as an air-tube, it is essential
that it should always be pen-ious, or, at least, that
anv obstraction to the process of respiration should
be but momentary. Attached to a jjart endowed
with such extensive motion as the neck, it is also
necessary that it should be flexible. It is compo-
sed of cartilage, an exceedingly elastic substance,
and at the same time possessing a certain degree
of flexibility.

The windpipe is composed of cartilage, but not
of one entire piece, for that would necess;u-ily be
either too thick and firm to be flexilde, or if it
were suffigiently flexible to accommodate itself to
the action of the neck, it would be too weak to re-
sist even common pressure or injmy, and the pas-
sage through ifwould often be inconveniently or
dangerously obstructed. Besides, it is necessary
that this tube should occasionally admit of elonga-
tion to a considerable degree. When the neck is
extended in the act of grazing or otherwise, the
trachea must be lengthened.

The structure of the cartilage of the windpipe
is admirably adapted to effect every purpose It

342

THE HORSE.

is divided into rings, fifty or fifty-two in number,
each possessing sufficient thickness and strength
to resist ordinary pressure, and each constituting
a joint with the one above and below, and thus ad-
mitting of all the flexibility that could be required.
These rings are connected together by an inter-
posed fibro-ligamentous substance, e.xtensible, elas-
tic, and 3'et so strong that it is scarcely possible to
rupture it ; and the fibres of that ligament not
running vertically from one to another, and there-
fore admitting of little more motion than the
rotation of the head, but composed of two layers
running obliquely, and m contrary directions, so
as to adapt themselves to every variety of motion.

These rings are thickest in front, and project
circularly, opposing anarch-like form. There, too,
the ligament is widest, in order to admit of the
greatest motion in the direction in which it is
most needed, when the head is elevated or de-
pressed. Laterally these rings are thinner, because
they are, to a great degree, protected by the sur-
rounding parts ; and, posteriorly, they overlap each
other, and the overlapping portions are connected
together by a strong ligamentous substance. This,
while it does not impede the motion of the tube,
gives firmness and stability to it.

Within the trachea is another very curious
structure. At the points at which, posteriorly, the
rings begin to bend inwardly, a muscle is found
stretching across the windpipe, dividing the canal
into two unequal portions — the anterior one con-
stituting the proper air-passage, and the posterior
one occupied by cellular te.xture. It is to give
additional strength to parts. It is the tie which
prevents the arch from spurring out. In the na-
tural state of the wind^pe this muscle is, probably,
quiescent ; but when kiiy considerable pressure is
made on the crown of the arch at the upper part
by tight reining, or at the lower by an ill-made
collar, or anywhere by bnital or accidental violence,
this muscle contracts, every serious expansion or
depression of the arch is prevented, and the part
is preserved from serious injury.

It may also be readily imagined that, when in
violent exertion, every part of the respiratory canal
is on the stretch, this band may preserve the wind-
pipe from injury or laceration. There are many
beautiful points in the physiology of the horse
which deserve much greater attention than has
hitherto been paid to them.

The windpipe should project from the neck.
It should almost seem as if it were detached from
the deck, fur two important reasons : first, that it
may easily enter between the channels of the jaw,
so that the horse may be reined up without suffer-
ing inconvenience ; and next, that being more
loosely attached to the neck, it may more readily
adapt itself to the changes required than if it were
enveloped by fat, or muscle to a certain degree

unyielding: therefore, in every well-formed neck
— and it will be seen in the cut (p. 337) — it is
indispensible that the windpipe should be promi-
nent and loose on the neck. This is not required
in the heavy cart-horse, and we do not often find
it, because he is not so much exposed to those
circumstances which will hurry respiration, and
require an enlargement in the size of the principal
air-tube.

When the trachea arrives at the thorax, it
suddenly alters its form, in order to adapt itself to
the narrow triangular aperture through which it
has to pass. It preserves the same cartilaginous
structui'e ; for if it has not the pressure of the
external muscles, or of accidental violence, to
resist, it is exposed to the pressure of the lungs
when they are inflating, and it shares in the pres-
sure of the diaphragm, and of the intercostal
muscles, in the act of expiration. Having entered
the chest, it passes a little to the right, leaving
the oesophagus, or gullet, on the left ; it separates
from the dorsal vertebras ; it passes through the
duplicature of the mediastinum to the base of the
heart, and it divides beneath the posterior aorta.
Its divisions are called the bronchial tubes, and
have much to do with the well-being of the horse.

Its rings remain as perfect as before, hut a
new portion of cartilage begins to present itself :
it may be traced as high as the tenth ring from
the bottom ; it spreads over the union between
the posterior terminations of the rings; it holds
them in closer and firmer connexion with each
other ; it discharges the duty of the transverse
muscle, which begins here to disappear, and the
support of the cervical and dorsal vertebra? ; it
prevents the separation of the rings when the
trachea is distended ; it spreads down upon, and
defends the commencement of the bronchial tubes.
Some other small plates of cartilage reach a con-
siderable way down the divisions of tlie bronchi,
and the last ring has a central triangular projec-
tion, which covers and defends the bifurcation of
the trachea.

TEACHEOTOMT.

The respirator}' canal is occasionally obstructed,
to an annoying and dangerous degree. Polypi
have been described as occupying the nostrils ;
long tumours have formed in them. Tumours of
other kinds have pressed into the pharjiix. The
tumour of strangles has, for a while, occupied the
passage. The larjTix has been distorted ; the
membrane of the windpipe, on the laiynx, has
been thickened, and ulcers have formed in one or
both, and have been so painful that the act of
breathing was laborious and torturing. In all
these cases it has been anxiously inquired whether
there might not be established an artificial opening
for the passage of the air, when the natural one

THE HORSE.

813

could no longer be used ; and it has been ascer-
tained that it is both a simple and safe operation,
to excise a portion of the trachea, on or below the
point of obstruction.

The operation must be performed while the
horse is standing, and secured by a side-line, for
he would, propably, be suffocated amidst the strug-
gles with which he would resist the act of throwing.
The twitch is then firmly fixed on the muzzle ;
the operator stands on a stool or pail, by which
means he can more perfectly command the part,
and an assistant holds a scalpel, a bistoury, scis-
sors, curved needles anned, and a moist sponge.

The operator should once more examine the
whole course of the wndpipe, and the different
sounds which he will be able to detect by the
application of the ear, and likewise the different
degrees of temperature and of tenderness which
the finger will detect, will guide to the seat of
the evil.

The hair is to be closely cut off from the part,
the skin tightened across the trachea with the
thumb and fingers of the left hand, and then a
longitudinal incision cautiouslj' made through the
skin, three inches in length. This is usually
effected when there is no express indication to the
contrary on the fifth and sixth rings ; a slip from
which, and the connecting ligament above and
below, about half the width of each ring, should
be excised with the intervening ligament. The
remaining portion will then be strong enough to
retain the perfect arched form of the trachea.

If the orifice is only to be kept open while
some foreign body is extracted, or tumour removed,
or ulcer healed, or inflammation subdued, nothing
more is necessary than to keep the lips of the wound
a little apart, by passing some thread through each,
and slightly everting them, and tying the threads
to the mane.

If, however, there is any permanent obstruc-
tion, a tube will be necessary. It should be two
or three inches long, curved at the top, and the
external orifice turning downwards with a little
ring on each side, by which, through the means of
tubes, it may be retained in its situation.

The purpose of the operation being answered,
the flaps of integument must be brought over the
wound, the edges, if necessary, diminished, and
the parts kept in apposition by a few stitches.
The cartilage will be perfectly reproduced, only
the rings will be a little thicker and wider.

The following account will illustrate the use
and the danger of the tracheotomy tube. A mare

at Alfort had great distortion of the rings of the
trachea. She breathed wth difficulty. She became
a roarer almost to suffocation, and was quite use-
less. Tracheotomy was effected on the distorted
rings, and a short canula introduced. She was so
much relieved that she trotted and galloped imme-
diately aftenvards without the slightest distress.
SLx months later she again began to roar. It
seemed that the lings were now distorted below
the former place.

M. Barthelemy introduced another canula,
seven inches long, and which reached below the
new distortion. She was once more relieved.
She speedily improved in condition, and regularly
drew a cabriolet at the rate of seven or eight miles
in the hour ; and this she continued to do for
three years, when the canula became accidentally
displaced in the night, and she was found dead
in the moi'ning.

THE BRONCHIAL TUBES.

The windpipe has been traced through its
course down the neck into the chest. It is there
contiuued through the mediastinum to the base of
the heart, and then divided into two tubes corres-
ponding with the two divisions of the lungs — the
Bronchial Tubes. These trunks enter deeply into
the substance of the lungs. They presently sub-
divide, and the subdivision is continued in every
direction, until branches from the trachea penetrate
every assignable portion and part of the lungs.
They are still air-passages, carrying on this fluid
to its destination, for the accomplishment of a vital
purpose.

They also continue exposed to pressure ; but
it is pressure of a new kind, a pressure alternately
applied and removed. The lungs in which they
are embedded alternately contract and expand ;
and these tubes must contract and expand likewise.
Embedded in the lungs, the cartilaginous ring of
the bronchi remains, but it is divided into five or
six segments connected with each other. The
lungs being compressed, the segments overlap
each other, and fold up and occupy little space ;
but the principle of elasticity is still at work ; and
as the pressure is removed, they start again, and
resume their previous form and calibre. It is a
beautiful contrivance, and exquisitely adapted to
the situation in which these tubes are placed, and
the functions they have to discharge.

But we must pause a little and consider the
structure and functions of the chest.

THE HORSE.

CHAPTER X.

THE CHEST,

a The first rib.

h The cartilages of the eleven hindermost, or fake ribs, connected

together, and uniting with that of the seventh or last true rib.
c The breast-bone.
d The top, or point, of the withers, which are formed by the

lengthened spinous, or upright processes of the ten or eleven

lirst bones of the back. The bones of the back are eighteen

in number.
e The ribs, usually eighteen on each side ; the seven first united to

The chest, in the horizontal position in which
it is placed in the cut, is of a somewhat oval figure,
with its extremities truncated. The spine is its
roof; the sternum, or breast, its floor; the ribs, its
sides ; the trachea, oesophagus, and great blood-
vessels passing through its anterior extremity aud
the diaphragm, being its posterior. It is con-
tracted in front, broad and deep towards the
central boundaiy, and again contracted posteriorly.
It encloses the heart and the lungs, the origin of
the arterial, and the termination of the venous
trunks and the collected vessels of the absorbents.
The windpipe penetrates into it, and the cesophagus
traverses its whole extent.

A ca\ity whose contents are thus important
should be securely defended. The roof is not
composed of one unyielding prolongation of bone,
which might possibly have been strong enough,
yet would have subjected it to a thousand rude
and dangerous shocks ; but there is a curiously-
contrived series of bones, knit together by strong
ligaments and dense cartilaginous substance, form-
ing so many joints, each possessed but of little
individual motion, but the whole united and con-
stituting a column of such exquisitely-contrived
flexibility and strength, that all concussion is
avoided, aud no external violence or weight can
injure that which it protects. It is supported
chiefly by the anterior extremities, and beautiful
are the contrivances adopted to prevent injurious
connexion. There is no inflexible bony union
between the shoulders and the chest ; but while
the spine is formed to neutralise much of the con-
cussion that might be received — while the elastic

the breast-bone by cartilage ; the cartilages of the remaining
eleven united to each other, as at b.

f That portion of the spine where the loins commence, and com-
posed of five bones.

g The bones forming the hip, or haunch, and into the hole at the
bottom of which the bead of the thigh-bone is received.

k The portion of the spine belonging to the haunch, and consisting
of five pieces.

i The bones of the tail, usually thirteen in number,

connexions between the vertebree of the back,
alternately affording a yielding resistance to the
shock, and regaining their natural situation when
the external force is removed, go far, by this play-
ful motion, to render harmless the rudest motion
— there is a provision made by the attachment of
the shoulder-blade to the chest calculated to pre-
vent the possibility of any rude concussion reaching
the thorax.*

At the shoulder is a muscle of immense strength,
and tendinous elastic comjjosition, the serrdtus ma-
jor, spreading over the internal surface of the
shoulder-blade and a portion of the chest. A
spring of easier play could not have been attached
to the carriage of any invalid. It is a carriage
hung by springs between the scapulae, and a
delightful one it is for easy travelling; while there
is combined ■with it, and the union is not a little
difficult, strength enough to resist the jolting of
the roughest road and the most rapid pace.

Laterally there is sufficient defence against all
common injuiy by the expansion of the shoulder
over the chest from between the first and second
to the seventh rib ; and behind and below that
there is the bony structure of the ribs, of no little

* " Had," says Mr. Percivall, " the entire rib been one solid
piece of bone, a violent blow might have broken it to pieces. On
the other hand, had the ribs been composed from end to end of
cartilage only, the form of the arch could not have been sustained,
but, sooner or later, it must have bent inward, and so have
encroached upon the cavity of the chest as to have compressed the
organs of respiration and circulation to that degree that could not
but have ended in suffocation and death of the animal. It was
only the judicious and well-an'anged combination of bone and
gristle in the construction of the chest that could answer the ends
an all-wise Providence had in view." — VeUrinarian ,\o\. xv. p. 184.

THE HOKSE.

strength ; and tlieir aivbed form, altliuiigli a flat-
tened arch ; and the 3aelding motion at the base
of each rib, resulting from its jointed connexion
with the spine above and its cartilaginous union
■with the sternum below.

A still more important consideration with re-
gard to the parietes of the thorax is th© manner
in which the}' can adapt themselves to the changing
bulk of the contents of the cavity. The capacity
of the chest is little affected by the external con-
traction and dilatation of the heart, for when its
ventricles are collapsed its auiicles are distended,
and when its auricles are compressed its ventricles
expand ; but with regard to the kmgs it is a very
different affair. In their state of collapse and
expansion they vaiy in comparative bulk, one-sixth
pai't or more, and, in either state, it is necessaiy
for the proper dischai-ge of the function of respira-
tion that the parietes of the chest should be in
contact with them.

The ribs are eighteen in number on either
side. Nine of them are perfect, and commonly
called the true, or, more properly, sternal ribs,
extending from the spine to the sternum. The
remaining nine are posterior and shorter, and are
only indirectly connected with the sternum.

The ribs are united to the corresponding ver-
tebrae or bones of the spine, so as to form perfect
Joints — or, rather, each rib forms two joints. The
head of the rib is received between the vertebrae
and bones of the spine, before and behind, so that
it shall always present two articulating surfaces,
one opposed to the vertebrae immediately before,
and the other to that immediately behind, and both
forming one joint, with a perfect ca^isular ligament,
and admitting of a rotatoiy motion. The head of
the rib seems to be received into the cartilaginous
ligamentous siibstance between the vertebrae. No-
thing could be more admirably devised for motion,
so far as it is required, and for sti-ength of union,
that can scarcely be broken.

Before the ribs reach the sternum, they termi-
nate in a cartilaginous prolongation, or the lower
part of the rib may be said to be cartilaginous.
There is between the bony part and tins, cartilage
a joint with a true capsular ligament, and- admit-
ting of a certain degree of motion ; and where it
unites with the sternum there is a fourth joint,
with a perfect and complete capsular ligament.

The cartilage of the posterior ribsai-e united to
the bony portion by a Idnd of joint. They are not,
however, prolonged so far as the sternum ; but the
extremity of one lies upon the body of that which
is immediately before it, bound do^Ti upon it by a
cellular substance approaching to the nature of
ligament, yet each having some separate motion,
and all of them connected indirectly with the ster-
num by means of the last sternal rib. It is an
admirable contrivance to preserve the requisite |

motion which must attend every act of breathing,
every extension and contraction of the chest, with
a degree of strength which scarcely any accident
can break through.

The sternum, or breast-bone, is more compli-
cated than it at first appears to be. It constitutes
the floor of the chest, and is a long flat spongy
bone, fixed between the ribs on either side, articu-
lating with these cartilages, and serving as a point
of support to them. It is composed of from seven
to nine pieces, united together by cartilage ; and
whatever changes may take place in other parts of
the frame, this cartilage- is not converted to bone
even in extreme old age, although there may,
possibly, be some spots of osslQc matter found
in it.

The point of the breast-bone may be occasion-
ally injured by blows or by the pressure of the
collar. It has been, by brutal violence, completely
broken off from the sternum ; but aftener. and that
from some cruel usage, a kind of tumour has been
formed on the point of it, which has occasionally
ulcerated, and proved very difficult to heal.

The front of the chest is a very important
consideration in the structure of the horae. It
should be prominent and broad, and full, and the
sides of it well occupied. When the breast is nar-
row, the chest has generally the same appearance :
the animal is flat-sided, the proper cavity of the
chest is diminished, and the stamina of the horse
are materially diminished, although, perhaps, his
speed for short distances may not be affected.
When the chest is narrow and the fore legs are too
close together, in addition to the want of bottom
they will interfere with each other, and • there will
be wounds on the fetlocks, and bruises- below the
knee.

A chest too broad is not desirable-, but a fleshy
and a prominent one ; yet even this, perhaps, may
require some explanation:' When the fore legs
appear to recede and to shelter themselves under
the body, there is a faulty position of the fore limbs,
a bend or standing over, an- uaii»tural lengthiness
about the fore parts of the'^i^ist, sadly disadvan-
tageous in progi'ession. J^^'

There is also a poster^ appendix to the ster-
num, which is also cartila^nous. It is called the
ensiform cartilage, although it bears little resem-
blance to a sword. It is flat and flexible, yet
strong, and serves as the commencement of the
floor or support of the abdomen. It also gives in-
sertion to some of the abdominal muscles, and
more conveniently than it could have been ob-
tained from the body of the sternum.

The intercostal 7nuscl.s. — The borders of the
ribs are anteriorly concave, thin, and shai-p — poste-
riorly rounded, and presenting underneath a longi-
tudinal depression or cha mel, in which run both
blood-vessels and neiTes. The space between them

346

THE HORSE.

is occupied by muscular substance firmly attached
to the borders of the ribs. These muscles are
sin<nilarly distributed ; their fibres cross each other
in the form of an X. There is a manifest advan-
tage in this. If the fibres ran straight across from
rib to rib, they might act powerfully, but their
action would be exceedingly limited. A short
muscle can contract but a little way, and only a
slight change of form or dimension can be produced.
By running diagonally from rib to rib, these mus-
cles are double the length they could otherwise
have been. It is a general rule with regard to
muscular action, that the power of the muscle
depends on its bulk, and the extent of its action on
its length.

The ribs, while they protect the important
viscera of the thorax from injury, are powerful
agents in extending and contracting the chest in
the alternate inspiration and expiration of air. In
what proportion they discharge the labour of respi-
ration is a disputed question, and into the consi-
deration of which we cannot enter until something
is known of the grand respiratory muscle, the dia-
phragm. Thus far, however, may be said, that
they are not inactive in natural respiration, al-
though they certainly act only a secondary part ;
but in hurried respiration, and when the demand
for arterialised blood is increased by violent exer-
tion, they are valuable and powerful auxiliaries.

This leads to a very important consideration,
the most advantageous form of the chest for the
proper discharge of the natural or extraordinaiy
functions of the thorasic viscera. The contents of
the chest are the lungs and the heart : — the first,
to render the blood nutrient and stimulatmg, and
to give or restore to it that vitality which will en-
able it to support every part of the frame in the
discharge of its function, and devoid of which the
complicated and beautiful machine is inert and
dead ; and the second, to convey this purified arte-
rialised blood to every part of the frame.

In order to produce and to convey to the various
parts a sufficient quantity of blood, these organs
must be large. If it amounts not to hypertrophy,
the larger the heart and the larger the lungs, the
more rapid the process of nutrition, and the more
perfect the discharge of every animal function.

Then it might be imagined that, as a cii'cle is
a figure which contains more than any other of
equal girth and admeasurement, a circular form of
the chest would be most advantageous. Not ex-
actly so ; for the contents of the chest are alter-
nately expanding and contracting. The circular
chest could not expand, but every change of form
would be a diminution of capacity.

That form of chest which approaches nearest
to a circle, while it admits of sufficient expansion
and contraction, is the best — certainly for some
animals, and for all under peculiar cu'cumstances,

and with reference to the discharge of certain func-
tions. This was the grand principle on which Mr.
Bakewell proceeded, and on which all our improve-
ments in the breeding of cattle were founded.

The principle holds good with regard to some
breeds of horses. We value the heavy draught-
horse not only on account of his simple muscular
power, but the weight which, by means of that
power, he is able to throw into the collar. Alight
horse may be preferable for light draught, but we
must oppose weight to weight when our loads are
heavy. In the dray-horse we prize this circular
chest, not only that he may be proportionably
heavier before — to him no disadvantage — but that,
by means of the increased capacity of his chest, he
may obtain the bulk and size which best fit him
for our seiTice. But he would not do for speed —
he would not do for ordinary quick exertion, and if
he were pushed far beyond his pace, he would
become broken- winded, or have inflamed lungs.

Some of our saddle-horses and cobs have bar-
rels round enough, and we value them on account
of it, for they are always in condition, and they
rarely tire. But when we look at them more
carefully, there is just that departure from the cir-
cular form of which mention has been made—
that happy medium between the circle and the
ellipse, which retains the capacity of the one and
the expansibility of the other. Such a horse is
invaluable for common purposes, but he is seldom
a horse of speed. If he is permitted to go his
own pace, and that not a slow one, he will work on
for ever; but if he is too much hurried, he is soon
distressed.

The Broad Deep Chest. — Then for the usual
purposes of the road, and more particularly for
rapid progression, search is made for that form of
the chest which shall miite, and to as great a
degree as possible, considerable capacity in a
quiescent state, and the power of increasing that
capacity when the animal requires it. There
must be the broad chest for the production of
muscles and sinews, and the deep chest, to give
the capacity or power of furnishing arterial blood
equal to the most rapid exhaustion of vitality.

This fonn of the chest is consistent with light-
ness, or at least with all the lightness that can be
rationally required. The broad-chested horse, or
he that, with moderate depth at the girth, swells
and barrels out immediately behind the elbow, may
have as light a forehand and as elevated a wither
as the horse with the narrowest chest ; but the
animal with the barrel approaching too near to
rotundity is invariably heavy about the shoulders
and low in the withers. It is to the mixture of
the Arabian blood that we principally owe this
peculiar and advantageous formation of the chest
of the horse. The Arab is light ; some would say
too much so before : but immediately behind the

THE HORSE.

847

arms the barrel almost invariabl}' swells out, and
leaves plenty of room, and where it is most wanted
for the play of the lungs, and at the same time
where the weight does not press so exclusively on
the fore-legs, and expose the feet to concussion
and injury.

Many horses with narrow chests, and a great
deal of daylight under them, have plenty of spirit
and willingness for work. They show themselves
well off, and exhibit the address and gratify the
vanity of their riders on the parade or in the park,
but they have not the appetite nor the endurance
that will carry them through three successive days'
hard work.

Five out of six of the animals that perish
from inflamed lungs are narrow-chested, and it
might be safely affirmed that the far greater part
of those who are lost in the field after a bard day's
nin, have been horses whose training has been
neglected, or who have no room for the lungs to
expand. The most important of all points in the
conformation of the horse is here elucidated. Au
elevated wither, or oblique shoulder, or powerful
quarters, are great advantages ; but that which is
most of all connected with the general health of
the animal, and with combined fleetness or bottom,
is a deep, and broad, and swelling chest, with
sufficient lengthening of the sternum, or breast
bone, beneath.

If a chest that cannot expand with the increas-
ing expansion and labour of the lungs is so serious
a detriment to the horse, everything that interferes
with the action of the intercostal muscles is cai-e-
fully to be avoided. Tight girthing ranks among
these, and foremost among them. The closeness
with which the roller is buckled on in the stable
must be a serious inconvenience to the horse ; and
the partially depriving these muscles of their
power of action, for so many hours in every day,
must indispose them for labour when quicker and
fuller respiration is required. At all events, a
tight girth, though an almost necessary nuisance,
is a very considerable one, when all the exertion
of which he is capable is required from the horse.
Who has not perceived the address with which, by
belMng out the chest, the old horse renders every
attempt to gii'th him tight comparatively useless ;
and when a horse is blown, what immediate relief
has imgirthing him afforded, by pennitting the
intercostals to act with greater power ?

A point of consequence regarding the capacity
of the chest, is the length or shortness of the
carcase ; or the extent of the ribs from the elbow
backward. Some horses are what is called ribbed
hoiiu ; there is but little space (see cuts pp. 263
and 344) between the last rib and the hip-bone.
In others the distance is considerably greater, and
is plainly evident by the falling in of the flank.
The question then is, what service is required

from the horse? If he has to carry a heavy-
weight, and has much work to do, he should be
ribbed home, — the last rib and the hip-bone
should not be far from each other. There is more
capacity of chest and of belly — there is less dis-
tance between the points of support — and greater
strength and endurance. A hackney (and we
would almost say a hunter) can scarcely be too
well ribbed home.

If speed, however, is required, there must be
room for the full action of the hinder limbs ; and
this can only exist where there is sufficient space
between the last rib and the hip-bone. The o\\Tier
of the horse must make up his mind as to what he
wants from him, and be satisfied if he obtains
that ; for, let him be assured that he cannot have
everything, for this would require those differences
of conformation that cannot possibly exist in the
same animal.

The thorax, or chest, is formed by the spine/,
above (p. 344) ; the ribs e, on either side ; and the
sternum, or breast-bone, c, beneath.

THE SPINE AND BACK.

The spine, or back, consists of a chain of bones
from the poll to the extremity of the tail. It is
made up of twenty-three bones from the neck to the
haunch ; eighteen, called dorsal vertebra', compos-
ing the back ; and five lumbar vertebra, occupying
the loins. On this part of the animal the weight
or burden is laid, and there are two things to be
piincipally considered, easiness of carriage and
strength. If the back were composed of unyield-
ing materials — if it resembled a bar of wood or
iron, much jarring or jolting, in the rapid motion
of the animal, could not possibly be endored. In
order to avoid this, as well as to assist in turning,
the back is divided into numerous bones ; and
between each pair of bones there is interposed a
cartilaginous substance, most highly elastic, that
will yield and give way to every jar, not so much
as to occasion insecurity between the bones, or to
pemiit considerable motion between any one pair,
but forming altogether an aggregate mass of such
perfect elasticity, that the rider sits almost undis-
turbed, however high may be the action, or however
rapid the pace.

Strength is £is important as ease ; therefore
these bones are united together with peculiar
firmness. The round head of one is exactly fitted
to the cup or cavity of that immediately before it ;
and between them is placed the elastic ligamentous
substance, which has been just described, so strong,
that in endeavouring to separate the bones of the
back, they will break before this substance will
give way. In addition to this there are ligaments
running along the broad under surface of these
bones — ligaments between each of the transverse
processes, or side projections of the bones —

348

THE HOKSE.

ligaments between tlie siiiiioiis processes or up-
right projections, and also a continuation of the
strong ligament of the neck running along the
whole course of the back and loins, lengthening
and contracting, as in the neck, -svith the motions
of the animal, and forming a powerful bond of
union between the bones.

By these means the hunter will carry a heavy
man without fatigue or strain through a long chase ;
and those shocks and jars are avoided which would
be annoying to the rider, and injurious and speedily
fatal to the horse.

These provisions, however, although adequate
to common or even severe exertion, will not protect
the animal from the consequences of brutal usage ;
and, therefore, if the horse is much overweighted,
or violently exercised, or too suddenly pulled upon
his haunches, these ligaments are strained. In-
flammation follows. The ligaments become changed
to bone, and the joints of the back lose their
springiness and ease of motion ; or rather, in point
of fact, they cease to exist. On account of the too
hard service required from them, and especially
before they had gained their full strength, there
are few old horses -ivho have not some of the bones
of the back or loins anchylosed — united together
by bony matter and not by ligament. When this
exists to any considerable extent the horse is not
pleasant to ride— he turns with difficulty in his
stall — he is unwilling to lie down, and when down
to rise again, and he has a singular straddling
action. Such horses are said to be broken-backed
or cliinhed in the chine.

Fracture of the bones of the back rarely occurs,
on account of their being so strongly united by li-
gaments, and defended by muscular substance. If
a fracture of these bones does happen, it is during
the violent stmggles after the horse has been cast
for an operation.

The length of the back is an important consi-
deration. A long-backed horse will be easy in his
paces, because the increased distance between the
fore and hind legs, which are the supports of the
spine, will afford greater room for the play of
the joints of the back. A long spring has much
more play than a short one and will better obviate
concussion. A long-backed horse is likewise formed
for speed, for there is room to bring his hinder legs
more under him in the act of galloping, and thus
more powerfully propel or drive forward the body :
but, on the other hand, along-backed horse will be
comj aratively weak in the back, and easily over-
weighted. A long spring may be easily bent or
broken. The weight of the rider, likewise, placed
farther from the extremities, will act with mecha-
jiical disadvantage upon them, and be more likely
to strain them. A short-backed horse may be a
good hackney, and able to carry the heaviest
weight, and possess great endurance; but his

paces will not be so easy, nor his speed so great,
and he may be apt to overreach.

The comparative advantage of a long or short
carcase depends entirely on the use for which the
horse is intended. For general purposes the horse
with a short carcase is very properly preferred.
He will possess health and strength ; for horses of
this make are proverbially hardy. He will have
sufficient easiness of action not to fatigue the rider,
and speed for every ordinary pui-pose. Length of
back will always be desirable when there is more
than usual substance generally, and particularly
when the loins are wide, and the muscles of the
loins large and swelling. The two requisites,
strength and speed, will then probably be united.

The back should he depressed a little immedi-
ately behind the withers ; and then continue in an
almost straight line to the loins. This is the form
most consistent with beauty and strength. Some
horses have a very considerable hollow behind the
withers. They are said to be saddle-backed. It
seems as if a depression were purposely made for
the saddle. Such horses are evidently easy goers,
for this curve inward must necessarily increase the
play of the joints of the back : but in the same
proportion they are weak and liable to sprain. To
the general appearance of the horse, this defect is
not in any great degree injurious ; for the hollow
of the back is uniformly accompanied by a beauti
fully arched crest.

A few horses have the curve outward. They
are said to be roach-backed, from the supposed
resemblance to the arched back of a roach. This
is a very serious defect ; — altogether incompatible
with beauty, and materially diminishing the use-
fulness of the animal. It is almost impossible to
prevent the saddle from being thl•o^vn on the shoul-
ders, or the back from being galled ; — the elasticity
of the spine is destroyed ; — the rump is badly set
on ; — the hinder legs are too much under the ani-
mal ; — he is continually overreaching, and his
head is carried awkwardly low.

THE LOINS.

The loins are attentively examined by eveiy
good horseman. They can scarcely be too broad
and muscular. The strength of the back, and,
especially, the strength of the hinder extremities,
will depend materially on this. The breadth of
the loins is regulated by the length of the trans-
verse or side processes of that part The bodies of
the bones of the loins are likewise larger than
those of the back ; and a more dove-tailed kind of
union subsists between these bones than between
those of the back. Eveiy provision is made for
strength here. The union of the back and loins
should be carefully observed, for there is sometimes
a depression between them. A kind of line is
drawn across, which shows imperfection in the

THE HORSE.

349-

construction of the spiue, and is regarded as an
indication of weakness.

THE WITHERS.

The spinous or upright processes of the dorsal
vertebrae, or bones of the back, above the upper
part of the shoulder, are as remarkable for their
length as are the transverse or side processes of
the bones of the loins. They are flattened and
terminated by rough blunted extremities. The
elevated ridge which they form is called ihe withers.
It Tvill be seen in the cuts (pp. ^63 and 344), that
the spine of the first bone of the back has but little
elevation, and is sharp and upright. The second
is longer and inclined backward ; the third and
fourth increase in length, and the fifth is the
longest; — they then gradually shorten until the
twelfth or thirteenth, which becomes level with the
bones of the loins.

High withers have been always, in the mind of
the judge of the horse, associated with good action,
and generally with speed. The reason is plain
enough : they afford larger surface for the attach-
ment of the muscles of the back ; and in proportion
to the elevation of the withers, these muscles act
with greater advantage. The rising of the fore
parts of the horse, even in the trot, and more espe-
cially in the gallop, depends not merely on the
action of the muscles of the legs and shoulders,
but on those of the loins, inserted into the spinous
processes of these bones of the back, and acting
with greater power in proportion as these p)rocesses,
constituting the withers, are lengthened. The arm
of the lever to which the power is applied will be
longer ; and in proportion to the length of this
arm will be the ease and the height to wbich a
weight is raised. Therefore good and high action
will depend much on elevated withers.

It is not difficult to understand how speed will
likewise be promoted by the same conformation.
The power of the horse is in his hinder quarters.
In them lies the main-spring of the frame, and
the fore-quarters are chiefly elevated and thrown
forward to receive the weight forced on them by
the action of the hinder quarters. In proportion,
however, as the fore-quarters are elevated, will
they be thrown farther forward, or, in other words,
will the stride of the horse be lengthened. Yet
many racers have the forehand low. The un-
rivalled Eclipse (see p. 23.5) was a remarkable in-
stance of this ; but the ample and finely propor-
tioned quarters, and the muscularity of the thigh
and fore-arm, rendered the aid to be derived fi-om
the withers perfectly imnecessary. The heax-y
draught-horse does not requu-e elevated withers.
His utility depends on the power of depressing his
fore-quarters, and throwing their weight fully into
.the collar ; but for common work in the liacliney,
in the farmer's horjc, and in the hunter, well-

fonned withers will be an essential advantage, as
contributing to good and safe action, and likewise
to speed.

MUSCLES OF THE BACK.

The most important muscles which belong to
this part of the frame are principally those wliich
extend from the continuation of the ligament of
the neck, along the whole of the back and loins ;
and likewise from the last cervical bone ; — the
supcrjicialis and transversalis costarum, or superfi-
cial and transverse muscles of the ribs, going from
this ligament to the upper part of the ribs to ele-
vate them, and to assist in the expansion of the
chest ; also the large mass of muscle, the longissi-
mus dorsi, or longest muscle of the back, from the
spinous and transverse processes of the vertebras
to the ribs, and by which all the motions of the
spine, and back, and loins, to which allusion has
been made, are principally produced ; by which
the fore-quarters are raised upon the hind ones,
or the hind upon the fore ones, according as either
of them is the fixed point. This is the principal
agent in rearing and kicking.

The last muscle to be noticed is the spinalis
dorsi, the spinal muscle of the back, from the
spinous processes of some of the last bones of the
back to those of the fore part ; thick and strong
about the withers, and broadly attached to them ;
and more powerfully attached, and more strongly
acting in proportion to the elevation of the wi-
thers ; and proceeding on to the three lowest
bones of the neck, and therefore mainly con-
cerned, as already described, in elevating the fore-
quarters, and producing high and safe action, and
contributing to speed.

Before the roof of the chest is left, some acci
dents or diseases to which it is exposed must be
mentioned. The first is of a veiy serious nature.

FISTULOUS WITHERS.

When the saddle has been suffered to press
long upon the withers, a tumour will be formed,
hot and exceedingly tender. It may sometimes be
dispersed by the cooling applications recommended
in the treatment of poll-exdl ; but if, in despite of
these, the swelling should remain stationary, and
especially if it should become larger and more
tender, warm fomentations and poultices, and sti-
mulating embrocations should be diligently ap-
plied, in order to hasten the formation of pus. As
soon as that can be fairly detected, a seton should
be passed from the top to the bottom of the tu-
mour, so that the whole of the matter may bo
evacuated, and continue to be discharged as it is
afterwards formed ; or the knife may be freely
used, in order to get at the bottom of every sinus.
The knife has succeeded many a time when the
seton has failed. The after treatment must be

350

THE HORSE.

precisely tliat which was recommended for a simi-
lar disease in the poll.

In neglected fistulous withers the ulcer may
be larger and deeper, and more destructive than
in poll-evil. It may burrow beneath tlie shoulder-
blade, and the pus appear at the point of the
shoulder or the elbow ; or the bones of the withers
may become carious.

Very great improvement has taken place in
the construction of saddles for common use and in
the cavalry service. Certain rales have now been
laid down from which the saddler should never
deviate, and attending to which the animal is
saved from much suffering, and the mechanic
from deserved disgrace.

The first rule in the fitting of the saddle is,
that it should bear upon the back, and not on the
spine or the withers, for these are parts that will
not endure pressure.

Next in universal application is the under-
standing that the saddle should have everywhere
an equal bearing, neither tilting forward upon the
points nor backward upon the seat.

When the saddle is on, and the girths fastened,
there should remain space sufficient between the
withers and the pommel for the introduction of the
hand underneath the latter.

The points of the tree should clip or embrace
the sides without pinching them, or so standing
outward that the pressure is all downwards, and
upon one place, instead of being in a direction in-
wards as well as downwards, so as to be distribu-
ted uniformly over every part of the point that
touches the side. Horses that have low and thick
withers are most likely to have them injm-ed, in
consequence of the continual riding forward of the
saddle, and its consequent pressure upon them.
Fleshy and fat shoulders and sides are also sub-
ject to become hurt by the points of the trees
either pinching them from being too narrow in
the arch, or from the bearing being directly
downward upon them.

Injury occasionally results from the interrap-
tion which a too forward saddle presents to the
working or motion of the shoulder, and the conse-
quent friction the soft parts sustain between the
shoulder-blade inwardly, and the points of the
saddle tree outw-ardly.*

WARBLES, SITFASTS, AXD SADDLE GALLS.

On other parts of the back tumours and veiy
troublesome ulcers may be produced by the same
cause. Those resulting from the pressure of the
saddle are called u-arbles, and, when they ulcerate,
they frequently become sitfasts. Warbles are
small circular bruises, or e-xtravasations of blood,
where there has been an undue pressure of the
saddle or harness. If a horse is subject to these

* Peicivall's Hippopathology, toI. i., p. 199.

tumours, the saddle should remain on him two or
three hours after he has returned to the stable. It
is only for a certain time, however, that this will
perfectly succeed, for by the frequent application
of the pressure the sldn and the cellular substance
are bruised or otherwise injured and a permanent
sore or tumour, of a very annoying description,
takes place. The centre of the sore gradually
loses its vitality. A separation takes place from
the surrounding integument, and there is a circu-
lar piece of dried and hard skin remaining in the
centre. This is curiously called a navel gall, be-
cause it is opposite to the navel. No effort must
be made to tear or dissect it off, but stimulating
poultices or fomentations, or, if these fail, a mild
blister, will cause a speedy separation : and the
wound will then readily heal by the use of turpen-
tine dressings, more or less stimulating, according
to circumstances.

Saddle galls are tumours, and sometimes galls
or sores, arising also from the pressure and chafing
of the saddle. They differ little from the warble,
except that there is very seldom the separation of
the dead part in the centre, and the sore is larger
and varying in its form. The application of cold
water, or salt and water, will generally remove
excoriations of this Idnd.

With regard, however, to all these tumours and
excoriations, the humane man will have the saddle
eased and padded as soon as it begins to be of the
least inconvenience to the horse.

MUSCLES OF THE BREAST.

There are some important muscles attached to
the breast connected with that expansion of the
chest which eveiy horse should possess. In the
cut, p. 337, are seen a veiy important pair of
muscles, the pectorales transrersi, or pectoral mus-
cles, forming two jjrominences in the front of the
chest, and extending backward between the legs.
The}' come from the fore and upper part of the
breast-bone ; pass across "the inward part of the
arm, and reach from the elbow almost down to
the knee. They confine the arm to the side in
the rapid motion of the horse, and prevent him
from being, what horsemen would call, and what
is seen in a horse pushed beyond his natural
power, " all abroad." Other muscles, pectorales
maf/ni et parvi, the great and little pectorals,
ratlier above but behind these, go from the breast-
bone to the arm, in order to draw back the point
of the shoulder, and bring it upright. Another
and smaller muscle goes from the breast-bone to
the shoulder, to assist in the same office. A horse,
therefore, thin and narrow in the breast, must be
deficient in important muscular power.

Between the legs and along the breast-bone is
the proper place in which to insert rowels, in cases
of inflamed lungs.

THE HORSE.

351

CHEST-FOUNDER.

These muscles are occasionally the seat of a
singular and somewhat mysterious disease. The
old farriers used to call it anticor and chest-founder.
The horse has considerable stiffness in moving,
evidently not referable to the feet. There is ten-
derness about the muscles of the breast, and,
occasionally, swelling. We believe it to be nothing
more than rheumatism, produced by suffering the

horse to remain too long tied up, and exposed to
the cold, or riding him against a very bleak wind.
Sometimes a considerable degree of fever accom-
panies this ; but bleeding, physic, a rowel in the
chest, warm embrocations over the parts affected,
warm stabling, and warm clothing, with occasional
doses of antimonial powder, will soon subdue the
complaint.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CONTENTS OF THE CHEST.

THE THYMUS GLAND.

At the entrance of the trachea into the thorax,
and ere it has scarcely penetrated between the first
ribs in the young subject, it comes in contact with
an irregular glandular body, situated in the doub-
ling of the anterior mediastinum. It is " the
thymus gland," or, in vulgar language, the sweet-
bread. In the early period of utero-gestation, it
is of very inconsiderable bulk, and confined mostly
to the chest ; but, during the latter months, it
strangely developes itself, — the superior comua
protrude out of the thorax and climb up the neck,
between the carotids and the trachea. They are
evidently connected with the thymus gland, and
become parts and portions of the parotid glands.

We are indebted to Sir Astley Cooper for the
best account of the anatomical structure, and
possible function of the thymus gland. It pre-
sents, on being cut into, a great number of small
cavities, in which the abundant white fluid of the
gland is in part contained. From those cavities
the fluid is transmitted into a general reservoir,
which forms a common connecting cavity, and is
lined by a delicate membrane. Sir Astley, and in
this he is supported by Professor Miiller, believes
that a peculiar albuminous fluid is conveyed by the
thymus gland to the veins, through the medium
of the lymphatics. It has nothing to do with the
formation of the blood, in the foetus or the child.

These two eminent physiologists exert the
better part of discretion, by declining to give any
hypothesis of its function beyond this, that it sup-
plies the lymphatics with an albuminous fluid.

This gland continues to grow for some time
after birth, and remains of considerable size dur-
ing the first year; it then gradually diminishes,
and, about the period of puberty, usually disap-
pears. It has, however, been found in a mare
between five and six years old.

THE DIAPHKAGII.

Bounding the thoi'ax posteriorly, — the base of

the cone in the human subject,— the interposed
curtain between the thorax and the abdomen in
the horse, is the diaphragm. It is an irregular
muscular expansion, pi'oceeding from the inferior
surface of the lumbar vertebroe posteriorly and
superiorly, adhering to the ribs on either side, and
extending obliquely forward and downward to the
sternum ; or rather, it is a flattened muscle arising
from all these points, with its fibres all converging
towards the centre, and terminating there in an
expansion of tendinous substance. It is lined
anteriorly by the pleura or investing membrane
of the thoracic cavity, and posteriorly by the
peritoneum or investing membrane of the abdom-
inal cavity.

Anatomy of the Diaphragm. — In the short ac-
count which it is purposed to give of the structure
of the diaphragm, the description of Mr. Percivall
will be closely followed. " The diaphragm may
be divided into the main circular muscle, with its
central tendinous expansion forming the lower
part, and two appendices, or crura, as they are
called, from their peculiar shape, constituting its
superior portion. The fleshy origin of the grand
muscle may be traced laterally and inferiorly,
commencing from the cartilage of the eighth rib
anteriorly, and closely following the imion of the
posterior ribs with their cartilages ; excepting,
however, the two last. The attachment is pecu-
liarly strong, it is denticulated ; it encircles the
whole of the lateral and inferior part of the
chest, as far as the sternum, where it is connected
with the ensiform cartilage. Immediately under
the loins are the appendices of the diaphragm,
commencing on the right side, from the inferior
surfaces of the five first lumbar vertebrae, by
strong tendons, which soon become muscular, and
form a kind of pillar ; and, on the left, proceeding
from the two first lumbar vertebrae only, and from
the sides rather than the bodies of these vertebi-te,
and these also unite and form a shorter pillar, or
leg. The left cms or appendix is shorter than

352

THE HORSE.

the right, tbat it may be more out of the v:aj
of pressure from the left curvature of the sto-
mach, which, with the spleen, lies underneath.
Opposite to the ITth dorsal vertebra, these two
pillars unite and form a thick mass of muscles,
detached from the vertebrae, and leaving a kind
of pouch between them and the vertebrce. They
not only unite, but they decussate : their fibres
mingle and again separate from each other, and
then proceed onward to the central tendinous ex-
pansion towards which the fibres from the circular
muscle, and the appendices, all converge."

The diaphragm is the main agent, both in
ordinai'y and extraordinary respiration ; it assists
also in the expulsion of the urine, and it is a most
powerful auxiliaiy in the act of parturition. In
its quiescent state, it presents its convex surface
towards the thorax, and its concave one towards
the abdomen. The anterior convexity abuts upon
the lungs ; the posterior concavity is occupied by
some of the abdominal viscera. The effect of the
action of this muscle, or the contraction of its
fibres, is to lessen the convexity towards the chest,
and the concaxdty towards the abdomen: or per-
haps, by a powerful contraction, to cause it to pre-
sent a plane surface either way. The abdominal
viscera that must be displaced in order to effect
this, have considerable bulk and weight ; and
■when the stomach is distended with food, and the
motion required from the diaphragm iu rapid
breathing is both quick and extensive, there needs
some strong, firaa, elastic, substance to bear it.
The forcible contact and violent pressure would
braise and otherwise injure a mere muscular ex-
pansion ; and therefore we have this tendinous
expansion, comparatively devoid of sensibility, to
stand the pressure and the shock which will always
be greatest at the centre.

Yet it is subject to injury and disease of a se-
rious and varied character. Whatever may be the
original seat of thoracic or abdominal ailment, the
diaphragm soon becomes irritable and inflamed.
This accounts for the breathing of the horse being
so much affected under every inflammation or ex-
citement of the chest or belly. The irritability of
this muscle is often evinced by a singular spasmo-
dic action of a portion, or the whole of it.

Mr. Castley thus describes a case of it : — " A
horse had been very much distressed in a ran of
nearly thirteen miles, without a check, and his
rider stopped on the I'oad towards home, to rest
him a little. With difficulty he was brought to
the stable. Mr. Castley was sent for, and lie says,
— ' When I first saw the animal, his breathing
and attitude indicated the greatest distress. The
prominent symptom, however, was a convulsive
motion, or jerking of the whole body, audible at
several yards' distance, and evidently proceeding
from hi5 inside ; the beats appeared to be about

forty in a minute. On placing my hand over the
heart, the action of that organ could be felt, but
very indistinctly ; the beating evidently came
from behind the heart, and was most plainly to be
felt in the direction of the diaphragm. Again
placing my hand on the abdominal muscle, the
jerks appeared to come from before backwards ;
the impression on my mind, therefore, was, that
this was a spasmodic affection of the diaphragm,
brought on by ^iolent distress in ranning.' '"*

Mr. Castley's account is inserted thus at
length, because it was the first of the kind on re-
cord, with the exception of an opinion of Mr.
Apperley, which came very near to the truth.
" When a horse is very much exhausted after
a long run with hounds, a noise will sometimes
be heard to proceed from his inside, which is often
erroneously supposed to be the beating of his
heart, whereas it proceeds from the excessive
motion of the abdominal muscles, "f

Mr. Castley shall pursue his case, (it will be a
most useful guide to the treatment of these cases) :
" Finding that there was little pulsation to be felt
at the submaxillary artery, and judging from that
circumstance that any attempt to bleed at that
time would be worse than useless, I ordered sti-
mulants to be given. We first administered three
ounces of spirit of nitrous ether, in a bottle of
warm water ; but this piroducing no good effect, we
shortly afterwards gave two drachms of the sub-
eai'bonate of amnionia in a ball, allo%ving the pa-
tient, at the same time, plenty of white water to
drink. About a quarter of an hour after this, he
broke out into a profuse perspiration, which conti-
nued two hours, or more. The breathing became
more tranquil, but the convulsive motion of the
diaphragm still continued without anj^ abatement.
After the sweating had ceased, the pulse became
more perceptible, and the action of the heart more
distinct, and I considered this to be the proper
time to bleed. When about ten pounds had been
extracted, I thought that the beating and the
breathing seemed to increase ; the bleeding was
stopped, and the patient littered up for the night.
In the morning, the affection of the diaphragm
was much moderated, and about eleven o'clock it
ceased, after continuing eighteen or nineteen
hours. A little tonic medicine was afterwards
administered, and the horse soon recovered his
usual appetite and spirits. "{

Later surgeons administer, and ■with good
effect, opium in small doses, together with ammo-
nia, or nitric ether, and have recourse to bleeding
as soon as any reaction is perceived.

Over- fatigue, of almost every kind, has pro-

* The ■Veterinarian, 1831, p. 247.

+ Nimrod on the Condition of Hunters,

* The Veterinarian, 1831 , p. 218. ^

THE HORSE.

35a

duced spasm of the diaphragm, and so has over-
distension of the stomach with grass.

RUPTURE OF THE DIAPHRAGM.

This is au accident, or the consequence of
disease, very lately brought under the cognizance
of the veteriuaiy surgeon. The first communica-
tion of its occurrence was from Mr. King, a friend
of Mr. Percivall.- It occurred in a mare that had
been ridden sharply for half a dozen miles when
she was full of grass. She soon afterwards e.xlii-
bited symptoms of broken-wind, and, at length,
died suddenly, while standing iu the stable. The
diaphragm was lacerated on the left side, through
its whole extent, throwing the two cavities-_into
one.

Since that period, from the increasing and
very proper habit of examining eveiy dead horse,
cases of this accident have rapidly multiplied. It
seems that it may follow any act of extraordinary
exertion, and efforts of every kind, particidarly on
a full stomach, or when the bowels are distended
with green or other food likely to generate gas.f
Considerable caution, however, should be exer-
cised when much gaseous fluid is present, for the
bowels may be distended, and forced against the
diaphragm to such a degree as to threaten to
burst.

An interesting case of mpture of the dia-
phragm was related by Professor Spooner at one
of the meetings of the Veterinaiy Medical Asso-
ciation. A horse having been saddled and bridled
for riding, was tm-ued in his stall and fastened by
the bit-straps. Something frightened him — he
reared, broke the bit-strap, and fell backward.
On the following morning he was evidently in
great pain, kicldng, heaving, and occasionally lying
down. Mr S. was sent for to examine him, but
was not told of the event of the preceding day.
He considered it to be a case of enteritis, and
treated it accordingly. He bled him largely, and.
in the course of the day, the horse appeared to be
decidedly better, every symptom of pain having
vanished. The horse was more lively — he ate
with appetite, but his bowels remained con-
stipated.

On the following day there was a fearful
change. The animal was suffering sadly — the
breathing was laborious, and the membrane of the
nose intensely red, as if it were more a case of in-
flammation of the lungs than of the bowels. The
bowels were still constipated. The patient was
bled and physicked again, but without avail. He
died, and there was found mpture of the diaphragm,
protiiision of intestine into the thoracic cavity,
and extensive pleural and peritoneal inflammation.
In rupture of the diaphragm the horse usually

« The Veterinarian, 1828, p. 101.

+ Percivall's Hippopathology, vol. ii., No. 1, p. 152.

sits on his haunches like a dog, but this is far
from behig an infallible symptom of the disease.
It accompanies introsusception, as well as rupture
of the diaphragm. The weight of the intestines
may possibly cause any protruded part of them to
descend again into the abdomen.

This muscle, so important in its office, is plen-
tifully supplied with blood-vessels. As the posterior
aorta passes beneath the cnira of the diaphragm, it
gives out sometimes a single vessel which soon
bifurcates ; sometimes two branches, which speedily
plunge into the appendices or crura, while numer-
ous small vessels, escaping from them, spread
over the central tendinous expansion. As the
larger muscle of the diaphragm springs from the
sides and the base of the chest, it receives many
ramifications from the internal pectoral, derived
from the anterior aorta ; but more from the pos-
terior, intercostals -yvhich spring from the posterior
aorta.

The veins of the diaphragm belong exclusively
to the posterior vena cava. There are usually
three on either side ; but they may be best re-
ferred to two chief trunks which come from the
circumference of the diaphragm, convei'ge towards
the centre, and run into the posterior cava as it
passes through the tendinous expansion.

The functional nerve of the diaphragm, or that
from which it derives its principal action, and
which constitutes it a muscle of respiration, is the
phrenic or diaphragmatic. Although it does not
proceed from that portion of the medulla oblongata
which gives rise to the glosso-pharyngeus and the
par vagum, yet there is sufficient to induce us to
suspect that it arises from, and should be referred
to, the lateral column between the superior and
inferior, the sensitive and motor nerves, and
which may be evidently traced from the pons
varolii to the very termination of the spinal chord.

The diaphragm is the main agent in the work
of respiration. The other muscles are mere
auxiliaries, little needed in ordinary breathing,
but affording the most important assistance, when
the breathing is more than usually hurried. The
mechanism of respiration may be thus explained :
— Let it be supposed that the lungs are in a
quiescent state. The act of expiration has been
performed, and all is still. From some cause en-
veloped in mystery — connected with the will, but
independent of it — some stimulus of an unex-
plained and unknown kind — the phrenic nerve
acts on the diaphragm, and that muscle contracts ;
and, by contracting, its convexity into the chest is
diminished, and the canity of the chest is en-
larged. At the same time, and by some consen-
taneous influence, the intercostal muscles act —
with no great force, indeed, in undisturbed breath-
ing ; but, in proportion as they act, the ribs rotate
on their axis, their edges ai'e thrown outward, and

354

THE HORSE.

thus a twofold effect ensues :— the posterior margin
of the chest is expanded, the cavity is plainly en-
larged, and also, by the partial rotation of eveiy
rib, the cavity is still more increased.

By some other consentaneous influence, the
spinal accessory nerve likewise exerts its power,
and the stemo-maxillaris muscle is stimulated by
the anterior division of it, and the motion of the
head and neck corresponds with and assists that
of the chest; while the posterior division of the
accessory nerve, by its anastamoses with the
motor nerves of the levator humeri and the
splenius, and many other of the muscles of the
neck and the shoulder, and by its direct influence
on the rhomboideus, associates almost every muscle
of the neck, the shoulder, and the chest, in the
expansion of the thorax. These latter are muscles,
which, in undisturbed respiration, the animal
scarcely needs ; but which are necessary to him
when the respiration is much distui'bed, and to
obtain the aid of which he will, under pneumonia,
obstinately stand until he falls exhausted or to die.

The cavity of the chest is now enlarged. But
this is a closed cavity, and between its contents
and the parietes of the chest a vacuum would be
formed ; or rather an inequality of atmospheric
pressure is produced from the moment the chest
begins to dilate. As the diaphragm recedes, there
is nothing to counterbalance the pressure of the
atmospheric air communicating with the lungs
through the medium of the nose and mouth, and
it is forced into the respiratory tubes already
described, and the lungs are expanded and still
kept in contact with the receding walls of the
chest. There is no sucking, no inhalent power
in the act of inspiration ; it is the simple enlarge-
ment of the chest from the entrance and pressure
of the air.

From some cause, as inexplicable as that which
produced the expansion of the chest, the respira-
tory nerves cease to act ; and the diaphragm, by
the inherent elasticity of its tendinous expansion
and muscular fibres, returns to its natural form,
once more projecting its convexity into the thorax.
The abdominal muscles, also, which had been put
on the stretch by the forcing of the viscera into
the posterior part of the abdomen by means of the
straightening of the diaphragm, contract, and ac-
celerate the return of that muscle to its quiescent
figure; and the ribs, all armed with elastic carti-
lages, regain their former situation and figure.
The muscles of the shoulder and the chest relax,
a portion of the lungs are pressed on every side,
and the air with which they were distended is
again forced out. There is only one set of muscles
actively employed in expiration, namely, the ab-
dominal : the elasticity of the parts displaced in
inspiration being almost sufficient to accomplish
the purpose.

The lungs, however, are not altogether pas-
sive. The bronchial tubes, so far as they can be
traced, are lined with cartilage, divided and sub-
divided for the purpose of folding up when the
lungs are compressed, but elastic enough to afford
a yielding resistance against both unusual expan-
sion and contraction. In their usual state the
air-tubes are distended beyond their natural
calibre ; for if the parietes of the thorax are per-
forated, and the pressure of the atmosphere ren-
dered equal within and without them, the lungs
immediately collapse.

THE PLEUKA.

The walls of the chest are lined, and the lungs
are covered, by a smooth glistening membrane,
the 2)leura. It is a serous membrane, so called
from the nature of its exhalation, in distinction
from the mucous secretion yielded by the mem-
brane of the air-passages. The serous membrane
generally invests the most important organs, and
always those that are essentially connected with
life ; while the mucous membrane lines the interior
of the greater part of them. The pleura is the
investing membrane of the lungs, and a mucous
membrane the lining one of the bronchial tubes.

Among the circumstances principally to be
noticed, with regard to the pleura, is the polish of
its external surface. The glistening appearance
of the lungs, and of the inside of the chest, is to
be attributed to the membrane by which they are
covered, and by means of which the motion of the
various organs is freer and less dangerous. Al-
though the lungs, and the bony walls which con-
tain them, are in constant approximation with
each other, both in expiration and inspiration, yet
in the frequently hurried and violent motion of
the animal, and, in fact, in every act of expiration
and inspiration, of dilatation and contraction,
much and injurious friction would ensue if the
surfaces did not glide freely over each other by
means of the peculiar polish of this membrane.

Every serous membrane has innumerable ex-
halent vessels upon its surface, from which a con-
siderable quantity of fluid is poured out. In life
and during health it exists in the chest only as a
kind of dew, just sufficient to lubricate the sur-
faces. When the chest is opened soon after death,
we recognise it in the steam that arises, and in
the few drops of fluid, which, being condensed, are
found at the lowest part of the chest. .

The quantity, however, which is exhaled from
all the serous membranes, must be very great. It
is perhaps equal or superior to that which is yielded
by the vessels on the surface of the body. If very
little is found in ordinary cases, it is because the
absorbents are as numerous and as active as the ex-
halents, and, during health, that which is poured
out by the one is taken up by the other ; but in

THE HORSE.

85S

circumstances of disease, eitlier when the exhalents
are stimulated to undue action, or the power of the
absorbents is diminished, the fluid rapidly and
greatly accumulates. Thus we have hydrothorax
or dropsy of the chest, as one of the consequences
of inflammation of the chest ; and the same dis-
turbed balance of action will produce similar effu-
sion in other cavities.

The extensibility, of membrane generally is
nowhere more strikingly displayed than in the
serous membi'anes, and particularly in that under
consideration. How diff'erent the bulk of the
lungs before the act of inspiration has commenced,
and after it has been completed, and especially in
the laborious respiration of disease or rapid exer-
tion ! In either state of the lungs the pleura is
perfectly fitted to that which it envelopes.

The pleura, like other serous membranes, is
possessed of very little sensibility. Few nerves-
from the sensitive column of the spinal chord
reach it. Acute feeling would render these mem-
branes generally, and tliis membrane in particular,
unfit for the function they have to discharge. It
has too much motion, even during sleep ; and far
too forcible friction with the parietes of the thorax
in morbid or hurried respiration, to render it con-
venient or useful for it to possess much sensation.
Some of those anatomists, whose experiments on
the living animal do no credit to their humanity,
have given most singular proof of the insensibility,
not only of these serous membranes, but of the
organs which they invest. Bichat frequently ex-
amined the spleen of dogs. He detached it from
some of its adhesions, and left it protruding from
the wound in the abdomen, in order " to study the
phenomena;" and he saw " them tearing ofli' that
organ, and eating it, and thus feeding upon their
own substance." In some experiments, in which
part of their intestines were left out, 'he observed
them, as soon as they had the opportunity, tear to
pieces their own viscera without any visible pain.

Although it may be advantageous that these
important organs shall be thus devoid of sensibility
when in health, in order that we may be uncon-
scious of their action and motion, and that they
may be rendered perfectly independent of the will,
yet it is equally needful that, by the feeling of pain,
we should be warned of the existence of any dan-
gerous disease ; and thence it happens that this
membrane, and also the organ which it invests, ac-
quire under inflammation the highest degree of
sensibility. The countenance of the horse labour-
ing under pleurisy or pneumonia will sufficiently
indicate a state of suffering ; and the spasmed bend
of his neck, and his long and anxious and intense
gaze upon his side, tell us that that suffering is
extreme.

Nature, however, is wise and benevolent even
here. It is not of every morbid affection, or mor-

bid change, that the animal is conscious. If a
mucous membrane is diseased, he is rendered
painfully aware of that, for neither respiration nor
digestion could be perfectly carried on while there
was any considerable lesion of it ; but, on the other
hand, we find tubercles in the parenchyma of the
lungs, or induration or hepatization of their sub-
stance, or extensive adhesions, of which there were
few or no indications during life.

The pleura adheres intimately to the ribs and
to the substance of the lungs ; yet it is a very sin-
gular connexion. It is not a continuance of the
same organisation ; it is not an interchange of
vessels. The organ and its membrane, although so
closely connected for a particular purpose, yet in
veiy many cases, and where it would least of all
be suspected, have little or no sympathy with
each other. Inflammation of the lungs will some-
times exist, and will run on to ulceration, while
the pleura will be very little affected : and, much
oftener, the pleura will be the seat of inflammation
and will be attended by increased exhalation to
such an extent as to suffocate the animal, and yet
the lungs will exhibit little other morbid appear-
ance than that of mere compression. The disease
of a mucous membrane spreads to other parts —
that of a serous one is generally isolated. It was
to limit the progress of disease that this difference
of structure between the organ and its membrane
was contrived.

The investing membrane of the lungs and that
of the heart are in continual contact with each
other, but they are as distinct and unconnected, as
if they were placed in different parts of the frame.
Is their no meaning in this ?

It is to preserve the perfect independence of
organs equally important, yet altogether different
in structure and function — to oppose an insuper-
able barrier to hurtful sympathy between them,
and especially to cut off the communication of
disease.

Perhaps a little light begins to be thrown on a
cu'cumstance of which we have occasional painful
experience. While we may administer physic, or
mild aperients at least, in pleurisy, not onl}' with
little danger, but with manifest advantage, we may
just as well give a dose of poison as a physic-ball
to a horse labouring under pneumonia. The pleura
is connected with the lungs, and with the lungs
alone, and the organisation is so different, that
there is very little sympathy between them. A
physic-ball may, therefore, act as a counter-irritant,
or as giving a new detennination to the ^dtal cur-
rent, without the propagation of sympathetic irri-
tation ; but the lungs or the bronchial tubes that
ramify through them ai'e continuous with the
mucous membranes of the digestive as well as all
the respiratoiy passages ; and on account of the
continuity and similai'ity of organisation, tliere is

356

THE HORSK.

much sympathy between tliem. If there is irrita-
tion excited at" the same time in two different por-
tions of the same membrane, it is probable that,
instead of being shared between them, the one
will be transferred to the other — will increase or
double the other, and act ^Tith fearful and fatal
violence.

THE LUNGS.

The lungs are the seat of a peculiar circulation
They convey through their comparatively little
bulk the blood, and other fluids scarcely trans-
formed into blood, or soon separated from it,
■which traverse the whole of the frame. They con-
sist of countless ramifications of air-tubes and
blood-vessels connected together by intervening
cellular substance.

They form two distinct bodies, the right some-
what larger than the left, and are divided from
each other by the duplicature of the pleura, which
has been already described — the mediastinum.
Each lung has the same structure, and properties,
and uses. Each of them is subdivided, the right
lobe consisting of three lobes, and the left of two.
The intention of these divisions is probably to
adapt the substance of the lungs to the form of
the cavity in which they are placed, and to enable
them more perfectly to occupj' and fill the chest.

If one of these lobes is cut into, it is found to
consist of innumerable irregularly formed com-
partments, to which anatomists have given the
name of lobules, or little lobes. They are distinct
from each other, and impervious. On close exa-
mination, they can be subdivided almost without
end. There is no communication between them,
or if perchance such communication exists, it
constitutes the disease kiio\vn by the name of
broken wind.

On the delicate membrane of which these cells
are composed, innumerable minute blood-vessels
ramify. They proceed from the heart, through
the medium of ii\e pulmonary artery — they follow
all the subdivisions of the bronchial tubes — they
ramify upon the membrane of these multitudinous
lobules, and at length return to the heart, through
the medium of the pulmonaiy veins, the character
of the blood which they contain being essentially
changed. The mechanism of this, and the effect
produced, must be briefly considered.

THE HEART.

The Heart is placed between a doubling of the
pleura — the mediastinum ; by means of which it is
supported in its natural situation, and all dangerous
friction between these important organs is avoided.
It is also surrounded by a membrane or bag of its
own, called the pericardium, whose office is of a
similar nature. By means of the heart, the blood
is circulated through the frame.

It is composed of four cavities — two above,
called auricles, from their supposed resemblance to
the ear of a dog ; and two below, termed ventricles,
occupying the substance of the heart. In point of
fact, there are two hearts — the one on the left side
impelling the blood through the frame, the other
on the right side conveying it through the pul-
monary system ; but, united in the manner in
which they are, their junction contributes to their
mutual strength, and both circulations are carried
on at the same time.

The first is the arterial circulation. No func-
tion can be discharged — life cannot exist, without
the presence of arterial blood. The left ventricle
that contains it contracts, and by the power of that
contraction, aided by other means, which the limits
of our work will not permit us to describe, the
blood is driven through the whole arterial circula-
tion— the capillary vessels and the veins — and
returns again to the heart, but to the right ventricle.
The other di^dsion of this viscus is likewise em-
ployed in circulating the blood thus conveyed to it,
but is not the same fluid which was contained in
the left ventricle. It has gradually lost its vital
power. As it has passed along, it has changed
from red to black, and from a vital to a poisonous
fluid. Ere it can again convey the principle of
nutrition, or give to each organ that impulse or
stimulus which enables it to discharge its function,
it must be materially changed.

When the right ventricle contracts, and the
blood is driven into the lungs, it passes over the
gossamer membrane of which the lobules of the
lunns have been described as consisting ; these
lobules being filled with the air which has descended
through the bronchial tubes in the act of inspira-
tion. This delicate membrane permits some of the
principles of_ the air to permeate it. The oxygen
of the atmosphere attracts and combines with a
portion of the superabundant carbon of this blood,
and the expired air is poisoned with carbonic acid
gas. Some of the constituents of the blood attract
a portion of the oxygen of the air, and obtain their
distinguishing character and properties as arterial
blood, and being thus revivified, it passes on over
the membrane of the lobes, unites into small and
then larger vessels, and at length pours its full
stream of arterial blood into the left auricle, thence
to ascend uito the ventricle, and to be diffused over
the frame.

DISEASES OF THE HEART.

It may be readily supposed that an organ so
complicated is subject to disease. It is so to a
fearful extent ; and it sympathises with the mala-
dies of every other part. Until lately, however,
tliis subject has been shamefully neglected, and
the writers on the veterinary art have seemed to be
unaware of the importance of the organ, and the

THE HORSE.

357

malailies to -which it is exposed. The o^^iier of the
horse and tlie veterinary profession generally, are
deeply indebted to Messrs. Percivall and Pritchard*
for much valuable information on this subject. The
■^■riter of this work acknowledges his obligation to
both of these gentlemen. To Dr. Hope also, and
particularly to Laennec, we owe much. Mr. Per-
civall well says, " This class of diseases may be
regarded as the least advanced of any in veterinary
medicine — a circumstance not to be ascribed so
much to their comparative rarity, as to their exist-
ing undiscovered, or rather being confounded during
life with other disorders, and particularly with pul-
monary affections."

The best place to examine the beating of the
heart is immediately behind the elbow, on the left
side. The hand applied flat against the ribs will
give the number of pulsations. The ear thus ap-
plied will enable the practitioner better to ascer-
tain the character of the pulsation. The stetho-
scope affords an uncertain guide, for it cannot be
flatly and evenly applied.

Pericarditis. — The bag, or outer investing mem-
brane of the heart, is liable to inflammation, in
which the effused fluid becomes organized, and
deposited iu layers, increasing the thickness of the
pericardium, and the difficulty of the expansion
and contraction of the heart. The only symptoms
on which dependence can be placed, are a quickened
and irregular respiration ; a bounding action of
the heart in an early stage of the disease ; but
that, as the fluid increases and becomes concrete,
assuming a feeble and fluttering character.

Hydrops Pericardii is the term used to desig-
nate the presence of the fluid secreted in conse-
quence of this inflammation, and varying from a
pint to a gallon or more. In addition to the
symptoms already described, there is an expression
of alarm and anxiety in the countenance of the
animal which no other malady produces. The
horse generally sinks from other disease, or from
constitutional irritation, before the cavity of the
pericardium is filled ; or if he lingers on, most
dreadful palpitations and throbbings accompany
the advanced stage of the disease. It is seldom or
never that this disease exists alone, but is combined
with dropsy of the chest or abdomen.

Carditis is the name given to inflammation of
the muscular substance of the heart. A well
authenticated instance of inflammation of the sub-
stance of the heart does not stand on record.
Some other organ proves to be the chief seat of
mischief, even when the disturbance of the heart
has been most apparent.

Inflammation of the Lining of the Heart. —
]Mr. Simpson relates, in the Veterinarian for
1834, a case in which there were symptoms of

* See Pritchard's papers in the Veterinarian, vol. vi., and Per-
civall's Hippopathology, vol. ii., parti.
VOL. I.

severe abdominal pain : the respiration was much
disturbed, and the action of the heart took on an ex-
traordinary character. Three or four beats suc-
ceeded to each other, so violently as to shake the
whole frame, and to be visible at the distance of
several yards, with intervals of quietude of five
minutes or more. At length this violent beating
became constant.

On dissection both limgs were found to be
inflamed, the serum in the pericardium increased
in quantity, and the internal membrane of the
heart violently inflamed, with spots of ecchy-
mosis.

This would seem to be a case of inflammation
of the heart ; but in a considerable proportion of
the cases of rabies, these spots of ecchymosis,
and this general inflammation of the heart, are
seen.

Hypertrophy is an augmentation or thickening of
the substance of the heart ; and although not dreamed
of a few years ago, seems now to be a disease of
no rare occurrence among horses. The heart has
been known to acquire double its natural volume,
or the auricle and ventricle on one side have been
thus enlarged. Mr. Thomson of Bath relates, in
the Veterinarian, a very singular case. A horse
was brought with every appearance of acute rheuma-
tism, and was bled and physicked. On the follow-
ing day he was standing with his fore legs widely
extended, the nostrils dilated, the breathing quick
and laborious, the eyes sunk in their orbits, the
pupils dilated, his nose turned round almost to his
elbow, sighing, and his countenance showing ap-
proaching dissolution.

The pulse had a most irregular motion, and
the undulation of the jugular veins was extending
to the very roots of the ears. He died a few hours
afterwards.

The lungs and pleura were much inflamed ;
the pericardium was inflamed and distended by
fluid ; the heart was of an enormous size and
greatly inflamed ; both the auricles and ventricles
were filled with coagulated blood ; the greater part
of the chordffi tendinefe had given way ; the valves
did not approximate to perform their function, and
the heart altogether presented a large disorganized
mass, weighing thirtj'-four pounds. The animal
worked constantly on the farm, and had never been
put to quick or very laborious work.

Dilatation is increased capacity of the cavities
of the heart, and the parietes being generally
thinned. It is probable that this is a more fre-
quent disease than is generally supposed ; and from
the circulating power being lessened, or almost
suspended, on account of the inability of the cavi-
ties to propel their contents, it is accompanied by
much and rapid emaciation. In the Gardens of
the Zoological Society of London this is a disease
considei-ably frequent, and almost uniformly fatal.

358

THE HORSE.

It attacks the smaller animals, and particularly the
quadrumana, and has been found in the deer and
the zebra. It is characterised by slow emaciation,
and a piteous expression of the countenance ;
hut the mischief is done -when these symptoms
appear.

Ossification of the Heart. — There are too many
instances of this both in the right and the left au-
ricles of the heart, the aortic valves, the abdominal
aorta, and also the bronchial and other glands.
Mr. Percivall observes of one of these cases, that
" the cavity could have been but a passive recep-
tacle for the blood, and the current must have been
continued without any or with hardly any fresh
impulse."

Of Air in the Heart destroying the horse, there
are some interesting accounts ; and also of rupture
of the heart, and aneurism, or dilatation of the
aorta, both thoracic and abdominal, and even far-
ther removed from the heart and in the iliac
artery. The sjTnptoms that w'ould certainly indi-
cate the existence of aneurism are yet unknown,
except tenderness about the loins and gradual
inability to work, are considered as such : but it is
interesting to know of the existence of these lesions.
Ere long the veterinary surgeon may possibly be
able to guess at them, although he will rarely have
more power in averting the consequences of
aneurism than the human surgeon possesses with
regard to his patient.

This will be the proper place to describe a
little more fully the circulation of the blood, and
various circumstances connected with that most
important process.

THE ARTERIES.

The vessels which carry the blood from the
heart are called arteries [keeping air, — the ancients
thought that they contained air). They are com-
posed of three coats ; the outer or elastic is that
by which they are enabled to yield to the gush of
blood, and enlarge their dimensions as it is forced
along them, and by which also they contract again
as soon as the stream has passed ; the middle coat
is a muscular one, by which this contraction is
more powerfully performed, and the blood urged
on in its course ; the inner or membranous coat is
the mere lining of the tube.

This yielding of the artery to'tlie gush of blood,
forced into it by the contraction of the heart, consti-
tutes

THE PULSE.

The pulse is a veiy useful assistant to the
practitioner of human medicine, and much more so
to the veterinary surgeon, whose patients cannot
describe either the seat or degree of ailment or
pain. The number of pulsations in any artery
•will give the number of the beatings of the heart,
•and so express the irritation of that organ, and of

the frame generally. In a state of health, the
heai't beats in a farmer's horse about thirty-six
times in a minute. In the smaller, and in the
thorough-bred horse, the pulsations are forty or
forty-two. This is said to be the standard pulse —
the pulse of health. It varies singularly little in
horses of the same size and breed, and where it
beats naturally there can be little materially
wrong. The most convenient place to feel the
pulse, is at the lower jaw (p. 263), a little behind
the spot where the submaxillary arteiy and vein,
and the parotid duct, come from under the jaw.
There the number of pulsations will he easily
counted, and the character of the pulse, a matter
of fully equal importance, will be cleaily ascer-
tained. Many horsemen put the hand to the side.
They can certainly count the pulse there, but they
can do nothing more. We must be able to press
the artery against some hard body, as the jav/-
bone, in order to ascertain the maimer in which the
blood flows through it, and the quantity that flows.

When the pulse reaches fifty or fifty-five, some
degree of fever may be apprehended, and proper
precaution should be taken. Seventy or seventy-
five will indicate a dangerous state, and put the
owner and the surgeon not a little on the alert.
Few horses long survive a pulse of one hundred,
for, by this excessive action, the energies of nature
are speedily worn out.

Some things, however, should be taken into
accoimt in forming om- conclusion from the fre-
quency of the pulse. Exercise, a warm stable,
and fear, will wonderfully increase the number of
pulsations.

When a careless, bratal fellow goes up to a
horse, and speaks hastily to him, and handles him
roughly, he adds ten beats per minute to the pulse,
and will often be misled in the opinion he may
form of the state of the animal. A judicious per-
son will approach the patient gently, and pat and
soothe him, and even then the circulation, pro-
bably, will be a little disturbed. He should take
the additional precaution of noting the number
and quality of the pulse, a second time, before he
leaves the animal.

If a quick pulse indicate irritation and fever, a
slow pulse will likewise characterise diseases of an
opposite description. It accompanies the sleepy
stage of staggers, and every malady connected with
deficiency of nervous energy.

The heart may not only be excited to more
frequent, but also to more violent action. It may
contract more powerfully upon the blood, which
will be driven with greater force through the arte-
ries, and the expansion of the vessels will be
greater and more sudden. Then we have the hard
pulse, — the sure indicator of considerable fever,
and calling for the immediate and free use of the
lancet.

THE HORSE.

869

Sometimes tlie pulse may be hard and jerldng,
and yet small. The stream though forcible is not
great. The heart is so irritable that it contracts
before the ventricle is properly filled. The prac-
titioner knows that this indicates a dangerous state
of disease. It is an almost invariable accompani-
ment of inflammation of the bowels.

A weak pulse, when the arterial stream flows
slowly, is caused by the feeble action of the heart.
It is the reverse of fever, and expressive of debility.

The o}ypressed pulse is when the arteries seem
to be fully distended with blood. There is ob-
struction somewhere, and the action of the heart
can hardly force the stream along, or communicate
pulsation to the current. It is the case in sudden
inflammation of the lungs. They are overloaded
and gorged with blood which cannot find its way
through their minute vessels. This accounts for
the well-known fact of a copious bleeding increas-
ing a pulse previously oppressed. A portion being
removed from the distended and choked vessels,
the remainder is able to flow on.

There are many other varieties of the pulse,
which it would be tedious here to particularise ;
it must, however, be observed, that during the act
of bleeding, its state should be carefully obsei'ved.
Many veterinaiy surgeons, and gentlemen too, are
apt to order a certain quantity of blood to be taken
away, but do not condescend to superintend the
operation. This is unpardonable in the surgeon
and censurable in the o'wner of the horse. The
animal is bled for some particular purpose. There
is some state of disease, indicated by a peculiar
quality of the pulse, which we are endeavouring to
alter. The most experienced practitioner cannot
tell what quantity of blood must be abstracted in
order to produce the desired eSect. The change
of the pvdse can alone indicate when the object is
accomplished ; therefore, the operator should have
his finger on the artery during the act of bleedmg,
and, compai'atively regardless of the quantity, con-
tinue to take blood, until, in inflammation of the
lungs the ojipressed pulse becomes fuller and more
distinct, or the strong pulse of considerable fever
is evidently softer, or the animal exhibits symp-
toms of faintness.

The arteries divide as they proceed through
the frame, and branch out into innumerable minute
tubes, termed capillaries (hair-like tubes), and they
even become so small as to elude the sight. The
slightest puncture cannot be inflicted -without
wounding some of them.

In these little tubes, the nom-ishmeut of the
body, and the separation of all the various secre-
tions is performed, and, in consequence of this,
the blood is changed. When these capillaries
unite together, and begin to enlarge, it is found to
be no longer arterial, or of a florid red colour, but
venous, or of a blacker hue. Therefore the prin-

cipal termination of the ai-teries is in veins. The
point where the one ends, and tlie other com-
mences, cannot be ascertained. It is when the
red arterial blood, having discharged its function
by depositing the nutritious parts, is changed to
venous or black blood.

Branches from the ganglial or sympathetic
nerves wind round these vessels, and endue them
mth energy to discharge their fmictions. When
the nerves communicate too much energy, and these
vessels consequently act with too much power,
inflammation is produced. If this distvnbed action
is confined to a small space or a single organ, it is
said to be local, as inflammation of the eye, or of
the lungs ; but when this inordinate action spreads
from its original seat, and embraces the whole of
the arterial system, fever is said to be present, and
this usually increases in proportion as the local
disturbance is observable, and subsides with it.

INP'LAMMATION.

Local inflammation is characterised by redness,
swelling, heat, and pain. The redness proceeds
from the greater quantity of blood flowing through
the part, occasioned b}' the increased action of the
vessels. The swelling arises from the same cause,
and from the deposit of fluid in the neighbouring
substance. The natm-al heat of the body is pro-
duced by the gradual change wliich takes place in
the blood, in passing from an arterial to a venous
state. If more blood is driven through the capil-
laries of an inflamed part, and in which this change
is efiected, more heat will necessarily be produced
there ; and the pain is easily accounted for by the
distension and pressui^e which must be produced,
and the participation of the nerves in the disturb-
ance of the surrounding parts.

If inflammation consists of an increased flow of
blood to and through the pai-t, the ready way to
abate it is to lessen the quantity of blood. If we
take away the fuel, the fire will go out. All other
means are comparatively unimpoi-tant, contrasted
with bleeding. Blood is generally abstracted from
the jugular vein, and so the general quantity may
be lessened ; but if it can can be taken from the
neighbourhood of the diseased part, it will be pro-
ductive of tenfold benefit. One quart of blood
abstracted from the foot in acute founder, by un-
loading the vessels of the inflamed part, and
enabling them to contract, and, in that contrac-
tion, to acquire tone and power to resist future
distension, will do more good than five quarts
taken from the general circidation. An ounce of
blood obtained by scarifying the swelled vessels of
the inflamed eye, will give as much relief to that
organ as a copious bleeding from the jugidar. It
is a principle in the animal frame which should
never be lost sight of by the veterinaiy smgeon,
or the horseman, that if by bleeding the process

A a

360

THE HORSE.

of inflammation can once be checked, — if it can be
suspended but for a little while, — although it may
return, it is never with the same degree of vio-
lence, and in many cases it is got rid of entirely.
Hence the necessity of bleeding early, and bleed-
ing largely, in inflammation of the lungs, or of the
bowels, or of the brain, or of any important organ.
Many horses are lost for want or insufficiency of
bleeding, but we never knew one materially injured
by the most copious extraction of blood in the early
stage of acute inflammation. The horse will bear,
and with advantage, the loss of an almost incredible
quantity of blood, — four quarts taken from him,
will be comparatively little more than one pound
taken from the human being. We can scarcely
conceive of a considerable inflammation of any part
of the horse, whether proceeding from sprains,
contusions, or any other cause in which bleeding,
local (if possible), or general, or both, will not be
of essential service.

Next in importance to bleeding, is purging.
Something may be removed from the bowels,' the
retention of which would increase the general irri-
tation and fever. The quantity of blood -will be
materially lessened, for the serous or watery fluid
which is separated from it by a brisk purge, the
action of which in the horse continues probably
more than twenty-four hours, is enormous. While
the blood is thus determined to the bowels, less
even of that which remains will flow through the
inflamed part. When the circulation is directed
to one set of vessels, it is proportionately dimir
nished in other parts. It was first directed to the
inflamed portions, and they were overloaded and
injured,- — it is now directed to the bowels, and the
inflamed parts are relieved. While the purging
continues, some degi'ee of languor and sickness are
felt, and the force of the circulation is thereby
diminished, and the general excitement lessened.
The importance of physic in eveiy case of: consider-
able external inflammation, is sufficiently evident.
If the horse is laid by for a few days from injury
of the foot, or sprain, or poll-eyil, .or wound, or
almost any cause of inflammatiooVi-* physic ball
should be given. ■■^ ; '

In cases of internal inflammation, much judg-
ment is required to determine when a purgative
may be beneficial or injurious. In inflammation
of the lungs or bowels, it should never be given.
There is so strong a sympathy between the various
contents of the cavity 'of the chest, that no one of
them can be inflamed to any great extent, without
all the others being disposed to liecome so ; and,
therefore, a dose of physic in inflamed lungs,
would perhaps he as fatal as a dnse of poison. The
excitement produced on the bowels by the purga-
tive may mn on to inflammation, which no medical
skill can stop.

The means of abating exteraal inflammation

are various, and seemingly contradictory. The
heat of the part very naturally and properly led
to the application of cold embrocations and lotions.
Heat has a strong tendency to equalize itself, or
to leave that substance which has a too great quan-
tity of it, or little capacity to retain it, for another
which has less of it, or more capacity. Hence
the advantage of cold applications, by which a
great deal of the unnatural heat is speedily ab-
stracted from the inflamed part. The foot laljour-
ing under inflammation is put into cold water, or
the horse ia made to stand in water or wet clay.
Various cold applications are also used to sprains.
The part is wetted with diluted vinegar, or gou-
lard, or salt and water. When benefit is derived
from these applications, it, is to be attributed to
their coldness alone. Water, especially when
cooled below the natural temperature, is as good
an application as any that can be used. Nitre
dissolved in water, will lower the temperature of
the .fluid many, degl'ees ; but the lotion must be
applied immediately after the salt has been dis-
solved. ; A bandage may be afterwards applied to
strengthen the limb, but during the continuance
of active inflammation, it would only confine the
heat of the part, or prevent it from benefiting by
the salutary influence of the cold produced by the
evaporation of the water.

. Sometimes, however, we resort to warm fo-
mentations, and if benefit is derived from their
use, it is to, be traced to the warmth of the fluid,
more than to any medicinal property in it. Warm
water will do as much good to the horse, who has
so thick a skin^ as any decoction of chamomile, or
marsh mallow, or poppy heads, or any nostnim
that the farrier, may recommend. Fomentations
increase the warmth of the skin, and open the
pores of it, and promote perspiration, and thus
lessen the tension and swelling of the part, assuage
pain, and relieve inflammation. Fomentations,
to be beneficial, should be long and frequently
applied, and at as great a degree of heat as can be
used vrithout giving the animal pain. Poultices
are more permanent, or longer-continued fomen-
tations. The part is exposed to the influence of
warmth and moisture for many hours or days
without intermission, and perspiration being so
long kept up, the distended vessels will be veiy
materially relieved. The advantage derived from
a poultice is attributable to the heat and moisture,
which, by means of it, can be long applied to the
skin, and it should be composed of materials
which will best retain this moisture and heat.
The bran poultice of the farrier is, consequently,
objectionable. It is never perfectly in contact
with the siuface of the skin, and it becomes
nearly dry in a few hours, after which it is
injurious rather than beneficial. Linseed-meal
is a much better material for a poultice, for, if

THE nORSE.

861'

properly made, it will remain moist during many
hours.

It is occasionally very difficult to decide when
a cold or a hot application is to be used, and no
general rule can he laid down, except that in cases
of supei-ficial inflammation, and in the early stage,
cold lotions will be preferable ; but, when the in-
flammation is deeper seated, or fully established,
warm fomentations will be most serviceable.

Stimulating applications are frequently used
in local inflammation. When the disease is deeply
seated, a stimulating application to the skin wUl
cause some irritation and inflammation there, and
lessen or sometimes remove the original malady ;
hence the use of rowels and blisters in inflamma-
tion of the chest. Inflammation to a high degree,
cannot exist in parts that are near each other. If
we excite it in one, we shall abate it in the other,
and also, by the discharge which we establish
from the one, we shall lessen the determination of
blood to the other.

Stimulating and blistering applications should
never be applied to a part already inflamed. A
fire is not put out by heaping more fuel upon it.
Hence the mischief which the farrier often does by
rubbing his abominable oils on a recent sprain,
hot and tender. Many a horse has been mined
by this absurd treatment. When the heat and
tenderness have disappeared by the use of cold
lotions or fomentations, and the leg or sprained
part remains enlarged, or bony matter threatens
to be deposited, it may be right to excite inflam-
mation of the skin by a blister, in order to rouse
the deeper-seated absorbents to action, and enable
them to take up this deposit ; but, except to
hasten the natural process and effects of inflam-
mation, a blister, or stimulating application, should
never be applied to a part already inflamed.

Fever is general increased arterial action,
either without any local affection, or in conse-
quence of the sympathy of the system with inflam-
mation in some particular part.

The first is pure fever. Some have denied
that that exists in the horse, but they must have
been strangely careless observers of the diseases of
that animal. The truth of the matter is, that the
usual stable management and general treatment
of the horse are so absurd, and various parts of
him are rendered so liable to take on inflamma-
tion, that pure fever will exist a very little time
without degenerating into inflammation. The
lungs are so weakened by the heated and foul air
of the ill-ventilated stable, and by sudden changes
from almost insufferable heat to intense cold, and
the feet are so injured by hard usage and injudi-
cious shoeing, that, sharing from the beginning in
the general vascular e.xcitement which charac-

terises fever, they soon become excited far heyond
other portions of the frame ; and that which com-
menced as fever becomes inflammation of the
lungs or feet. Pure fever, however, is sometimes
seen, and runs its course regularly.

It frequently begins with a cold or shivering
fit, although this is not essential to fever. The
horse is dull, unwilling to move, has a staring
coat, and cold legs and feet. This is succeeded
by warmth of the body ; unequal distribution of
warmth to the legs ; one hot, and the other three
cold, or one or more unnaturally warm, and the
others unusually cold, but not the deathlike cold-
ness of inflammation of the lungs ; the pulse
quick, soft, and often indistinct ; the breathing
somewhat laborious ; but no cough, or panning, or
looking at the flanks. The animal will scaixely
eat, and is very costive. While the state of pure
fever lasts, the shivering fit returns at nearly the
same hour every day, and is succeeded by the
warm one, and that often by a slight degree of
perspiration; and these alternate during several
days until local inflammation appears, or the
fever gradually subsides. No horse ever died of
pure fever. If he is not destroyed by inflamma-
tion of the Imigs, or feet, or bowels succeeding to
the fever, he gradually recovers.

What has been said of the treatment of local
inflammation will sufficiently indicate that which
should be resorted to in fever. Fever is general
increased action of the heart and arteries, and
therefore evidently appears the necessity for bleed-
ing, regulating the quantity of blood by the degree
of fever, and usually keeping the finger on the
artery until some evident and considerable im-
pression is made upon the system. The bowels
should be gently opened ; but the danger of in-
flammation of the lungs, and the uniformly inju-
rious consequence of purgation in that disease,
will prevent the administration of an active pur-
gative. A small quantity of aloes may be given
morning and night with the proper fever medicine,
until the bowels are slightly relaxed, after which
nothing more of an aperient quality should be ad-
ministered. Digitalis, emetic tartar, and nitre
should be given morning and night, in proportions
regulated by the circumstances of the case. The
horse should be wai-mly clothed, but be placed in
a cool and well-ventilated stable.

Symptomatic fever is increased arterial action,
proceeding from some local cause. No organ of
consequence can be much disordered or inflamed
without the neighbouring parts being disturbed,
and the whole system gradually participating in
the disturbance Inflammation of the feet or of
the lungs never existed long or to any material
extent, without being accompanied by some degree
of fever.

The treatment of symptomatic fever should

862

THE HORSE.

resemble that of simple fever, except that particu-
lar attention must be paid to the state of the part
originally diseased. If the inflammation which
existed there can be subdued, the general distur-
bance will usually cease.

The arteries terminate occasionally in open-
ings on different surfaces of the body. On the
skin they pour out the perspiration, and on the
different cavities of the frame they yield the mois-
ture which prevents friction. In other parts they
terminate in glands, in which a fluid essentially
different from the blood is secreted or separated :
such are the parotid and salivarj' glands, the kid-
neys, the spleen, and the various organs or labo-
ratories which provide so many and such different
secretions, for the multifarious pui-poses of life ;
but the usual termination of arteries is in veins.

THE VEINS.

These vessels carry back to the heart the blood
which had been conveyed to the different parts by
the arteries. They have two coats, a muscular
and a membranous one. Both of them are thin
and comparatively weak. They are more numer-
ous and much larger than the arteries, and con-
sequently the blood, lessened in quantity by the
vaiious secretions separated from it, flows more
slowly through them. It is forced on partly by
the first impulse communicated to it by the heart;
also, in the extremities and external portions of
the frame, by the pressure of the muscles ; and in
the cavity of the chest, its motion is assisted or
principally caused by the sudden expansion of the
ventricles of the heart, after they have closed
upon and driven out their contents, and thereby
causing a vacuum which the blood rushes on to
fill. There are curious valves in various parts of
the veins which prevent the blood from flowing
backward to its source.

BOG AND BLOOD SPA^^N.

The veins of the horse, although their coats
are thin compared with those of the arteries, are
not subject to the enlargements (varicose veins)
which are so frequent, and often so painful, in the
legs of the human being. The legs of the horse
may exhibit many of the injurious consequences of
hard work, but the veins will, with one exception,
be unaltered in structure. Attached to the extre-
mities of most of the tendons, and between the
tendons and other parts, are little bags containing
a mucous substance to enable the tendons to slide
over each other without friction, and to move
easily on the neighbouring parts. From violent
exercise these vessels are liable to enlarge.
Windgalls and thorough-pins are instances of this.
There is one of them on the inside of the hock at
its bendmg. This sometimes becomes consider-
ably increased in size, and the enlai-gement is
called a hog-spavin. A vein passes over this bag.

which is pressed between the enlargement and the
skin, and the passage of the blood through it is
impeded ; the vein is consequently distended by
the accumulated blood, and the distension reaches
from this bag as low down as the next valve. This
is called a blood-spavin. Blood-spavin then is the
consequence of bog-spavin. It very rarely occurs,
and is, in the majority of instances, confounded
with bog-spavin.

Blood-spavin does not always cause lameness,
except the horse is very hard- worked, and then it
is doubtful whether the lameness should not be
attributed to the enlarged mucous bag rather than
to the distended vein. Both of these diseases,
however, render a horse unsound, and materially
lessen his value.

Old farriers used to tie the vein, and so cut off
altogether the flow of the blood. Some of them,
a little more rational, dissected out the bag which
caused the distension of the vein : but the modem
and more prudent way is to endeavour to promote
the absorption of the contents of the bag. This
may he attempted by pressure long applied. A
bandage may be contrived to take in the whole of
the hock, except its point ; and a compress made
of folded linen being placed on the bog-spavin,
may confine the principal pressure to that part.
It is, however, very difficult to adapt a bandage to
a joint which admits of such extensive motion ;
therefore most practitioners apply two or three suc-
cessive blisters over the enlargement, when it usually
disappears. Unfortunately, however, it returns if any
extraordinary exertion is required from the horse.

BLEEDING.

This operation is performed with a fleam or a
lancet. The first is the common instrument, and
the safest, except in sldlful hands. The lancet,
however, has a more surgical appearance, and vrill
be adopted by the veterinary practitioner. A
blood-stick — a piece of hard wood loaded at one
end with lead — is used to strike the fleam into the
vein. This is sometimes done with too great
violence, and the opposite side of the coat of the
vein is wounded. Bad cases of inflammation have
resulted from this. If the fist is doubled, and the
fleam is sharp and is struck with sufficient force
with the lower part of the hand, the bloodstick
may be dispensed with.

For general bleeding the jugular vein is se-
lected. The horse is blindfolded on the side on
which he is to be bled, or his head turned well
away. The hair is smoothed along the course of
the vein with the moistened finger ; then, with
the third and little fingers of the left hand, which
holds the fleam, pressure is made on the vein suf-
ficient to bring it fairly into view, but not to swell
it too much, for then, presenting a rounded sur-
face, it would be apt to roll or slip under the blow.

THE HORSE.

The point to be selected is about two inches
below the union of the two portions of the ju-
gular at the angle of the jaw. The fleam is
to be placed in a direct line with the course of
the vein, and over the precise centre of tlie vein,
as close to it as possible, but its point not abso-
lutely touching the vein. A sharp rap with the
bloodstick or the hand on that part of the back of
the fleam immediately over the blade, will cut
through the vein, and the blood vrill flow. A
fleam with a large blade should always be pre-
ferred, for the operation will be materially short-
ened, and this will be a matter of some conse-
quence ivith a fidgety or restive horse. A quantity
of blood drawn speedily will also have far more
effect on the system than double the weight slowly
ta,ken, while the wound will heal just as readily as
if made by a smaller instrument. There is no
occasion to press so hard against the neck with
the pail, or can, as some do ; a slight pressure, if
the incision has been large enough and straight,
and in the middle of the vein, will cause the
blood to flow sufficiently fast ; or, the finger being
introduced into the mouth between the tushes
and the grinders, and gently moved about, will
keep the mouth in motion, and hasten the rapidity
of the stream by the action and pressure of the
neighbouring muscles.

When sufficient blood has been taken, the
edges of the wound should be brought closely and
exactly together, and kept together by a small
sharp pin being passed through them. Kound
this a little tow, or a few hairs from the mane of
the horse, should be wrapped, so as to cover the
whole of the incision ; and the head of the horse
should be tied up for several hours to prevent his
rubbing the part against the manger. In bring-
ing the edges of the wound together, and intro-
ducing the pin, care should be taken not to draw
the skin too much from the neck, otherwise blood
^\ill insinuate itself between it and the muscles
beneath, and cause an unsightly and sometimes
troublesome swelling.

The blood should be received into a vessel the
dimensions of which are exactly known, so that
the operator may be able to calculate at every
period of the bleeding the quantity that is sub-
straoted. Care likewise should be taken that the
blood flows in a regular stream into the centre of
the vessel, for if it is suffered to trickle down the
sides, it will not afterwards undergo those changes
by which we partially judge of the extent of
inflammation. The pulse, however, and the
symptoms of the case collectively, will form a
better criterion than any change in the blood.
Twenty-four hours after the operation, the edges
of the wound will have united, and the pin should be
withdravra. When the bleeding is to be repeated,
if more than three or four hours have elapsed, it

will be better to make a fresh incision rather than
to open the old wound.

Few directions are necessary for the use of the
lancet. They who are competent to operate with
it, will scarcely require any. If the point is sutTi-
ciently sharp the lancet can scarcely be too broad-
shouldered ; and an abscess lancet will generally
make a freer incision than that in common use.
Whatever instrument is adopted, too much care
cannot be taken to have it perfectly clean, and
very sharp. It should be carefully wiped and dried
immediately after the operation, otherwise, in a
very short time, the edges will begin to be corroded.

For general bleeding the jugular vein is
selected as the largest superficial one, and most
easily got at. In every affection of the head, and
in cases of fever or extended inflammatory action,
it is decidedly the best place for bleeding. In
local inflammation, blood may be taken from any
of the superficial veins. In supposed affections of
the shoulder, or of the fore-leg or foot, the jil^ite
vein, which comes from the inside of the arm, and
runs upwards directly in front of it towards the
jugular, may be opened. In affections of the hind
extremity, blood is sometimes extracted from the
saphcena, or thigh-vein, which runs across the
inside of the thigh. In foot cases it may be taken
from the coronet, or, much more safely, from the
toe ; not by cutting out, as the farrier does, a piece
of the sole at the toe of the frog, which sometimes
causes a wound difficult to heal, and followed by
festering, and even by canker, but cutting down
with a fine drawing-knife, called a searcher, at the
union between the crust and the sole at the very
toe until the blood flows, and, if necessary, encou-
raging its discharge by dipping the foot in warm
water. The mesh-work of both arteries and veins
will be here divided, and blood is generally ob-
tained in any quantity that may be needed. The
bleeding may be stopped with the greatest ease, by
placing a bit of tow in the little groove that has
been cut, and tacking the shoe over it.*

• A great improvement has lately been introduced in the method
of arresting arterial hffimon-hage. The operation is very simple
and, with common care, successful. The instrument is a pair of
artery forceps, with rather sharper teeth than the common forceps
and the blades held close by a slide. The vessel is laid bare, de-
tached from the cellular substance aroimd it, and the artery then
gi-asped by the forceps, the instrument de^nating a very little from
the line of the artery. The vessel is now divided close to the
forceps, and behind them, and the forceps are twisted four or five
times round. The forceps are then loosened, and, generally
speaking, not more than a drop or two of blood will have been
lost. This method of arresting bleeding has been applied by
several scientific and benevolent men with almost constant success.
It has been readily and eflfectually practised in docking, and our
patients have escaped much torture, and tetanus lost many a
victim. The forceps have been introduced, and with much success ,
in castration, and thus the principal danger of that operation, as
well as the most painful part of it, is removed. The colt will be a
fair subject for this experiment. On the sheep and the calf it may
he readily performed, and the operator will have the pleasing con-
sciousness of rescuing many a poor animal from the unnecessary
infiiction of torture.

364

THE HORSE.

CHAPTER XII

We now proceed to the consideration of the dis-
eases of the respiratory system.

THE MEMBRANE OF THE NOSE.

The mucous membrane of the nose is distin-
guished from other mucous surfaces, not only by
its thickness, but its vascularity. The blood ves-
sels are likewise supei-ficial ; they are not covered
even by integument, but merely by an unsubstan-
tial mucous coat. They are deeper seated, indeed,
than in the human being, and they are more pro-
tected from injurj' ; and therefore there is far less
haemorrhage from the nostril of the horse than from
that of the human being, w'hether spontaneous or
accidental. Lying immediately under the mucous
coat, these vessels give a peculiar, and, to the
horseman, a most important tinge to the mem-
brane, and particularly obsei-vable on the septum.
They present him with a faithful indication of the
state of the circulation, and especially in the mem-
branes of the other respu-atory passages with which
this is continuous.

The horseman and the veterinary surgeon do
not possess many of the auxiliaries of the human
practitioner. Their patients are dumb ; they can
neither tell the seat nor the degree of pain ; and
the blunders of the practitioner are seldom buried
with the patient. Well, he must use greater dili-
gence in availing himself of the advantages that he
does possess ; and he has some, and very impor-
tant ones too. The vaiying hue of the Schneiderian
membrane is the most important of all ; and, with
regard to the most frequent and fatal diseases of the
horse — those of the respiratory passages — it gives
almost all the information mth regard to the state
of the circulation in those parts that can possibly
be required. Veterinarians too generally overlook
this. It has not yet been sufficiently taught in
pur schools, or inculcated in our best works on the
pathology of the horse.

It is the custom with almost every horseman
who takes any pains to ascertain the state of his
patient, to turn down the lower eyelid, and to form
his opinion of the degree of general inflammation
by the colour which the lining membrane of the lid
presents. If it is very red, he concludes that there
is considerable fever ; if it is of a pale pinkish hue,
there is comparatively little danger. This is a xexy
important examination, and the conclusion which
he draws from it is generally true : but on the
septum of the nose he has a membrane more imme-
diately' continuous with those of the respiratory
organs — more easily got at — presenting a larger sur-
face— the ramifications of the blood-vessels better
Been, and, what is truly important, indicating not

onl_y the general affection of the membranes, but
of those with which he is most of all concerned.

We would then say to eveiy horseman and
practitioner, study the character of that portion of
the membrane which covers the lower part of the
membrane of the nose — that which you can most
readily bring into view. Day after day, and under
all the varying circumstances of health and disease,
study it until you are enabled to recognise, and you
soon will, and that with a degree of exactitude you
would have scarcely thought possible, the pale pink
hue when the horse is in health — the increasing
blush of red, and the general and uniform painting of
the membrane, betokening some excitement of the
system — the streaked appearance when inflamma-
tion is threatening or commencing — the intensely
florid red of inflammation becoming acute — the
starting of the vessels from their gossamer coat,
and their seeming to run bare over the membrane,
when the inflammation is at the highest — the pale
ground with patches of vivid red, showing the half-
subdued but still existing fever — the uniform
colour, but somewhat redder than natural, indicating
a return to a healthy state of the circulation — the
paleness approaching to white, accompanying a
state of debility, and yet some radiations of crim-
son, showing that there is still considerable irrita-
bility, and that mischief may be in the wind — the
pale livid colour warning you that the disease is
assuming a typhoid character — the darker livid
announcing that the typhus is established, and that
the vital current is stagnating — and the browner,
dirty painting, intermingling with and subduing
the lividness, and indicating that the game is up.
These apjjearances will be guides to our opinion
and treatment, which we can never too highly
appreciate.

CATABRH, OB COLD.

Catarrh, or Cold, is attended by a slight de-
fluxion from the nose — now and then, a slighter
weeping from the eyes, and some increased labour
of breathing, on account of the uneasiness which
the animal experiences from the passage of the air
over the naturally sensitive and now more than
usually irritable surface, and from the air-passage
being diminished by a thickening of the mem-
brane. When this is a simply local inflammation,
attended by no loss of appetite or increased animal
temperature, it may speedily pass over.

In many cases, however, the inflammation of a
membrane naturally so sensitive, and rendered so
morbidly irritable by our absurd treatment, rapidly
spreads, and involves the fauces, the lymphatic and
some of the salivary glands, the throat, the parotid

THE HOESE.

365

gland, and the membrane of the larynx. "We have
then increased discharge from the nose, greater
redness of the membrane of the nose, more defluxion
from the eyes, and loss of appetite from a degree of
fever associating itself with the local affection, and
there also being a greater or less degree of pain in
the act of swallowing, and which if the animal
feels this he -will never eat. Cough now appears
more or less frequent or painful ; but with no
great acceleration of the pulse, or heaving of the
flanks.

Catarrh may arise from a thousand causes.
Membranes subjected to so many sources of irrita-
tion soon become irritable. Exposure to cold or
rain, change of stable, change of weather, change
of the slightest portion of clothing, neglect of
groomioig, and a variety of circumstances appa-
rently trifling, and which they who are unaccus-
tomed to horses would think could not possibly
produce any injurious effect, are the causes of
catarrh. In the spring of the year, and while
moulting, a great many young horses have cough ;
and in the dealers' stables, where the process of
making up the horse for sale is carrying on,
there is scarcely one of them that escapes this
disease.

In the majority of cases, a few warm mashes,
warm clothing, and a warm stable — a fever-ball or
two, with a drachm of aloes in each, and a little
antimony in the evening, will set all right. Indeed,
all would soon be right without any medicine ; and
much more speedily and perfectly than if the cor-
dials, of which grooms and fai'riers are so fond, had
been given. Nineteen horses out of twenty with
common catarrh will do well ; but in the twentieth
case, a neglected cough may be the precusor of
bronchitis, and pneumonia. These chest affections
often insidiously creep on, and inflammation is
frequently established before any one belonging to
the horse is aware of its existence. If there is the
least fever, the horse should be bled. A common
cold, attended by heat of the mouth or indisposition
to feed, should never pass without the abstraction of
blood. A physic-ball, however, should not be given
in catarrh without much consideration. It can
scarcely be known what sympathy may exist be-
tween the portion of membrane already affected,
and the mucous membranes generally. In severe
thoracic affection, or in that which may soon be-
come so, a dose of physic would be little better
than a dose of poison. If, however, careful inves-
tigation renders it evident that there is no affection
of the lungs, and that the disease has not proceeded
beyond the fauces, small doses of aloes may with
advantage be united with other medicines in order
to evacuate the intestinal canal, and reduce the
faecal discharge to a pultaceous form.

If catarrh is accompanied by sore throat; if
•the parotids shoiJd enlarge and become tender —

there are no tonsils, amygdala:, in the horse — or if
the submaxillaiy glands should be inflamed, and
the animal should quid his food and gulp his water,
this will be an additional reason for bleeding, and
also for warm clothing and a comfortable stable.
A hot stable is not meant by the term comfortable,
in which the foul air is breathed over and over
again, but a temperature some degrees above that
of the external air, and where that determination
to the skin and increased action of the exhalent
vessels, which in these cases are so desirable, may
take place. Every stable, both for horses in sick-
ness and in health, should have in it a thermo-
meter.

Some stimulating liniment may be applied
over the inflamed gland, consisting of turpentine
or tincture of cantharides diluted with spermaceti
or neat's-foot oil — strong enough to produce consi-
derable irritation on the skin, but not to blister, or
to destroy the hair. An embrocation sufficiently
powerful, and yet that never destroys the hair,
consists of equal parts of hartshorn, oil of tm-pen-
tine, and camphorated spirit, with a small quantity
of laudanum.

INFLlMirATION OF THE LABYNX.

Strictly speaking, this refers to inflammation
confined to the larynx, but either catarrh or
bronchitis, or both, frequently accompany the
complaint.

Its approach if often insidious, scarcely to be
distinguished from catarrh except by being attended
with more soreness of throat, and less enlargement
of the parotid glands. There are also more decided
and violent paroxysms of coughing than in com-
mon catarrh, attended by a gurgling noise, which
may be heard at a little distance from the hoi'se,
and which, by auscultation, is decidedly referrible
to the lai^nx. The breathing is shorter and
quicker, and e^ddently more painful than in
catarrh ; the membrane of the nose is redder ;
it is of a deep modena colour ; and the horse
shrinks and exhibits great pain when the larynx
is pressed upon. The paroxysms of coughing be-
come more frequent and violent, and the animal
appears at times almost suffocated.

As the soreness of the throat proceeds, the
head of the animal is projected, and the neck has
a peculiar stiffness. There is also much difficulty
of swallowing. Considerable swelling of the larynx
and the pharynx ensue, and also of the parotid,
sublingual and submaxillaiy glands. As the in-
flammation increases the cough becomes hoarse
and feeble, and in some cases altogether suspended.
At the commencement there is usually little or no
nasal defluxion, but the secretion soon appeai-s,
either pure or mixed with an unusual quantity of
saliva.

Auscultation is a very important aid in the

366

THE HOESE.

discovery of the nature and serious or trifling cha-
racter of this disease. It cannot he too often
repeated that it is one of the most valuahle means
■which we possess of detecting the seat, intensity,
and results, of the maladies of the respiratory pas-
sages. No instrument is required ; the naked ear
can be applied evenly and flatl}', and -with a very
slight pressure, on any part that it is of importance
to examine. The healthy sound, when the ear is
applied to the windpipe, is that of a body of air
passing uninterruptedly through a smooth tube of
somewhat considerable calibre : it very much re-
sembles the sound of a pair of forge bellows, when
not too violently worked.

He who is desirous of ascertaining whether
there is any disease in the larynx of a horse,
should apply his ear to the lower part of the
windpipe. If he finds that the air passes in and
out without interruption, there is no disease of any
consequence either in the windpipe or the chest ;
for it would immediately be detected by the loud-
ness or the interniption of the murmur. Then
let him gradually proceed up the neck with his
ear still upon the windpipe. Perhaps he soon
begins to recognise a little gurgling, grating
sound. As he continues to ascend, that sound is
more decisive, mingled with an occasional wheez-
ing, whistling noise. He can have no surer proof
that here is the impediment to the passage of the
air, proceeding from the thickening of the mem-
brane and diminution of the passage, or increased
secretion of mucus, which bubbles and rattles as
the breath passes. By the degree of the rattling
or whistling, the owner will judge which cause of
obstruction preponderates — in fact, he will have
discovered the seat and the state of the disease,
and the sooner he has recourse to professional ad-
vice the better.

Chronic laryngitis is of more frequent occur-
rence than acute. Many of the coughs that are
most troublesome are to be traced to this source.

In violent cases laryngitis terminates in suffo-
cation ; in others, in thick wind or in roaring.
Occasionally it is necessary to have recom'se to the
operation of tracheotomy.

In acute laryngitis the treatment to be pur-
sued is sufficiently plain. Blood must be ab-
stracted, and that from the jugular vein, for there
will then be the combined advantage of general
and local bleeding. The blood must be some-
what copiously withdrawn, depending on the de-
gree of inflammation — the practitioner never for a
moment forgetting that he has to do with inflam-
mation of a mucous membrane, and that what he
does he must do quickly. He will have lost the
opportuijity of struggling successfully with the
disease when it has altered its character and debi-
lity has succeeded. The cases must be few and
far between when the surgeon makes up his mind

to any determinate quantity of blood, and leaves
his assistant or his groom to abstract it ; he must
himself bleed, and until the pulse flutters or the
constitution is evidently afiected.

Next must be given the fever medicine already
recommended : the digitalis, nitre, and emetic
tartar, with aloes. Aloes may here be safely given,
because the chest is not yet implicated. To this
must be added, and immediately, a blister, and a
sharp one. The surgeon is sure of the part, and
he can bring his counter-irritant almost into contact
with it.

Inflammation of the larynx, if not speedily
subdued, produces sad disorganization in this cu-
riously formed and important machine. Lymph
is effused, morbidly adhesive, and speedily orga-
nised— the membrane becomes thickened, consi-
derably, permanentl}' so — the submucous cellular
tissue becomes oedematous ; the inflammation
spreads from the membrane of the larynx to the
cartilages, and difficulty of breathing, and at
length confirmed roaring, ensue.

INFLAMMATION OF THE TRACHEA.

Inflammation of the membrane of the larynx,
and especially when it has run on to ulceration,
may rapidly spread, and involve the greater part
or the whole of the lining membrane of the tra-
chea. Auscultation will discover when this is
taking place. If the disease is extending down
the trachea, it must be followed. A blister must
reach as low as the rattling sound can be de-
tected, and somewhat beyond this. The fever
medicines must be administered in somewhat in-
creased doses ; and the bleeding must be repeated,
if the state of the pulse does not indicate the
contrary.

Generally speaking, however, although the
inflammation is now approaching the chest, its
extension into the trachea is not an unfavourable
symptom. It is spread over a more extended
surface, and is not so intense or untractable. It
is involving a part of the frame less complicated,
and where less mischief can be effected. True, if
the case is neglected, it must terminate fatally ;
but it is coming more within reach, and more un-
der command, and, the proper means being
adopted, the change is rather a favourable one.

The disorganizations produced in the trachea
are similar to some which have been described in
the larynx. The same formation of organised
bands of coagulated lymph, the same thickening
of membrane, diminution of calibre, and founda-
tion for roaring.

The present -will be the proper place to speak
of that singular impairment of the respiratory
function recognised by this name. It is an unna-

THE HORSE.

367

tiiral, loud grunting sound made by the animal in
the act of breathing when in quick action or on
any sudden exertion. On carefully listening to
the sound, it will appear that the roaring is pro-
duced in the act of inspiration and not in that of
expiration. If the horse is briskly trotted on a
level surface, and more particularly if he is hurried
up hill, or if he is suddenly threatened with a
stick, this peculiar sound will be heard and cannot
be mistaken. When dishonest dealers are show-
ing a horse that roars, but not to any great de-
gi'ee, they trot away gently, and as soon as they
are too far for the sound to be heard, show off the
best paces of the animal : on returning, they gra-
dually slacken their speed when they come with-
in a suspicious distance. This is sometimes
technically called " the dealers' long trot."

Roaring is exceedingly unpleasant to the rider,
and it is manifest unsoundness. It is the sudden
and violent rushing of the air through a tube of
diminished calibre ; and if the impediment, what-
ever it is, renders it so difficult for the air to pass
in somewhat increased action, sufficient cannot be
admitted to give an adequate supply of arteria-
lized blood in extraordinrary or long continued
exertion. Therefore, as impairing the function of
respiration, although, sometimes, only on e.xtraor-
dinary occasions, it is unsoundness. In as many
cases as otherwise, it is a very serious cause of
unsoundness. The roarer, when hardly pressed,
is often blown even to the hazard of suffocation,
and there are cases on record of his suddenly
dropping and dying when urged to the top of his
speed.

It must not, however, be taken for granted
that the roarer is always worthless. There are
few hunts in which there is not one of these
horses, who acquits himself very fairly in the
field ; and it has occasionally so happened that the
roarer has been the very crack horse of the hunt ;
yet he must be ridden with judgment, and spared
a little when going up hill. There is a village in
the West Riding of Yorkshire, tlu-ough which a
band of smugglers used frequently to pass in the
dead of night ; the horse of the leader, and the best
horse of the troop, and on which his owner would bid
defiance to all pursuit, was so rank a roarer, that he
could be heard at a considerable distance. The clat-
tering of all the rest scarcely made so much noise
as the roaring of the captain's horse. Wlien this
became a little too bad, and he did not fear im-
mediate pursuit, the smuggler used to halt the
troop at some convenient hayrick on the roadside,
and, having suffered the animal to distend his sto-
mach with this dry food, as he was always ready
enough to do, he would remount and gallop on,
and, for a while, the roaring was scarcely heard.
It is somewhat difficult to account for this. Per-
haps the loaded stomach now pressing against the

diaphragm, that muscle had harder work to dis-
place this viscus in the act of enlarging the chest
and producing an act of inspiration, and accom-
plished it more slowly, and therefore, the air
passing more slowly by, the roaring was dimi-
minished. We do not dare to calculate what
must have been the increased labour of the dia-
phragm in moving the loaded stomach, nor how
much sooner the horse must have been exhausted.
This did not enter into the owner's reckoning, and
probably the application of whip and spur would
deprive him of the means of forming a proper
calculation of it.

Eclipse was a "high-blower." He drew his
breath hard, and -with apparent difficulty. The
upper air-passages, perhaps those of the head, did
not correspond with his unusually capacious chest ;
yet he was never beaten. It is said that he never
met with an antagonist fairly to put him to the top
of his speed, and that the actual effect of this dis-
proportion in the two extremities of the respiratory
apparatus was not thoroughly tested. Mares
comparatively seldom become roarers. It appears
to be difficult, if not impossible, to assign any sa-
tisfactory reason for this ; but the fact is too noto-
rious among horsemen, to admit of doubt.

Roaring proceeds from obstruction in some
portion of the respiratory canal, and oftenest in
the larynx, for there is least room to spare — that
cartilaginous box being occupied by the me-
chanism of the voice : next in frequency it is in
the trachea, but, in fact, obstruction any where
will produce it. Mr. Blaine, quoting from a
French journalist, says, that a piece of riband
lodged within one of the nasal fossfe produced
roaring, and that even the displacement of a molar
tooth has been the siqjposed cause of it. Polypi
in the nostrils have been accompanied by it. Mr.
Sewell found, as an evident cause of roaring, an
exostosis between the two first ribs, and pressing
upon the trachea ; and Mr. Percivall goes farther,
and says that his father repeatedly blistered and
fired a horse for bad roaring, and even perfonued
the operation of tracheotomy, and at length the
roaring being so loud when the horse was led out
of the stable, that it was painful to hear it — the
poor animal was destroyed. No thickening of the
membrane was found, no disease of the larvux or
trachea; but the luugs were hepatized throughout
the greater part of their substance, and many of
the smaller divisions of the bronchi were so com-
pressed, that they were hardly pervious.

Bands of Coagulated Lymph. — A frequent
cause of roaring is bands of coagulated lymph,
morbidly viscid and tenacious, adhering firmly on
one side, and by some act of coughing brought
into contact -with and adhering to the other side,
and becoming gradually organized. At other
times there have been rings of coagulated lymph

368

THE HORSE,

adhering to the lining of the trachea, but not
organized. In either case they form a mechanical
obstruction, and will account for the roaring noise
produced by the air rushing violently through the
diminished calibre, in hurried respiration. Thick-
ening of the membrane is a more frequent cause
of roaring than the transverse bands of coagulated
lymph. In many morbid specimens it is double
or treble its natural thickness, and covered with
manifold ulcerations. This is particularly annoy-
ing in the upper part of the windpipe, where the
passages, in their natural state, are narrow. Thus
it is that roaring is the occasional consequence of
strangles and catai-rh, and other affections of the
superior passages.

There is scarcely a horse of five or six years old
who has not a portion of the thyroid cai'tilage
ossified. In some cases the greater part of the
cartilages are becoming bony, or sufficiently so to
weaken or destroy their elastic power, and conse-
quently to render it impossible for them to be
freely and fully acted upon by the delicate
muscles of the larynx.

Chronic cough occasionally terminates in roar-
ing. Some have imagined that the dealers' habit
of coughing the horse, i. e. pressing upon the
larynx to make him cough, in order that they may
judge of the state of his wind by the sound that is
emitted, has produced inflammation about the
larynx, which has terminated in roaring, or as-
sisted in producing it. That pain is given to the
animal by the rough and violent way in which the
object is sometimes attempted to be accomplislied,
is evident enough, and this must, in process of
time, lead to mischief; but sufficient inflammation
and subsequent ossification of the cartilages would
scarcely be produced, to be a cause of roaring.

The Disease of Draught-Horses generally. —
There can be no doubt of the fact, that the majo-
rity of roarers are draught-horses, and horses of
quick draught. They are not only subject to the
usual predisposing causes of this obstruction, but
there is something superadded, — resulting from
their habits or mode of work, — not indeed necessa-
rily resulting, but that irhich the folly as well as
cruelty of man has introduced — the system of
tight-reuaing. To a certain extent, the curb-rein
is necessary. Without it there would be scarcely
any command over a wilful horse, and it would
need a strong arm occasionally to guide even the
most willing. Without the curb-rein the horse
would carry himself low ; he would go carelessly
along ; he would become a stumbler ; and if he
were disposed at any time to run away, the
strongest arm would have little power to stop
him : but there is no necessity for the tight rein,
and for the long and previous discipline to which
the carriage horse is subjected. There is no ne-
cessity that the lower jaw, whether the channel is

wide or narrow, should be so forced on the neck,
or that the larynx and the portion of the -svind-
pipe immediately beneath it should be flattened,
and bent, and twisted, and the respiratory pas-
sage not only obstnicted, but in a manner
closed. The mischief is usually done when the
horse is young. It is effected in some measure
by the impatience of the animal, unused to con-
trol, and suffering pam. In the violent tossing of
his head he bruises the larynx, and produces in-
flammation. The head of the riding-horse is gra-
dually brought to its proper place by the hands of
the breaker, who skilfully increases or relaxes the
pressure, and humours and plays with the mouth ;
but the poor carriage-horse is confined by a rein
that never slackens, and his nose is bent in at the
expense of the larynx and windpipe. The injury
is materially increased if the head is not naturally
well set on, or the neck is thick, or the jaws
narrow.

Connected with this is the common notion
that crib-biting is a cause of roaring. That is
altogether erroneous. There is no possible con-
nexion between the complaints : but one of the
methods that used to be resorted to in order to
cure crib-biting might be a cause of roaring,
namely, the strap so tightly buckled round the
upper part of the neck as to compress, and distort,
and paralyse the larynx.

Facts have established the hereditary predis-
position to roaring beyond the possibility of
doubt.

In France it is notorious that three-fourths of
the horses from Cottentin are roarers, and some of
them are roarers at six months old ; but about La
Hague and Le Bocase, not a roarer is known.
There is certainly a considerable difference in the
soil of the two districts; the first is low and
marshy, the latter elevated and dry : but tradition
traces it to the introduction of some foreign horses
into Cottentin, who bequeathed this infirmity to
their progeny.

In our own country, there is as decisive a
proof. There was a valuable stallion in Norfolk,
belonging to Major Wilson, of Didlington. He
was a great favourite, and seemed to be getting
some excellent stock ; but he was a roarer, and
some of the breeders took alarm at this. They
had occasionally too painful experience of the
communication of the defects of the parent to his
progeny ; and they feared that roaring might pos-
sibly be among these hereditaiy evils. Sir Charles
Bunbury was requested to obtain Mr. Cline's opi-
nion on the subject. Mr. Cline was a deservedly
eminent human surgeon : he had exerted himself in
thee stablishment of the Veterinaiy College : he was
an examiner of veterinary pupils, and therefore it
was supposed that he must be competent to give an
opinion. He gave one, and at considerable length :

THE HORSE.

3C9

— " The disorder in the horse," said he, " which
consUtutes a roarer, is caused by a membranous
projection in a part of the -windpipe, and is the
consequence of that part having been inflamed
from a cold, and injudiciously treated. A roarer,
therefore, is not a diseased horse, for his lungs and
every other part may be perfectly sound. The
existence of roaring in a stallion cannot be of any
consequence. It cannot be jiropagated any more
than a broken bone, or any other accident." — A
fair specimen of the horse-ltnowledge of one of the
best of the medical examiners of veterinaiy pupils.

Sir Charles returned full of glee ; the good
people of Norfolk and Suffolk were satisfied ;
Major Wilson's horse was in high request : but
in a few years a great part of thg two counties
was overran with roarers, and many a breeder
half rained. Roaring is not, however,; necessarily
hereditary. Mr. Goodwin, whose name is great
authority, states that Taunis, a celebrated racer
that had become a roarer, had covered several
mares, and their produce all turned out well, and
liad won several races. In no instance did his
progeny exhibit this defect, notwithstanding that
his own family were notorious for being roarers.
Eclipse also is said to have been a roarer. . .

A\Tiat then is to be done with tliese animals?
Abandon them to their fate? No, not so; hut
there is no necessity rashly to- undertake a hopeless
affair. All possible knowledge must be obtained
of the origin of the disease. Did it follow stran-
gles, catarrh, bronchitis, or any affection of the re-
spiratory passages ? Is it of long standing ? Is
it now accompanied by cough or any symptoms of
general or local irritation ? Can any disorganisa-
tion of these parts be detected ? Any distortion of
the larj'nx ? Did it follow breaking-in to harness ?
The answer to these questions will materially guide
any future proceedings. If there is plain distor-
tion of the larynx or trachea, or the disease can be
associated, in point of time, mth breaking-in to
harness, or the coachman or proprietor has been
accustomed to rein the animal in too tightly or too
craelly, or the sire was a roarer, it is almost use-
less to have anything to do with the case. But if
it is of rather recent date, and following closely on
some disease with wliich it can be clearly con-
nected, careful examination of the patient may be
commenced. Is there cough ? Can any heat or
tenderness be detected about the laiynx or trachea ?
Is there in eveiy part the same uniform rushing
noise ; or, on some particular spot, can a more
violent breathing, a wheezing or whistling, or a
rattling and gurgling, be detected? Is that
wheezing or rattling either confined to one spot,
or less sonoi'ous as the ear recedes from that spot
above or below ; or is it diffused over a consider-
able portion of the trachea?

In these cases it would be fair to bleed, purge.

and most certainly to blister. The ear will guide
to the part to which the blister should be applied.
The physio having set, a course of fever medicine
should be commenced. It should be considered as
a case of chronic inflammation, and to be subdued
by a continuance of moderate depletory measures.
Probably blood should again be abstracted in less
quantity ; a second dose of physic should be given,
and, most certainly, the blister should be repeated,
or kept dischaj-ging by means of some stimulating
unguent. The degree of success which attends
these measures would determine the farther pur-
eiiit of tbem. If no relief is obtained after a fort-
night or three weeks, perhaps the experimenter
would ponder on another mode of treatment. He
would again carefully explore the whole extent of
the trachea,. and if he could yet refer the rattle or
wheezing to the same point ■ at which he had
before observed it, he would boldly propose tra-
cheotomy, for he could certainly cut upon the seat
of disease. , . , - .

If he found oae of these organised bands, the
removal of it would afford immediate relief; or if
he found merely a thickened membrane, no harm
would be done ; or the loss of blood might abate
the local inflammation. No one would eagerly un-
dertake a case of roaring ; but, having undertaken
it, he should give the measures that he adopts a
fair trial, remembering that, in eveiy chronic case
like this, the only hope of success depends on per-

severance.

BHONCHOCELE.

Mr. Percivall is almost the only author who
takes notice of enlargement of the thyroid glands
— two oval bodies below the larynx, and attached
to the trachea. The use of them has never been
satisfactorily explained. They sometimes grow to
the size of an egg, or larger, but are unattended by
cough or fever, and are nothing more than an eye-
sore. The iodine ointment has occasionally been
applied with success. The blister or the seton may
also be useful.

EPIDEMIC C.A.TARRH,

Various names are given to this disease —
influenza, distemper, catarrhal fever, and epidemic
catarrh. Its usual history is as follows : —

In the spring of the year — a cold wet spring —
and that succeeding to a mild winter, and especially
among young horses, and those in high condition,
or made up for sale, or that have been kept in hot
stables, or exposed to the usual causes of inflamma-
tion, this disease piincipally and sometimes almost
exclusively prevails. Those that ai'e in moderate
work, and that are correspondingly fed, generally
escape ; or even when it appears in most of the
stables in a narrower or wider district, horses in
barracks, regularly worked and moderately fed,

370

THE HORSE.

although not entii-ely exempt, are comparatively
seldom diseased.

If it has been observed from the beginning, it
■will be found that the attack is usually sudden,
ushered in by shivering, and that quickly succeeded
by acceleration of pulse, heat of mouth, staling coat,
tucked-up belly, diminution of appetite, painful but
not loud cough, heaving at the Hanks, redness of
the membrane of the nose, swelled and weeping
eye, dejected countenance — these are the symp-
toms of catarrh, but under a somewhat aggravated
form.

It cleai-ly is not inflammation of the lungs ; for
there is no coldness of the e.xtremities, no looking
at the flanks, ho stiff immovable position, no obsti-
nate standing up. It is not simple catarrh ; for as
early as the second day there is evident debility.
The horse staggers as he walks.

It is inflammation of the respiratory passages
generally. It commences in the membrane of the
nose, but it gradually inrolves the whole of the
respiratory apparatus. Before the disease has
been established four-and-twenty hours, there is
frequently sore throat. The horse quids his hay, and
gulps his water. There is no great enlargement of
the glands ; the parotids are a little tumefied, the
subma.xillary somewhat more so, but not at all
equivalent to the degree of soreness. That sore-
ness is excessive, and day after day the horse will
obstinately refuse to eat. Discharge from the nose
soon follows in considerable quantity : tliick, very
early purulent, and sometimes foetid. The breath-
ing is accelerated and laborious at the beginning,
but does not always increase with the progress of
the disease — nay, sometimes, a deceitful calm suc-
ceeds, and the pulse, quickened and full at first,
soon loses its firmness, and although it usually
maintains its unnatural quickness, yet it occasion-
ally deviates from this, and subsides to little more
than its natural standard. The e.xtremities con-
tinue to be comfoilably warm, or at least the tem-
perature is variable, and there is not in the manner
of the animal, or in any one symptom, a decided
reference to any particular part or spot as the chief
seat of disease.

Thus the malady proceeds for an uncertain
period : occasionally for several days — iu not a few
instances through the whole of its course, and the
animal dies exhausted by extensive or general
irritation : but in other cases the inflammation
assumes a local determination, and we have bron-
chitis or pneumonia, but of no very acute character,
yet difficult to treat, from the general debility with
which it is connected. Sometimes there are con-
siderable swellings in various parts, as the chest,
the belly, the extremities, and particularly the
head. The brain is occasionally affected ; the
horse grows stupid ; the conjunctiva is alarmingly
red; the animal becomes gradually unconscious,

and delirium follows. A cui-ious thickening, that
may be mistaken for severe sprain, is sometimes
obsei-ved about the tendons. It is seen under the
knee or about the fetlock. It is hot and tender,
and the lameness is considerable. The feet occa-
sionally suffer severely. There is a determination
of fever to them far more violent than the original
disease, and sepai'ation of the laminae and descent
of the sole ensue. It may be easily imagined how
roaring may be connected with epidemic catarrh ;
but it is rarely or never followed by glandere.
These changes of situation are not fatal, but the
practitioner is rather glad to see them, except
indeed when the feet are attacked ; for the disease
seems inclined to shift its situation or character,
and is more easily subdued.

The most decided character in this disease is
debility. Not the stiff, unwillmg motion of the
horse with pneumonia, and which has been mis-
taken for debility — every muscle being needed for
the purposes of respiration, and therefore imper-
fectly used in locomotion — but actual loss of power
in the muscular system generally. The horse
staggers from the second day. He threatens to
fall if he is moved. He is sometimes down, per-
manently down, on the third or fourth day.
The emaciation is also occasionally rapid and
extreme.

At length the medical treatment which has
been employed succeeds, or nature begins to rally.
The cough somewhat subsides ; the pulse assumes
its natural standard ; the countenance acquires a
little more animation ; the horse will eat a small
quantity of some choice thing ; and health and
strength slowly, very slowly indeed, return : but
at other times, when there had been no decided
change during the progress of the disease, no
manageable metastasis of inflammation while
there was sufficient power left iu the constitution
to struggle with it, a strange exacerbation of symp-
toms accompanies the closing scene. The extre-
mities become deathy cold ; the flanks heave ; the
countenance betrays greater distress ; the mem-
brane of the nose is of an intense red ; and in-
flammation of the substance of the lungs and con-
gestion and death speedily follow.

At other times the redness of the nostril sud-
denly disappears ; it becomes purple, livid, dirty
brown, and the discharge is bloody and foetid, the
breath and all the excretions becoming foetid too.
The mild character of the disease gives way to
malignant typhus : swellings, and purulent ulcers,
spread over different parts of the frame, and the
animal is soon destroyed.

Post-mortem Examination. — Examination after
death sufficiently displays the real character of the
disease, inflammation first of the respiratory pas-
sages, and, in fatal oraggravated cases, of the mucous
membranes generally. From the pharynx, to the

THE HORSE.

871

termination of the small intestines, and often in-
cluding even the larger ones, there will not be a
part free from inflammation ; the upper part of the
trachea will be filled with adhesive spume, and
the hning membrane thickened, injected, or
ulcerated ; the lining tunic of the bronchi will
exhibit unequivocal marks of inflammation ; the
substance of the lungs will be engorged, and
often inflamed ; the heart wll partake of the same
aff'ection; its external coat will be red, or purple,
or black, and its internal one will exhibit spots of
ecchymosis; the pericai'dium will be tliickened,
and the pericardiac and pleuritic bags ^vill contain
an undue quantity of serous, or bloody serous, or
pui'ulent fluid.

The oesophagus will be inflamed, sometimes
ulcerated — the stomach always so ; the small in-
testines will uniformly present patches of inflam-
mation or ulceration. The liver will be inflamed
— the spleen enlarged — no part, indeed, will have
escaped ; and if the malady has assumed a typhoid
form in its latter stages, the universality and ma-
lignancy of the ulceration will be excessive.

This disease is clearly attributable to atmos-
pheric influence, but of the precise nature of tliis
influence we are altogether ignorant. It is some
foreign injurious principle which mingles with and
contaminates the air, but whence this poison is
derived, or how it is diffused, we know not. It is
engendered, or it is most prevalent, in cold unge-
nial weather; or this weather may dispose the
patient for catarrh, or prepare the tissues to be
affected by causes which would otherwise be harm-
less, or which ma}' at all times exist.

It is most frequent in the spring of the year,
but it occasionally rages in autumn and in winter.
It is epidemic ; it spreads over large districts. It
sometimes pervades the whole country. Scarcely
a stable escapes. Its appearance is sudden, its
progress rapid. Mr. Wilkinson had thirty-six new
cases in one day. It is said that a celebrated prac-
titioner in London had nearly double that number
in less than twenty-four hours.

At other times it is endemic. It pervades one
town ; one little tract of countiy. It is coufmed
to spots exceedingly circumscribed. It is dependent
on atmospheric agency, but this requires some in-
jurious adjuvant and the principle of contagion
nmst probably be called into play. It has been
rife enough in the lower parts of the metropolis,
while in the upper and north-western districts
scarcely a case has occurred. It has occasionally
been confined to a locality not extending half-a-mile
in any du-ection. In one of the cavalry barracks
the majority of the horses on one side of the yard
were attacked by epidemic catarrh, while there was
not a sick horse on the other side. These preva-
lences of disease, and these exceptions, are alto-
gether unaccountable. The stables, and the system

of stable management, have been most carefully
inquired into in the infected and the healthy dis-
tricts, and no satisfactory difference can be as-
certained. One fact, however, has been established,
and a very important one it is to the horse pro-
prietor as well as the practitioner. The probability
of the disease seems to be in proportion to the
number of horses inhabiting the stable. Two or
three horses shut up in a comparatively close
stable may escape. Out of thirty horses, distri-
buted through ten or fifteen little stables, not one
may be affected ; but in a stable containing ten or
twelve horses the disease \vill assuredly appear,
although it may be proportionally larger and well
ventilated. It is on this account that postmasters
and horse-dealers dread its ajjpearance. In a
sickly season their stables are never free from it;
and if, perchance, it does enter one of their largest
stables, almost eveiy horse will be affected.
Therefore also it is that grooms have so much
dread of a distempered stable, and that the odds
are so seriously affected if distemper has broken
out in a racing establishment.

Does this lead to the conclusion that epidemic
catarrh is contagious ? Not necessarily, but it ex-
cites strong suspicion of its being so ; and there
are so many facts of the disease following the in-
troduction of a distempered horse into an establish-
ment, that this malady must rank among those that
are botli contagious and epidemic. There are few
well-informed grooms, or extensive owners of horses,
and living much among them, or veterinary sur-
geons of considerable practice, who entertain the
least doubt about the matter. Then every neces-
sary caution should be adopted. Tlie horse that
exhibits symptoms of epidemic catarrh should be
removed as soon as possible. The aflected horses
should be removed, and not the sound ones, for
they, although apparently sound, may have the
malady lurldug about them, and may more widely
propagate the disease.

With regard to the treatment of epidemic
catarrh there may be, and is at times, considerable
difficulty. It is a disease of the mucous mem-
brane, and thus connected with much debility ; but
it is also a disease of a febrile chai-acter, and the
inflammation is occasionally intense. The vete-
rinary surgeon, therefore, must judge for himself.
Is the disease in its eaiiiest stage marked by evi-
dent inflammatory action ? Is there much redness
in the membrane of the nose — much acceleration
of the pulse — much heaving of the flanks ? If so,
blood must be abstracted. The orifice should be
lai'ge that the blood may flow quickly, and the cir-
culation be sooner affected ; and the medical
attendant should be present at this firet venesec-
tion that he may close the orifice as soon as the
pulse begins to falter. This attention to the first
bleeding is indispensable. It is the carelessness

;372

THE HORSE.

■with which it is performed — the ignorance of the
object to be acconiphshed, and the effect actually
produced, that destroj's half the horses that are
lost from this malady. The first falter of the
pulse is the signal to suspend the bleeding. Every
drop lost afterwards may be wanted.

If there is no appearance of febrile action, or
only a very slight one, small doses of aloes may be
given, combined with the fever medicines recom-
mended for catarrh. As soon as the faeces are
pultaceous, or even before that, the aloes should
be omitted and the fever medicine continued. It
will rarely be pradent to continue the aloes be-
yond the third drachm.

A stricter attention must be paid to diet than
the veterinarian usually enforces, or the groom
dreams of. No corn must be allowed, but mashes
and thin gruel. The water should be entirely
taken away, and a bucket of gruel suspended in
the box. This is an excellent plan with, regard to
every sick horse that we do not wish to,,r6duce too
much ; and when he finds that the morning and
evening pass over, and his water is not offered to
him, he will readily take to the gruel, and driuk
as much of it as is good for him. Green meat
should be early offered; such as grass, tares (the
latter especially), lucerne, and, above all, carrots.
If these cannot be procured, a little hay may be
wetted, and offered morsel after morsel by the
hand. Should this be refused, the hay may be
damped with water slightly salted, and then the
patient will generally seize it with avidity.

Should the horse refuse to eat during the two
or three first days, there is no occasion to be in a
hulry to drench with gniel; it will make the
mouth sore, and the throat sore, and tease and
disgust : but if he should long continue obsti-
nately to refuse his food, nutriment must be
forced upon him. Good thick gruel must be
horned down, or, what is better, given by means of
Bead's pump.

The practitioner will often and anxiously have
recourse to auscultation. He will listen for the
mucous rattle, creeping down the windpipe, and
entering the bronchial passages. If he cannot
detect it below the larynx, he will apply a strong
blister, reaching from ear to ear, and extending to
the second or third ring of the trachea. If he can
trace the rattle in the windpipe, he must follow
it, — he must blister as far as the disease has
spread. This will often have an excellent effect,
not only as a counter-irritant, but as rousing the
languid powers of the constitution. A rowel of
tolerable size between the fore legs cannot do
harm. It may act as a derivative, or it may take
away .a disposition to inflammation in the contigu-
ous portion of the chest.

The inflammation which characterizes the
early stage of this disease is at first confined to

the menibrane of the mouth and the fauces. Can
fomentations be applied ? Yes, and to the very
part, by means of a hot mash, not thrown into the
manger over which the head of the horse cannot
be confined, but placed in that too-much-under-
valued and discarded article of stable-funiiture,
the nose-bag. The vapour of the water will, at
every inspiration, pass over the inflamed surface.
In the majority of cases relief will speedily be
obtained, and that suppuration from the part so
necessaiy to the permanent removal of the in-
flammation— a copious discharge of mucous or
purulent matter from the nostrils — will be has-
tened. If the discharge does not appear so
speedily as could be wished, a stimulant should be
applied to the part. The vapour impregnated with
turpentine arising from fresh yellow deal saw-
dust, used instead of bran, will have very consi-
derable effect in quickening and increasing the
suppuration. It may even be resorted to almost
from the beginning, if there is not evidently much
irritability of membrane.

A hood is a useful article of clothing in these
cases. It increases the perspiration from the sur-
face covering the inflamed part — a circumstance
always of considerable moment.

An equable warmth should be preserved, if
possible, over the whole body. The hand-brush
should be gently used every day, and harder and
more effectual rubbing applied to the legs. The
patient should, Jf possible, be placed in a loose
box, in which he may toddle about, and take a
little exercise, and out of which he should rarely,
if at all, be taken. The exercise of which the
gi-oom is so fond in these cases, and which must
in the most peremptory terms be forbidden, has
destroyed thousands of horses. The air should
be fresh and uncontaminated, but never chilly ;
for the object is to increase and not to repress
cutaneous perspiration ; to produce, if possible, a
determination of blood to the skin, and not to
drive it to the part already too much overloaded.
In order to accomplish this, the clothing should
be rather warmer than usual.

The case may proceed somewhat slowly, and
not quite satisfactorily to the practitioner or his
employer. There is not much fever — there is
little or no local inflammation : but there is great
emaciation and debility, and total loss of appetite.
The quantity of the sedative may then be lessened
but not omitted altogether ; for the fire may not
be extinguished, although for a little while con-
cealed. There are no diseases so insidious and
treacherous as these. Mild and vegetable tonics,
such as gentian and ginger, may be given. Two
days after this the sedative -may be altogether
omitted, and the tonic gradually increased.

The feeding should now be sedulously at-
tended to. Almost every kind of green meat that

THE IIOKSE.

,^73

can be obtiiined should be given, particularly car-
rots nicely scraped and sliced. The food should
be changed as often as the capricious appetite
prompts ; and occasionally, if necessary, the pa-
tient should be forced with gruel as thick as it
will run from the horn, but the gradual return of
health should be well assured, before one morsel
of com is given.*

A very few weeks ago, the author received
from his friend, Mr. Percivall, the following ac-
count of a new and destnictive epidemic among
horses : —

" From the close of the past year and the be-
ginning of the present, up to the time I am writ-
ing, the influenza among horses has continued
to prevail in the metropolis and different parts
of the country with more or less fatality. In
Loudon it has assumed the form of laryngitis, as-
sociated in some instances with hronchitis; in
others — in all I believe where it has proved fatal
— with pleurisy. The parenchymatous structure
of the lungs has not partaken of the disease, or
but consecutively and slightly. The earliest and
most characteristic symptom has been sore throat;
causing troublesome dry short cough, but rarely
occasioning any difficulty of deglutition, and, in no
instance that I have seen, severe or extensive
enough to produce anything like disgorgement or
return of the masticated matters through the
nose, and yet the slightest pressure on the larynx
has excited an act of coughing. But seldom has
any glandular enlargement appeared. The symp-
tom secondarily remarkable after the sore throat
and cough has been a dispiritedness or dulness,
for which most epidemics of the kind are remark-
able. The animal, at the time of sickening, has
hung his head under the manger, with his eyes
half shut, and his lower lip pendent, without
, evincing any alarm or even much notice, though a
person entered his abode or approached him ; and
if in a box, his head is often found during his ill-
ness turned towards the door or window. Fever,
without any disturbance of the respiration, has
always been present ; the pulse has been acce-
lerated, though rather small and weak in its beat
than indicative of strength ; the mouth has been
hot, sometimes burning hot, afterwards moist, and
perhaps saponaceous ; the skin and extremities in
general have been warm. Now and then the pros-
tration and appearance of debility have been such,
and so rapid in their manifestation, that, shortly
after being attacked, a horse has staggeringly
walked twenty yards only — the distance from his
stable into an infirmary-box. The appetite, though

* An interesting account of ppidcmic among horses will be
found in the .\ssocialiini Piirt of " Tlie Veterinarian," vols. xii.
and XV. A work, by the author of litis treatise, is in preparation,
on the epidemics that have prevailed among all our domesticated
animals.

VOL. I.

impaired much, has seldom been altogether lost.
Generally, if a little fresh hay has been offered, it
has been taken and eaten ; but to mashes there
has been commonly great aversion. During the
long continuance of the wind in the east, the sore
throat and cough have been unattended by any flu.x
from the nose ; but since the wind has shifted
within this last fortnight or three weeks, dis-
charges from the nostrils have appeared, profuse
even in quantity, and punilent in their nature : in
fact, the disease has assumed a more catarrhal
character — ergo, I might add, a more fiivourable
one.

" The disorder has exhibited every phase and
degree of intensity, from the slightest perceivable
dulness, which has passed off with simply a change
in the diet, to an insidious, unyielding, unsubdua-
ble pleurisy, ending in hydrothorax, in spite of
everything that could be dcjue, and most timely
done. So long as the disease has confined itself
to the throat, and that there has been along with
that only dejection, prostration, and fever, there
has existed no cause for alarm ; but when such
symptoms have, after some days' conlinuanee, not
abated, and have, on the contrary, rather in-
creased, and others have arisen which but too
well have authorised suspicions that ' mischief
was brewing in the chest,' then there became the
strongest reasons for alarm for the safety of the
patient. What is now to be done ? The practi-
tioner durst not bleed a second time, at least not
generally, for the patient's strength would not en-
dure it, although he is certain a pleurisy is con-
suming his patient. He possesses no effectual
means for topical blood-letting. Neither blisters
nor rowels, nor plugs nor setous, will take any
effect. Cathartic medicine he must not admi-
nister ; nauseants are uncertain and doubtful in
their efficacy ; sedatives, tonics, and stimulants,
and narcotics, appear counter-indicated, inflam-
mation existing, and, when tried under such cir-
cumstances, have, I believe, never failed to do
harm.

"Dissatisfied with one and all of these reme-
dies in the late influenza — though the losses I
have experienced have, after all, not been so very
comparatively great, being no more, since the be-
ginning of the year, 1;han three out of nearl}' forty
cases — I repeat, having, as I thought, reason to
be dissatisfied for losing even these three cases,
considering that they came under my care at the
earliest period of indisposition, 1 determined, in
any similar cases that might occur, to have re-
course to that medicine which, in all membranous
inflammations in particular, is the physician's
sheet-anchor, and which I had exhibited, ami still
continue to do, myself, in other disorders, though
I had never given it a fair trial in epidemics hav-
ing that tendency which I have described the

B n

374

THE HORSE.

present one uniformly to have indicated, viz., the
destruction of life by an inflammation attacking
membranous parts, of a nature over which, being
forbidden to bleed, we appeared to possess little
or no power. Could we have drawn blood from
the sides or breast, by cupping or by leeches, in
any tolerable quantity, we might have had some
control over the internal disease ; but barred from
this, and without any remedy save a counter-irri-
tant, which we could not make act, or an internal
medicine, whose action became e.xtremel}' dubious,
if not positively hurtful, what was to be done ? I

repeat, I made up my mind to experiment with
the surgeon's i-emedy in the same disease, namely,

mercury ; and that I have had reason to feel gra-
tified at the result will, I think, appear from the

following cases : —

" Case I. — April 8. Every symptom of the

prevailing epidemic : and considerably aggravated

on the lOtli, when the horse laboured under much

prostration of strength, and staggered considerably

in his gait. The following ball was then ordered

to be given him twice a day : R Hydrarg. chlorid.

3i, fariu. aveure S ss. terebinth, vulg. q. s. ut fiat

bol. One to be given morning and night. He

soon began to improve ; and was returned to the

stable on the '20th, convalescent. A second pa-
tient of the same character was cured in eighteen

days, and a third in nineteen days." The author

of this work had the pleasure of witnessing these

cases.

Mr. Percivall adds, " Lest it should be said,

after the perusal of these three cases, that they

do not appear to have been of a dangerous cha- _

racter, or to have acquired anything out of the | turists were alarmed by this destruction of their

THE MALIGNANT EPIDEMIC.

Continental veterinarians describe a malignant
variety or termination of this disease, and the im-
perfect history of veterinary medicine in Bri-
tain is not without its records of it. So lately as
the year 1815, an epidemic of a malignant cha-
racter reigned among horses. Three out of five
who were attacked died. It reappeared in 1823,
but was not so fatal. It was said that the horses
that died were ultimately farcied : the truth was,
that swellings and ulcerations, with foetid dis-
charge, appeared in various parts, or almost all
over them — the natural swellings of the com-
plaint which has just been considered, but aggra-
vated and malignant. Our recollection of the
classic lore of our early yeai-s will furnish us -with
instances of the same pest in distant times and
countries. We have not forgotten the vivid
description of Apollo darting his fieiy arrows
among the Greeks, and involving in one common
destruction the human being, the mule, the horse,
the o.\, and the dog. Lucretius, when describing
the plague at Athens, speaks of a malignant
epidemic affecting almost every animal —

Nor loDger birds at noon, nor beasts at night
Their native woods deserted ; with the pest
Remote they languished, and full frequent died :
But chief the dog his generous strength resigned.

In 1714, a malignant epidemic was imported
from the Continent, and in the course of a few
months destroj'ed 70,000 horses and cattle. It
continued to visit other countries, with but short
intervals, for fifty years aftenvards. Out of evil,
however, came good. The continental agrieul-

ordinary line of treatment, I beg to obsei-ve, that
at the periods at which I submitted them to the
action of mercury, they so much resembled three
others that had preceded them, and the disease
had proved fatal, that, under a continuance of
treatment of any ordinary kind, I certainly should
have entertained fears for their safety.

" It must be remembered that they were cases
in which blood-letting, except at the commence-
ment, was altogether foi-bidden ; and that at the
critical period when mercury was introduced they
had taken an unfavourable turn, and that nothing
in the shape of i-emedy appeared available save
internal medicine and cuunter-irritation, and that
the latter had not and did not show results be-
tokening the welfare of the patients. Under
these circumstances the mercury was exhibited.
That it entered the system, and must have had
more or less influence on the disease, appears
evident from its effect on the gums. That it
proved the means of cure, I cannot, from so few
cases, take upon myself to assert ; but I would
recommend it in similar cases to the notice of
practitioners."

property. The different governments participated
in the terror, and veterinary schools were estab-
lished, in which the anatomy and diseases of these
animals might be studied, and the cause and"
treatment of these periodical pests discovered.
From the time that this branch of medical science
began to receive the attention it desen'ed, these
epidemics, if they have not quite ceased, have
changed their character, and have become com-
paratively mild and manageable. As, however,
they yet occur, and are far too fatal, we must en-
deavoiu- to collect the symptoms, and point out the
treatment of them.

The malignant epidemic was almost uniformly
ushered in by inflammation of the mucous mem-
brane of the respiratory passages, but soon involv-
ing other portions, and then ensued . a dian'hoea,
which no art could -arrest. The fever, acute at
first, rapidly passed over, and was succeeded by
a great prostration of strength. The inflammation
then spread to the cellular te.xture, and there was
a peculiar disposition to the formation of phlegm-
onous tumours : sometimes there were pustular
eruptions, but, oftener, deep-seated tumours rapidly

THE HORSE.

875

proceeding to suppuration. Connected wth this
was a strong tendency to decomposition, and unless
the animal was relieved by some critical flux or
evacuation, malignant typhus was established, and
the horse speedily sunk.

The most satisfactory account of one of these
epidemics is given us by Professor Bnignone, of
Turin. It commenced with loss of appetite,
staring coat, a wild and wandering look, and a
staggering from the very commencement. The
horse would continually lie down and get up
again, as if tormented by colic, and he gazed alter-
nately at both Hanks. In the moments of comjiara-
tive ease, there were universal twitchings of the
skin, and spasms of the limbs. The temperature
of the ears and feet was variable. If there hap-
pened to be about the animal any old wound
or scar from setouing or firing, it opened afresh
and discharged a quantity of thick and black
blood. Very shortly afterwards the flanks, which
were quiet before, began to heave, the nostrils
were dilated, the head extended for breath. The
horse had by this time become so weak that, if he
lay or fell down he could rise no more ; or if he
was up, he would stand trembling, staggering, and
threatening to fall every moment. The mouth
was dry, the tongue white, and the breath fcetid ;
a discharge of 3'ellow or bloody foetid matter pro-
ceeded from the nose, and foetid blood from the
anus. The duration of the disease did not usually
exceed twelve or twenty-four hours ; or if the ani-
mal lingered on, swellings of the head and throat,
and sheath, and scrotum, followed, and he died
exhausted or in convulsions.

Black spots of extravasation were found in the
cellular membrane, in the tissue of all the mem-
branes, and on the stomach. The mesenteric and
lymphatic glands were engorged, black and gan-
grenous. The membrane of the nose and the
pharynx was lughly injected, the lungs were tilled
with black and frothy blood, or with black and
livid spots. The brain and its meninges were
unaltered.

It commenced in March, 1783. The barracks
tlien continued one hundred and sixteen horses ;
all but thirteen were attacked, and seventy-eight of
them died. The horses of both the officers and men
were subject to the attack of it ; and three horses
from the town died, two of w^hich had drawn the carls
that conveyed the carcasses away, and the other
stood under a window, from which the dung of an
infected stable had been thrown out. The disease
would probably have spread, but the most summary
measures for arresting its progress were adopted ;
3very hoi-se in the town was killed that had had
the slightest communication with those in the
barracks. One horse was inoculated with the pus
discharged from the ulcer of an infected horee, and
he died. A portion of his thymus gland was

introduced under the skin of another horse, and he
also died.

Cause. — The disease was supposed to be con-
nected with the food of the horses. All the oats
had been consumed, and the loliuni temulentum,
or awiied darnel, had been given instead. It is
said that the darnel is occasionally used by brewers
to give an intoxicating quality to their malt liquor.
For fifteen days no alteration of health was per-
ceived, and then, in less than eighteen hours,
nearly forty perished. The stables were not
crowded, and there was no improper treatment.
A man disinterred some of the horses to get at the
fat ; swellings rapidly appeared in his throat, and
he died in two days. A portion of their flesh was
given to two pigs and some dogs, and they died.

M. Brugnone found that bleeding only accele-
rated the death of the patient. He afterwards
tried, and ineffectually, acids, cordials, purgatives,
vesicatories, and the actual cautery ; and he frankly
attributes to the power of nature the recovery
of the few who survived.

Gilbert's Account of the Epidemic of 1795. —
M. Gilbert describes a malignant epidejnic which
appeared in Paris in 1795, characterised by dul-
ness, loss of appetite, weakness, pulse at first
rapid and full, and afterwards continuing rapid,
but gradually becoming small, weak, and intermit-
tent. The bowels at first constipated, and then
violent purging succeeding. The weakness rapidly
increasing, accompanied by foetid breath, and
foetid evacuations. Tumours soon appeared about
the limbs, under the chest, and in the head, the
neck and loins. If they suppurated and burst, the
animal usually did well; but otherwise he inevitably
perished. The formation of these tumours was
critical. If they rapidly advanced, it was con-
sidered as a favoiu-able symptom ; but if they con-
tinued obscure, a fatal termination was prognosti-
cated.

Bleeding, even in an early stage, seemed here
also to be injurious, and increased the debility.
Physic was given, and mild and nutritiuus food,
gruel, and cordials. Deep incisions were made
into the tumours, and the cautery apidied. Stimu-
lating frictions were also used, but all were of little
avail.

These cases have been narrated at considerable
length, in order to give some idea of the nature of
this disease, and because, with the exception of
a short but very excellent account of the malig-
nant epidemic in the last edition of Mr. Blaine's
Veterinary Outlines, there will not be found any
satisfactory history of it in the writings of our
English veterinarians. It is evidently a disease
of the mucous membranes, both the respiratory
and digestive. It is accompanied by early and
great debility, loss of all vital power, vitiation
of evei"y secretion, effusions and tumours every-

B B !J

376

THE HORSE.

SO hard as in pleurisy, more so than in catarrh,
and much more so than in pneumonia. The res-
piration should next be examined, abundantly
more rapid than in catarrh, pneumonia, or pleurisy ;
generally as rapid and often more so than the
pulse, and accompanied by a wheezing sound,
heard at some distance. Mr. Percivall relates
a case in which the respiration was more than one
hundred in a minute. Mr. C. Percivall describes
an interesting case in which the respiration was
quick in the extreme ; and he remarks that he
does "not remember to have seen a horse with his
repiration so disturbed."

In addition to these clearly characteristic
symptoms, will be observed a haggard countenance,
to which the anxious look of the horse labouring
under inflammation of the lungs cannot for a
moment be compared ; also an evident dread of
suffocation, expressed, not by inability to move,
as in pneumonia, but frequently an obstinate
refusal to do so ; cough painful in the extreme ;
breath hot, yet no marked pain in the part, and
no looking at the side or flanks.

As the disease proceeds, there will be consi-
derable discharge from the nostrils, much more
than in catarrh, because greater extent of mem-
brane is affected. It will be muco-purulent at
first, but -will soon become amber-coloured or
green, or greyish green ; and that not from any
portion of the food being returned, but from the
peculiar hue of the secretion from ulcers in the
bronchial passages. Small organized pieces will
mingle with the discharge, — portions of mucus
condensed and hardened, and forced from the
inside of the tube. If the disease proceeds, the
discharge becomes bloody, and then, and some-
times earlier, it is foetid.

The natural termination of this disease, if un-
checked, is in pneumonia. Although we cannot
tra(« the air- tubes to their termination, the inflam-
mation will penetrate into the lobuli, and affect
the membranes of the air-cells or divisions which
they contain. There is metastasis of inflammation
oftener here than in pure pneumonia, and the dis-
ease is most frequently transferred to the feet. If,
however, there is neither pneumonia nor metas-
tasis of inflammation, and the disease pursues its
course, the animal dies from suffocation. If the
air-passages are clogged, there can be no supply of
arterial ized blood.

Like every other inflammation of the respira-
torj- passages, bronchitis is clearly epidemic.
There is a disposition to inflammation in the res-
piratoiy apparatus generally, but it depends on
some unknown atmospheric influence whether this
shall take on the form of catarrh, bronchitis, or
pneumonia. It has not, however, been yet proved
the diagnosis — mure rapid than in catarrh, much I to be contagious,
more sj than in the early stage of pneumonia: not I Here again the first step will be to bleed; and

where, and it runs its course with fearful rapidity.
If it was seen at its outset, the practitioner would
probably bleed ; but if a few hours only had
elapsed, he would find, with Messrs. Brugnoue
aud Gilbert, that venesection would only hasten
the catastro[jhe. Stimulants should be adminis-
tered mingled with opium, aud the spirit of nitrous
ether in doses of three or four ounces, with an
ounce or move of laudanum. The quantity of
opium should be regulated by the spasms and the
diarrhffia. These medicines should be repeated in
a few hours, combined, perhaps, with ginger and
gentian. If these failed, there is little else to be
done. Deep incisions into the tumours, or blisters
over them, might be proper measures ; but the
principal attention should be directed to the arrest-
ing of the contagion. The infected should be
immediately removed from the healthy ; all offen-
sive matter should be carefully cleared away, and
no small portion of chloride of lime used in wash-
ing the animal, and particularly his ulcers. It
might with great propriety be administered inter-
nally, while the stable and everything that belonged
to the patient, should undergo a careful ablution
with the same powerful disinfectant.

BRONCHITIS.

This is not generally a primary disease. That
inflammation of the superior respiratoi-y passages,
constituting catarrh, gradually creeps downwards
and involves the larjTix and the trachea, and at
length, possibly the farthest and the minutest
ramifications of the air-tubes. When it is found
to be thus advancing, its progress should be care-
fully watched by the assistance of auscultation.
The distant murnuu- of the healthy lung cannot be
mistaken, nor the crepitating sound of pneumonia ;
and in bronchitis the blood may be heard filtering
or breaking through the divisions of the lobuli,
and accounting for that congestion or filling of the
cells with mucus and blood, which is found after
intense inflammation. Inflammation precedes this
increased discharge of mucus. Even that may be
detected. The inflamed membrane is thickened
and tense. It assumes an almost cartilaginous
structure, and the murmur is not only louder, but
has a kind of snoring sound. Some have imagined
that a sound like a metallic ring is mingled with
it ; but this is never very distinct.

The interrupted whizzing sound has often and
clearly indicated a case of bronchitis, and there
are many corroborative symptoms which should be
regarded. The variable temperature of the extre-
mities will be an important guide- — not deathy
cold as in pneumonia, nor of increased temperature
as often in catarrh, but with a tendency to cold-
ness, yet this varying much. The pulse will assist

THE IIOKSE.

377

]iere too will be the paramount necessity of the
personal attendance of some well-informed person
while the animal is bled. This is a disease of
a mucous, — and an extended mucous surface ; and
while our measures must be prompt, there is a
tendency to debility which we should never forget.
Although the horse may be distressed quite to the
e.Ktent which Mr. Charles Percivall describes, yet
he woidd not bear the loss of four pounds of blood
without feinting. No determinate quantity of
blood will therefore be taken, but the vein will not
be closed until the pulse falters, and the animal
staggers, and in a muiute or two would fall. This
may probably effect the desired object; if it does
not, it is possible that the practitioner may not
have a second opportunity.

The medical attendant should be cautious in
the administration of purgatives, for the reasons
that have again and again been stated ; but if the
bowels are evidently constipated, small doses of
aloes must be given with the febrifuge medicine,
and their speedy action promoted by injections, so
that a small quantity may suffice.

A blister is always indicated in bronchitis. It
can never do harm, and it not unfrequently affords
decided relief. It should extend over the brisket
and sides, and up the trachea to the larynx. The
food, if the horse is disposed to eat, should be
mashes. No com should be offered, nor should
the horse be coaxed to eat.

PNEUMONIA INFLAMMATION OF THE LUNGS.

The intimate structure of the lungs has never
been satisfactorily demonstrated. They appear,
however, to be composed of minute cells or pouches,
into which the air is at length conducted, and over
the delicate membrane constituting the divisions
of which myriads of minute blood-vessels are rami-
fying. The blood is not merely permeating them,
but it is undergoing a vital change in them ; there
is a constant decomposition of the air, or of the
blood, or of both ; and, during the excitement of
exercise, that decomposition proceeds with fearful
rapidity. Then it can readily be conceived that a
membrane so delicate as this must be, in order
that its interposition shall be no hindrance to the
arterialisation of the blood : so fragile also, and so
loaded with blood-vessels, will be exceedingly sub-
ject to inflammation, and that of a most dangerous
character.

Inflammation of the substance of the limgs is
the not unfrequent consequence of all the diseases
of the respiratory passages that have been treated
on. Catarrh, influenza, bronchitis, if neglected or
badly managed, or, sometimes in spite of the most
skilful treatment, will spread along the mucous
membrane, and at length involve the termination
of the air-passages. At other times, there is pure
pneumonia. This cellular texture is the primary

scat of inflammation. It is often so in the ovcr-
woriicd horse. After a long and hard day's hiuit,
it is very common for horses to be attacked by
pure pneumonia. A prodigiously increased quantity
of blood is hurried through these small vessels,
for the vast expenditure of arterial blood in rapid
progression must be provided for. These minutest
of the capillaries are distended and irritated, their
contractile power is destroyed, inflammation is
produced, mechanical injury is effected, tlie ves-
sels are ruptured, blood is poured iuto the inter-
stitial texture, and intense inflanmiatioii and con-
gestion, with all their train of fatal consequences,
ensue.

The following are the most frequent causes of
pneumonia. A sudden transition from heat to
cold ; a change from a warm stable to a colder one;
a neglect of the usual clothing ; a neglect even of
some little comforts ; riding far and fast against a
cold wind, especially in snowy weather ; loitering
about when unusual perspiration has been excited ;
loitering tediously by the side of a covert on a
chilly blowing moming.

It has not mifrequently happened that when
horses have been turned out too early to grass, or
without gradual preparation, pneumonia has super-
vened. Few are, under any management, so
subject to pneumonia as those who, in poor con-
dition and without preparation, ai'e turned into a
salt-marsh.

On the other hand, a sudden and considerable
change from cold to lieat may be followed by
inflammation of the lungs. llany horses perish
in the dealers' stables from this cause. The cir-
culation is considerably quickened ; more blood,
and that with more than natural rapidity, is driven
through the lungs, previously disposed to take on
inflammatoiy action. The sudden removal from a
heated stable to the cold air, for the purpose of
examination, has also much to do with the produc-
tion of disease.

Whether it is the consequence of previous
disease of the respiratoiy passages, or that in-
flammation first appears in the celhdar texture of
the lungs, pneumonia is usually ushered in by a
shivering fit. The horse is cold all over ; this,
however, soon passes off, and we have general
warmth, or heat of the skin above the usuid tem-
perature, but accompanied by coldness of the
extremities — intense deathy coldness. This is a
perfectly diagnostic symptom. It will never de-
ceive. It is an early symptom. It is found when
there is little or no constitutional disturbance ;
when the pulse is scarcely affected, and the flanks
heave not at all , but the horse is merely supposed
to be dull and off his feed. It is that by which
the progress of the disease may be unhesitatingly
marked, when many scarcely suspect its existence.

The pulse is not always at first much increased

878

THE HOESE.

in rapiilitv, and but rarely or never hard ; but it is
obscure, oppressed. The heart is labouring to
accomplish its object ; the circulation through the
lungs is impeded ; the vessels are engorged — they
are often ruptured ; blood is extravasated into the
air-cells ; it accumulates in the right side of the
heart and in the larger vessels ; and in the veuous
circulation generally there is a mechanical obstmc-
tion which the heart has not power to overcome.
Hence the obscure, oppressed pulse ; the inetfectual
attempt to urge on the blood ; and hence, too, the
remarkable result of bleeding in inflammation of
the lungs, for the pulse becomes rounder, fuller,
(luiclier. When blood is abstracted, a portion of
the opposing force is removed, and the heart
being enabled to accomplish its object, the pulse
is developed.

It is only, however, in the early insidious stage
that the flanks are occasionally quiet. If the
compressibility of the lungs is diminished by the
thickening of the membrane, or the engorgement
of the vessels, or the filling of the cells, it will be
harder work to force the air out ; there must be a
stronger effcirt, and that pressure which cannot be
accomplished by one effort is attempted over and
over again. The respiration is quickened — labori-
ous ; the inspiration is lengthened ; the expiration
is rapid; and when, after all, the lungs cannot be
compressed by the usual means, every muscle that
can be brought to bear upon the part is called into
action. Hence the horse will not lie down, for he
can use the muscles of the spine and the shoulder
with most advantage as he stands ; hence, too, the
verj' peculiar stiffness of position — the disinclina-
tion to move. The horse with decided pneumonia
can scarcely be induced to move at all ; he cannot
spare for a moment the assistance which he derives
from certain muscles, and he will continue obsti-
nately to stand until he falls exhausted or dying.
How eagerly does the veterinarian ask, when he
goes into the stable — " Was he down last night?"
And he concludes, that much progress has not
been made towards amendment in the case when
the answer is in the negative. When the patient,
wearied out, lies down, it is only for a moment ;
for if the inflammation is not subdued, he cannot
dispense with the auxiliary muscles. He fre-
quently, and with doleful expression, looks at his
sides— at one side or at both, accordingly as one
or both are involved. There is not, however, the
decidedly haggard countenance of bronchitis ; and
in bronchitis the horse rai-ely or never gazes
at his flanks. His is a dread of suScJcation more
than a feeling of pain. The head is protinided,
and the nostrils distended, and the mouth and the
breath intensely hot. The nose is injected from
the eariiest period ; and soon afterwards there is
not merely injection, but the membrane is imiformly
and intensely red. The variation in this intensity

is anxiously marked by the observant practitioner;
and he regards with fear and with despair the livid
or dirty brownish hue that gradually creeps on.

The unfavourable symptoms are, increased
coldness of the ears and feet, if that be possible ;
partial sweats, grinding of the teeth, evident weak-
ness, staggeiing, the animal not lying down. The
pulse becomes quicker, and weak and fluttering ;
the membrane of the nose paler, hut of a dirty
hue ; the animal growing stupid, comatose. At
length he falls, but he gets uji immediately. For
awhile he is up and down almost every minute,
until he is no longer able to rise ; he struggles
severely ; he piteously groans ; the pulse becomes
more rapid, fainter, and he dies of suffocation. The
disease sometimes runs its course with strange ra-
pidity. A horse has been destroyed by pure
pneumonia in twelve hours. The vessels ramify-
ing over the cells have yielded to the fearful impulse
of the blood, and the lungs have presented one
mass of congestion.

The favourable symptoms are, the return of a
little warmth to the extremities — the circulation
beginning again to assume its natural character,
and, next to this, the lying down quietly and with-
out uneasiness ; showing us that he is beginning
to do without the auxihaiy muscles. These are
good symptoms, and they will rarely deceive.

Congestion is a frequent termination of pneu-
monia. Not only are the vessels gorged — the
congestion wiiich accompanies common inflamma-
tion— but their parietes are necessarily so thin, in
order that the change in the blood may take place
although they are interposed, that they are easily
ruptured, and the cells are filled with blood. This
eflused blood soon coagulates, and the lung, when
cut into, presents a black, softened, pulpy kind of
appearance, termed, by the farrier and the groom,
rottenness, and being supposed by them to indicate
an old disease. It proves only the violence of the
disease, the rupture of many a vessel surcharged
with blood ; and it also proves that the disease is
of recent date, for in no great length of time, the
serous portion of the blood becomes absorbed, the
more solid one becomes organized, the cells are
obliterated, and the lung is hepatized, or bears
considerable resemblance to liver.

In every case of pneumonia, early and anxious
recourse should be had to auscultation. Here,
again, is the advantage of being perfectly ac-
quainted with the deep distinct murmur presented
by the healthy lung. This sound is most distinct
in the young horse, and especially if he is a little
out of condition. On such a horse the tyro should
commence his study of the exploration of the
chest. There he will make himself best acquainted
with the respiratory murmur in its full state of
development. He should next take an older and
somewhat fatter horse ; he will there recognise the

THE HOUSE.

379

same sound, but fainter, more distant. In still
older animals, there will sometimes be a little
difficulty in detecting it at all. Repeated ex-
periments of this kind Avill gradually teach the
examiner what kind of healthy murmur he should
expect from evety horse that is presented to him,
and thus he will be better enabled to appreciate
the different sounds exhibited under disease.

If pneumonia exists to any considerable degree,
this murmur is soon changed for, or mingled with,
a curious crepitating sound, which, having been
once heard, cannot afterwards be mistaken. It is
caused by the infiltration of blood into the air-cells.
Its loudness and perfect character will characterize
the intensity of the disease, and the portion of the
chest at wliich it can be distinguished will indicate
its extent.

The whole lung, however, is not always affected,
or there are only portions or patches of it in which
the inflammation is so intense as to produce con-
gestion and hepatization. Enough remains either
uuatfected, or yet pervious for the function of re-
spiration to be performed, and the animal lingers
on, or perhaps recovers. By careful examination
with the ear, this also may be ascertained. Where
the lung is impervious — where no air passes — no
sound will be heard, not even the natural murmur.
Around it the murmur will be heard, and loudly. It
will be a kind of rushing sound ; for the same quan-
tity of blood must be arterialized, and the air must
pass more rapidly and forcibly through the remain-
ing tubes. If there is considerable inflammation
or tendency to congestion, the crepitating, crack-
ling sound will be recognised, and in proportion to
the intensity of the inflammation. The advantages
to be derived from the study of auscultation are
not overrated. It was strong language lately ap-
plied by an able critic to the use of auscultation,
that " it converts the organ of hearing into an
organ of vision, enabling the listener to observe,
with the clearness of ocular demonstration, the
ravages which disease occasionally commits in the
very centre of the rib-cased cavity of the body."

A horse with any portion of the lungs hepatized
cannot be sound. He cannot be capable of con-
tinued extra exertion. His imperfect and muti-
lated lung cannot supply the arterialized blood
which long continued and rapid progression re-
quires, and that portion which is compelled to do
the work of the whole lung must be exposed to
injur}' and inflammation from many a cause that
would otherwise be harmless.

Another consequence of inflammation of the
substance of the lungs is the formation of tuber-
cles. A greater or smaller number of distinct
cysts are formed — cells into which some fluid is
poured in the progress of inflammation : these
vary in size from a pin's point to a large egg. By
degrees the fluid becomes concrete ; and so it con-

tinues for a while— the consequence and the
source of inflammation. It occupies a space that
should be employed in the function of respiration,
and by its pressure it irritates the neighbouring
parts, and exposes them to intlammation.

By and b}', however, another process, never
sufficiently explained, commences. The tubercle
begins to soften at its centre, — a process of sup-
puration is set up, and proceeds until the contents
of the cyst become again fluid, l>ut of a different
character, for they now consist of pus. The pus
increases ; the cyst becomes more and more dis-
tended ; it encroaches on the substance of the
lungs; it comes into contact with other tubercles,
and the walls opposed to each other are absorl)ed
by their mutual pressure ; they run together, and
form one cyst, or regular excavation, and this
sometimes proceeds until a considerable portion of
the limg is, as it were, hollowed out. By and by,
however, the vomica presses upon some bronchial
passage : the cyst gives way, and the purulent con-
tents are poured into the bronchife, and got rid of
by the act of coughing. At other times the quan-
tity is too great to be thus disposed of, and the
animal is suffocated. Occasionally it will break
through the pleuritic covering of the lung, and
pour its contents into the thorax.

Abscesses may exist in the lungs undisco-
vered.— It is scarcely conceivable to what exient
they sometimes exist in animals of slow work,
without being detected by the usual means of exa-
mination. Mr. Hales says that he gave a physic-
ball to a cart-mare with a bad foot, and she soon
afterwards died suddenly. When inquiring as to
the cause of death, he was told, and not very good-
humouredly, that his physic had killed her. He
asked, if it had purged her violently? " Xo! " it
was replied, "it had not operated at all." She
was opened, and the mystery was all unravelled.
The thorax was deluged with pus, and there were
then in the lungs several large abscesses, one of
which contained at least a quart of pus. The mare
had not shown a symptom of chest affection, and
the gentleman to whom she belonged declared that
he had believed her to be as sound as any horse
he had in his possession.

The resolution or gradual abatement of inflam-
mation is the termination most to be desired in this
state of disease, for then the engorgement of the
vessels will gradually cease, and the thickening of
the membrane and the interstitial deposit be taken
up, and the eftusion into the cells likewise absorbed,
and the lungs will gradually resume their former
cellular texture, yet not perfectly : for there will
be some induration, slight but general ; or some
more perfect induration of certain parts ; or the
rupture of some of the air-cells : or an irritability
of membrane predisposing to renewed iuflamnux-
tion. The horse will not always be as useful as

380

THE HOUSE.

before; there will be chronic cough, thick-wind,
broken- wind; but these merit distinct considera-
tion ; and, for tlie present, we proceed to the treat-
ment of pneumonia.

There is inflammation of that organ through
which all the blood in the frame passes — that organ
most of all subject to congestion. Then nothing
can be so important as to lessen the quantity of
blood which the heart is endeavouring to foi'ce
through the minute vessels of the lungs, distended,
irritated, breaking. Immediate recourse must be
had to the lancet, and the stream of blood must be
suffered to flow on until the pulse falters, and the
animal bears heavy upon the pail. This blood
must be extracted as quickly as possible, and the
lancet should be broad-shouldered, and the orifice
large. This is the secret of treating inflammation
of a vital organ. The disease is weakened or de-
stroyed without permanently impairing the strength
of the patient ; whereas by small bleedings, and
with a small stream, the strength of the patient is
sapped, while the disease remains untouched.

Next comes purging, if we dared ; for by having
recourse to it some cause of excitement would be
got rid of, the circulating fluid would be lessened,
and a new determination of the vital current pro-
duced ; but experience teaches, that in pneumonia
there is so much sympathy with the abdominal
viscera, — there is such a fatal tendency in the
inflammation to spread over eveiy mucous mem-
brane, that purging is almost to a certainty fol-
lowed by inflammation, and that inflammation bids
defiance to every attempt to arrest it. It may be
said with perfect confidence that, in the majority
of cases, a physic-ball would be a dose of poison to
a horse labouring under pneumonia.

May we not relax the bowels? Yes, if we can
stop there. We maj', after the inflammation has
evidently a little subsided, venture upon, yet very
cautiousl3', small doses of aloes in our fever medi-
cine, and we may quicken their operation by fre-
quent injections of warm and soap water ; omitting
the purgative, however, the moment the fteces
are becoming pultaceous. We must, however, be
assured that the inflammation is subsiding, and
there must be considerable constipation, or the
purgative had better be let alone.

If we must not give physic, we must endeavour
to find some other auxiliary to the bleeding, and
we have it in the compound of diijitalis, nitre, and
emetic tartar, wliich has been so often recommended.
The greatest care should be taken of the patient
labouring under this complaint. His legs should
be well hand-rubbed, in order to restore, if pos-
sible, the circulation to the extremities. Com-
fortable flannel rollers should encase the legs from
the foot to the knee. He should be covered up
warm. There cannot be a doubt about this. As for
air, in warm weather he cannot have too much.

In cold weather his box must be airy, but not
chilly. We want to determine the blood to the
extremities and the skin, but not all the clothing
in the world will keep om- patient warm, if he is
placed in a cold and uncomfortable situation.

As for food, we think not of it. In nine cases
out of ten he will not touch anything ; or if he is
inclined to eat, we give him nothing but a bran-
mash, or a little green-meat, or a few carrots.

We now look about us for some counter-irritant.
We wish to excite some powerful action in another
part of the frame, and which shall divert the cur-
rent of blood from that which was first affected.
We recognise it as a law of nature, and of which
we here eagerly avail ourselves, that if we have a
morbid action in some vital organ — an unusual
determination of blood to it — we can abate, perhaps
we can at once arrest, that morbid action by exciting
a similar or a greater disturbance in some contigu-
ous and not dangerous part. Therefore we blister
the sides and the brisket, and produce all the irri-
tation we can on the integument ; and in proportion
as we do so, we abate, or stand a chance of abat-
ing, the inflammation within.

We have recourse to a blister in preference to
a seton ; and decidedly so, for our stimulus can be
spread over a larger surface, — there is more chance
of its being applied to the immediate neighbour-
hood of the original inflammation — and, most
assuredly, from the extent of surface on which we
can act, we can employ a quantity of stimulus be-
yond comparison greater than a seton would permit
us to do. Bowels are frequently excellent adjuvants
to the blister, butshould not be depended uponalone.

In the latter stage of disease the blister will
not act, because the powers of nature are exhausted.
We must repeat it, — we must rouse the sinking
energies of the frame, if we can. although the effort
will generally be fruitless. The not rising of a
blister, in the latter stage of the disease, may, too
often, be regarded as the precursor of death, espe-
cially if it is accompanied by a livid or bromi
colour of the membrane of the nose.

Pneumonia, like brocliitis, requires anxious
watching. The first object is to subdue the in-
flammation, and our measures must be prompt
and decisive. If the mouth continues hot, and
the extremities cold, and the nose red, we must
bleed again and again, and that in rajiid succession.
The good which we can do must be done at first,
or not at all.

When we have obtained a little returning
warmth to the extremities, we must continue to
administer our sedative medicmes without one
grain of a carminative or a tonic : and the return
of the deathy-cold foot will be a signal for farther
depletion.

The commencement of the state of convales-
cence requires the same guarded practice, as in

THE HORSE.

381

bronchitis. As many horses are lost by impa-
tience now, as by want of decision at first. If we
have subdued the disease, we should let well alone.
We should guard against the return of the foe by
the continued administration of our sedatives in
smaller quantities ; but give no tonics unless debi-
lity is I'apiiUy succeeding. When we have appa-
rently weathered the storm, we must still be cau-
tious ; we must consider the nature and the seat of
the disease, and the predisposition to returning
inflammation. If the season will permit, two or
three months' run at grass should succeed to our
medical treatment ; but if this is impracticable, we
must put off the period of active worli as long as it
can be delayed ; and even after that, permit the
horse to return as gradually as may be to his usual
employment and food.

Most frequent in occurrence among the conse-
quences of inflammation of the lungs, is

GHEONIC COUGH.

It would occupy more space than can be de-
voted to this part of our subject, to treat of all the
causes of obstinate cough. The irritability of so
great a portion of the air-passages, occasioned by
previous and violent inflammation of them, is the
most frequent. It is sometimes connected with
worms. There is much sympathy between the
lungs and the intestines, and the one readily jiar-
ticipates in the irritation produced in the other.
That it is caused by glanders can be easily ima-
gined, because that disease is, in its early stage,
seated in or near the principal air-passages, and
little time passes before the lungs become affected.
It is the necessaiy attendant of thick-wind and
broken-wind, for these proceed from alterations of
the structure of the lungs.

Notwithstanding the clearness of the cause, the
cure is not so evident. If a harsh hollow cough is
accompanied by a staring coat, and the appearance
of worms, — a few worm-balls may expel these para-
sites, and remove the irritation of the intestinal
canal. If it proceeds from irritability of the air-
passages, which will be discovered by the horse
coughing after drinking, or when he first goes out
of the stable in the morning, or by his occasionally
snortuig out thick mucus from the nose, medicines
may be given, and sometimes with advantage, to
diminish irritation generally. Small doses of digi-
talis, emetic tartar, and nitre, administered every
night, frequently have a beneficial effect, especially
when mixed ^ith tai", which seems to have a power-
ful influence in allaying the irritation. These balls
should, if necessary, be regularly given for a consi-
derable time. They are sufliciently powerful to
quiet slight excitement of this kind, but not to
nauseate the horse, or interfere with his food or his
work. A blister, extending from the root of one
ear to that of the other, taking in the whole of the

channel, and reaching six or eight inches down the
windpipe, has been tried, and often with good
effect, on the supposition that the irritation may
exist in the fauces or the larynx. The blister has
sometimes been extended through the whole course
of the windpipe, until it enters the chest.

Feeding has much influence on this complaint.
Too much dry meat, and especially chaff, increase
it. It is aggravated when the horse is suffered to
eat his litter ; and it is often relieved when spring
tares are given. Carrots aflbrd decided relief.

The seat of the disease, however, is so uncer-
tain, and all oiu' means and appliances so ineffica-
cious, and the cough itself so little interfering, and
sometimes interfering not at all with the health of
the animal, that it is scarcely worth while to per-
severe in any mode of treatment that is not evi-
dently attended with benefit. The principal con-
sideration to induce us to meddle at all with
chronic cough is the knowledge that horses afflicted
with it are more liable than others to be affected
by changes of temperature, and that inflammation
oif the lungs, or of the respiratory passages, often
assumes in them a very alarming character; to
which, perhaps, may he added, that a horse with
chronic cough cannot be warranted sound.

W^hen chronic cough chiefly occurs after eating,
the seat of the disease is evidently in the substance
of the lungs. The stomach distended with food
presses upon the diaphragm, and the diaphragm
upon the lungs ; and the lungs, already laboming
under some congestion, are less capable of trans-
mitting the air. In the violent effort to discharge
their function, irritation is produced ; and the act
of coughing is the consequence of that irritation.

The veterinary surgeon labours under great
disadvantage in the treatment of his patients. He
must not only subdue the malady, but he must
remove all its consequences. He must leave his
patKiit pci-fecthj sound, or he has done comparatively
nothinij. This is a task always difficult, and some-
times impossible to be accomplished. The two
most frec^uent consequences of severe chest affec-
tions in the horse are recognised under the terms
thick- wind and hrolien-wind. The breathing is
hurried in both, and the horse is generally much
distressed when put upon his speed ; but it is
simply quick breathing in the first, -nith a peculiar
sound like half roarinr/ — the inspirations and ex-
pirations being rapid, forcible, but equal. In the
second, the breathing is also hurried, but the in-
spiration does not differ materially from the natural
one, while the expiration is difficult, or doubly
Laborious. The changes of structure which accom-
pany these states of morbid respiration are as op-
posite as can be imagined. Induration of the sub-
stance of the lungs, diminution of the number or
the caliber of the air-passages, are the causes
of thick-ivind. If the portion of lung employed

382

THE HORSE.

is lessened, or the bronchial tubes will not admit
so much air, the quick succession of efforts must
make up for the diminished effect produced by
each. In broken-wind there is rupture of the air-
cells, and an unnatural inter-communication be-
tween them in the same lobule, or between those
of the neighbouring lobuli. The stnieture of tlie
lung, and the discharge of function, and the treat-
ment, too, being so different, these diseases require
sepai'ate consideration.

THICK-WIND.

When treating of pneumonia, it was observed,
that not only are the vessels which ramify over the
delicate membrane of the air-cells gorged with
blood, but they are sometimes ruptured, and the
cells are filled with blood. The black, softened,
pulpy appearance of the lungs thus produced, is
the rottenness of the groom and farrier, proving
equally the intensity of the inflammation, and that
it is of recent date. If the horse is not speedily
destroyed by this lesion of the substance of the
lungs, the serous portion of the effused blood is
absorbed, and the solid becomes organised. The
cells are obliterated, and the lung is hepatizcd, —
its structure bears considerable resemlilance to
that of the liver. This may occur in patches, or
it may involve a considerable portion of the long.

If a portion of the lung is thus rendered im-
pervious, the remainder will have additional work
to jierform. The same quantity of blood must be
supplied with air ; and if the working part of the
machine is diminished, it must move with greater
velocity as well as force — the resiiiration must be
quicker and more laborious. This quick and
laboured breathing can be detected even when the
animal is at rest, and it is indicated plainly enough
by his sad distress when he is urged to unusual or
continued speed. The inspirations and the expira-
tions are shorter, as well as more violent ; the air
must be more rapidly admitted and more thoroughly
pressed out ; and this is accompanied by a peculiar
sound that can rarely be mistaken.

We may guess at the commencement of the
evil, by the laborious heaving of the flanks ; but
by auscultation alone can we ascertain its progress.
The increase of the crepitus will tell us that the
mischief is begiiming, and the cessation of the
murmiu- will clearly mark out the extent of the
congestion.

The inflammatory stage of the disease having
passed, and comparative health being restored,
and some return to usefulness having been esta-
blished,— the horse being now thick-winded, auscul-
tation will be far more valuable than is generally
imagined. It will faithfully indicate the quantity
of hepatization, and so give a clue to the degree of
usefulness, or the extent to which we may tax the
respiratory system ; and it will also serve to dis-

tinguish, and that very clearly, between this cause
of thick-wind, and the morbid changes that may
have resulted from bronchitis, or thickening of the
parietes of the air-passages, and not the obliteration
of the air-cells.

Of the Treatment little can be said. We know
not by what means we can excite the absorbents to
take up the solid organised mass of hepatization,
or restore the membrane of the cells and the
minute vessels ramifying over them, now con-
founded and lost. We have a somewhat better
chance, and yet not much, in removing the thick-
ening of the membrane, for counter-irritants,
extensively and perseveringly applied to the ex-
ternal parietes of the chest, may do something.
If thick-wind immediately followed bronchitis, it
would certainly be justifiable practice to blister the
brisket and sides, and that repeatedly ; and to
administer purgatives if we dared, or diuretics,
more effectual than the purgatives and always safe.

Our attention must be principally confined to
diet and management. A thick-winded horse
should have his full proportion, or rather more
than his proportion, of corn, and a diminished
quantity of less nutritious food, in order that the
stomach may never be overloaded, and press upon
the diaphragm, and so upon the lungs, and increase
the labour of these already over-worked organs.
Particular care should be taken that the horse is
not worked immediately after a full meal. The
overcoming of the pressure and weight of the
stomach will be a serious addition to the extra
work which the lungs already have to perform
from their altered structure.

Something may be done in the jMlliation of
thick-wind, and more than has been generally
supposed, by means of exercise. If the thick-
winded horse is put, as it were, into a regular
system of training ; if he is daily exercised to the
fair extent of his power, and without seriously
distressing him, his breathing will become freer
and deeper, and his wind will materially improve.
We shall call to our aid one of the most powerful
excitants of the absorbent system — pressure, that
of the air upon the tube — the working part of the
lung upon the disorganised — and, adjusting this so
as not to excite irritation or inflammation, we may
sometimes do wonders. This is the very secret
of training, and the power and the durability of
the hunter and the racer depend entirely upon
this.

Thick- wind, however, is not always the conse-
quence of disease. There are certain cloddy,
round-chested horses, that are naturally thick-
winded, at least to a certain extent. They are
capable of that slow exertion for which nature
designed them, but they are immediately dis-
tressed if put a little out of their usual pace. A
circular chest, whether the horse is large or small,

THE HOUSE.

383

indicates tliick-'wind. Tlie circular chest is a
capacious one, and the hmgs which fill it are
large, and they supply sufficient arterialised blood
to produce plenty of flesh and fat, and these horses
are always fat. 'J his is the point of proof to which
Ave look, when all that we want from tlie animal is
Jlesh and fat ; but the expanding form of the chest
is that which we require in the animal of speed —
the deep as well as the broad chest — always capa-
cious for the pui'pose of muscular strength, and
becoming considerably more so when ai'terialised
blood is rapidly expended iu quick progression.
We cannot enlarge the capacity of a circle ; and if
more blood is to be furnished, that which cannot be
done by increase of surface must be accomplished
by frequency of action. Therefore it is that all
our heavy draught-horses are thick-winded. It is
of little detriment to them, for their work is slow ;
or rather it is an advantage to them, for the circu-
lar chest, always at its greatest capacity, enables
them to acquire that weight which it is so advan-
tageous for them to throw into the collar.

Br,OKEN-WIND.

This is immediately recognisable by the man-
ner of breathing. The inspiration is performed in
somewhat less than the natural time, and with an
increased degree of labour : but the expiration has
a peculiar difficulty accompanying it. It is accom-
plished by a double effort, in the first of which, as
Mr. Blaine has well explained it, " the usual
muscles operate ; and in the other the auxiliary
muscles, particularly the abdominal, are put on
the stretch to complete the expulsion more per-
fectly ; and, that being done, the flank falls, or
the abdominal muscles I'elax with a land of jerk
or spasm."

The majority of veterinary surgeons attribute
broken-wind to an emphysematous state of the
lungs. In almost every broken-winded horse
which he has examined after death, the author
of this work has found dilatation of some of the
air-cells, and particularly towards the edges of the
lobes. There has been mpture through the parietes
of some of the cells, and they have evidently com-
municated with one another, and the air could be
easily forced from one portion of the cells to
another. There was also a crepitating noise while
this pressure was made, as if the attenuated mem-
brane of some of the cells had given way. These
were the true broken cells, and hence the derivation
of the name of the disease.

Broken-wind is preceded or accompanied by
cough — a cough perfectly charactei'istic, and by
which the horseman would, in the dark, detect the
existence of the disease. It is short — seemingly
cut short — grunting, and followed by wheezing.
When the animal is suddenly struck or threatened,
there is a low grunt of the same nature as that of

roaring, but not so loud. Broken-wind is usually
preceded by cough ; the cough becomes chronic,
leads on to thick-wind, and then there is but a
step to broken-wind. It is the consequence of the
cough which accompanies catarrh and bronchitis
oftener than that attending or following pneumo-
nia; and of inflammation, and, probably, thickening
of the membrane of the bronchia-, rather than of
congestion of the air-cells.

Laennec, whose illustrations of the diseases of
the chest are invaluable to the human surgeon,
comes to our assistance, and, while describing
emphysema of the lungs of the human being,
gives us an explication of broken-wind, more satis-
factory than is to be found in any of our veterinaiy
writers. He attributes what he calls dry catarrh
" to the partial obstruction of the smaller bronchial
tubes, by the swelling of their inner membrane.
The muscles of inspiration are numerous and
powerful, while expiration is chiefly left to the
elasticity of the parts: then it may happen that
the air which, during inspiration, had overcome'
the resistance opposed to its entrance by the tumid
state of the membrane, is unable to force its way
through the same obstacle during expiration, and
remains imprisoned in the cells, as it were, by a
valve. The succeeding inspirations introduce a
fresh supply of air, and gradu;illy dilate the cells
to a greater or less extent ; and if the obstruction
is of some continuance, the dilated condition of
the cells becomes permanent."

Some circumstances attending this disease may
now, probably, be accounted for. A troublesome
cough, and sometimes of long contimiance, is the
foundation of the disease, or indicates that irritable
state of the bronchial membrane with which broken
wind is almost necessarily associated. Horses that
are greed}' feeders, or devour large quantities of
slightly nutritious food, or are worked witli a
stomach distended by this food, are veiy subject
to broken-wind. More depends upon the manage-
ment of the food and exercise than is generally
supposed. The post-horse, the coach-horse, and
the racer, are comparatively seldom broken-winded.
They are fed, at stated periods, on nutritious food
that lies in little compass, and their hours of feed-
ing and of exertion are so arranged that they
seldom work on a full stomach. The agricultural
horse is too often fed on the very refuse of the
farm, and his hours of feeding, and his hours of
work, are frequently irregular; and the carriage-
horse, although fed on more nutritious food, is
often summoned to work, by his capricious master,
the moment his meal is devoured.

A rapid gallop on a fidl stomach has often
produced broken-wind. When the exertion has
been considerable and long continued, we can
easilv conceive a rupture of the air-cells of the
soundest lungs ; but we are inclined to believe,

884

THE HORSE.

that, were the history of these cases known, there
would be found to have been a gradual preparation
for this result. There would have been chronic
cough, or more than usually disturbed respiration
after exercise, and then it required little more to
perfect the mischief. Galloping after drinking
has been censured as a cause of broken-wind, yet
we cannot think that it is half so dangerous as
galloping with a stomach distended by solid food.
It is said that broken-winded horses are foul
feeders, because they devour almost everything
that comes in their way, and thus impede the play
of the lungs ; but there is so much sympathy
between the respiratory and digestive systems,
that one cannot be much deranged without the
other evidently suffering. Flatulence, and a de-
praved appetite, may be the consequence as well
as tlie cause of brolien-wiud ; and there is no
pathological fact of more frequent occurrence than
the co-existence of indigestion and flatulence with
broken-mud. Flatulence seems so invariable a
concomitant of broken-wind, that the old farriers
used to think the air found its way from the lungs
to the abdomen in some inexplicable manner; and
hence their " holes to let out broken-wind." They
used literally to make a hole near to or above the
fundament in order to give vent to the imprisoned
wind. The sphincter muscle was generally divided ;
and although the trumping ceased, tliere was a
constant, although silent, emission of fcetid gas,
that made the remedy worse than the disease.

Tlie narrow-chested horse is more subject to
broken-wind than the broader and deeper chested
one, for there is not so much room for the lungs
to expand when rapid progression requires the full
discharge of their function.

Is broken-wind hereditary ? AVe believe so.
It may be referred to hereditary conformation — to
a narrower chest, and more fragile membrane —
and predisposition to take on those inflamraatoi'y
diseases which end in broken-wind ; and the circu-
lar chest, which cannot enlai-ge its capacity when
exertion requires it, must render both thick and
broken wind of more probable occurrence.

Is there any cure for broken-wind ? None !
No medical skill can repair the broken-down struc-
ture of the lungs.

If, however, we cannot cure, we may in some
degree palliate broken-wind ; and, first of all, we
must attend carefully to the feeding. The food
should lie in little compass, — plenty of oats and
little hay, but no chaff. Chaff is particularly
objectionable, from the rapidity \nth wliich it is
devoured, and the stomach distended. Water
should be given in moderate quantities, but the
horse should not be suffered to drink as much as
he likes until the day's work is over. Green meat
will always be serviceable. Carrots are particularly
useful. They are readily digested, and appear to

have a peculiarly beneficial effect on the respiratory
system.

It is from the want of proper attention to the
feeding that many horses become broken- winded,
even in the straw-yard. There is little nutriment
in the provender which they find there ; and in
order to obtain enough for the support of life,
they are compelled to keep the stomach constantly
full, and pressing upon the lungs. It has been
the same when they have been turned out in
coarse and innutritive pasturage. The stomach
was perpetually gorged, and the habitual pressure
on the lungs cramped and confined their action,
and inevitabl}' ruptured the cells when the horse
gambolled with his companions, or was wantonly
driven about.

Next in importance stands exercise. The pur-
sive or broken-winded horse should not stand idle
in the stable a single day. It is almost incredible
how much may be done by attention to food and
exercise. The broken-winded horse may thus be
rendered comfortable to himself, and no great
nuisance to his owner ;^but inattention to feeding,
or one hard journey — the animal unprepared, and
the stomach full, — may bring on inflammation,
congestion, and death. Occasional physic, or
alterative medicine, will often give considerable
relief.

Thick-wind and broken-wind exist in various
degrees, and many shades of difference. Dealers
and horsemen generally have characterised them
by names that can boast no elegance, but are con-
siderably expressive of the state of the animal.
Our readers should not be ignorant of them.
Some horses make a shrill noise wlien in quick
action — they are said to be Pipers. This is a
species of Roaring. There is usually a ring of
coagulated matter round the inside of the wind-
pipe, by which the cavity is materially diminished,
and the sound produced in quick breathing must
evidently be shriller. Sometimes the piping is
produced by a contraction of the small passages of
the lungs.

The Wheezer utters a sound not unlike that
of an asthmatic person when a little hurried. This
is a kind of thick-wind, and is caused by the lodg-
ment of some mucous fluid in the small passages
of the lungs. It frequently accompanies bron-
chitis. Wheezing can be heard at all times, even
when the horse is at rest in the stable ; roaring is
confined to the increased breathing of considerable
exertion.

The Whistler utters a shriller sound than the
wheezer, but only when in exercise, and that of
some continuance. A sudden motion will not
always produce it. It seems to be referable to
some contraction in the windpipe or the larynx.
The sotmd is a great nuisance to the rider, and
the whistler very speedily becomes distressed. A

THE UORSE.

885

sharp gallop np-liill \Yill speedily detect tbe
ailment.

When the obstniction seems to he principally
in the nose, the horse loudly puiTs and blows, and
the nostrils are dilated to the utmost, while the
flanks are comparatively quiet. This animal is
said to be a High-blower. With all his apparent
distress, he often possesses great speed and en-
durance. The sound is unpleasant, but the lungs
maj' be perfectly sound.

Every horse violently exercised on a full sto-
mach, or when overloaded with fat, will gi-unt
almost like a hog. The pressure of the stomach
on the lungs, or that of the fat accumulated ai'ound
the heart, will so much impede the breathing, that
the act of forcible expiration will be accompanied
by this kind of sound : but there are some horses
who will at all times emit it, if suddenly touched
with the whip or spur. They are called Grunters,
and should be avoided. There is some altered struc-
ture of the lungs, which prevents them from sud-
denly accommodating themselves to an unexpected
demand for e.xertion. It is the consequence of
previous disease, and is frequently followed by
thick or broken wind, or roaiing.

PHTHISIS PDLMONALIS, OE CONSUMPTION.

'When describing the accompaniments and
consequences of inflammation of the lungs in the
horse, mention was made of this fatal complaint.
It is usually connected with or the consequence of
pneumonia or pleurisy, and especially in horses
of a peculiar formation or temperament.

If a narrow-chested, flat-sided horse is attacked
Viy inflammation of the limgs, or severe catarrhal
fever, experience tells us that we shall have niore
difficulty in subduing the disease in him, than iu
one deeper in the girth or rounder in the chest.
The lungs, deficient in bulk according to the dimi-
nished contents of the chest, have been overworked
in supplying the quantity of arterial blood ex-
pended in the various purposes of life, and parti-
cularly that which has been required under unusual
and violent exertion. Inflammation of the lungs
has consequently ensued, and that inflammatory
action has acquired an intense character, under
circumstances by which another horse would be
scarcely affected.

When this disease has been properly treated,
and apparently subdued, this horse cannot be
quickly and summarily dismissed to his work. He
is sadly emaciated — he long continues so — his
coat stares — his skin clings to bis ribs — his belly
is tucked up, notwithstanding that he may have
plenty of mashes, and carrots, and green meat,
and medicine — his former gaiety and spirit do not
return, or if he is willing to work he is easily
tired, sweating on the least exertion, and the
sweat most profuse about the chest and sides — his

appetite is not restored, or, perhaps, never has
been good, and the slightest exertion puts him
completely off his feed.

We observe him more attentively, and, even
as he stands quiet in his stall, the flanks heave a
little more laboriously than they should do, and
that heaving is painfully quickened when sudden
exertion is required. He coughs sorely, and dis-
charges from the nose a mucus tinged with blood,
or a fluid decidedly punilent — the breath becomes
offensive — the pulse is always above 40, and
strangely increased by the slightest exertion.

When many of these symptoms are developed,
the animal will exliibit considerable pain on being
geutly struck on some part of the chest; the
cough then becomes more frequent and painful ;
the discharge from the nose more abundant and
foetid, and the emaciation and consequent debility
more rapid, until death closes the scene.

The lesions that are presented after death are
veiy uncertain. Generally there are tubercles ;
sometimes very minute, at other times large in
size. They are in diflereut states of softening,
and some of them have burst into the bronchial
passages, and exhibit abscesses of enormous bulk
Other portions of the lungs are shrunk, flaccid,
indurated or hepatized, and of a pale or red
brown colour ; and there are occasional adhesions
between the lungs and the sides of the chest.

Is this an hereditar}' disease ? There is some
difficulty in deciding the point. It has been
scarcely mooted among horsemen. One thing
only is loiowni, that the side has been flat, and
the belly turked up, and the animal has had much
more ardour and willingness than physical strength ^
These conformations, and this disposition, we
know to be hereditaiy, and thus far phthisis may
be said to be so too. Low and damp situations,
or a variable and ungenial climate, may render
horses peculiarly susceptible of chest affections.
All the absurd, or cruel, or accidental causes of
pneumonia lay the foundation for phthisis ; and,
particularly, those causes which tend to deliilitate
the frame generally, render the horse more liable
to chest affections, and less able to ward off their
fatal consequences. The most numerous in-
stances of phthisis occur in those poor persecuted
animals that are worn out before their time, and
they are frequent enough among cavalry horses
after the deprivations and fatigues of a long
campaign.

What is the medical treatment of confirmed
phthisis? The practitioner must be guided by
circumstances. If the horse is not very bad, and
it is the spring of the year, a run at grass may be
tried. It will generally seem to renovate the
animal, but the apparejit amelioration is too often
treacherous. It should always be tried, for it is
the best foundation for other treatment. The

380

THE HORSE.

summer, however, having set in, the medicinal
effect of the grass ceases, and the flies tease and
irritate the animal.

The medical treatment, if any is tried, vnll
depend on two simple and unerring guides, the
pulse and the membrane of the nose. If the first
is quioli and hard, and the second streaked with
red, veiusection should be resorted to. Small
bleedings of one or two quarts, omitted when the
pulse is quieted and the nostril is pale, may be
effected. Counter-irritants will rarely do harm.
They should be applied in the form of blisters,
extending over the sides, and thus brought as
near as possible to the affected part. Sedative
medicines should be perseveringly administered ;
and here, as in acute inflammation, the chief de-
pendence wfll be placed on digitalis. It should
be given in small doses until a slightly inter-
mittent pulse is produced, and that state of the
constitution should be maintained by a conti-
nued exhibition of the medicine. Nitre may be
added as a diuretic, and pulvis antimonialis as a
diaphoretic.

Any tonics here ? Yes, the tonic effect of mild
and nutritious food — green meat of almost every
kind, carrots particularly, mashes, and now and
then a malt mash. Nothing further than this ?
We may tiy, but very cautiously, tliose tonics
which stimulate the digestive system, yet compa-
ratively little affect the circulatory one. Small
doses of camomile and gentian may be given, but
carefully watched and omitted if the flanks should
heave more, or the cough be aggravated.

The treatment of phthisis is a most unsatis-
factory subject of consideration as it regards the
practice of the veterinarian. If, after the human
being has been subjected to medical treatment
for a long course of time and at very considerable
expense, he so far recovers that life is rendered
tolerably comfortalile to him, he and his con-
nexions are thankful and satisfied, and he will
submit to many a privation in order to ward off
the return of a disease, to which he is conscious
there will ever be a strong predisposition : but the
case is different \vith the horee ; and this, the
scope and bound of the human practitioner's hope,
is worthless to the veterinarian. His patient must
not only live, but must be sound again. Every
energy, every capability must be restored. Can
we cause the tubercles of the lungs to be absorbed ?
Can we disperse or dispel the hepatization ? Can
we remodel the disorganised structure of the
lungs? Our consideration, then, will be chiefly
directed to the detection of the disease in its
earliest state, and the allaying of the irritation
which- causes or accompanies the growth of the
tubercles. This must be the scope and bound of
the veterinarian's practice — always remembering
that the owner should be forewarned of the gene-

ral hopelessness of the ease, and that the continu-
ance of his efforts should be regulated by the wish
of the proprietor and the value of the patient.

PLEUHISY.

The investing membrane of the lungs, and of
the thoracic cavity, namely, the pleura, now de-
mands consideration. We are indebted to Mr.
John Field, one of the noblest ornaments of the
veterinary profession- — but cut off in the prime of
his days— for the greater part of our knowledge of
this disease, and for the power of distinguishing
between it and pneumonia, as readily and as surely
as we do between pneumonia and bronchitis and
epidemic catarrh.

The prevailing causes of pleurisy are the same
as those which produce pneumonia — exposure to
wet and cold, sudden alternations of temperature,
partial exposure to cold, riding against a keen
wind, immersion as high as the chest in cold water,
drinking cold water, and extra work of the respi-
ratory machine. To these may be added, wounds
penetrating into the thorax and lacerating the
pleura, fracture of the ribs, or violent contusions
on the side, the inflammation produced by which
is propagated through the parietes of the chest.

It is sometimes confined to one side, or to one
of the pleura; on either side, or even to patches on
that pleura, whether pulmonary or costal. The
inflammation of the lungs which occasionally ac-
companies rabifis is characterised by a singular
patchy appearance. That produced on the costa
jileura, arising from violence or other causes,
rarely reaches the pulmonary covering ; and that
Avhich is communicated to the tunic of the lungs,
by means of the intensity of the action within, does
not often involve the costal pleura. In some
cases, however, it affects both pleurae and both
sides, and spreads rapidly from one to the other.

The first symptom is rifior, followed by in-
creased heat and partial sweats, to these succeed
loss of appetite and spirits, and a low and painful
cough. The inspiration is a short, sudden etfort,
and broken off before it is fully accomplished, in-
dicating the pain felt from the distension of the
irritable, because inflamed, membrane. This
symptom is exceedingly characteristic. In the
human being it is well expressed by the term
stiich, and an exceedingly painful feeling it is.
The expiration is retarded, as much as possible,
by the use of all the auxiliary muscles which the
animal can press into the service; hut it at length
finishes abruptly in a kind of spasm. This pecu-
liarity of breathing, once cai'efully observed, can-
not be forgotten. The next character is found in
the tenderness of the sides when the costal pleura
is affected. This tenderaess often exists to a de-
gree scarcely credible. If the side is pressed upon,
the horse will recede mlh a low painful grunt ; he

THE HOUSE.

887

will tremble, and try to get out of the way before
the hand touches him again. Then comes another
indication, both of pain and the region of that pain
— the intercostal muscles, affected by contiguous
pleiu'a, and in their turn affecting the panniculus
camosus, or subcuUiueous muscular expansion
without — there are twitchings of the skin on the
side — corrugations — waves creeping over the in-
tegument. This is never seen in pneumonia.
There is, however, as we may e.'cpect, the same
disinclination to move, for every motion must give
intense pain.

The pulse should be anxiously studied. It
presents a decided ditl'erence of character from that
of pneumonia. It is increased in rapiditj', but in-
stead of being oppressed and sometimes almost
unappreciable, as in pneumonia, it is round, full,
and strong. Even at the last, when the strength
of the constitution begins to yield, the pulse is
wiry, although small.

The extremities are never deathy cold ; they
may be cool, they are oftener variable, and they
sometimes present increased heat. The body is
far more liable to variations of temperature ; and
the cold and the hot fit more frequently succeed
each other. The mouth is not so hot as in pneu-
monia, aud the breath is rarely above its usual
temperature.

A difference of character in the two diseases
is iiere particularly evident on the membrane of
the nose. Neither the crimson nor the purple
injection of pneumonia is seen on the lining of
the nose, but a somewhat dai-ker, dingier hue.

Both the pneumonic and plem-itic horse will
look at his flanks, thus pointing out the seat of
disease and pain ; but the horse with pneumonia
will tm-n himself more slowly round, and long and
steadfastly gaze at his side, while the action of the
horse with pleurisy is more sudden, agitated, spas-
modic. The countenance of the one is that of
settled distress ; the other brightens up occa-
sionally. The pang is sevei-e, but it is transient,
and there are intervals of relief. ^Miile neither
will lie down or willingly move, and the pneumonic
horse stands fixed as a statue, the plemitic one
shrinlis, and crouches almost to falling. If he
lies down, it is on the affected side, when the dis-
ease is confined to one side oiilj. The head of
the horse, with inflammation of the substance of
the lungs, hangs heavily ; that of the other is
protnided.

We here derive most important assistance
from Auscultation. In a case of pleurisy we have
no crepitating, crackling sound, referable to the
infiltration of the blood through the gossamer
membrane of the air-cells ; we have not even a
louder and distincter mumiur. Perhaps there is
no variation from the sound of health, or, if there
is any difference, the mm'mur is fainter; for the

pleural membrane is thickened, and its elasticity
is imjiaired, and the soimd is not so readily
transmitted. There is sometimes a sligiit nibbing
sound, and especially towards the superior region
of the chest, as if there was friction between the
thickened and indurated membranes.

To this may be added the different character
of the cough, sore and painful enough in both,
but in pneumonia generally hard, and full, and fre-
quent. In pleurisy it is not so frequent, but faint,
suppressed, cut short, and rarely attended by dis-
charge from the nose.

These are sufficient guides in the early stage of
the disease, when it is most of all of importance
to distinguish the one from the other.

If after a few days the breathing becomes a
little more natural, the inspiration lengthened and
regular, and the expiration, although still pro-
longed, is suffered to be completed — if the twitch-
ings are less e\ident and less frequent — if the
cough can be fully expressed — if the pulse softens,
although it may not diminish in frequency, and if
the animal begins to lie down, or walks about of
his own accord, there is hope of recovery. But if
the pulse quickens, aud although smaller, yet
possesses the wiiy character of inflammation — if
the gaze at the flanks, previously by starts, be-
comes fixed as well as anxious, aud the difficulty
of breathing continues (the difficulty of accomplish-
huj it, although the efforts are oftener repeated) —
if patches of sweat break out, and the animal gets
restless — paws — shifts his posture every minute
— is miable longer to stand yet hesitates whether
he shall lie down — determines on it again and
again, but fears, and at length drops, rather than
lies gently down, a fatal termination is at hand.
For some time before his death, the effusion and
its extent will be evident enough. He not only
walks unwillingly, but on the slightest exercise
his pulse is strangely accelerated ; the feeling of
suffocation comes over him, and he stops all of a
sudden, and looks wildly about and trembles ; but
he quickly recovei-s himself and proceeds. There
is also, when the effusion is confinned, ccdema of
some external part, and that occasionally to a very
great extent. This is oftenest observed in the ab-
domen, the chest, aud the point of the breast.

The immediate cause of death is effusion in the
chest, compressing the lungs on eveiy side, ren-
dering expiration difficult, and at length impossible,
and destroying the animal by suffocation. The
\ery commencement of effusion may be detected
by auscultation. There will be the cessation of
the respirator}' murmur at the sternum, and the
increased grating — not the crepitating, crackling
noise as when congestion is going on — not the
feebler murmr as congestion advances ; but the ab-
sence of it, beginning from the bottom of the chest.

It is painfully interesting to watch the progress

388

THE HOUSE.

of the effusion — how the stilhiess creeps up, and 1
the murmur gets louder above, aud the grating
sound louder too, until at length there is no longer
room for the lungs to play, and suffocation ensues.

The fluid contained in the chest varies in
quantity as well as appearance and consistence.
Many gallons have been found in the two sacs,
pale, or yellow, or bloody, or often differing iu the
two sides of the thorax ; occasionally a thick adven-
titious coat covering the costal or the pulmonary
pleura — rarely much adhesion, but the lungs
pui-ple-coloured, flaccid, compressed, not one-fourth
of their usual size, immersed in the fluid, and
rendered incapable of expanding by its pressure.

Here, as in pneumonia, the bleeding should
he prompt and copious. Next, and of great im-
portance, aperient medicine should be administered
— that, the effect of which is so desirable, but
which we do not dare to give when the mucous
membrane of the respiratory passages is the seat
of disease. Here we have' to do with a serous
membrane, and there is less sympathy \\'ith the
mucous membi'anes of either cavity. Small doses
of aloes should be given with the usual fe\-er medi-
cine, and repeated morning and night until the
dung becomes pultaceous, when it will always be
prudent to stop. The sedative medicine is that
which has been recommended iu pneumonia, and
iu the same doses. Next should follow a blister
on the chests and sides. It is far preferable to
setons, for it can be brought almost into contact
with the inflamed surface, and extended over the
w^hole of that surface. An airj% but a comfortable
box, is likewise even more necessary than in pneu-
monia, and the practive of exposure, uncovered, to
the cold even more absurd than destructive. The
blood, repielled from the skin by the conti'actile,
dejDressing influence of the cold, would rash with
fatal impetus to the neighbouring membrane, to
which it was before dangerously determined.
Warm and comfortable clothing cannot be dis-
pensed with in pleurisy.

The sedative medicines, however, should be
omitted much sooner than in pneumonia, and suc-
ceeded by diuretics. The common turpentine is as
good as any, made into a ball with linseed meal,
and given in doses of two or three drachms twice
in the day. If the constitution is much impaired,
tonics may be cautiously given, as soon as the
violence of the disease is abated. The spirit of
nitrous ether is a mild stimulant and a diuretic.
Small quantities of gentian and ginger may be
added, but the turpentine must not be omitted.

By auscultation and other modes of examma-
tion, the existence of effusion in the chest is
perhaps ascertained, and, possibly, it is increasing.
Is there any mechanical way of getting rid of it ?
There is one to which recourse should be had as
soon as it is evident that there is considerable

fluid in the chest. The operation of Paracen-
tesis, or tapping, should be performed ; it is a veiy
simple one. The side-line may be had recourse
to, or the twitch alone may be used. One of the
horse's legs being held up, and, counting back
from the sternum to between the seventh and
eighth ribs, the surgeon should pass a moderate
sized trochar into the chest immediately above the
cartilages. He will not have selected the most
dependent situation, but as near it as he could
with safety select ; for there would not have been
room between the cartilages if the puncture bad
been lower ; and these would have been injui-ed
in the forcing of the instrument between them, or,
what is worse, there would have been great hazard
of wounding the pericardium, for the apex of the
heart rests on the sternum. Through this aper-
ture, close to the cartilages, the far greater part
of the fluid may be evacuated. The operator will
now withdraw the stilette, and let the fluid
run through the canula. He will not trouble
himself afterwards about the wound ; it will heal
readily enough ; perhaps too quickly, for could it
be kept open a few days, it might act as a very
useful drain. It sjiould be attempted early. Recourse
should be had to the operation as soon as it is
acettained that there is considerable fluid in the
chest, for the animal will at least be relieved for
a ^^■hile, arid some time will have been given for
repose to the overlaboured lungs, and for the sys-
tem generally to be recruited. The fluid will be
evacuated before the lungs are too much debilitated
by laborious action against the pressure of the
water, and a state of collapse brought on, from
which they will be incapable of recovering. They
only who have seen the collapsed and condensed
state of the lung that had been long compressed
by the fluid, can conceive of the extent to which
tins is carried. It should be added — a fact im-
portant aud alarming — that the records of vete-
rinaiy surgery contain very few cases of perma-
nently successful performance of the operation.
This should not discom'age the practitioner from
attempting it, but should induce him to consider
whether he may not perform it imder happier
auspices, before the lungs aud the serous membrane
which lines the cavity have been too much disor-
ganised, and the constitution itself sadly debilitated.
There could not be any well-founded objection to
an earlier resort to paracentesis, and he must be a
bungler indeed who wounded any important part.
It should be ascertained by auscultation whe-
ther there is fluid in both cavities. If there should
be, and in considerable quantity, it will not be jiru-
dent to operate on both sides at once. If much
fluid is discharged there will be acceleration and
difficulty of respiration to a very great degree.
The practitioner must not be alarmed at this ;
it will pass over, and on the next day he may

THE HORSE.

SHi)

attack tlie other side; or open both at once, if
there is but little fluid in either.

Having resorted to this operation, a course of
diuretics with tonics should be immediately com-
menced, and the absorbents roused to action before
the cavity fills again.

There is in pleurisy a far greater tendency to
relapse than in pneumonia. The lungs do not
perfectly recover from their state of collapse, nor
the serous membrane from its long maceration in
the effused fluid : oedema, cough, disinclination to
■work, incapability of rapid progression, colicky
pains — as the unobservant practitioner would call
them — but in truth pleuritic stitches ; these are
the frequent sequelae of pleurisy. This will afford

another reason why the important operation of
paracentesis should not be deferred too long.

There is much greater disposition to metastasis
tlian in pneumonia : indeed it is easy to imagine
that the inflammation of a mere membrane may
more readily and oftener shift than that of the
substance of so large a viscus as the lungs. The
inflammation shifting its first ground, attacks
almost every pai't indiscriminately, and appears
under a strangely puzzling variety of forms.
Dropsy is the most frequent change. Effusion in
the abdomen is substituted for that of the chest,
or rather the exhaleut or absorbent vessels of the
abdomen, or both of them, soon sympathise in the
debility of those of the thorax.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ABDOMEN AND ITS CONTENTS.

THE STOMACH.

a The cesophagus or gullet, extending to the stomach.

b The entrance of the gullet into the stomach. The circular

layers of the muscles are very thick and strong, and which,

by their contractions, help to render it difficult for the food

to be returned or vomited.
c The portion of the stomach which is covered by cuticle, or

insensible skin.
d d The margin, which separates the culicular from the villous

portion.

The oesophagus, as has already been stated,
consists of a muscular membranous tube, extend-
ing from the posterior part of the mouth down the
left side of the neck, pursuing its course through
the chest, penetrating through the crui'a of the
diaphragm, and reaching to and terminating in

e e The mucous, or villous (velvet) portion of the stomach, in

which the food is principally digested.
/ The communication between the stomach and the first intes

tine.
g The common orifice through which the bile and the secretion

from the pancreas pass into the first intestine. The two

pins mark the two tubes here united.
k A smaller orifice, through which a portion of the secretion of

the pancreas enters the intestines.

the stomach. It does not, however, enter straight
into the stomach, and ■vvith a large open orifice ;
but there is an admirable provision made to
prevent the regurgitation of the food when
the stomach is filled and the horse suddenly called
upon to perform unusually hard work. The

390

THE HORSE.

ceaopliagus enters the stomach in a somewhat
curved direction— it runs obHquely through the
muscular and cuticular coats for some distance,
and then its fibres arrange themselves around the
opening into tlie stomach. Close observation has
shown, that they form themselves into segments
of circles, interlacing each other, and by their
contraction plainly and forcibly closing the open-
ing, so that the regurgitation of the food is almost
impossible.

The following is a simple but accurate delinea-
tion of the stmcture of the termination of the oeso-

phagus, and the manner in which it encircles the
orifice of the stomach. We are indebted to Mr.
Ferguson, of Dublin, for this interesting discovery.
A microscope of very feeble power will beauti-
fully show this singular construction. It is not
precisely either a sphincter muscle or a valve, but
it is a strong and almost insuperable obstacle to
the regurgitation of the food. The left side of the
stomach is in contact with the diiipliragm. It is
pressed upon by eveiy motion of the diaphragm,
and hence the reason why the stomach is so small
compared with the size of the animal. It is
indeed strangely small, in order that it might not
press too hardly upon the diaphragm, or painfully
interfere with the process of respiration, when the
utmost energies of the horse are occasionally taxed
immediately after he has been fed.

At the lower or pyloric orifice, the muscles are
also increased in number and in size. These are
arranged in the same maimer, with sufficient
power to resist the pressure of the diaphragm, and
retain the contents of the stomach until they
have undergone the digestive process.

The situation of the stomach will at once
explain the reason why a horse is so much dis-
tressed, and sometimes irreparably injured, if
worked hard immediately after a full meal. The
stomach must be displaced and driven back by
eveiy contraction of the diaphragm or act of inspi-
ration ; and in proportion to the fulness of the
stomach will be the weight to be overcome, and
the labour of the diaphragm, and the exhaustion of
the animal. If the stomach is much distended, it

may be too weighty to be forced sufficiently far
back to make room for the quantity of air which
the animal in a state of exertion requires. Hence
the frequency and labour of the breathing, and the
quickness with which such a horse is blown, or
possibly destroyed. Hence also the folly of
giving too full a meal, or too much water, before
the horse starts ou a journey or for the chase ; and,
in like manner, the absurdity and danger of that
unpardonable custom of some grooms to gallop the
horse after his drink, in order to warm it in
his belly, and prevent gripes.

The horse was destined to be the servant of
man, and to be always at his call whether fasting
or full : it would seem, therefore, that to lessen
much inconvenience or danger, a smaller stomach,
in proportion to his size, is given to the horse than
to almost any other animal. The bulk of the horse,
and the services required of him, demand much nu-
triment, and that of such a nature as to occujiy a
veiy considerable space ; yet his stomach, com-
pared with his bulk, is not half so large as that of
the human being: therefore, although he, like
every other animal, feels inconvenience from great
exertion immediately after a full meal, he suffers
not so much as other quadrupeds, for his stomach
is small, and his food passes rapidly through it,
and descends to a part of the intestines distant from
the diaphragm, and where the existence and pres-
sure of the food cannot cause him any annoyance.
The stomach has four coats. The outermost
is the lining of the cavity of the belly, and the
common covering of all the intestines — that by
which they are confined in their respective situa-
tions, and from which the fluid is secreted that
prevents all friction between them. This is called
the peritoneum — that which stretches round the
inside of the stomach.

The second is the muscular coat, consisting of
two layers of fibres, one running lengthways, and
the other circularly, and by means of which a con
stant gentle motion is communicated to the stomach,
mingling the food more intimately together, and
preparing it for digestion, and by the pressure
of which the food when properly prepared is ui'ged
on into the intestines.

The third, or cuticular [skin-like) coat, c, covers
but a portion of the inside of the stomach. It is
a continuation of the lining of the gullet. There
are numerous glands on it, which secrete a mucous
fluid ; and it is probably intended to be a reservoir
in which a portion of the food is retained for a
while, and softened and better prepared for the
action of the other or true digestive portion of the
stomach. The cuticular coat occupies nearly one-
half of the inside of the stomach.

The fourth coat is the mucous or villous (velvet)
coat, e, where the work of digestion properly com-
mences. The mouths of numerous little vessels

THE HOUSE.

a9i

open upon it, pouring out a peculiar fluid, the
gastric (stomacli) juice, which mixes with the food
ah'eady softened, and converts it into a fluid called
chyme. As this is formed, it passes out of the other
orifice of the stomach, the pylorus (doorkeepers), /,
and enters the first small intestine ; the harder
and undissolved parts being turned back to undergo
farther action.

Every portion of the muscular coat has the
power of successively contracting and relaxing,
and thus, in the language of Dr. Bostock, " the
successive contraction of each part of the stomach,
by producing a series of folds and wrinkles, serves
to agitate the alimentary mass, and, by bringing
every part of it in its turn to the surface, to expose
it to the influence of the gastric juice, while at the
same time the whole of the contents are gradually
propelled forwards, from the orifice which is con-
nected with the oesophagus to that by which they
are discharged."

The cerebro-visceral nerve is the agent in pro-
ducing these alteiTiate contractions and relaxations.
It is the motor nerve belonging to these parts. It
has to keep the parietes of the stomach in contact
■with the food, and the food in contact with the
gastric juice. It has to bring the different parts
of the food in successive contact with the stomach,
and to propel them through this portion of the ali-
mentary canal in order that they may be discharged
into the duodenum.

A viscus thus situated and thus employed must
occasionally be subject to inflammation, and various
other lesions. The symptoms, however, are ob-
scure and fi-ec[uently mistaken. They resemble
those of colic more than anything else, and should
be met by bleeding, oleaginous purges, mashes, tepid
gruel, and the application of the stomach-pump :
but, when, in addition to the colicky pains, there
appear indistinctness of the pulse — and a very
characteristic symptom that is — pallidness of the
membranes, coldness of the mouth, frequent lying
down and in such position that the weight of the
horse may rest on the chest, frequently pointing
■with his muzzle at the seat of pain, and especially,
if these symptoms are accompanied or followed by
vomiting, rupture of the stomach is plainly indi-
cated. Considering the situation of the stomach,
and the concussions and violence to which it is
exposed from the diaphragm and from the viscera
around it, this accident will not appear extraordi-
naiy. The horse does not necessarily die as soon
as this accident occurs. In a case related by Mr.
Rogei-s, the animal died in about four hours after
the accident ; * but in one that occurred in the
practice of the author, three days elapsed between
the probable rupture of the stomach, from a sudden

* The Farrier and Naturalist, vol. ii., p. 9,

and violent fall, and the death of the animal, and
in which interval he several times ate a little food.
The rupture was at the right extremity of the Bto-
mach, and there were several distinct layers of
impacted food between it and the liver. The liver
seemed to have acted as a kind of valve. The
stomach was found still distended, the edges of
the rupture having the dull and sodden appearance
of an old wound. There was comparatively little
fluid in the abdominal cavity, and no disposition to
vomit occurred during any period.f

A case showing the insensibility of the stomach,
wisely and kindly given, considering the shocks and
dangers to which this viscus is exposed, is recorded
by Mr. Hayes. J A drench was ordered for a horse.
For want of a horn, the stable-keeper made use of
a wine-bottle, without examining whether it was
clean or foul. Shortly afterwards it was discovered
that the bottle had contained three or four ounces
of liquid blister. This was kept a profound secret
until the death of the animal, and that did not
happen until twelve days afterwards. The horse
had eaten his provender in the same manner as
usual, and had performed his usual work until
about two hours before his death, when he lay
down, rolled about, bruised himself sadly, and
died. The food, consisting of hay, oats, and beans,
was lodged and impacted between the folds of the
intestines, and the whole abdominal viscera ap-
peared as if they had been thus surrounded a con-
siderable time before death. The stomach was
ruptured in many directions, and almost decom-
posed. Its coats were nearly destroyed, and hung
like rags about the orifice through which the food
was received, and that through which it naturally
was expelled. This account proves how little we
are to depend upon any apparent symptoms as in-
dicating the real state of the stomach in the horse.

Mr. Brown relates a case of pol\'pus found in
the stomach, and which had remained there mi-
suspected until it weighed nearly half a pound, it
then became entangled in the pyloric orifice, and
prevented the passage of the food, and destroyed
the horse. 1 1

In the spring and early part of the summer,
horses are much troubled by a grub or caterpillar,
which crawls out of the anus, fastens itself under
the tail, and seems to cause a great deal of itching
or uneasiness. Grooms are sometimes alarmed at
the appearance of these insects. Their history is
curious, and will dispel every fear with regard to
them. We are indebted to Mr. Bracy Clark for
almost all we know of the hot.

+ The Veterinary Medical Association, 1838-7, p. 100,
t The Veterinarian, vol. x., p, 614.

Ihid., vol. vii., p. 78.

;392

THE HORSE.

CUT OF THE DOT.

a and b The eggs of the gad-fly, adhering to the hair of the

horse.
c The appearance of the bots on the stomach, firmly adhering by

their hoolied mouths. The marlts or depressions are seen

which are left on the coat of the stomach when the bots are

detached from their hold.

A species of gad-fly, e, the cestrus equi, is in
tlie latter part of the summer exceedingly busy
about the horse. It is observed to be darting with
great rapidity towards the knees and sides of the
the animal. The females are depositing their eggs
on the hair, and which adhere to it by means of a
glutinous fluid with which they are surrounded
{a and b). In a few days the eggs are ready to be
hatched, and the slightest application of warmth
and moisture will liberate the little animals which
they contain. The horse in licking himself touches
the egg ; it bursts, and a small worm escapes,
which adheres to the tongue, and is conveyed with
the food into the stomach. There it clings to the
cuticular portion of the stomach, c, by means of a
hook on either side of its mouth ; and its hold is
so firm and so obstinate, that it must be broken
before it can be detached. It remains there feed-
mg on the mucus of the stomach during the whole
of the winter, and imtil the end of the ensuing
spring ; when, having attained a considerable size,
d, and being destined to undergo a certain trans-
formation, it disengages itself from the cuticular
coat, is carried into the villous portion of the
stomach with the food, passes out of it with the
chyme, and is evacuated with the dung.

The larva or maggot seeks shelter in the
ground, and buries itself there ; it contracts in
size, and becomes a chrysalis or grub, in which
state it lies inactive for a few weeks, and then,
bursting from its confinement, assumes the form
of a fly. The female, becoming impregnated, quickly
deposits her eggs on those parts of the horse which
he is most accustomed to lick, and thus the species
is perpetuated.

There are several plain conclusions to be drawn

d The hot detached.

e The female of the gad-fly, of the horse, prepared to depcsil her

/ The gad-fly by which the red bots are produced.
g The smaller, or red hot.

from this history. The bots cannot, while they
inhabit the stomach of the horse, give the animal
any pain, for they have fastened on the cuticular
and insensible coat. They cannot stimulate the
stomach, and increase its digestive power, for they
are not on the digestive portion of the stomach.
They cannot, by their roughness, assist the tri-
turation or rubbing down of tlie food, for no such office
is performed in that part of the stomach — the food
is softened, not rubbed down. They cannot be
injurious to the horse, for he enjoys the most per-
fect health when the cuticular part of his stomach
is filled with them, and their presence is not even
suspected until they appear at the anus. They
cannot be removed by medicine, because they are
not in that part of the stomach to which medicine
is usually conveyed ; and if they were, their mouths
are too deeply buried in the mucus for any medi-
cine, that can safely be administered, to aSect
them ; and, last of all, in due course of time they
detach themselves, and come away. Therefore,
the wise man will leave them to themselves, or
content himself with picking them off when they
collect under the tail and annoy the animal.

The smaller hot, / and g, is not so frequently
found.

Of inflammation of the stomach of the horse,
except from poisonous herbs or drugs, we know
little. It rarely occurs. It can with difficulty be
distinguished from inflammation of the bowels ;
and, in either case, the assistance of the veterinaiy
surgeon is required.

Few horses are destroyed by poisonous plants
in our meadows. Natural instinct teaches the
animal to avoid the greater part of those that
would be injurious

THE IIOKSE.

303

We cannot do better tliau .abbreviate the list of
poisonous agents, and the means of averting their
fatal influence, given by Mr. Morton, the Pro-
fessor of Chemistry and Materia Medica at the
Royal Veterinary College. =i= Jt will occasionally
be exceedingly useful to the proprietor of horses.

He begins wth the Animal Poisons. The
bite of the viper has been occasionally fatal to
dogs and sheep. A horse was brought to the
Veterinary College that had been bitten in the
hind leg while hunting. There was considerable
swelling, and the place of the bite was evident
enough. Mr. Armstrong mentions a case in which
a horse, bitten by a viper, sunk into a kind of coma,
from which he could not be roused. The antidote,
which seldom or never fails, is an alkaline solution
of almost any kind, taken internally and applied
externally. There is no chemical effect on the cir-
culation, but the alkali acts as a powerful counter-
irritant. In very bad cases opium may be added to
the alkaline solution.

Hornets, Wasps, dr. — These are spoken of,
because there are records of horses being attacked
by a swarm of them, and destroyed. The spirit
of turpentine is the best external application, and,
if given in not undue quantities and guarded by an
admixture with oil, may be useful.

Cantharides constitute a useful drug in some
few cases. It is one of the applications used in
order to excite the process of blistering. It was
occasionally employed as a medicine in small
quantities, and, combined with vegetable tonics, it
has been given in small doses, for the cure of
glanders, farcy, and nasal gleet. It is valuable
ia cases of general and extreme debility. It is a
useful general stimulant when judiciously applied :
but it must be given in small doses, and never
except imder the direction of a sldlful practitioner.
A drachm of the powdered fly would destroy
almost any horse. In the breeding season it is
too often shamefully given as an excitant to the
horse and the mare, and many a valuable animal
has been destroyed by this abominable practice.
It is usually given in the form of ball, in which
case it may be detected by the appearance of
small glittering portions of the fly, which are
separated on the inner side of the dung-ball in
hot water. If the accidental or too powerful admi-
nistration of it is suspected, recourse should be had
to bleeding, purging, and plentiful drenching with
oily and demulcent fluids.

The leaves of the Yew are said to be dangerous
to the horse, as well as to many other animals.
" Two horees that had been employed in carrying
fodder, were thoughtlessly placed under a large
yew-tree, which they cropped with eagerness. In
three hours they began to stagger — both of them

• Veterinary Medical Association, 1836-7, p. 41.

dropped, and, before the harness could be taken
off, they were dead. A great quantity of yew
leaves were found in the stomachs, which wei*e
contracted and inflamed. ''f Mr. W. C. Spooner
mentions a case of violent suspicion of the poison-
ing of an ass and a mare in the same way-t Ou
the other hand, Professor Sewell says that on the
farm on which he resided in his early years, the
horses and cattle had every opportunity of eating
yew. They pastured and slept under the shelter
of yew-trees, and were often observed to browse
on the branches. 11 He thinks that these supposed
cases of poisoning have taken place only when
enormous quantities of the yew have been eaten,
and that it was more acute indigestion than poison-
ing. There are, however, too many cases of
horses dying after feeding on the yew to render it
safe to cultivate it in the neighboui'hood of a farm,
either in the form of tree or hedge.

The Hydrocyanic or Priissic Acid belongs to
the class of vegetable poisons, but it is scarcely
possible for the horse to be accidentally injured or
destroj'ed by it. Ten grains of the farina of the
croton nut should be given as soon as the poison
is suspected, and the patient should be drenched
largely with equal parts of vinegar and thin gruel,
and the croton repeated after the lapse of sLx hours,
if it has not previously operated.

The Water Dropu-ort [Qinanthe Jistulosa), com-
mon in ditches and marshy places, is generally
refused by horses : but brood mares, with appetite
somewhat vitiated by their being in foal, have
been destroyed by it. The antidote would be
vmegar and gniel, and bleeding if there is inflam-
mation.

The Water Parsley i^Mthiisa Cynajnum) de-
serves not all the bad reputation it has acquired ;
although, when eaten in too great quantities, it
has produced palsy in the horse, which has been
strangely attributed to a harmless beetle that in-
habits the stem.

Of the Common Hemlock (Conium inandatum),
and the Water Hemlock (CEiianthe crocata), the
author knows no harm, as far as the horse is con-
cerned. He has repeatedly seen him eat the
latter without any bad eff'ect ; but cows have been
poisoned by it.

The Euphorhium, or Spurge, so common and
infamous an ingredient in the Farrier's Blister,
has destroyed many a horse from the irritation
which it has set up, and the torture it has occa-
sioned, and should never find a place in the Vete-
rinary Pharmacopoeia.

Colocynth and Elaterium fairly rank among
the substances that ai'e poisonous to the horse

+ I^udon's Magazine of Nat. Hist., vol.

* Vcttiinarian, vol. s. p. 685.

II Abstract of the Vet. Med. Association,

ol. i p. 62.

394

THE HORSE.

and so does the Bi-yony Root (Bryonia dioica),
notwithstanding that it is frequently given to
horses, in many parts of the country, as a great
promoter of condition. Many a young horse has
been brought into a state of artificial condition
and excitement by the use of the Bryony. It is
one of the abominable secrets of the horse-breaker.
This state of excitation, however, soon passes
away, and is succeeded by temporary or perma-
nent diminution of vital power. We have occa-
sionally traced much mischief to this infamous
practice.

Not lessinjuriousis the Sovin (Jimiperus Sabina).
It is well known as a vermifuge in the human sub-
j ect, and it is occasionally given to the horse for the
same purpose ; but it is a favourite with the carter
and the groom as a promoter of condition. A
very great proportion of farmers' servants regard
it as a drug effecting some good purpose, although
they can scarcely define what that purpose is ; and
there is scarcely a country stable in which it is
not occasionally found, and in which the horse is
not endangered or perhaps destroyed by its use.
It is high time that the horse-master looked more
carefully to this, and suffered no drug to be admi-
nistered to his horses and cattle, except by his di-
rection or that of the medical attendant. The
farmer and the gentleman can scarcely conceive to
what an abominable extent this vile practice pre-
vails. The presence of savine will be best de-
tected in the stomach of a horse that has died
under suspicious circumstances, by the black-cur-
rant-lea/ smell of the contents when boiled in a
little water, or beaten in a mortar.

The Common Brake (Pteris aqmlina) and the
Stone Fern [Pteris crispa) are violent and danger-
ous diuretics, and, on account of their possessing
this property, are probably favourites with the
horse-keeper and the groom. The diuretic influ-
ence is usually evident enough, but not the injuri-
ous effect which it has on the lining membrane of
the bladder, and the predisposition to inflamma-
tion which it excites in the urinary organs. This
has been too much underrated, even by those who
have inquired into the subject. If the cuticular
coat of the stomach is found not merely in a state
of great inflammation, but will readily peel or
wash off, it must necessarily be a dangerous medi-
cament, and should be banished entirely from the
stable.-'

Of the mineral poisons it will be necessary to
mention only two. Arsenic was once in great re-
pute as a tonic and vermifuge. Doses sufficient
to kill three or four men were daily administered,
and generally with impunity. In some cases,
however, the dose was too powerful, and the animal
was destroyed. Two of the pupils of the author

.. *„'^"° *" *'''^'"'"' of soine experiments on these substances, by
Mr. Cupiss, in the early numbers of " The Sportsman."

were attending the patients of a veterinary surgeon
who was confined in consequence of a serious ac-
cident. Among them was a valuable horse la-
bouring under inflammation of the lungs. The
disease was subdued, and the patient was conva-
lescent. At this period our friend began to regain
sufficient strength to travel a short distance. The
first patient that he visited was this horse, whose
ailments had all passed away. He could not,
however, let well alone, but sent some arsenic
balls. In less than a week this noble animal
was taken to the knacker's. There are far better
vermifuges and tonics than this dangerous drug,
which will probably soon be discarded from vete-
rinary practice.

Corrosive Sublimate is given internally, and
occasionally with advantage, in farcy, and, as an
external application, it is used to destroy vermin,
to cure mange, and to dispose deep and fistulous
ulcers to heal.

It may, however, be given in too large a dose,
the symptoms of which are loss of appetite, dis-
charge of saliva from the mouth, pawing, looking
eagerly at the flanks, rolling, profuse perspiration,
thready pulse, rapid weakness, violent purging
and straining, con^Tilsions, and death.

The stomach -will be found intensely inflamed,
with patches of yet greater inflammation. The
whole course of the intestines will be inflamed,
with particular parts black and gangrenous.

The antidote, if it is not too late to administer
it, would be — for arsenic, lime-water, or chalk and
water, or soap and water, given in great quantities
by means of the stomach-pump ; and for corrosive
sublimate, the white of eggs mixed with water, or
thick starch, or arrow-root.

Is there really occasion for the owner of horses
to be acquainted with these things ? Long expe-
rience has taught the author that poisoning with
these drags is not so rare a circumstance as some
imagine. In the farmer's stable he has occa-
sionally been compelled unwillingly to decide that
the death of one or more horses has been attribu-
table to arsenic or corrosive sublimate, and not to
any peculiar disease, or to anything wrong in the
manner of feeding. A scoundrel was executed in
1812 for administering arsenic and corrosive sub-
limate to several horses. He had been engaged
in these enormities during four long years. The
discarded or offended carter has wreaked his re-
venge in a similar way ; but, oftener, in his eager-
ness to get a more glossy coat on his horses than a
rival servant could exhibit, he has tampered with
these dangerous drugs.

The owner may easily detect this. "Arsenic,
if mixed with charcoal and heated, emits a veiy
perceptible smell of garlic. Sulphuretted hydrogen,
added to a watery solution of arsenic, throws
down a yellow precipitate — lime-water a white

THE HOUSE.

895

one — and the ammoniaco-sulphate of copper a
green one."*

The following are the tests of corrosive subli-
mate :— " It is sublimed by heat, leaving no resi-
duum, and is soluble in water, alcohol, and sul-
phuric ether. Lime-water gives either a lemon-
yellow precipitate, or a brick-dust red one. The
iodide of potash occasions a scarlet precipitate.
The most curious test is, however, by means of
galvanism. A drop of the suspected solution is
placed on a sovereign, and a small key being

brought into contact simultaneously with both the
gold and the solution, an electric current is pro-
duced which decomposes the bichloride of mercury,
for such it is. The chlorine unites with the iron,
and the mercury with the gold."f

THE INTESTINES.

The food having been partially digested in the
stomach, and converted into chyme, passes through
the pj'loric orifice into the intestines.

{f ^.^S^JJr

CDT OF THB INTESTINES.

a The commencement of the small intestines. The ducts which
convey the bile and the secretion from the pancreas are
seen entering a little below.
b b The convolutions or winding of the smaU intestines.

c A portion of the mesentery.

d The small intestines, terminating in the cEBCum.

The intestines of a full-gro^vn horse are not
less than ninety feet in length. The length of
the bowels in different animals depends on the
nature of the food. The nutritive matter is with
much more difficulty extracted from vegetable
than animal substances; therefore the alimentary
canal is large, long, and complicated in those
which, like the horse, are principally or entirely
fed on com or herbs. They are dinded into the
small and large intestines ; the former of which
occupy about sixty-sk feet, and the latter twenty-
four.

The intestines, like the stomach, are com-
posed of three coats.

The outer one consists of the peritoneum — that
membrane which has been already described as
investing the contents of the abdomen. By means
of this coat, the intestines are confined in their

• Manual of Pharmacy, by Professor Morton, Lecturer on
Veterinary Medicine at the St. Pancras Veterinary College, p. 42.

e The ccecum, or blind gut, with the bands running along it,
puckering and dividing it into numerous cells.

/ The beginning of the colon.

g The continuation and expansion of the colon, divided, like the
csecum, into cells.

h The termination of the colon in the rectum.

i The termination of the rectum at the anus.

proper situations ; and, this membrane being
smooth and moist, all friction and concussion are
prevented. Did the bowels float loosely in the
abdomen, they would be subject to constant en-
tanglement and injuiy amid the rapid and violent
motions of the horse.

The middle coat, like that of the stomach, is
muscular, and composed of two layers of fibres,
one running longitudmally and the other circu-
larly ; and by means of these muscles, which are
continually contracting and rela.xing in a direction
from the upper part of the intestines to the lower,
the food is propelled along the bowels.

The inner coat is the mucous or villous one.
It abounds with innumerable small glands, which
secrete a mucous fluid to lubricate the passage and
defend it from irritating or acrimonious sub-
stances ; and it is said to be villous from its soft
velvet-like feeling. This coat is crowded with in-

♦ Ditto, p. 184.

THE HOUSE.

numerable minute orifices that are the commence-
ment of vessels by which the imtritive part of the
food is taken up ; and these vessels, uniting and
passing over the mesentery, carry this nutritive
matter to a proper receptacle for it, whence it is
conveyed into the ckculation, and distributed to
every part.

The intestines are chiefly retained in their
relative positions by the mesentery, c (middle of
the intestines), which is a doubling of the perito-
neum, including each intestine in its folds, and
also inclosing in its dujilicatures the arteries, the
veins, the nerves, and the vessels which convey
the nutriment from the intestines to the circula-
tion.

The first of the small intestines, and com-
mencing from the right extremity of the stomach,
is the duodenum, a, a very improper name for it
in the horse, for in that animal it is nearly two feet
in length. It is the largest and shortest of all
the small intestines. It receives the food par-
tially converted into chyme by the digestive power
of the stomach,* and in which it undergoes another
and very important change ; a portion of it being
converted into chyle. It is here mixed with the
bile and the secretion from the pancreas, which
enter this intestine about five inches from its
commencement. The bile seems to be the prin-
cipal agent in this change, for no sooner does it
mingle with the chyme than that fluid begins to
be separated into two distinct ingredients — a white
thick liquid termed chyle and containing the nu-
tritive part of the food, and a yellow pulpy sub-
stance, the innutritive portion, which, when the
chyle is all pressed from it, is evacuated through
the rectum.

The next portion of the small intestines is the
jejumim, so called because it is generally found to
be empty. It is smaller in bulk and paler in colour
than the duodenum. It is more loosely confined
in the abdomen — floating comparatively unattached
in the cavity of the abdomen, and the passage of
the food being comparatively rapid through it.

Tliere is no separation or distinction between
it and the next intestine — the ileum. There is
no point at which the jejunum can be said to ter-
minate and the ileum commence. Together they
form that portion of the intestinal tube which floats
in the umbilical region : the latter, however, is said
to occupy three-fifths, and the former two-fifths, of
this portion of the intestines, and the five would
contain about eleven gallons of fluid. The ileum
is evidently less vascular than the jejunum, and

• The conversion of food into chyme is very imperfectly per-
formed in the stomach of the horse, on account of the smallness of
that \-iscu5, and the portion of it which is occupied by cuticle :
therefore, he needs in the upper part of the duodenum a kind of
second stomach, to mix up and dissolve the food. That apparatus
is evident enough until we arrive at the pancreatic and biUary
orifices.

gradually diminishes in size as it approaches the
larger intestines.

These two intestines are attached to the spine
by a loose doubling of the peritoneum, and float
freely in the abdominal cavity, their movements
and their relative positions being regulated only by
the size or fulness of the stomach, and the stage of
the digestive process.-]-

The small intestines derive their blood from
the anterior mesenteric artery, which divides into
innumerable minute branches that ramify between
their muscular and villous coats. Then- veins,
which are destitute of valves, return the blood
into the vena cava. The prime agent in producing
all these effects is the cerebro visceral nerve. J

The large intestines are three in number: —
the ccecum, the colon, and the rectum. The first

of them is the cacum (blind gut), c, j) — it has but
one opening into it, and consequently everything
that passes into it, having reached the blind or
closed end, must return, in order to escape. It is
not a continuation of the ileum, but the ileum
pierces the head of it, as it were, at right angles
(d, J)), and projects some way into it, and has a
valve — the valvula coli — at its extremity, so that
what has traversed the ileum, and entered the head
of the colon, cannot return into the ileum. Along
the outside of the crecum run three strong bands,
each of them shorter than that intestine, and thus
puckering it up, and forming it into three sets of
cells, as shown in the above cut.

That portion of the food which has not been
taken up by the lacteals or absorbent vessels of the
small intestines, passes through this valvular open-
ing of the ileum, and a part of it enters the colon,
while the remainder flows into the caecum. Then,
from this being a blind pouch, and from the cellu-
lar structure of this pouch, the food must be de-
tained in it a very long time ; and in order that,
during this detention, all the nutriment may be
extracted, the caecum and its cells are largely sup-

■f Percivall's Anatomy of the Horse, p. 256.
t Ycjuatt s Lectures on the Nervous System, Veterinarian, vol.
vii. p. 351.

THE HORSE.

397

plied with Wood vessels and absorbents. It is
principally the fluid part of the food that seems to
enter the csecum. A horse will drink at one time
a great deal more than his stomach will contain ;
or even if he drinks a less quantit}', it remains not
in the stomach or small intestines, but passes on
to the csecum, and there is retained, as in a reser-
voir, to supply the wants of the system. In his
state of servitude the horse does not often drink
more than twice or thrice in a day, and the food of
the stabled horse being chiefly dry, this water
stomach is most useful to him. The ca3cum will
hold four gallons.

The colon is an intestine of exceedingly large
dimensions, and is capable of containing no less
tbau twelve gallons of liquid or pulpy food. At its
union with the caecum and the ileum, although
larger than the latter intestine (/), it is of compa-
ratively small bulk ; but it soon swells out to an
enormous extent. It has likemse, in the greater
part of its course, three bands like the csecum,
which also divide it, internally, into the same de-
scription of cells. The intention of this is evident,
— to retard the progress of the food, and to give a
more extensive surface on which the vessels of the
lacteals may open ; and therefore, in the colon, all
the chyle is finally separated and taken up. When
this is nearly accomplished, the coustnietion of the
colon is somewbat changed : we find but two bands
towards the rectum, and these not puckering the
intestine so much, or forming such numerous or
deep cells. The food does not require to be much
longer detained, and the mechanism for detaining
it is gradually disappearing. The blood-vessels
and absorbents are likewise rapidly diminishing.
The colon, also, once more contracts in size, and
the chyle having been all absorbed, the remauiing
mass, being of a harder consistence, is moulded
into pellets or balls in its passage through these
shallower cells.

At the tennination of the colon, the rectum
(straight gut) commences. It is smaller in cir-
cumference and capacity than the colon, although
it will contain at least three gallons of water. It
sen'es as a reser\'oir for the dung until it is evacu-
ated. It has none of these bands, because, all the
nutriment being extracted, the passage of the ex-
crement that remains should be hastened and not
retarded. The ffeces descend to the rectum, which
somewhat enlarges to receive them ; and when they
have accumulated to a certain extent, the animal,
by the aid of the diaphragm and the muscles of the
belly, presses upon them, and they ai-e evacuated.
A curious circular muscle, and always in action,
called the sphincter (constrictor muscle), is placed
at the anus, to prevent the constant and unpleasant
dropping of the ffeces, and to retain them until the
horse is disposed volmitarily to expel them. This
is effected by the efforts of the animal, assisted by

the muscular coat of the rectum, which is stronger
than that of any of the other intestines, and aided
by the compression of the internal oblique and
transverse muscles.

The larger intestines derive their blood from
the posterior mesenteric artery. Their veins ter-
minate in the vena portae.

THE LIVER.

Between the stomach and the diaphragm — its
right lobe or division in contact with the diaphragm,
the duodenum and the right kidney, and the middle
and left divisions with tjie stomach — is the liver.
It is an irregularly-shaped, reddish-brown sub-
stance, of considerable bulk, and performs a very
singular and important office.

It has been already stated (p. 341) that the
blood, which has been conveyed to the different
parts of the body by the arteries, is brought back to
the heart by the veins ; but that which is returned
from the stomach and intestines and spleen and
pancreas and mesentery, instead of flowing directly
to the heart, passes first through the liver. It
enters by two large vessels that spread by means
of innumerable minute branches through eveiy
part of the liver. As the blood traverses this
organ, a fluid is separated from it, called the hile.
It is probably a Idndof excrement, the continuance
of which in the blood would be injurious ; but, while
it is thrown off, another important purjjose is
answered — the process of digestion is promoted, by
the bile changing the nutritive portion of the food
from chyme into chyle, and separating it from that
which, containing little or no nutriment, is voided
as excrement.

Almost every part of it is closely invested by
the peritoneum, which seems to discharge the office
of a capsule to this \-iscus. Its arteries are veiy
small, considering the bulk of the liver; but tlieir
place is curiously supplied by a vein — the vena
porta- — a vessel formed by the union of the splenic
and mesenteric veins, and which seems, if it does
not quite usui-p the office and discharge the duty
of the artery, to be far more concerned thaji it in
the secretion of the bile. There is a free Lnter-
com-se between the vessels of the two.

There are, scattered tlirough the substance of
the liver, numerous little granules, called acini,
from then- resemblance to the small stones of cer-
tain berries. They are united together by a fine
cellular web, whose intimate stnicture has never
yet been satisfactorily explained. From tlie blood
which enters the liver there is a constant secretion
of a yellow bitter fluid, called hile. The separation
of the bile from the blood probably takes place
within the acini; the secreting vessels are the
penicelli, or those which compose this fine celluliir
web, and the fluid — the bfle — is taken up by the
pori hiliarii, small vessels, from which a yellowish

898

THE HORSE.

fluid is seen exuding into whatever part of the hver
we cut, and is carried by them into the main vessel,
the hepatic duct.

The bile, thus formed, is in most animals re-
ceived into a reservoir, the gall-bladder, whence it
is conveyed into the duodenum {g. p. 389) at the
times, and in the quantities, which the purposes
of digestion require ; but the horse lias no gall-
bladder, and, consequently, the bile flows into the
intestine as rapidly as it is separated from the
blood. The reason of this is plain. A small
stomach was given to the horse in order that the
food might quickly pass ont of it, and the diaphragm
and the lungs might not be injuriously pressed
upon, when we require his utmost speed ; and also
that we might use him with little danger compared
with that which would attach to other animals, even
when his stomach is distended with food. Then
the stomach, so small, and so speedily emptied,
must be oftener replenished ; the horse must be
oftener eating, and food oftener or almost continu-
ously passing out of his stomach. How admirably
does this comport with the uninternipted supply of
bile !

THE PANCREAS,

In the domestic animals which are used for
food, this organ is called the sweet-bread. It lies
between the stomach and left kidney. It much
resembles in stnicture the salivary glands in the
neighbourhood of the mouth, and the fluid which
it secretes has been erroneously supposed to re-
semble the saliva in its properties. The pancreatic
fluid is carried into the intestines by a duct which
enters at the same aperture with that from the
liver. It contains a large proportion of albumen,
caseous matter, and a little free acid. Its use,
whether to dilute the bile or the chyme, or to as-
sist in the separation of the chyme from the
feculent matter, has never been ascertained : it is.

however, clearlj' emploj'ed in aiding the process of
digestion.

THE SPLEEN.

This organ, often called the melt, is a long,
bluish-brown substance, broad and thick at one
end, and tapering at the other ; lying along the
left side of the stomach, and between it and the
short ribs. It is of a spongy nature, divided into
numerous little cells not unlike a honeycomb, and
over which thousands of minute vessels thickly
spread. The particular use of this organ has never
been clearly ascertained, for in some cruel experi-
ments it has been removed, without apparent injury
to digestion or any other function. It is, however,
useful, at least occasionally, or it would not have
been given to the animal. It is perhaps a reser-
voir or receptacle for any fluid that may be conveyed
into the stomach beyond that which is sufficient
for the purposes of digestion.

THE OMENTUM,

Or caivl, is a doubling of the peritoneum, or rather
consists of four layers of it. It has been supposed
to have been placed between the intestines and
the walls of the belly, in order to prevent concus-
sion and injury during the rapid movement of the
animal. That, however, cannot be its principal
use in the horse, from whom the most rapid move-
ments are required ; for in him it is unusually short,
extending only to the pancreas and a small portion
of the colon. Being, however, thus short, the
horse is exempt from a very troublesome and,
occasionally, fatal species of rupture, wlien a por-
tion of the omentum penetrates through some acci-
dental opening in the covering of the belly.

The structure of the urinary organs and the
diseases to which they are exposed will be here-
after considered.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES.

These form a very important and mysterious
class of ailments. They will be considered in the
order in which the various contents of the abdomen
have been described.

THE DUODENUM.

This intestine is subject to many more diseases
than are included in the present imperfect veteri-
nary nosology. The passage of the food through
it has been impeded by stricture. A singular case
is related by Mr. Tombs : — " An aged horse was
taken sudfenly ill. He lay down, rolled upon his

back, and perspired profusely, wath a pulse quick
and hard ; presentlj' he became sick, and the con-
tents of the stomach were voided thi-ough the
mouth and nostrils. Blood-letting, purgatives,
fomentations, &c. were resorted to, but in sixteen
hours after the first attack the horse died. The
stomach was distended with food, and there was a
complete stricture of the duodenum, three inches
posterior to the entrance of the hepatic duct. The
portion of the intestine anterior to the stricture
was distended and in a gangrenous state."*

* Vettrinarian, vol. viii. p. 329.

THE HORSE.

399

Mr. Dickens records a somewhat similar case.
" A horse was attacked by apparent colic. Proper
treatment was adopted, and he got seemingly well.
Nine days afterwards the apparent colic returned.
He threw himself down, rolled upon his back, beat-
ing his chest with his fore feet, or sitting upon his
haunches like a dog. All possible remedial mea-
sures were adopted, but he died thirty-six hours
after the second attack. At the distance of ten
inches from the stomach was a stricture which
■would scarcely admit of the passage of a tobacco-
pipe, and about which were marks of mechanical
injury, as if from a nail or other hard substance.
The anterior portion of the intestines was strangely
distended."*

It has been perforated by bots. Mr. Brewer
describes a case, the symptoms of which were simi-
lar to those already related. " On examining the
patient after death, the intestines were found to be
altogether free from disease, except a portion of
the duodenum, which was perforated by bots,
several of which had escaped into the abdomen.
Around the aperture the duodenum was in a gan-
grenous state."!

The diseases of the jejunum and the ileum
consist either of spasmodic affection or inflamma-
tion.

SPASMODIC COLIC.

The passage of the food through the intestinal
canal is effected b}' the alternate contraction and
relaxation of the muscidar coat of the intestines.
When that action is simply increased through the
■whole of the canal, the food passes more rapidly,
and purging is produced ; but the muscles of every
part of the frame are liable to irregular and spas-
modic action, and the muscular coat of some portion
of the intestines may be thus affected. The spasm
may be confined to a very small part of the canal.
The gut has been found, after death, strangely con-
tracted in various places, but the contraction not
exceeding five or sLx inches in any of them. In
the horse, the ileum is the usual seat of this disease.
It is of much importance to distinguish between
spasmodic colic and inflammation of the bowels,
for the symptoms have considerable resemblance,
although the mode of treatment should be very
different.

The attack of colic is usually very sudden.
There is often not the slightest warning. The
horse begins to shift his posture, look round at his
flanks, paw violently, strike his belly with his feet,
and crouch in a peculiar manner, advancing his
hind limbs under him ; he will then suddenly lie,
or rather fall down, and balance himself upon his
back, with his feet resting on his belly. The pain
now seems to cease for a little while, and he gets

• Veterinarian, vol. x. p. 553.
+ Ibid, vol. V. p. 493.

up, and shakes himself, and begins to feed ; the
respite, however, is but short — the spasm returns
more violentl}' — every indication of pain is in-
creased— he heaves at the flanks, breaks out into
a profuse perspiration, and throws himself more
recklessly about. In the space of an hour or two,
either the spasms begin to relax, and the remissions
are of longer duration, or the torture is augmented
at every paroxysm ; the intervals of ease are
fewer and less marked, and inflammation and
death supervene. The pulse is but little affected
at the commencement, but it soon becomes fre-
quent and contracted, and at length is scarcely
tangible.

It will presently be seen that many of the
symptoms very closely resemble those of inflam-
mation of the mucous membrane of the bowels : it
may therefore be useful to point out the leading
distinctions between them.

COLIC.

Siulden in its attack.

Pulse rarely much quickened in the early period of the disease
and during the intervals of ease ; but*evidently fuller.
Legs and ears of the natural teroperature.
Relief obtained fnim rubbing the belly.
Relief obtained frnm motion.
Intervals of rest.
Strength scarcely atfected.

INFLAMMATION OF THE BOWELS.

Gradual in its approach, with previous indications of fi^vtT,
Pulse very much quickened, but small, and often scarcely to b«
felt.

Legs and ears cold.

Belly exceedingly tender and painful to the touch.

Motion evidently increasing the pain

Constant pain

Rapid and great weakness.

Among the causes of colic are, the drinking of
cold water when the horse is heated. There is not
a surer origin of violent spasm than this. Hard
water is very apt to produce this effect. Colic
will sometimes follow the exposure of a horse to
the cold air, or a cold wind after strong exercise.
Green meat, although, generally speaking, most
beneficial to the horse, yet, given in too large a
quantity, or when he is hot. \vill frequently produce
gripes. Doses of aloes, both large and small, are
not unfreijuent causes of colic. In some horses
there seems to be a constitutional predisposition
to colic. They cannot be hardly worked, or ex-
posed to unusual cold, without a fit of it. In many
cases, when these horses have died, calculi have
been found in some part of the alimentary canal.
Habitual costiveness and the presence of calculi
are frequent causes of spasmodic colic. The seat
of colic is occasionally the duodenum, but oftener
the ileum or the jejunum ; sometimes, however, both
the csecum and colon are affected.

Fortunately, we are acquainted ■with several
medicines that allay these spasms ; and the disease
often ceases almost as suddenly as it appeared.
Turpentine is one of the most powerful remedies,
especially in union with opium, and in good warm
ale. The account that has just been given of the

400

THE HOUSE.

caecum will not be forgotten liere. A solution of
aloes will be advantageously added to the turpentine
and opium.

If relief is not obtained in half an hour, it will
be prudent to bleed, for the continuance of violent
spasm may produce inflammation. Some prac-
titioners bleed at first, and it is far from bad prac-
tice ; for although the majority of cases will yield
to turpentine, opium, and aloes, an early bleeding
may occasionally prevent the recurrence of inflam-
mation, or at least mitigate it. If it is clearly a
case of colic, half of the first dose may be repeated,
with aloes dissolved in warm water. The stimulus
produced on the inner surface of the bowels by the
purgative, may counteract the irritation that caused
the spasm. The belly should be well nibbed with
a brush orwann cloth, but not bruised and injured
by the broom-handle rubbed over it, with all their
strength, by two great fellows. The horse should
be walked about, or trotted moderately. The mo-
tion thus produced in the bowels, and the friction
of one intestine over the other, may relax the
spasm, but the hasty gallop might speedily cause
inflammation to succeed to colic. Clysters of warm
water, or containing a solution of aloes, should be
injected. The patent syringe will hei'e be exceed-
ingly useful. A clyster of tobacco-smoke may be
thrown up as a last resort.

When relief has been obtained, the clothing of
the horse, saturated with perspiration, should be
removed, and fresh and dry clothes substituted.
He should be well littered down in a warm stable
or box, and have bran mashes and luke-warm water
for the two or three next days.

Some persons give gin, or gin and pepper, or
even spirit of pimento, in cases of gripes. This
com'se of procceeding is, however, exceedingly ob-
jectionable. It may be useful, or even sufficient,
in ordinal^ cases of colic ; but if there should be
any inflammation, or tendency to inflammation, it
cannot fiiil to be highly injurious.

FLATULENT COLIC.

This is altogether a different disease from the
former. It is not spasm of the bowels, but infla-
tion of them from the presence of gas emitted by
undigested food. Whether collected in the stomach,
or small or large intestines, all kinds of vegetable
matter are liable to ferment. In consequence of
this fermentation, gas is evolved to a greater or
less extent — perhaps to twenty or thirty times the
bulk of the food. This may take place in the
stomach ; and if so, the life of the horse is in im-
mediate danger, for, as will plainly appear from
the account that has been given of the oesophagus
and upper orifice of the stomach, the animal has
no power to expel this dangerous flatus by eructa-
tion.

This extrication of gas usually takes place in

the colon and coecum, and the distention may be
so great as to nipture either the one or the other,
or sometimes to produce death, without either rup-
ture or strangulation, and that in the course of
from four to twenty-four hours.

In some ill-conducted establishments, and far
oftener on the north than the south of the Tweed,
it is a highly dangerous disease, and is especially
fatal to horses of heavy draught. An overloaded
stomach is one cause of it, and particularly so
when water is given either immediately before or
after a plentiful meal, or food to which the horse
has not been accustomed is given.

The symptoms, according to Professor Stewart,
are, " the horse suddenly slackening his pace —
preparing to lie down, or falling down as if he were
shot. In the stable he paws the ground with his
fore feet, lies down, rolls, starts up all at once, and
throws himself down again with great violence,
looking wistfully at his flanks, and making many
fruitless attemjDts to void his urine."

Hitherto the symptoms are not much unlike
spasmodic colic, but the real character of the
disease soon begins to develope itself. It is in
one of the large intestines, and the belly swells
all round, but mostly on the right flank. As the
disease proceeds, the pain becomes more intense,
the horse more violent, and at length death closes
the scene.

The treatment is considerably different from
that of spasmodic colic. The spirit of pimento
would be here allowed, or the turpentine and
opium drink ; but if the pain, and especially the
swelling, do not abate, the gas, which is the cause
of it, must be got rid of, or the animal is inevitably
lost.

This is usually or almost invariably a combi-
nation of hydrogen with some other gas. It has
a strong affinity for chlorine. Then if some com-
pound of chlorine — the chloride of lime — dissolved
in water, is administered in the form of a drink,
the chlorine sepai-ates from the lime as soon as it
comes into contact with the hydrogen, and mwiatic
gas is formed. This gas having a strong affinity
for water, is absorbed by any fluid that may be
present, and, quittuig its gaseous form, either dis-
appears, or does not retain a thousandth part of its
former bulk. All this may be very rapidly accom-
plished, for the fluid is quickly conveyed from the
mouth to every part of the intestinal canal.

Where these two medicines are not at hand,
and the danger is imminent, the trochar may be
used, in order to open a way for the escape of the
gas. The trochar should be small but longer than
that which is used for the cow, and the puncture
should be made in the middle of the right flank, for
there the large intestines are most easily reached.
In such a disease it cannot be expected that the
intestines shall always be found precisely in their

THE HORSE.

401

natural situations, but usually the origin of the
ascending portion of the colon, or the base of the
caecum, will be pierced. The author of this work,
however, deems it his duty to add, that it is only
when the practitioner despairs of otherwise saving
the life of the animal, that this operation should
be attempted. Much of the danger would be
avoided by using a very small trocliar, and by
withdrawing it as soon as the gas has escaped.
The wound in the intestines will then probably
close, from the innate elasticity of the parts.

INFLAlTMAnON OF THE BOWELS.

There are two varieties of this malady. The
first is inflammation of the external coats of the
intestines, accompanied by considerable fever, and
usually costiveness. The second is that of the
internal or mucous coat, and almost invariably
connected with purging.

The musculai' coat is that which is ofteuest
affected. Inflammation of the e.xtemal coats of
the stomach, whether the peritoneal or muscular,
or both, is a very frequent and fatal disease. It
speedily nins its course, and it is of great conse-
quence that its early symptoms should be known.
If the horse has been carefull}' observed, restless-
ness and fever will have been seen to precede the
attack. In many cases a direct shivering fit will
occur : the mouth will be hot, and the nose red.
The animal \vill soon express the most dreadful
pain, by pairing, striking at his belly, looking
■wildly at his flanks, groaning, and rolling. The
pulse will be quickened and small ; the ears and
legs cold ; the belly tender, and sometimes hot ;
the breathing quickened ; the bowels costive ; and
the animal becoming rapidly and feai'fully weak.

The reader will probably here recur to the
sketch given in page 399 of the distinction between
spasmodic colic and inflammation of the bowels, or
enteritis.

The causes of tliis disease are, first of all and
most frequently, sudden exposure to cold. If a
horse that has been highly fed, carefully groomed,
and kept in a warm stable, is heated ndth exercise,
and has been during some hours without food, and
in this state of exhaustion is suffered to drink
freely of cold water, or is drenched -with rain, or
have his legs and belly washed with cold water, an
attack of inflammation of the bowels will often
follow. An over-fed hoi-se, subjected to severe and
long-continued exertion, if his lungs were previously
weak, will probably be attacked by inflammation of
them ; but if the lungs were sound, the bowels will
on the following day be the seat of disease. Stones
in the intestines are an occasional cause of inflam-
mation, and colic neglected or wrongly treated will
terminate in it.

The horse paws and stamps as in colic, but
without the intervals of ease that occur in that
disease. The pulse also is far quicker than in
colic. The breathing is more hurried, and the
indication of suffering more evident. " The next
stage," in the graphic language of Mr. Per<;iva]l,
" borders on delirium. The eye acquires a -nild,
haggard, unnatural stare — the pupil dilates — his
heedless and dreadful throes render approach to
liim quite perilous. He is an object not only of
compassion but of apprehension, and seems fast
hurrying to his end ; when, all at once, in the
midst of agonising torments, he stands quiet, as
though eveiy pain had left him, and he were going
to recover. His breathing becomes tranquillised
— his pulse sunk beyond all perception — his body
bedewed with a cold clammy sweat — he is in a
tremour from head to foot, and about the legs and
ears has even a death-like feel. The mouth feels
deadly chill ; the lips drop pendulous ; and the eye
seems unconscious of objects. In fine, death, not
recoveiy, is at hand. Mortification has seized the
inflamed bowel — pain can no longer be felt in that
wliich a few minutes ago was the seat of exquisite
suffering. He again becomes convulsed, and in a
few more struggles, less violent than the former,
he expires."*

The treatment of inflammation of the bowels,
like that of the lungs, should be prompt and ener-
getic The first and most powerful means of cure
will be bleeding. From six to eight or ten quarts
of blood, in fact, as much as the horse can bear,
should be abstracted as soon as possible ; and the
bleeding repeated to the extent of four or five
quai'ts more, if the pain is not relieved and the
pulse has not become rounder and fuller. The
speedy weakness that accompanies this disease
should not deter from bleeding largely. That
weakness is the consequence of violent inflamma-
tion of these parts ; and if that inflammation is
subdued by the loss of blood, the weakness will
disappear. The bleeding should be effected on
the first appearance of the disease, for there is no
malady that more quickly runs its course.

A strong solution of aloes should immediately
follow the bleeding, but, considering the initable
state of the intestines at this period, guai'ded by
opium. This should be quickly followed by back-
raking, and injections consisting of warm water, or
veiy thin gruel, in which Epsom salts or aloes have
been dissolved ; and too much fluid can scarcely be
thrown up. If the common ox-bladder and pipe
is used, it should be frequently replenished ; but
with Read's patent pump, already referred to,
sufficient may be injected to penetrate beyond the
rectum, and reach to the colon and ctecum, and
dispose them to evacuate their contents. The
horse should likewise be eucom-aged to drink pleu-

• Percivai: s Hijipopatholosy, vol. ii. p. 246.

402

TEIE HORSE.

tifully of warm water or thin gruel ; and draughts,
each containing a couple of drachms of dissolved
aloes, with a little opium, should be given eveiy
six hours, until the bowels are freely opened.

It will now be prudent to endeavour to excite
considerable external inflammation as near as pos-
sible to the seat of internal disease, and therefore
the whole of the belly should be blistered. In a
well-marked case of this disease, no time should
be lost in applying fomentations, but the blister at
once resorted to. The tincture of Spanish flies,
whether made with spirit of wine or turpentine,
should be thoroughly rubbed in. Tlie legs should
be well bandaged in order to restore the circu-
lation in them and thus lessen the flow of blood to
the inflamed part ; and, for the same reason, the
horse should be warmly clothed; but the air of
the stable or box should be cool.

No corn or hay should be allowed during the
disease, but bran mashes, and green meat if it can
be procured. The latter will be the best of all
food, and may be given without the slightest
apprehension of danger. When the horse begins
to recover, a handful of com may be given two or
three times in the day ; and, if the weather is
warm, he may be turned into a paddock for a few
hours in the middle of the day. Clysters of gruel
should be continued for three or four days after
the inflammation is beginning to subside, and good
hand-rubbing applied to the legs.

The second variety of inflammation of the
bowels aff'ects the iutenial or mucous coat, and is
generally the consequence of physic in too great
quantity, or of an improper kind. The purging
is more violent and continues longer than was
intended ; the animal shows that he is suffering
great pain ; he frequently looks round at his
flanks ; his breathing is laborious, and the pulse is
quick and small — not so small, however, as in
inflammation of the peritoneal coat, and, contrary
to some of the most frequent and characteristic
symptoms of that disease, the mouth is hot and
the legs and ears are warm. Unless the purging
is excessive, and the pain and distress great, the
surgeon should hesitate at giving any astringent
medicine at first ; but he should plentifully
administer gruel or thin starch, or arrow-root, by
the mouth and by clyster, removing all hay
and corn, and particularly green meat. He should
thus endeavour to soothe the irritated surface of
the bowels, while he permits all remains of the
purgative to be carried off. If, however, twelve
hours have passed, and the purging and the paui
remain undiminished, he should continue the
gruel, adding to it chalk, catechu, and opium,
repeated every six hours. As soon as the purging
begins to subside, the astringent medicme should
be lessened in quantity, and gradually discontinued.
Bleeding will rarely be necessaij, unless the

inflammation is very great, and attended by symp-
toms of general fever. The horse should be
warmly clothed, and placed in a comfortable
stable, and his legs should be hand-rubbed and
bandaged.

Violent purging, and attended with much
inflammation and fever, will occur from other
causes. Green meat will frequently purge. A
horse worked hard upon green meat will some-
times scour. The remedy is change of diet, or
less labour. Young horses will often be strongly
purged, without any apparent cause. Astringents
should be used with much caution here. It is
probably an effort of nature to get rid of something
that offends. A few doses of gruel will assist in
effecting this pui-pose, and the purging will cease
without astringent medicine.

Many horses that are not well-ribbed home —
having too great space between the last rib and the
hip-bone — are subject to purging if more than
usual exertion is required from them. They are
recognised by the tenn of ivashy horses. They
are often free and fleet, but destitute of continu-
ance. The}' should have rather more than the
usual allowance of com, with beans, when at work.
A cordial ball, with catechu and opium, will often
be serviceable either before or after a journey.

PHYSICKING.

This would seem to be the proper place to
speak of physicking horses — a mode of treatment
necessaiy under various diseases often useful for
the augmentation of health, and yet which has
often injured the constitution and absolutely
destroyed thousands of animals. When a horse
comes from grass to hard meat, or from the cool
open air to a heated stable, a dose or even two
doses of physic may be useful to prevent the ten-
dency to inflammation which is the necessary
consequence of so sudden and great a change. To
a horse that is becoming too fat, or has surfeit, or
grease, or mange, or that is out of condition from
inactivity of the digestive organs, a dose of physic
is often most serviceable ; but the reflecting man
will enter his protest against the periodical
physicking of all horses in the spring and the
autumn, and more particularly against that severe
system which is thought to be necessaiy in
order to train them for work, and also the absurd
method of treating the animal when under the
operation of physic.

A horse should be carefully prepared for tire
action of physic. Two or three bran mashes given
on that or the preceding day are far from sufficient
when a horse is about to be physicked, whether to
promote his condition or in obedience to custom.
Mashes should be given until the dung becomes
softened. A less quantity of physic will then
suffice, and it will more quickly pass through the

TIIK HORSE.

408

intestiues, and be more readily diffused over
them. Five drachms of aloes, given when the
dung has thus beeu softened, will act much more
effectually and mucli more safely than seven
drachms, when the lower intestines are obstructed
by hardened ffeces.

On the day on which the physic is given, the
horse should have walking exercise, or may be
gently trotted for a quarter of an hour twice in the
day ; but after the physic begins to work, he
should not be moved from his stall. Exercise
would then produce gripes, irritation, and, possibly,
dangerous inflannnation. The common and absurd
practice is to give the horse most exercise after
the physic has begun to operate.

A little hay may be put into the rack. As
much mash should be given as the horse will eat,
and as much water, with the coldness of it taken
off, as he will drink. If, however, he obstinately
refuses to drink warm water, it is better that he
should have it cold, than to continue without
taking any fluid ; but in such ease he should not be
suffered to take more than a quart at a time, with
an interval of at least an hour between each
draught.

When the purging has ceased, or the physic is
set, a mash should be given once or twice every
day until the next dose is taken, between which
and the setting of the first there should be an
interval of a week. The horse should recover
from the languor and debility occasioned by the
first dose, before he is harassed by a second.

Eight or ten tolerably copious motions will be
perfectly sufficient to answer every good purpose,
akh(]ugh the groom or the carter may not be
satisfied unless double the quantity are procured.
The consequence of too strong purgation will be,
that weakness will hang about the animal for
several days or weeks, and inflammation will often
ensue from the over-irritation of the intestinal canal.

Long-continued custom has made Aloes the
almost invariable purgative of the horse, and very
properly so ; for there is no other at once so sure
and so safe. The Barbadoes aloes, although
sometimes very dear, should alone be used. The
dose, with a horse properly prepared, will vary
from four to seven drachms. The preposterous
doses of nine, ten, or even twelve drachms, are
now, happily for the horse, generally abandoned.
Custom has assigned the form of a ball to physic,
but good sense will in due time introduce the
solution of aloes, as acting more speedily, effectu
ally, and safely.

The only other purgative on which dependence
can be placed is the Croton. The farina or meal
of the nut is generally used ; but from its acri-
mony it should be given in the form of ball, with
linseed meal. The dose varies from a scruple to
half a di-achm. It acts more speedily than the

aloes, and without the nausea which they produce ;
but it causes more watery stools, and, consequently,
more debility.

Linseed-oil is an uncertain but safe purga-
tive, in doses from a pound to a pound and a half.
Olive-oil is more uncertain, but safe ; but Castor-
oil, that mild aperient in the hum.on being, is
both uncertain and unsafe. Epsom-salts are
inefficacious, except in the immense dose of a
pound and a half, and then they are not always
safe.

CALCULI, OR STONES IN THE INTESTINES.

These are a cause of inflammation in the
bowels of the horse, and more frequently of colic.
They are generally found in the ccEcum or colon,
varying considerably in shape according to the
nucleus round which the sabulous or other earthy
matter collects, or the form of the cell in which
they have beeu lodged. They differ in size and
weight, from a few grains to several pounds.
From the horizontal position of the carcase of the
horse, the calculus, when it begins to form, does
not gravitate so much as in the human being, and
therefore calctdous concretions remain and accu-
mulate until their very size prevents their expul-
sion, and a fatal irritation is too frequently pro-
duced by their motion and weight. They are
oftenest found in heavy draught and in millers'
horses. In some of these horses they have the
appearance of grit-stone or crystallized r/neiss. It
is probable that they partly consist of these very
minerals, combined with the bran which is conti-
nually floating about. An analysis of the Calculi
favours this supposition. They are a source of
continual irritation wherever they are placed, and
are a fruitful cause of colic. Spasms of the most
fearful kind have been clearly traced to them.*

Professor Morton, of the Royal Veterinary
College, in his Essay on Calculous Concretions, —
a work that is far too valuable to be withdrawn
from the public view, — gives an interesting account
of these substances in the intestinal canal of the
horse. Little advance has been or can be made
to procure their expulsion, or even to determine
tlieir existence ; and even when they have passed
into the rectum, although some have been expelled,
others have been so firmly impacted as to resist all
medicinal means of withdrawal, and a few have
broken their way through the parietes of the
rectum, and lodged in the abdominal cavity. Mr.
Percivall, in his " Eleraentaiy Lectures on the
Veterinary Art," has recorded several fearful cases
of this, f

Other concretions are described under the
title of oat-hair calculi. Their surface is tuber-
culated and their forms irregular. They are

Veterinarian, IX., 161.

+ Vol. II., p. 449.

404

THE HORSE.

usually without any distinct nuclei, and are prin-
cipally composed of the hairy fibrous matter which
enters into the composition of the oat. The pro-
fessor very properly adds, and it is a cii'cumstance
■which deserves much consideration, that such oats
as are husky, with a deficiency of farinaceous
matter, are likely to give rise to these accumula-
tions, whenever impaired digestion exists. It is
also an undoubted fact, that a great proportion of
horses affected with calculi are the property of
millers, or brewers. A third species of concretion
too frequently existing is the dung-hall, or mixed
calculm. It is made up of coarse, indigestible,
excrementitious matter, mixed with portions of
the ''oat-air calculus" and many foreign sub-
stances, such as pieces of coal, gravel, &c., and
the whole agglutinated together. They are com-
monly met with in horses that are voracious
feeders, and mingled with particles of coal and
stone.

INTEOSDSCEPTION OF THE INTESTINES.

The spasmodic action of the ileum being long
continued, may be succeeded by an inverted one
from the coecum towards the stomach, more
powerful than in the natural direction ; and the
contracted portion of the intestine will be thus
forced into another above it that retains its natural
calibre. The irritation caused by this increases
the inverted action, and an obstruction is formed

which no power can overcome. Even the natural
motion of the bowels will be sufficient to produce
introsusception, when the contraction of a portion
of the ileum is very great. There are no symp-
toms to indicate the presence of this, except con-
tinued and increasing pain ; or, if there were, all
our means of relief would here fail.

Introsusception is not confined to any parti-
cular situation. A portion of the jejunum has
been found invaginated within the duodenum, —
and also wthin the ileum, and the ileum within
the coecum — and one portion of the colon within
another, and within the rectum. The ileum and
jejunum are occasionally invaginated in various
places. More than a dozen distinct cases of in-
trosusception have occurred in one animal, and
sometimes unconnected with any appearance of
inflammation, but in other cases, or in other parts
of the intestinal canal of the same animal, there
will be inflammation of the most intense cha-
racter. In the majority of cases, perhaps it is an
accidental consequence of pre-existing disease, and
occasioned by some irregular action of the mus-
cular tunic, or some initation of the mucous
surface.

A more formidable, but not so_ frequent dis-
ease is ,

ENTANGLEMENT OF THE BOWELS.

This is another and singular consequence of

THE HORSE.

405

colio. Although the ileum is enveloped in the
mesentery, ;v\d its motion to a considerable degree
confined, j'et under the spasm of colic, and during
the violence with which the animal rolls and
throws himself about, portions of the intestine
become so entangled as to be twisted into nooses
and knots, drawn toget^her with a degree of tight-
ness scarcely credible. Nothing but the extreme
and continued torture of the animal can lead us to
suspect that this has taken jilace, and, could we
ascertain its existence, there would be no cure.

An interesting case occurred in the practice
of Mr. Sjiooner of Southampton. A mare at grass
was suddenly taken ill. She discovered symp-
toms of violent colic, for which anti-spasmodic aud
aperient medicines were promptly administered,
aud she was copiously bled. The most active
treatment was had recourse to, but without avail,
and she died in less than four-aud-twenty hours
without a momentary relief from pain.

The small intestines were completely black
from inflammation, and portions of them were
knotted together in the singular way delineated in
the preceding cut. The parts are a little loosened
in oi'der better to show the entanglement of the
intestines, but in the animal they were drawn into
a tight knot, and completely intercepted all passage.

The cause of this was probably some acrid
principle in the grass, and many a horse is thus
destroyed by the abominable and poisonous drinks
of the farrier.*

Worms of different kinds inhabit the intestines ;
but, except when they exist in very great numbers,
they are not so hurtful as is generally supposed,
although the groom or carter may trace to them
hidebound, and cough, and loss of appetite, and
gripes, and megrims, and a variety of other ail-
ments. Of the origin or mode of propagation of
these parasitical animals we can say little ; neither
writers on medicine, nor even on natural history,
have given us any satisfactory account of the matter.

The long white worm {lumhicus teres), much
resembling the common earth-worm, and being
from six to ten inches in length, inhabits the small
intestines. It is a formidable looking animal, and
if there are many of them they may consume more
than can be spared of the nutritive part of the food
or the mucus of the bowels. A tight skin, and
rough coat, and tucked up bell}', are sometimes
connected with their presence. They are then,
however, voided in large quantities. A dose of
physic will sometimes bring away almost incredible
quantities of them. Calomel is frequently given
as a vermifuge. The seldomer this drug is admi-
nistered to the horse the better. It is the prin-
cipal ingi-edient in some quack medicines for the

* Veterinarian, VI. 12.

expulsion of worms in the human subject, and
tlience, perhaps, it came to be used for the horse,
but in him we lielieve it to be inert as a vermifuge,
or only useful as quickening the operation of the
aloes. When the horse can be spared, a strong
dose of physic is an excellent vermifuge, so far as
the long round worm is concerned ; but a better
medicine, and not interfering with either the feed-
ing or work of the horse, is emetic tartar, with
ginger, made into a ball with linseed meal and
treacle, and given every morning half an hour be-
fore the horse is fed.

A smaller, darkei'-coloured worm, called the
needle-worm, or ascaris, inhabits the large intes-
tines. Hundreds of them sometimes descend into
the rectum, and immense quantities have been
found in the caecum. These are a more serious
nuisaiice than the former, for they cause a very
troublesome irritation about the fundament, wiiich
sometimes sadly annoys the horse. Then- existence
can generally be discovered by a small portion of
mucus, which, hardening, is found adhering to the
anus. Physic will sometimes bring away great
numbers of these worms, but when there is much
irritation about the tail, and much of this mucus,
indicating that they have descended into the rectum,
an injection of linseed oil, or of aloes dissolved in
warm water, will be a more effectual remedy.

The tape-worm is seldom found in the horse.

HERNIA, OR RUPTURE.

A portion of the intestine protrudes out of the
cavity of the belly, either through some natural or
artificial opening. In some cases it may be re-
turned, but from the impossibility of applying a
truss or bandage, it soon escapes again. At other
times the opening is so narrow that the gut, gradu-
ally distended by f;Eces, or thickened by inflamma-
tion, cannot be returned, and stranrjidated hernia
is then said to exist. The seat of hernia is either
in the scrotum of the perfect horse, or the groin of
the gelding. The causes are violent stniggling
when under opei-atious, over-exertion, kicks, or
accidents. The assistance of a veterinary surgeon
is here indispensable.f

+ The following case of operation for hernia will be acceptable
to the owner of horses as well as to the veterinary surgeon. It
occurred in the practice of Professor SimonJs, of the Koyal Veteri-
nary College. We borrow his account of it from ' The Veteri-
narian.'

" The patient was an aged black cai't-mare, that had been lent
by the owner to a neighbour for a day or two. I cannot speak
positively as to the cause of the iiiiury which she received, but 1
believe that it resulted from lier falling in tlie shafts of a cai t laden
with maiiure. She was brought to my inlirmarv on the next day,
October 18, 1837.

" The most extensive ni} ture I had ever seen presented itself
on the left side. The sac formed by the skin, which was not broken,
nor even the hair rubbed otF, extended as far forwards a^ the car-
tilages of the false ribs, and backwards to the udder. A perpen-
dicular line, drawn from the superior to the inferior part of the
tumour, measured more than twelve inches It appeared, from it;!
immense size and weight, as if by far the larger part of the colon
hail protruded.

D D

400

THE HORSE

DISEASES OF THE LIVER.

As veterinary practice has improvcfl, much light
has heen thrown on the diseases of the liver — not
perhaps on the more advanced and fatal stages ;
hut giving us the promise that, in process of time,
they may be detected at an earlier period, and in
a move manageable state.

** To ray surprise, there was comparatively little constitutional
disturbance. The pulse was 45, and full, with no other indication
of fever, and no expression of pain on pressing the tumour.

" She was bled until the pulse was considerably lowered. A
cathartic was given, and the sac ordered to be kept constantly wet
with cold water, and to be supported with a wide bandage. She
was placed on a restricted and mash diet.

" On the nest day, being honoured with a visit by Messrs.
Morton, Spooner, and Youatt, I had the pleasure and advantage of
submitting the case to their examination, and obtaining their
opinion. They urged me to attempt to return the protruding
viscera, and secure them by a surgical operation ; and Mr. Spooner
kindly offered to be present, and to give me his valuable assistance.

" On the 24th, our patient was considered to have had sufficient
preparatory treatment, and she was operated upon. We availed
ourselves of the opportunity of putting to the test that which some
among us had doubted, and others had positively denied, but which
had always been maintained by our talented chemical lecturer —
the power of opi ura to lull the sensation of pain in the horse. We
therefore gave her two ounces and a half of the tincture of opium,
shortly before she was led from the box to the operating house, and
the power of the drug was evident through the whole of the opera-
tion.

" After a car'ful examination, externally, as well as per rectum,
in order to ascertain the situation and probable size of the lacera-
tion of the muscles, an incision was carefully made through the
integument into tlie sac, in a line with the inferior border of the
cartilagi's of the false ribs, which incision was about seven inches
in length. This, as we had hoped, proved to be directly upon the
aperture in the muscular parietes of the abdomen. The intestines
were exposed ; and, after having sufficiently dilated the opening to
permit the introduction of the hand, they were quickly returned,
portion after portion, into their proper cavity, together with a part
of the omentum, which we found somewhat annoying, it being fre-
quently forced back again through the laceration.

" At times it required the exertion of our united strength to
prevent the escape of the intestines, and which was onlyetfecied by
placing oiu" hands side by side, covering and pressing upon the
opening. By these means we succeeded in keeping in the viscera,
until we were satisfied that we had placed them ;'ll within their
proper cavity. At about the central part of the aperture, we
decidedly found the greatest pressure of the inttsiines to effect an
escape.

" A strong metallic suture of flexible wire was then passed
through the edges of the laceration, taking in the peritoneum and
portions of the transversalis, rectus, and internal abdominal muscles ;
and other sutures, embracing the same parts, were placed at con-
venient distances, so as nearly to close the aperture. Two sutures
of smaller metallic wire, and three of stout silk cord, were then
passed through the external abdominal muscles, and their aponeu-
roses, which effectually shut up the opening into the abdomen. The
integiuncnt was then brought toge^er by the inteiTupted suture,
taking care to bring out the ends of the other sutures, and which
had been purposely left long, so that in case of supervening inflam-
maiion, or swelling, they might be readily examined. The whole
operation occupied rather lens than an hour, our poor patient being
occasionally refreshed with some warm gi'uel.

*' The hobbles were now quii ily removed, and, after lying a few
minutes, she got up, and was placed in a large close box. A compress
and a suspensory bandage, that could he tightened at pleasure, were
applied to the wound. The pulse was now 84. She was ordered
to be watched, and to have some tepid water placed within her
reach, but on no account to be disturbed.

" At 10, P.M., the pulse had sunk to 6Q. The respiration, which
had been much aci^eleraterl, was quieter. She was resting the leg
on the side operated upon, but did not appear to be suffering any
great pain. Some ftDces had passed, and slie had taken a small quan-
tity of bran mash. The paits were well fomented with tepid water,
an oleaginous draught was administered, and likewise an enema.

If horses, destroyed on account of other com-
plaints, are examined when they are not more than
tive years old, the liver is usually found in the
most healthy state ; hut when they arrive at eight
or nine or ten years, this viscus is frequently in-
creased in size — it is less elastic under pressure —
it has assumed more of a granulated or broken
down appearance — the blood does not so readily

" 25th — The pulse is a little quickened ; the sac which had con-
tained the protruded intestine was tilled with a serous effusion. I
made a dependent orifice in it, and from three to four pints of fluid
escaped. This much relieved her, and she continued to go on
favourably throughout the day.

" 26ih — Suppuration now began to be established, and the parts
were dressed with the compound tincture of myrrh.

*' 30th — She was enabled to take a little walking exercise ; and
on this day some of the integumental sutures came away.

" Nov. 4th — The sloughing process being now set up, three of
the smaller metallic sutures, that had been used to bring the edges
of the laceration together in the external abdominal muscles, came
away. The parts were minutely examined, and we delected a sinus
running towards the manimai, and filled with pus. With some
little difficulty it was opened, and a tape passed through it, so as to
allow the pus to escape as quitrkly as it was formed. The appetite
was tolerably good, and the pulse ranged from 52 to 56,

*' 6th — The patient was so far recovered that 1 ventured to turn
her into one of the paddocks for a few hours* exercise, taking care
to avoid any exposure to cold, if the weather was stormy.

"11 th — An incident occurred which nearly brought our hitherto
successful case to a fatal termination. I saw her safe about 1,
P.M. ; but at two o'clock a messenger came in haste to apprise me
that she was in a pond at the bottom of the paddock, and fixed in
the mud. There, indeed, I found her, at a considerable distance
from the bank, and making the most violent efforts to release her-
self. With considerable difficulty, and after many unsuccessful
attempts, we succeeded in dragging her ashore, so much exhausted
as to be utterly incapable ol ri-^ing. A gate was procured, and
being well covered with straw, she was drawn homeward by two
horses ; I following, regretting what had occurred, and not a little
blaming myself for having exposed her to this misfortune.

" Having placed her in her box, our first object was her restora-
tion and comfort. Men were set to work to rub her perfectly dry,
;ind some warm gi'uel, with a little cordial medicine, was given.
The stale of the wound was next examined, and it was well cleaned
with tepid water. It was very dark-ci)loured. The vitality of the
yoimg granulations was appaiently destroyed, and it emitted, in
some degree, perhaps, from the mud which had been so long in
contact with it, an otlensive effluvium. It was well dresstd with
the spirit of nitrous ether, and properly bandaged — in order to pre-
vent its receiving any fuither injury in her ineffectual attempts to

" We soon, however, began to fear some ill consequence from
the continuance of these efforts, and we determined to raise her
with the slings, those useful appendiigcs to every vetcriuiiry esta-
blishment. This was soon effected. W'e allowed very little bearing
on the abdomen, except when she was compelled, in oider to ease
her hind extremities, which were yet unable to support their share
of the weight of the body. Pnctions, stimulants, and bandages,
were applied to the extremities. An enema was given, the wound
again attended to, and &omc giuel placed within her reach.

" At midnight she was standing at ease in what may not inap-
propriately be called her cradle. The legs were tolerably warm ;
the pulse 60, and full ; the enema had done its duty, and she was in a
much more comfortable state than I had any right to expect. I
ordered her a warm mash and some giuel, for hope began once more
to cheer me.

*' On the following and succeeding days she continued gradually
to regain her strength, but she required great care and attention,
and it was not until the expiration of the fouilh day that I dared
to remove her from the shngs,and then only lor a few hom-s during
the day, careftdly replacing lier in ihtm at night. Some slight
sloughing took place from the wound ; but the principal edect of
her immersion was a severe catarrh. She required occasional
attendance to the wound ; and it was not until the 12tli of January
— more than twelve weeks after the op eration — that the last of tlie
metallic sulures came away. She s,oon afterwards returned to her
usual work."

THE HORSE.

407

peiTQeate its vessels, and, at length, in a greater or
less quantity, it begins to exiule, and is cither con-
fined under the poritoiioal covering, or oozos into
the cavity of the belly. There is nothing for
awhile to indicate the existence of this. The
horse feeds well, is in apparent health, in good
condition, and capable of constant work, notwith-
standing so fatal a change is taking place in this
important viscus ; but, at length, the peritoneal
covering of the liver suddenly gives way, and the
contents of the abdomen are deluged with blood,
or a sufficient quantity of this fluid has gradually
oozed out to interfere with the functions of the
viscera.

The symptoms of this sudden change are paw-
ing, shifting the posture, distension of the belly,
curling of the upper lip, sighing frequently and
deeply, the mouth and nostrils pale and blanched,
the breathing quickened, restlessness, debility,
fainting, and death.

On opening the abdomen, the intestines are
found to be deluged with dark venous blood. The
liver is either of a fa\vn, or light yellow, or brown
colour — easily torn by the finger, and, in some
cases, completely broken down.

If the htermorrhage has been slight at the
commencement, and fortunately arrested, yet a
singular consequence will frequently result. ' The
sight will gradually fail ; the pupil of one or both
eyes will gradually dilate, the animal will have
gntta serena, and become perfectly blind. This
will almost assuredly take place on a return of the
afifection of the liver. Little can be done in a
medical point of view. Astringent and styptic
medicines may, however, be tried. Turpentine,
alum, or sulphuric acid, will afford the only chance.
The veterinary world is indebted to the late Mr.
John Field, for almost all that is known of this
sad disease.

Commonly called the yellows, is a more frequent
but more tractable disease. It is the introduction
of bile into the general circulation. This is usually
caused by some obstmction in the ducts or tubes
that convey the bile from the liver to the intes-
tmes. The horse, however, has but one duct,
through which the bile usually flows as quickly as
it is formed, and there is no gall-bladder in which
it can become thickened, or hardened into masses
so firm as to be appropriately called gall-stones.
Jaundice does, however, occasionally appear either
from an increased flow or altered quality of the
bile, or obstruction even in this simple tube. The
yellowness of the eyes and mouth, and of the skin
where it is not covered with hair, mark it sufficiently
plainly. The dung is small and hard ; the urine
highly coloured ; the horse languid, and the appe-
tite impaired. If he is not soon relieved, he some-

times begins to express considerable uneasiness ;
at other times he is dull, heavy, and stupid. A
characteristic symptom is lameness of the right
fore leg, resembling the pain in the right shoulder
of the human being in hepatic affections. The
principal causes are overfVeding or over-exertion
in sultry weather, or too little work generally speak-
ing, or inflammation or other disease of the liver
itself.

It is first necessary to inquire whether this
affection of the liver is not the consequence of the
sympathy of that organ with some other part, for,
to a very considerable degree, it frequently accom-
panies inflammation of the bowels and the lungs.
These diseases being subdued, jaundice will dis-
appear. If there is no other apparent disease to
any great extent, an endeavour to restore the natu-
ral passage of the bile by purgatives may be tried,
not consisting of large doses, lest there should be
some undetected inflammation of the lungs or
bowels, in either of which a strong purgative would
be dangerous ; but, given in small quantities, re-
peated at short intervals, and until the bowels are
freely opened. Bleeding should always be resorted
to, regulated according to the apparent degree of
inflammation, and the occasional stupor of the
animal. Plenty of water, slightly warmed, or thin
gruel, should be given. The horse should be
warmly clothed, and the stable well ventilated,
but not cold. Carrots or green meat will be very
beneficial. Should the purging, when once ex-
cited, prove violent, we need not be in any haste
to stop it, unless inflammation is beginning to be
connected with it, or the horse is very weak. The
medicine recommended under diarrhcea may then
be exhibited. A few slight tonics should be given
when the horse is recovering from an attack of
jaundice.

The Spleen is sometimes very extraordinarily
enlarged, and has been ruptured. We are not
aware of any means by which this may be dis-
covered, except manual examination by means or
the aid of the rectum. The state of the animal
would clearly enough point out the treatment to be
adopted.

The Pancreas. We know not of any disease to
which it is liable.

The blood contains a great quantity of watery
fluid tuniecessary for the nutriment or repair of
the frame. There likewise mingle with it niattei-s
that would be noxious if suffered to accumulate too
much.

THE KIDNEYS

Are actively employed in separating this fluid, and
likewise canying off a substance which constitutes
the peculiar ingredient in urine, called the urea,
and consisting principally of that which would be
poisonous to the animal. Tlie kidneys are two

D D vj

408

THE HOESE.

]arge glandular bodies, placed under the loins, of
tlie t.liape of a kidney-bean, of immense size. The
right kidnej' is most forward, lying under the liver ;
the left is pushed more backward by the stomach
and spleen. A large artery runs to each, carrying
not less than a sixth part of the whole of the blood
that circulates through the frame. This artery is
divided into innumerable little branches, most
curiously complicated and coiled upon each other ;
and the blood, traversing these convolutions, has
its watery parts, and others the retaining of which
would be injurious, separated from it.

The fluid thus separated varies materially both
in quantity and composition, even during health.
There is no animal in which it varies so much as
in the horse, — there is no organ in that animal so
much under our command as the kidney ; and no
medicines are so useful, or may be so injurious, as
diuretics — such as nitre, and digitalis — not only
on account of their febrifuge or sedative effects, but
because of the power which they exert. They
stinuilate the kidneys to separate more aqueous
fluid than they othenvise would do, and thus lessen
the quantity of blood which the heart is labouring
to lirculate through the frame, and also that which
is determined or driven to parts already overloaded.
The main objects to be accomplished in these
diseases is to reduce the force of the circulation,
and to calm the violence of excitement. Diuretics,
by lessening the quantity of blood, are useful assist-
ants in accomplishing these purjioses.

The horse is subject to eflusions of fluid in
particular parts. Swelled legs are a disease
almost peculiar to him. The ox, the sheep, the
dog, the ass, and even the mule, seldom have it,
but it is for the removal of this deposit of fluid in
the cellular substance of the legs of the horse that
we have recourse to diuretics. The legs of many
horses cannot be rendered fine, or kept so, with-
out the use of diuretics ; nor can grease — often
connected with these swellings, producing them or
caused by them — be otherwise subdued. It is on
this account that diuretics are ranked among the
most useful of veteriuai^ medicines.

In injudicious hands, however, these medicines
are sadly abused. Among the absurdities of sta-
ble-management there is nothing so injurious as
tlie frequent use of diuretics. Not only are the
kidneys often over-ex,cited, weakened, and dis-
posed to disease, but the whole frame becomes
debilitated ; for the absorbents have carried away
a great part of that which was necessary to the
health and condition of the horse, in order to sup-
ply the deficiency of blood occasioned by the inor-
dinate disidiarge of urine. There is likewise one
important fact of which the groom or the horseman
seldom thinks, viz. : — That, when he is removing
these humours by the jmprudent use of diuretics,
he is only attacking a symptom or a consequence

of disease, and not the disease itself The legs
will fill again, and the grease will return. While
the cause remains, the effect will be produced.

In the administration of diuretics, one thing
should be attended to, and the good effect of
which the testimony of every intelligent man will
confirm : the horse shottld hare plenty to drink.
Not only will inflammation be prevented, but the
operation of the medicine will be much promoted.

INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS.

This is no uncommon disease in the horse, and
is more unskilfully and fatally treated than almost
any other. The early symptoms are those of fever
generally, but the seat of the disease soon becomes
evident. The horse looks anxiously round at his
flanks ; stands with his hinder legs wide apart ;
is unwilling to lie down ; straddles as he walks ;
expresses pain in turning ; shrinks when the
loins are pressed, and some degree of heat is felt
there. The urine is voided in small quantities ;
frequently it is high-coloured, and sometimes
bloody. The attempt to urinate becomes more
frequent, and the quantity voided smaller, until
the animal strains painfully and violently, but the
discharge is nearly or quite suppressed. The
pulse is quick and hard ; full in the early stage of
the disease, but rapidly becoming small, yet not
losing its character of hardness. These symptoms
clearly indicate an affection of tlie urinary organs ;
but they do not distinguish inflammation of the
kidney from that of the bladder. In order to
effect this, the hand must be introduced into the
rectum. If the bladder is felt full and hard
under the rectum, there is inflammation of the
neck of it ; if it is empty, yet on the portion of
the intestines immediately over it there is more
than natural heat and tenderness, there is inflam-
mation of the body of the bladder; and if the
bladder is empty, and there is no increased heat
or tendei-ness, there is inflammation of the kidney.

Among the causes of diabetes are improper
food, and particularly hay that has been mow-
bunit, or oats that are musty. The farmer should
look well to this. Oats that have been dried on a
kiln acquire a diuretic property, and if horses are
long fed on them, the continual excitement of this
organ which they produce will degenerate into in-
flammation. Too powerful or too often repeated
dim'etics induce inflammation of the kidney, or a
degree of irritation and weakness of that organ
that disposes to inflammation from causes that
would otherwise have no injurious effect. If a
horse is sprained in the loins by being urged on,
far or fast, by a heavy rider, or compelled to take
too wide a leap, or by being suddenly pulled up
on his haunches, the inflammation of the muscles
of the loins is often speedily transferred to the
kidneys, with which they lie in contact. Expo-

THE HORSE.

409

sure to cold is another frequent origin of this
malady, especially if the horse is drenched with
rain, or the wet drips upon his loins ; and, more
particularly, if he was previously disposed to in-
llammation, or these organs had been previously
%veakened. For this reason, hackney-coach horses
and others, exposed to the vicissitudes of the wea-
ther, and often fed on unwholesome provender,
have, or should have, their loins protected by
leather or some other clothing. The grand cause,
however, of nephritis is the unnecessary quantity
or undue strength of the diuretic medicines that are
forced on the horse by the ignorant groom. This is
an evil carried to an infamous extent, and against
which e\ery horseman should sternly oppose himself.
The treatment will only vary from that of in-
flammation of other parts by a consideration of
the peculiarity of the organ affected. Bleeding
must be promptly resorted to, and carried to its
full extent. An active purge should next be ad-
ministered ; and a counter-inflammation excited
as nearly as possible to the seat of disease. For
this purpose the loins should be fomented with
hot water, or covered with a mustard poultice — the
horse should be warmly clothed ; but no cantha-
rides or turpentine should be used, and, most of
all, no diuretic be given internally. When the
groom finds this difficulty or suppression of staling,
he immediately has recoiu'se to a diuretic ball to
force on the urine : aud by thus needlessly irri-
tating a part already too much excited, he adds
fuel to fire, and frequently destroys the horse.
The action of the purgative having begmr a little
to cease, white hellebore may be administered in
small doses, with or without emetic tartar. The
patient should be warmly clothed ; his legs well
bandaged ; and plenty of water offered to him.
The food should be carefully examined, and any-
thing that could have excited or that may prolong
the irritation carefully removed.

DIABETES, OR PEOFUSE STALING,

Is a comparatively rare disease. It is generally
the consequence of undue irritation of the kidney
by bad food or strong diuretics, and sometimes
follows inflannnation of that organ. It can seldom
be traced in the horse to any disease of the di-
gestive organs. The treatment is obscure, and
the result often uncertain. It is evidently in-
creased action of the kidneys, and therefore the
most rational plan of treatment is to endeavour to
abate that action. In order to effect this, the
same course should be pursued in the early stage
of diabetes as in actual inflammation ; but the
lowering system must not be carried to so great an
extent. To bleeding, purging, and comiter-irrita-
tion, medicines of an astringent quality should
succeed, as catechu, the powdered leaf of the
whortle-berry (uva ursi), and opium. Very careful

attention should be paid to the food. The hay
and oats should be of the best quality. Green meat,
and especially carrots, will be very serviceable.

BLOODY URINE — H.EMATDHIA.

The discharge of urine of this character is of
occasional occurrence. Pure blood is sometimes
discharged which immediately coagulates — at
other times it is more or less mixed with the
urine, and does not coagulute. The cause of its
appearance and the source whence it proceeds
cannot always be determined, but it is probably
the result of some strain or blow. It may or may
not be accompanied by inflammation.

Should it be the result of strain or violence,
or be evidently attended by iiifliimmatiou, soothing
and depleting measures should be adopted. Per-
haps counter-irritation on the loins might be use-
ful. If there is no apparent inflammation, some
gentle stimulus may be administered internally.

ALBUMINOUS DEINE.

A peculiar mucous state of the urine of some
horses has lately attracted attention. It has been
associated with stretching out of the legs, stiffness,
disinclination to move, a degree of fever, aud
costiveuess. Slight bleeding, mild physic, the
application of gentle stimulants to the loins,
quietness, and gentle opiates, have been of service.
We are indebted to Mr. Percivall for what we do
know of the disease. It is a subject worthy of the
attention of the veterinary surgeon.

THE BLADDER.

The urine separated from the blood is dis-
charged by the minute vessels, of which we have
spoken, into some larger canals, which terminate
in a cavity or reservoir in the body of each kidney,
designated its pelvis. Thence it is conveyed by a
duct called the ureter, to a large reservoir, the
bladder. It is constantly flowing from the kidney
through the ureter ; and were there not this pro-
vision for its detention, it would be incessantly
and annoyingly dribbling from the animal. The
bladder lies in, and when distended by urine
nearly fills, the cavity of the great bones of the
haunch, termed the pelvis. It has three coats,
the outer one covering the greater pait of it, and
being a portion of the peritoneum : the muscular,
consisting of two layers of fibres, as in the sto-
mach ; the external, i-unning longitudinally, and
the inner circularly, so that it may yield to the
pressure of the urine as it enters, and contract
again into an exceetUugly small space as it runs
out, and by that contraction assist in the expul-
sion of the urine. The inner coat contains nu-
merous little glands, which secrete a mucous
fluid to defend the bladder from the acrimony of
the urine. The bladder terminates in a small

110

THE HOKSE.

neck, round which is a strong muscle, keeping tlie
passage closed, and retaining the urine until, at
the will of the animal, or when the bladder con-
tains a certain quantity of fluid, the muscular coat
begins to contract, the diaphragm is rendered con-
vex towards the intestines, and presses them on
the bladder, and by these united powers the fluid
is forced through the sphincter muscle at the neck
of the bladder, and escapes.

INFLAMMATION OF THE BLADDER.

There are two varieties of this disease, inflam-
mation of the body of the bladder, and of its neck.
The symptoms are nearly the same with those of
inflammation of the Iddney, except that there is
rarely a total suppression of urine, and there is
heat felt in the rectum over the situation of the
bladder. The causes are the presence of some
acrid or irritant matter in the urine, or of calculus
or stone ui the bladder. With reference to inflam-
mation of the body of the bladder, mischief has
occasionally been done by the introduction of can-
tharides or some other irritating matter, in order
to hasten the period of horsing in the mare. The
treatment in this case will be the same as in
inflammation of the kidneys, except that it is of
more consequence that the animal should drink
freely of water or thin gruel.

In inflammation of the neck of the bladder
there is the same frequent voiding of urine in small
quantities, generally appearing in an advanced
stage of the disease, and often ending in almost
total suppression. There is also this circumstance,
which can never be mistaken by him who will pay
Buificient attention to the case, that the bladder is
distended with urine, and can be distinctly felt
under the rectum. It is spasm of the part, closing
the neck of the bladder so powerfully that the
contraction of the bladder and tlie pressure of the
muscles are unable to force out the urine.

Here the object to be attempted is sufficiently
plain. This spasm must be relaxed, and the most
likely means to effect it is to bleed largely, and
even to fainting. This will sometimes succeed,
and there will be at once an end to the disease.
To the exhaustion and loss of muscular power
occasioned by copious bleeding, should be added
the nausea consequent on physic. Should not this
speedily have effect, another mode of abating spasm
must be tried — powdered opium made into a ball
or drink, should be given every two or three hours ;
while an active blister is applied externally. The
evacuation of the bladder, both in the mare and
the horse, should be effected through the medium
of a veterinai-y surgeon.

STONE IN THE BLADDER.

The urine is a very compound fluid. In a
state of health it contains several acids and alkalies

variously combined, which, under disease, aie
increased both in mimber and quantity. It is
very easy to conceive that some 'of these may be
occasionally separated from the rest, and assume a
solid form both in the pelvis of the kidney and iu
the bladder. This is known to be the case both iu
the human being and the brute. These calculi or
stones are in the horse oftener found in the kidney
than in the bladder, contrary to the experience of
the human surgeon. The explanation of this,
however, is not difficult. In the hmnan being the
kidney is situated above the bladder, and these
concretious descend from it to the bladder by their
weight. The belly of the horse is horizontal, and
the force of gravity can in no way affect the pas-
sage of the calculus ; therefore it occasionally
remains in the pelvis of the kidney, until it has
increased so mucli in size as to fill it. We know
not of any symptoms that would satisfactorily
indicate the presence of a stone in the ludney ; and
if the disease could be ascertained, we are unable
to say what remedial measures could be adopted.

The symptoms of stone iu the bladder much
resemble those of spasmodic colic, except that, on
careful inquiiy, it ^vill be found that there has been
nmch irregularity in the discharge of urine and
occasional suppression of it. When fits of appa-
rent colic frequently return, and are accompanied
by any peculiarity in the appearance or the
discharge of the urine, the horse should be
carefully examined. For this puri)ose he must be
thrown. If there is stone in the bladder, it will,
while the horse lies on its back, jiress on the
rectum, and may be distinctly felt iif the hand is
introduced into the rectum. Several cases have
lately occurred of successful extraction of the
culculus ; but to elfect this it will always be neces-
sary to have recourse to the aid of a veterinary
practitioner.

Both the practitioner and the amateur will be
gratified by the desci'iption of a catheter, invented
by Mr. Taylor, a veterinary surgeon of Nottingham,
which may be introduced into the bladder without
difficulty or pain, and the existence and situation
of the calculus readily ascertained.

It is made of polished round iron, three feet
long, one and a half inch in circumference, and
with eight joints at its farther extremity. The
solid part between eacli joint is one and a quarter
inch in length, and one and a half in circumference,
the moveable part being ten inches, and the solid
part two feet two inches. The latter has a slight
curve commencing one foot from the handle, and
continuing to the first joint of the moveable jiart,
in order to give it facility in passing the urethra,
where it is attached to the paretics of the abdomen.
The joints are on the principle of a half joint, so
that the moveable part would only act in a straight
line, or curve in one direction. The joints are

THE HORSE.

dll

pcrfoctly rouuJoJ and smooth when acting either i both in its strai;,'ht unj carved state in the foUow-
iu a straight line or a curve. It is represouted | ing cuts.

Many horses occasionally void a considerable
quantity of gravel, sometimes without inconven-
ience, and at others with evident spasm or jiaiu.
A diuretic might be useful in such case, as increasing
the flow of urine, and possibly washing out the con-
cretions before they become too numerous or bulky.

The urine having passed the neck of the
bladder, flows along the urethra, and is discharged.
The sheath of the penis is sometimes considerably
enlarged. When at the close of acute disease,
there are swellings and eflusions of fluid, under the
chest and belly, this part seldom escapes. Diure-
tics, with a small portion of cordial medicme, will

be beneficial, but in extreme cases slight scarifi-
cations may be necessary. The inside of the
sheath is often the seat of disease. The mucous
matter, naturally secreted there to defend the jiart
from the acrimony of the urine, accumulates and
becomes e.\ceedingly otfensive, and produces swel-
ling, tenderness, and even e.xcoriation, with consi-
derable discharge. Fomentation with warm water,
and the cleansing of the part with soap and water,
aided perhajjs by the administration of a diuretic
ball, will speedily remove every inconvenience.
Carters arc too apt to neglect cleanliness in this
respect.

CHAPTER XV.

BREEDING, CASTnATION, &C.

This may be a proper period to recur to the subject
of breeding, and peculiarly important when there
cannot be a doubt that our breeed of horses has,
within the last twenty years, undergone a material
change. Our running horses still maintain their
speed, although their endurance is, generally speak-
ing, considerably diminished ; our draught and carri-
age horses are perhaps improved in value ; but our
hunters and hackneys are not what they used to be.
Our observations on this will be of a general
nature, and very simple. The first axiom we
would lay down is, that " like will produce like,"
and that the progeny will inhe'rit the general or
mingled qualities of the parents. There is scarcely
a disease by which either of the parents is affected
that the foal does not often inherit, or at least
occasionally show a predisposition to it. Even
the consequences of ill usage or hard work will
descend to the progeny. There has been proof
upon proof, that blindness, roaring, thick wind,
broken wind, spavins, curbs, ringbones, and founder,
have been bequeathed to their offspring, both by
the sire and the dam. It should likewise be
recollected that although these blemishes may not .
appear in the immediate progeny, they frequently
do in the next, or even more distant generation.
Hence the necessity of some knowledge of the
parentage both of the sire and the dam.

Peculiarity of form and constitution will also be
inherited. This is a most important but neglected
consideration; for, however desirable or even perfect
may have been the conformation of the sire, every
good point may be neutralized or lost by the defec-
tive structure of the mare. The essential points
should be good in both parents, or some minor
defect in either be met, and got rid of, by excel-
lence in that particular point in the other. The
unskilful or careless breeder too often so badly pairs
the animals, that the good points of each are almost
lost: the defects of both increased, and the pi'oduce
is far inferior to both sire and dam.

Mr. Baker, of Reigate, places this in a striking
point of view. He speaks of liis own experience :
" A foal had apparently clear and good eyes, but
the first day had not passed, before it was evident
that it was totally blind. It had gutta serena.

" Inquiry was then made about the sire, for
the mare had good eyes. His were, on the
slightest inspection, evidently bad, and not one of
liis colts had escaped the direful effects of his im-
perfect vision.

"A mare had been the subject of farcical
enlargements, and not being capable of performing
much work, a foal was procured from her. She
survived ; but the foal soon after birth evinced
symptoms of fai'cy, and died.

412

THE HORSE.

" A mare was lame from navicular disease.
A foal was bred from her that at five years could
scarcely go across the country, and was sold for a
few pounds. The mare 'svas a rank jib in single
harness ; the foal was as bad."

It is useless to multiply these examples. They
occur in the e.xperience of every one, and yet they
are strangely disregarded.

The mare is sometimes put to the horse at too
early an age ; or, what is of more frequent occur-
rence, the mare is incapacitated for work by old
age. The owner is unmlling to destroy her, and
he determines that she shall bear a foal, and thus
remunerate him for her keep. What is the conse-
quence? The foal exhibits an uukindliness of
growth, — a corresponding weakness, — and there is
scarcely an organ that possesses its natural and
proper strength.

Of late years, these principles have been much
lost sightof in the breedmg of horses for general use ;
and the following is the explanation of it. There
are nearly as good stallions as there used to be.
Few but well-formed and valuable horses will be
selected and used as stallions. They are always
the very prime of the breed ; but the mares are not
lehat they used to he. Poverty has induced many
of the breeders to part with the mares from which
they used to raise their stock, and which were worth
their weight in gold ; and the jade on which the
farmer now rides to market, or which he uses in
his farm, costs him but little money, and is onlj'
retained because he cannot get much money for
her. It has likewise become the fashion for gen-
tlemen to ride mares, almost as frequently as
geldings ; and thus the better kind are taken from
the breeding service, until old age or injury
renders them worth little for it. An intelligent
veterinary surgeon, Mr. Castley, has placed this in
a very strong light.*

It shouldbe impressed on the-minds of breeders,
that peculiarity of form and constitution are inhe-
rited from both parents, — that the e.xcellence of
the mare is a point of quite as much importance
as that of the horse,- — and that, out of a sorry mare,
let the horse be as perfect as he ma}', a good foal
will rarely be produced. All this is recognised

upon the turf, though poverty or carelessness have
made the general breeder neglect or forget it.

That the constitution and endurance of the
horse are inherited, no sporting man ever doubted.
The qualities of the sire or the dam descend
from generation to generation, and the e.xcel-
lencies or defects of certain horses are often
traced, and justly so, to some peculiarity iu a far-
distant ancestor.

It may, perhaps, be justly affirmed, that there
is more difficultj' in selecting a good mare to breed
from than a good horse, because she should possess
somewhat opposite qualities. Her carcase should
be long, iu order to give room for the growth of
the foetus ; and yet with this there should be com-
pactness of form and shortness of leg. What can
they expect whose practice it is to purchase worn-
out, spavined, foundered mares, about whom they
fancy there have been some good points, and send
them far into the country to breed from, and, with
all their variety of shape, to be covered by the same
horse ? In a lottery like this there may be now
and then a prize, but there must be many blanks.
If horse-breeders, possessed of good judgment,
would pay the same attention to breed and
shape as Mr. Bakewell did with his sheep, they
would probably attain tlieir wishes in an equal
degree, and greatly to tlieir advantage, whether
for the collar or the road, for racing or for
hunting.

As to the shape of the stallion, little satisfac-
toYj can be said. It must depend on that of the
mare, and the Idnd of horse wished to be bred :
but if there is one point absolutely essential, it is
" compactness" — as much goodness and strength
as possible condensed into a little space.

Next to comjiactness, the inclination of the
shoulder will be regarded. A huge stallion, with
upright shoulders, never got a capital hunter or
hackney. From him the breeder can obtain
nothing but a cart or dray horse, and that, per-
haps, spoiled by the opposite form of the mare.
On the other hand, an upright shoulder is de-
sirable, if not absolutely necessary, when a mere
slow draught-horse is reqiured.

On the subject of breeding in and iu, that is.

• " Any one," .says he, *' who during the last twenty or five-and-
twenty years, has bad frequent oppoitunities of vi.siting some of
our great horse fairs in the north of England, must be struek with
the sad falling-oif there is everywhere to be remarked in the (luality
of the one-half and three-part hrcA horses exhibited for sale. The
farmers, when taxed with this, complain that breeding horses does
not sufficiently repay them ; and yet we hnd large sums of money
always given at fairs for any horses that are really good, but bad
ones are not at any time likely to pay for rearing, and le.ss now
than ever, on accountof the advanced rate ofland, and the increased
expense of producliiiji. The tiuth is, that farmers do not, no\v-a-
days, breed liorses so generally good as they used to do, and this is
owing to the inleriorquality of the mares which they now commonly
emplny ill brii'ding. They have, to a great degree, been tempted
t.) part with Ilirir best marcs, and thus lareed from the refuse. The
stock couscipicnlly dctcrioiates, and they are disappointed.

" The great demand for mares has also contributed to get the
best material for breeding out of the farmer's hands. Thirty years
ago few gentlemen would be seen riding a mare — it was unlashion-
alile. There was, conseriuently, but little demand for her, and she
was left for the most part in the farmers' bauds, who were then to be
seen riding to market, mounted on the finest mares, and trom
.Tmong which they selected the best for the purpose of breeding.
Like will produce like, and the stock would seldom disappoint thcin.

" Then there is the demand for the foreign market. Willuu
the last twenty years, a great number of our finest thrce-parts-bied
mares have been exported to various portiuus of the Cttntincnt,
and particidarly to France and Germany. They never find their
way back again. The money brought into our country by Ili^ir
export is a mere tritle — a dnip in the ocean — while we are doing
ourselves incalcidable mischief by allowing some of our best niite-
rials to pass out of our hands forever." — X'e/er/nar/aH,!!!., p. 371.

THE HORSE.

413

persevering in the same breed, and selecting the
best on either side, much has been said. Tlie
system of crossing requires more judgment and
experience than lireeders usually possess. The
bad qualities of the cross are too soon engrafted
ou the original stock, and, once engrafted there,
are not, for many generations, eradicated. The
good qualities of both are occasionally neutralized
to a most mortifying degree. On the other hand,
it is the fact, however some may deny it, that
strict confinement to one breed, however valuable
or perfect, produces gradual deterioration. Cross-
ing should be attempted with great caution. The
valuable points of the old breed should be re-
tained, but varied or improved by the introduction
of some new and valuable quality, with reference
to beauty, strength, or speed. This is the secret
of the turf. The pure south-eastern blood is
never left, but the stock is often changed with
manifest advantage.

A mare is capable of breeding at three or
four years old. Some have injudiciously com-
menced at two years, before her form or her
strength is sufficiently developed, and wth the
development of which this early breeding will
materially interfere. If a mare does little more
than farm-work, she may continue to be bred
from until she is nearly twenty ; but if she has been
hardly worked, and bears the marks of it, let her
have been what she will in her youth, she will de-
ceive the expectations of the breeder u^ her old age.

From the time of C(5vering, to within a few
days of the expected period of foaling, the cart
mare may be kepit at moderate laliour, not only
without injury, but with decided advantage. It
will then be prudent to release her from work,
and keep her near home, and under the frequent
inspection of some careful person.

When nearly half the time of pregnancy has
elapsed, the mare should have a little better
food. She slioidd be allowed one or two feeds of
corn in the day. This is about the period when
they are accustomed to slink their foals, or when
abortion occurs : the eye of the owner should,
therefore, be frequently upon them. Good feed-
ing and moderate exercise will be the best pre-
ventives of this mishap. The mare that has once
aborted is liable to a repetition of the acciden',
and therefore should never be suffered to be with
other mares between the fourth and fifth months :
for such is the power of imagination or of sympa-
thy in the mare, that if one suffers abortion,
others in the same pastm-e will too often share the
same fate. Farmers wash, and paint, and tar
their stables, to prevent some supposed infection ;
the infection lies in the imngination.

The thorough-bred mare — the stock being in-
tended for sporting purposes — should be kept quiet
and apart from other horses, after the first four or

five months When the period of parturition is
dramng near, she should be watched, and shut up
during the night in a safe yard or loose box.

If the mare, whether of the pure or common
breed, .be thus taken care of, and be in good health
while in foal, little danger will attend the act of par-
turition. If there is false presentation of the foetus,
or difficulty in producing it, it will be better to have
recourse to a well-informed practitioner, than to in-
jure the mother by the violent and injurious at-
tempts that are often made to relieve her.

The parturition being over, the mare should
be turned into some well-sheltered pasture, wich
a hovel or shed to run into when she pleases ;
and as, supposing that she has foaled in April, '■:=
the grass is scanty, she should have a couple of
feeds of corn daily. The breeder may depend
upon it, that nothing is gained by starving the
mother and stinting the foal at this time. It is
the most importiint period of the life of the horse ;
and if, from false econom}', his gnjwth is arrested,
his puny form and want of endurance will ever
afterwards testify the error that has been com-
mitted. The corn should be given in a trough on
the ground, that llie foal may partake of it with
the mother. When the new grass is plentiful, tha
quantity of corn may be gradually diminished.

The mare will usually be found again at heat
at or before the expiration of a month from the
time of foaling, when, if she is principally kept for
breeding purposes, she may be put again to the
horse. At the same time, also, if she is used for
agricultural purposes, she may go again to work.
Tlie foal is at first shut in the stable during the
hours of work ; but as soon as it acquires suffi-
cient strength to toddle after the mare, and espe-
cially when she is at slow work, it will be better
for the foal and the dam that they should be to-
gether. The work will contribute to the health
of the mother ; the foal will more frequently
draw the milk, and thrive better, and will be
hardy and tractable, and gradually familiarised
with the objects among which it is afterwards to
live. While the mother, however, is thus worked,
she and the foal should be well fed ; and two
feeds of corn, at least, should be added to the
green food which they get when turned out after
their work, and at night.

In five or six months, according to the growth
of the foal, it may be weaned. It should then
be housed for three weeks or a month, or turned
into some distant rick-yard. There can be no
better place for the foal than the latter, as atlord-
ing, and that without trouble, both food and

* By the present rules of the jockey-club the age of turf horses is
reckoned from the 1st of Jaiuuiry, but this has not by any common
consent extended to the hidf-breds. The 1st of Muy is nearest to
the general time of foaling, and the age of the cavalry hoi-.^es is
dated from that period.

414

THE HORSE.

shelter. Tlie mother should be put to harder
work, and have drier meat. One or two urine-
balls, or a physic-ball, will be useful if the milk
should be troublesome, or she should pine after
her foal.

There is no principle of greater importance
than the liberal feeding of the foal during the
whole of his growth, and at this time in parti-
cular. Bruised oats and bran should fonn a con-
siderable part of his daily provender. The farmer
may be assured that the money is well laid out
which is e.\peuded on the liberal nourishment of
the growing colt: yet while he is well fed, he
should not be rendered delicate by excess of care.
A racing colt is often stabled ; but one that
is destined to be a hunter, a hackney, or an
agricultural horse, should have a square rick,
under the leeward side of which he may shelter
liimself; or a hovel, into which he may run at
night, and out of the rain. " Too often, however,
the foal, after weaning, is left to struggle on as he
can, and becomes poor and dispirited. He is to
be seen shrinking under a hedge, cold and almost
shivering, his head hanging do^vn, and rheum dis-
tilling from his eyes. If he is made to move, he
listlessly drags his limbs along, evidently weak,
and generally in pain. He is a sad specimen of
poverty and of misery. This is the first scene of
cruelty to the horse of inferior breed, and destined
for inferior purpose."*

The process of breaking-in should commence
from tlie very period of weaning. The foal should
be daily handled, partially dressed, accustomed to
the halter when led about, and even tied up. The
tractability, and good temper, and value of the
horse, depend a great deal more upon this than
breeders are aware.

Everything should be done, as much as pos-
sible, by the man who feeds the colt, and whose
management of him should be always kind and
gentle. Tliere is no fault for which a breeder
should so invariably discharge his sen'ant as
cruelty, or even harshness, towards the rising
stock ; for the principle on which their after use-
fulness is founded, is early attachment to, and
confidence in man, and obedience, implicit obe-
dience, resulting principally from this.

After the second winter the work of breaking-
in may commence in good earnest. The colt may
be bitted, and a bit selected that will not hurt his
mouth, and much smaller than those in common
use. With this he may be suffered to amuse
himself, and to play, and to champ it for an hour,
on a few successive days.

Having become a little tractable, portions of
the harness may be put upon him, concluding
with the blind winkers ; and, a few days after-

* Yoiiatt on Humanily to Animals, p. llo.

wards, he may go into the team. It woidd be
better if there could be one horse before, and one
behind him, beside the shaft horse. There should
at first be the mere empty waggon. Nothing
should be done to him, except that he should have
an occasional pat or kind word. The other horses
will keep him moving, and in his place ; and no
great time will pass, sometimes not even the first
day, before he will begin to pull with the rest.
The load may then be gradually increased.

The agricultural horse is sometimes wanted to
ride as well as to draw. Let his first lesson be
given when he is in the team. Let his feeder, if
possible, be first put upon him. He will be too
much hampered by his harness, and by the other
horses, to make much resistance ; and, in the
majority of cases, will quietly and at once submit.
We need not to repeat, that no whip or spur
should be used in giving the first lessons in riding.
When he begins a little to understand his
business, backing — the most difficult part of his
work — may be taught him ; first to back well
without anything behind him, and then with a
light cart, and afterwards with some serious load —
always taking the greatest care not seriously to
hurt his mouth. If the first lesson causes much
soreness of the gums, the colt will not readily sub-
mit to a second. If he has been previously rendered
tractable by kind usage, time and patience will do
everything that can be wished. Some carters are
in the habit of blinding the colt when teaching
him to back. This may be necessary with a restive
and obstinate one, but should be used only as a
last resort.

The colt having been thus partially broken-in,
the necessity of implicit obedience must be taught
him, and that not by severity, but by firmness
and steadiness. The voice will go a great way,
but the whip or the spur is sometimes indispen-
sable— not so severely applied as to excite the
animal to resistance, but to convince him that we
have the power to enforce submission. Few — it
may almost be said, no — horses, are naturally vici-
ous. It is cruel usage which has firet provoked
resistance. That resistance has been followed by
greater severity, and the stubbornness of the
animal has increased. Open warfare has ensued,
in which the man has seldom gained advantage,
and the horse has been frequently rendered un-
serviceable. Correction may, or must be used, to
enforce implicit obedience after the education has
proceeded to a certain extent, but the early lessons
should be inculcated with kindness alone. Young
colts are sometimes very perverse. Many days
will occasionally pass before they will permit the
bridle to be put on, or the saddle to be worn ; and
one act of harshness will double or treble this
time : patience and kindness, however, -will always
prevail. On some morning, when he is m a

THE HOUSE.

419

better Immour than usual, the bridle may be put
on, and the saddle may be worn ; and, this com-
pliance being followed by kindness and soothing
on the part of the breaker, and no inconvenience
or pain being sullered by the animal, all resistance
will be at an end.

The same principles will apply to the break-
ing-in of the horse for the road or the chase. The
handling, and some portion of instruction, should
commence from the time of weaning. The future
tractability of the horse will much depend on this.
At two years and a half, or three years, the regular
jirocess of breaking-in should commence. If it is
delayed until the animal is four years old, his
strength and obstinacy will be more difficult to
overcome. The plan usually pursued by the breaker
cannot perhaps be much improved, except that
there should be much more kindness and patience,
and far less harshness and cnielty, than these
persons are accustomed to exhibit, and a gi'eat
deal more attention to the form and natural action
of the horse. A headstall is put on the colt, and
a cavessou (or apparatus to confine and pinch the
nose) alfixed to it, with long reins. He is first
accustomed to the rein, then led round a ring on
soft ground, and at length mounted and taught
his paces. Next to preserving the temper and
docility of the horse, there is nothing of so much
importance as to teach him every pace, and every
part of his duty, distinctly and thoroughly. Each
must constitute a separate and sometimes long-
continued lesson, and that taught by a man who
will never suffer his passion to get the better of
his discretion.

After the cavesson has been attached to the
headstall, and the long rein put on, the colt
should be quietly led about by the breaker — a
steady boy following behind, by occasional threat-
ening with the whip, but never by an actual blow,
to keep him moving. When the animal follows
readily and quietly, he may be taken to the ring,
and walked round, right and left, in a very small
circle. Care should be taken to teach him this
pace thoroughly, never suffering him to break into
a trot. The boy with his whip may here again be
necessary, but not a single blow should actually fiiU.

Becoming tolerably perfect in the walk, he
should be quickened to a trot, and kept steadily
at it; the whip of the boy, if needful, urging him
on, and the cavesson restraining him. These les-
sons should be short. The pace should be kept
perfect, and distinct in each ; and docility and im-
provement rewarded with frequent caresses, and
haudfuls of corn. The length of the rein may now
be gradually increased, and the pace quickened,
and the time extended, until the animal becomes
tractable in these his first lessons, towards the con-
clusion of which, crupper-straps, or something
similai', may be attached to the clothing. These,

playing about the sides and flanks, accustom him
to the flapping of the coat of the rider. The
annoyance which they occasion will pass over in a
day or two ; for when the animal finds that no hann
comes to him, he will cease to regard them.

Next comes the bitting. The bit should be
large and smooth, and the reins Inickled to a ring
on either side of the pad. There are many curious
and expensive machines for this purpose, but the
simple rein will be quite sufficient. It should at
first be slack, and then very gradually tightened.
This will prepare for the more perfect manner in
which the head will be afterwards got into its
proper position, when the colt is accustomed to the
saddle. Occasionally the breaker should stand in
front of the colt, and take hold of each side rein
near to the mouth, and press ujion it, and thus
begin to teach him to stop and to back on the pres-
sure of the rein, rewarding every act of docility, and
not being too eager to punish occasional carelessness
or waywardness.

The colt may now be taken into the road or
street, to be gradually accustomed to the objects
among whicli his services will be required. Here,
from fear or playfulness, a considerable degree of
starting and shying may be exhibited. As little
notice as possible should be taken of it. The same
or a similar object should lie soon passed again,
but at a greater distance. If the colt still shies,
let the distance be farther increased, until he takes
no notice of the object. Then he may be gradually
brought nearer to it, and this will be usually
effected without the slightest difficulty ; whereas,
had there been an attempt to force him close to it
in the first instance, the remembrance of the con-
test would have been associated with every appear-
ance of the object, and the habit of shying would
have been established.

Hitherto, with a cool and patient brcalver, the
whip may have been shown, but will scarcely have
been used ; the colt must now, however, be accus-
tomed to this necessary instmment of authority.
Let the breaker walk by the side of the animal,
and throw his right arm over his back, hokUng the
reins in his left, occasionally quickening his pace,
and at the moment of doing this, tapping the horse
with the whip in his right hand, and at first very
gently. The tap of the whip and the quickening
of the pace will soon become associated in the
mind of the animal. If necessary, these reminders
may gradually fall a little heavier, and the feeling
of pain be the monitor of the necessity of increased
exertion. The lessons of reining in and stopping,
and backing on the pressure of the bit, may con-
tinue to be j)ractised at the same time.

He may now be taught to bear the saddle.
Some little caution \\i\] be necessary at the firet
putting of it on. The breaker should stand at the
head of the colt, patting him, and engaging his

-r*'

416

THE H0R3E.

attention, while one assistant, on the off-side,
gently places the saddle on the back of the animal ;
and another, on the near side, slowly tightens the
girths. If he submits quietly to this, as he gene-
rally will when the previous i)rocess of breaking-in
has been properly conducted, the ceremony of
mounting may be attempted on the following, or
on the third day. The breaker will need two
assistants in order to accomplish this. He will
remain at the head of the colt, patting and making
much of him. The rider will put his foot into the
stirrup, and bear a little weight upon it, while the
man on the off-side presses equally on the other
stirrup-leather; and, according to the docility of
the animal, he will gradually increase the weight,
until he balances himself on the stirrup. If the
colt is uneasy or fearful, he should 1)6 spoken to
kindly and patted, or a mouthful of corn be given
to him ; but if he offers serious resistance, the
lessons must terminate for that day. He may
probably be in better humour on the morrow.

When the rider has balanced himself for a
minute or two, he may gently throw his leg over,
and quietly seat himself in the saddle. The breaker
will then lead the animal round the ring, the rider
sitting perfectly still. After a few minutes he will
take the reins, and handle them as gently as pos-
sible, and guide the horse by the pressure of them ;
patting him frequently, and especially when he
thinks of dismoimting, — and, after having dis-
mounted, offering him a little corn or green meat.
The use of the rein in checking him, and of the
pressure of the leg and the touch of the heel in
quickening his pace, will soon be taught, and his
education will be nearly completed.

The horse having thus far submitted himself to
the breaker, these pattings and rewards must be
gradually diminished, and implicit obedience mildly
but firmly enforced. Severity will not often be
necessary. In the great majority of cases it will
be altogether uncalled for ; but should the animal,
in a moment of waywardness, dispute the command
of the breaker, he must at once be taught that he
is the slave of man, and that we have the power,
by other means than those of kindness, to bend
him to our will. The education of the horse should
be that of a child. Pleasure is, as much as possi-
ble, associated with the early lessons ; but firmness,
or, if need be, coercion, must establish the habit of
obedience. Tyranny and cruelty will, more speedily
in the horse than even in the child, provoke the
wish to disobey ; and, on every practicable occasion,
the resistance to command. The restive and vicious
horse is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred,
made so by ill-usage, and not by nature. None
but those who will take the trouble to try the
experiment, are aware how absolute a command
the due admixture of firmness and kindness wHl
soon give us over any horse.

The period at which this operation may be best
performed depends much on the breed and form of
the colt, and the purpose for which he is destined.
For the common agricultural horse, the age of four
or five months will be the most proper time, or, at
least before he is weaned. Few horses are lost
when cut at that age. Care, however, should be
taken that the weather is not too hot, nor the fliea
too numerous. We enter our decided protest,
however, against the recommendation of valuable
but incautious agricultural writers, that " colts
should be cut in the months of June or July, when
flies pester the horses, and cause them to be con-
tinually moving about, and thereby prevent swell-
ing." One moment's reflection will convince the
reader that nothing can be more likely to produce
inflammation, and consequent swellmg and danger,
than the torture of the flies hovering round and
slinging the sore part.

If the horse is designed either for the carriage
or for heavy draught, the farmer should not think
of castrating him until he is at least a twelve month
old ; and, even then, the colt should be carefully
examined. If he is thin and spare about the neck
and shoulders, and low in the withers, he will
materially improve by remaining uncut another six
months ; but if his fore-quarters are fairly develojied
at the age of a twelve-month, the operation should
not be delayed, lest he become heavy and gross
before, and perhaps has begun too decidedly to
have a will of his own. No specific age, then, can
be fixed ; but the castration should be performed
rather late in the spring or early in the autumn,
when the air is temperate, and particularly ^Yhen
the weather is dry. No preparation is necessary
for the sucking colt, but it may be prudent to bleed
and to physic one of more advanced age. In the
majority of cases, no after-treatment will be neces-
SAVj, except that the animal should be sheltered
from intense heat, and more particularly from wet.
In temperate weather he will do much better
running in the field than nursed in a close and hot
stable. The moderate exercise that he will take in
grazing will be preferable to perfect inaction. A large
and well-ventilated box, however, maybe permitted.

The manner in which the operation is performed
will be properly left to the veterinary surgeon. The
haste, carelessness, and brutality, of the conunon
gelder should no longer be permitted ; but the
veterinary surgeon should be able and willing to
discharge every portion of his duty. The old
method of opening the scrotum on either side, and
cutting off the testicles, and preventing haemorrhage
by a temporary compression of the vessels while
they are seared with a hot iron must not, perhaps,
be abandoned ; but there is no necessity for that
extra pain, and that appearance, at least, of bru-

'flit, aul

THE HORSE.

417

tality, which occur when the spemnatic cord (the
blood-vessels and the nene) is as tightly com-
pressed between two pieces of wood as in a power-
ful vice, and left there until either the testicle
drops off, or is removed on the following day by
the operator.

To the practice of some farmers, of twitching
their colts at an early period, sometimes even so
early as a month, there is stronger objection.
When the operation of twitching is performed, a
small cord is drawn as tightly as possilile round the
bag, between the testicle and the belly. The cir-
culation is thus stopped, and, in a few days, the
testicles and the bag drop off; but not until the
animal has sadly suffered. It is occasionally neces-
saiT to tighten the cord on the second or third

day, and inflammation and death have frequently
ensued.

Another mode of ca.stration has been lately
introduced, which bids fair to supersede every
other : it is called the operation by Torsion. An
incision is made into the scrotum, as in the other
modes of operation, and the vas deferens is e.xposed
and divided. The artery is then seized by a pair
of forceps contrived for the purpose, and twisted
six or seven times round. It retracts as soon as
the hold on it is quitted, the coils are not untwisted,
and all bleeding has ceased. The testicle is re-
moved, and there is no sloughuig or danger. The
most painful part of the operation— the application
of the firing iron or the clams — is avoided, and the
wound readily heals.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FORE LEGS.

We arrive now at those parts of the frame which
are most essentially connected with the action and
value of the horse, and oftenest, and most annoy-
iiigly, the sulijects of disease. The extremities
contain the whole apparatus of voluntary motion,
with which the action, and speed, and strength of
the horse are mo-.t concerned.

We commence with the upper portion, of which
the fore extremity, the shoulder, is seen at G, page
•MS.

THE SHOULUEB.

The scapula or shoulder-blade, situated forward
on the side of the chest, is a bone of a somewhat
triangular shape, with its apex or narrowest point
do\niward, and its broad and thin expansion upward.
The point of the shoulder lies opposite to the first
and second ribs ; the hinder expansion of the base
reaches as far back as the seventh rib ; it therefore
extends obliquely along the chest. It is di\ided,
externallv, into two unequal portions by a ridge or
spine i-unning through almost the whole of its ex-
tent, and designed, as will be presently seen, for
the attachment of important muscles. The broad
or upper part having no muscles of any consequence
attached to it, is terminated by cartilage.

The shoulder-blade is united to the chest by
muscle alone. There is one large muscle, with
very remarkable tendinous fibres and of immense
strength (the serratits major, greater saw-shaped
muscle), .attached to the chest, and to the extensive
smooth inteniiil surface of the shoulder-blade, and
bv which, assisted, or rather strengthened, by the
muscles of the breast, the weight of the body is
supported, and the shock of the widest leap, or the
most rapid motion, sustained. Had there been a

bony union between the shoulder and the body, the
vital parts contained in the chest could not have
endured the dreadful shock which they would occa-
sionally have experienced ; nor could any bone have
long remained whole if exposed to such violence.
The muscles within the shoulder-blade act as
powerful and safe springs. They vield, as far as
necessary, to the force impressed upon them. By
then- gradual yielding they destroy the violence of
the shock, and then, by their elastic power, imme-
diately regain their former situation.

SPR.UX OF THE SHOULDER.

These muscles are occasionally injured by some
unexpected shock. Although in not more than
one case in twenty is the faiTier right when he
talks of his shoulder-lameness, yet it cannot be
denied, that the muscles of the shoulder are occa-
sionally sprained. This is effected oftener by a
slip or side-fall, than by fair, although violent exer-
tion. It is of considerable importance to be able
to distinguish this shoulder-lameness from injuries
of other parts of the fore extremity. There is not
much tenderness, or heat, or swelling. It is a
sprain of muscles deeply seated, and where these
symptoms of injury are not immediately evident.
If, on standing hefore the hoi-se, and looking at the
size of the two- shoulders, or rather their points,
one should appear e\idently larger than the other,
this must not be considered as indicative of sprain
of the muscles of the shoulder. It probablv arises
from bniise of the point of the shoulder, which a
slight examination will determme.

The symptoms, however, of shoulder-lameness
can scarcely be mistaken ; and, when we relate
them, the farmer will recollect that they very

418

THE HOKSE.

seldom occurred when the village smith pointed to
the shoulder as tho seat of disease, and punished
the animal to no purpose. In sprain of the shoulder
the horse evidently suffers extreme pain while
moving, and, the muscle underneath being inflamed
and tender, he will extend it as little as possible.
He will drag his toe along the ground. It is in the
lifting of the foot that the shoulder is principally
moved. If the foot is lifted high, let the horse be
ever so lame, the shoulder is little, if at all, affected.
In sprain of the back sinews, it is only when the
horse is in motion that the mjured parts are put
to most pain ; the pain is greatest here when the
■weight rests on the limb in shoulder-lameness, and
there is a peculiar quickness in catching up the
limb tho moment the weight is thrown on it. This
is particularly evident when the horse is going
down hill, and the injured limb bears an additional
portion of the weight. In the stable, too, when,
in other cases, the horse points or projects one foot
before the other, that foot is usually flat on the
ground. In shoulder-lameness, the toe alone rests
on the ground. The circumstance which most of
all characterises this affection is, that when the
foot is lifted and then brought considerably forward,
the horse will express very great pain, which he
wfill not do if the lameness is in the foot or the leg.
This point has been longer dwelt upon, in order
that the reader may be enabled to put to the test
the many cases of shoulder-lameness, which exist
only in the imagination of the groom or the farrier.
In sprain of the internal muscles of the shoulder,
few local measures can be adopted. The horse

should be bled from the vein on the inside of the
arm (the plate vein), because the blood is then
abstracted more immediately from the inflamed
part. A dose of physic should be given, and
fomentations applied, and principally on the inside
of the arm, close to the chest, and the horse should
be kept as quiet as possible. The injury is too
deeply seated for external stimulants to have very
great effect, yet a blister will properly be resorted
to, if the lameness is not speedily removed. The
swimming of the horse is an inhuman practice : it
tortures the animal, and increases the inflammation.
The pegging of the shoulder (puncturing the skin,
and blowing into the cellular stiiicture beneath
until it is considerably puffed up) is another relic
of ignorance and barbarity.

SLANTING DIRECTION OF THE SHODLDEB.

The lessening or breaking of the shock, from
the weight being thrown violently on the fore legs,
is effected in another way. It will be observed,
that (see G and J, p. '263) the shoulder-blade and
the lower bone of the shoulder are not connected
together in a straight line, but form a very con-
siderable angle witli each other. This will be
moi-e evident from the following cut, which repre-
sents the fore and hind extremities in the situations
which they occupy in the horse.

This angidar construction of the limbs reminds
us of the similar arrangement of the springs of a
carriage, and the ease of motion, and almost
perfect freedom from jolting, which are thereby
obtiiined.

THE HORSE.

419

It must not perhaps be said, that the form of
(ho spring was borrowed from this construction
of the limbs of tlic horse, but the cfFect of the
carriage-spring beautifully illustrates the connex-
ion of the different bones in the extremities of this
quadruped.

The obliquity or slanting direction of the
shoulder effects other veiy useful purposes. That
the stride in the gallop, or the space passed over
in the trot, may be extensive, it is necessaiy that
the fore part of the animal should be considerably
elevated. The shoulder, by means of the muscles
which extend from it to the inferior part of the
limb, is the grand agent in effecting this. Had
the bones of the shoulder been placed more upright
than we see them, they could not then have been of
the length which they now are, — their connexion
with the chest could not have been so secure, — and
their movements upon each other would have been
comparatively restricted. The slightest inspection
of tills cut, or of that at page 263, will show that,

just in proportion as the point of the shoulder
is brouglit forward and elevated, will be the for-
ward action and elevation of the limb, or the
space passed over at every effort.

The slanting shoulder accomplishes a most
useful object. The nuiscles extending from the
shoulder-blade to the lower bone of the shoulder
are the powers by which motion is given to the
whole of the limb. The extent and energy of that
motion depend much on the force exerted or the
strength of the muscle, but there are circumstances
in the relative situations of the different bones
which have far greater influence.

Let it be supposed that, by means of a lever,
some one is endeavouring to raise a ceilain
weight.

A is a lever, resting or turning on a pivot B ;
C is the weight to be raised ; and D is the power,
er the situation at which the power is applied. If
the strength is applied in a direction pei-pendicular
to the lever, as represented by the line E, the

r'^x.

power which must be exerted can easily be calcu-
lated.

In proportion as the distance of the power
from the pivot or centre of motion exceeds that of
the weight from the same place, so will be the
advantage gained. The power here is twice as far
from the centre as the weight is, and therefore
advantage is gained in the proportion of two to
one : or if the weight is equal to 2001bs., a force of
lODlbs. will balance it. If the direction in which
the power is applied is altered, and it is in that of
the line F, will lOOlbs. effect the purpose? No;
nothing like it. How, then, is the necessary
power to be calculated? The calculation of the
force which must be exerted in a direction inter-
mediate between the directions of the line E, and
of the lever A B, involves questions of geometry,
somewhat foreign to the object of these pages.
But though the exact estimation of the power to be
exerted at intermediate positions is a question
of some difficulty, a very little consideration will
sene to show that the force to be applied, increases
with, and in a greater degree than, the angle
between the directions of E and F. For suppose
the direction of F to coincide with that of A B,
then no force exerted, however great, would sup-

port C, the whole effect being to move the lever in
the direction of its length.

Let the shoulder of the horse be considered.
The point of the shoulder — the shoulder-joint — is
the pivot or centre of motion ; the leg attached to
the bone of the arm is the weight ; the shoulder-
blade being more fixed, is the part whence the
power emanates, and the muscles extending from
the one to the other are the lines in which that
power is exerted. These lines approach much
more nearly to a perpendicular in the oblique than
in the upright shoulder (see cut). In the upright
one, the shoulder-blade and the bone of the arm
are almost in a straight line, and the real action
and power of the muscle are most strangely dimin-
ished. In this point of view the oblique shoulder
is most important. It not only gives extensive
action, but facility of action. The power of the
muscles is more than doubled by being exerted
in a line approaching so much nearer to a perpen-
dicular.

There is yet another advantage of the oblique
shoulder. The point of the shoulder is projected
forward ; and therefore the pillars which support
the fore-part of the horse are likewise placed pro-
portionably forward, and they have less weight to

420

THE HORSE.

carry. They are exposed to less concussion, and
especially concussion in rapid action. The horse
is also much safer; for having less weight situated
before the pillars of support, he is not so likely to
have the centre of gravity thrown before and be-
yond them by an accidental trip ; or, in other
woi'ds, he is not so likely to fall ; and he rides
more pleasantly, for there is far less weight bear-
ing on the hand of the rider, and annoying and
tiling him. It likewise unfortunately happens
that nature, as it were to supply the deficiency of
action and of power in an upright shoulder, has
accumulated on it more muscle, and therefore the
upright shoulder is proverbially thick and cloddy ;
and the muscles of the breast which weie designed
to strengthen the attachment of the shoulders to
the chest, and to bind them together, must, when
the point of the shoulder lies backward, and
under the horse, be proportionably thickened and
strengthened, and the horse is thus still more heavy
before, more unpleasant, and more unsafe to
ride.

Then, ought every horse to have an oblique
shoulder ? No ! The question has relation to
those horses that are designed to ride pleasantly,
or from which extensive and rapid action is re-
quired. In them it has been said that an oblique
shoulder is indispensable : but there are others
which are seldom ridden ; whose pace is slow and
who have nothing to do but to throw as much
weight as possible into the collar. To them an
upright shoulder is an advantage, because its
iidditional thickness gives them additional weight
to throw into the collar, which the power of
their hinder quartere is fully sufficient to accom-
plish; and because the upright position of the
shoulder gives that direction to the collar which
enables the horse to act upon every part of it, and
that inclination of the traces which vrill enable his
weight or power to be most advantageously em-
ployed.

An improved breed of our heavy draught-
horses has of late years been attempted, and with
much success. Sufficient uprightness of shoulder
is retained for the purposes of draught, while
a slight degree of obliquity has materially
quickened the pace and improved the appearance.

Above its junction with the humenis, or lower
division of the limb, the shoulder-blade forms what
is called the point of the shoulder. There is a round
blunted projection best seen in the cut (p. 418).
The neck of the shoulder-blade there forms a
shallow cavity, into which the head of the next
bone is received.

The cavity is shallow because extensive motion
is required, and because both of the bones being
so moveable, and the motion of the one connected so
much with that of the other, dislocation was less
likely to occur. A capsular ligament, or one

extending round the heads of both bones, confines
them securely together.

This joint is rarely or never dislocated ; and,
should it suffer dislocation, the muscles of the
shoulder-blade and the lower bone of the shoulder
are so strong, that the reduction of it would be
impossible. The point of the shoulder, however,
projecting considerably, is much exposed to injury
from accident or violence. Even turning in a nar-
row stall has inflicted a serious bruise. Fomenta-
tions of warm water will usually remove the
tenderness and lameness, but should they fail,
blood should be taken from the plate vein,
or, in very obstinate cases a blister should be
resorted to.

A description of the principal muscles of the
shoulder-blade, their situation, attachments, and
use, may not be uninteresting to the lover of
the horse, and may guide his judgment as to the
capability and proper form of that noble animal.

CUT OF MUSCLES ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE SHOULDER.

a and 6, in the above cut, represent a por-
tion of the Trapezius muscle attached to the longer

THE HORSE.

4-<!l

bones of the wiiliers broadly and strongly and
to the ligament and fasciae of the neck (a portion of
which is seen at b), narrowing below, terminating
almost in a point, and inserted into a tubercle on
the spine or ridge of the shoulder-blade. It occu-
pies the space between the withers and the upper
part of the shoulder-blade, and is large and strong
in proportion to the height of the withers, and the
slanting of the shoulder. Its use is evidently to
elevate and support the scapula — to raise it,
and likewise to draw it backward ; therefore, con-
stituting one of the most important muscles con-
nected with the action of the horse, and illus-
trating the advantage of high withers and a slant-
ing shoulder. A portion of it is represented as
turned back, in order to show other muscles
beneath. A moment's inspection will convince the
reader that although a low forehand and thick
shoulder are very properly objected to, yet still
some fulness and fleshiness are necessary, even
about the withers ; otherwise, although there
may be height of withers, and obliquity of
shoulder, to give extensive action, there \vili not
be sufficient muscular power to work the machine
with either quickness or continuance.

At c is a portion of the levator humeri^ (the
raiser of the shoulder), descending from the tuber-
cle of the head (see cut, page 263), and from the
base of the temporal bone, and attaching itself to
the first four bones of the neck, and to the liga-
gament of tlie neck ; inserting itself into the cover-
ing of the muscles of the shoulder, and those
about the point of the shoulder, and at length ter-
minating in a ridge on the body of the humerus,
arising from the greater tubercle. It is a muscle
of immense power and great utility, raising and
drawing forward the shoulder and the arm, or,
when these are fixed, turning the head and neck if
one only acts, and depressing them if the muscles
on both sides act at the same time.

At d is a portion of the serratus magnus muscle,
between the shoulder and side of the chest, and
constituting the bulk of the lower part of the
neck. It is deeply seated, arising from the fourth,
fifth, sixth, and seventh bones of the neck ante-
riorly, and attached posteriorly to the eight first
ribs. All its fibres tend towards and are inserted
into the inner surface of the shoulder, and by
means of them the shoulder is attached to the
chest, and the immense weight of the body
supported. The use of this muscle in obviating
concussion, has already been spoken of.

When the horse is standing, this muscle occa-
sionally discharges another important function.
The shoulders and legs are then rendered fixed
points by the weight of the body, and this muscle
exeits all its power in dilating the cavity of the
chest, and thus materially assists in the act of
breathing. Therefore, as was stated when that

disease was treated of, a horse labouring under
inflammation of the lungs will obstinately stand
night and day, in order that he may obtain the
assistance of this muscle in respiration, which is
become laborious and painful ; and for the same
reason it is that we regard his lying down as one
of the most favourable symptoms, because it shows
us that the breathing is so much relieved as not
to need the assistance of this muscle.

At e is a small portion of the splenius muscle,
which was spoken of when the neck was described,
p. 337.

/ represents a muscle sometimes described as
a portion of the lavator humeri, or elevator of the
shoulder, arising from the nipple-shaped process
or tubercle of the temporal bone, running down
the somewhat lateral but fore part of the neck,
inserted into the upper and middle part of the
lower bone of the shoulder, and thence continued
down to the arm. Its office is to bend the head ;
or, the head and neck being fixed, to elevate and
bring forward the arm. It is in powerful action
when the horse is ninning at his speed with the
head projected.

At g is a portion of the sterno majrillaris,
or muscle common to the fore part of the chest
and the lower jaw, and described at p. 387.

h designates the principal portion of this
muscle extending from the shoulder to the hume-
rus, and employed in drawing this bone towards
the shoulder-blade, and bending the whole of the
limb. Exceedingly powerful action is required
from this muscle, therefore it "is very tendinous,
and inserted in such a direction as to act with
great mechanical advantage, and that advantage
increased in proportion to the slanting position of
the shoulder.

The muscle i, antea spinatus, is situated on
the outer and anterior part of the shoulder, below
and behind the muscle next mentioned ; and its
office is to extend the humems on the scapula. It
is also attached to the greater tubercle of the
humerus, and to a bony ridge extending from it to
the capsular-ligament of the shoulder-joint. Its
action is to assist in the flexion of the humerus,
and to give it a motion outwards.

The masde j, postca spinatus, behind the spine
or ridge, occupies that space of the shoulder, and
is inserted into the outer and upper head of the
bone. It draws this bone outward and upward.

At k, is a muscle common to the breast and
the shoulder-blade, and called the pectoralis
parvus. It ai-ises from the breast-bone, and
rea(!hes to the covering of the shoulder-joint, and
the muscles of the shoulder. Its action, in com-
mon with that of a larger muscle, seen at m, the
great pectoral, is to draw the head of the shoulder
backward, and also the lower part of the shoulder-
blade, and to give the latter a more upright position.

E J£

t22

THE HORSE.

It arises from

At q is the tendon of a very important muscle,
the extensor longits of the arm, reaching from the
upper angle and the

posterior border of

the shoulder-blade to

the point of the elbow

and the inside of the

arm, and which will

be presently de-
scribed. At r and s

are the three divisions

of another muscle con-
cerned in the same

office, arising from

the shoulder-blade

and the lower bone

of the shoulder, and

likewise attached to

the point of the el-
bow by a very strong

tendon.

This cut represents

the muscles on the

inside of the shoulder

and fore-arm. a is a

very pi'ominent one.
It is called the pecto-
ralis tra}isversus (the
muscle crossing the breast),
the first four bones of the sternum, and nms
across to the inner part of the arm; it is also
attached to the inferior part of the body of the
humerus, and to the fascia covering the ann, and
reaching a considerable way down the ann. The
use of this muscle is obvious and important. It
binds the arm to the side of the horse ; it keeps
the legs straight before the horse when he is at
speed, that the weight of the body may be received
on them in a direction most easy and safe to the
horse and to the rider, and most advantageous for
the full play of all the muscles concerned in pro-
gression. "Considering the unevenness of surface
over which a horse often passes, and the rapid
tm-nings which are sometimes necessary, these
muscles have enough to do ; and when the animal
is pushed beyond his strength, and these muscles
are wearied, and the fore-legs spread out, and the
horse is " all abroad," the confused and unplea-
sant manner of going, and the sudden falling off
in speed, are well known to eveiy rider. Mr.
Percivall very properly observes, that this muscle
has probably more to do in enabling the arm
to support weight than to give it motion.

THE HUMERUS, OR LOWER BONE OF THE
SHOULDER.

Forming a joint with the shoulder-blade at
the iHihit of the shoidder is the humerus. It is a
short strong bone, sl^iu'i"g backward in an oppo-

site direction to the shoulder-blade. At the upper
part it has a large round head, received into the
shallow cavity of the shoulder-blade, or, as Mr.
Percivall has graphically described it, " it is the
segment of a globe, smooth and polished, evi-
dently for the purpose of playing like a spherical
hinge within the cup-like concavity occupying the
place of the apex of the scapula. There are no
two bones in the skeleton whose articular connex-
ion is of a nature to admit more varied and
extensive motion than exists between the scapula
and the humerus. If we attempt to lift a horse's
fore-leg, we cannot merely bring it forward and
carry it backward, but we can also to a considerable
extent make it perform a sort of rotary motion, in
consequence of the mobility existuig in this joint
between the socket of the scapula and the head of
the humerus.'"* It has several protuberances for
the insertion of muscles, and is terminated below
by two condijles or heads, which in front receive
the principal bone of the arm between them as in
a groove, thus adding to the security and strength
of the joint, and limiting the action of this joint,
and of the limb below to mere bending and exten-
sion, without any side motion. Farther behind
these heads receive the elbow deep between them,
in order to give more extensive action to the arm.
In a well-formed horse this bone can scarcely be
too short, in order that the fore-legs may be as
forward as possible, for reasons already stated, and
because, when the lower bone of the shoulder
is long, the shoulder must be too upright. Dislo-
cation can scarcely occur in either of the attach-
ments of the bone, and fracture of it is almost
impossible. The lower bone of the shoulder and
the shoulder-blade are by horsemen confounded
together, and included under the appellation of the
shoulder, and in compliance with general usage we
have described them as combining to form the
shoulder.

Among the muscles arising from the humerus
are too short and very strong ones, seen at r and
s, page 420, the first proceeding from the upper
part of this bone to the elbow, and the second
from the internal part, and likewise going to
the elbow, and both of them being powerful agents
in extending the leg.

In front, at y, is one of the muscles of the
humerus, the external one employed in bending
the arm, arising from the inner and back part
of the neck and body of the humerus, turning
obliquely round that bone, and inserted into the
inner and upper part of the bone of the arm.

I THE ABM.

The arm, extending from the elbow to the
kuee (see K and L, p. '283 and also cut. p 420),
consists, in the young horse, of two distinct hones.
• Veterinarian, vol. xv., p. 307,

THE IIOnSE.

■ia.3

The long and front bone, called the radius, is
nearly straight, receiving into its upper end the
lower heads of the humerus ; and the lower end
corresponding; with the upper layer of the bones of
the knee. The short and hinder bone is called
the ulna. It has a ver)' long and powerful projec-
tion, received between the heads of the humerus,
and called the elbow ; it then stretches down,
narrowing bj^ degrees (see L, p. 263, and the cut,
p. 4'20) to below the middle of the front bone,
where it terminates in a point. The two bones
are united together by cartilage and ligament ; but
these are by degrees absorbed and changed to
bone, and before the horse becomes old the whole
of the arm consists of one bone onl}'.

It will be perceived tliat, from the slanting
direction of the humenis, the weight of the horse,
and the violence of the concussion, will be shared
between the radius and the ulna, and therefore
less liable to injure either. The circumstance,
also, of so much weight and jar being commu-
nicated to them, will account for the extensive and
peculiarly strong union between these bones in the
young horse ; the speedy inflammation of the
uniting substance and absorption of it, and the
substitution of bone, and complete bony union
between the radius and ulna in the old horse. The
immense muscles that are attached to the point of
the elbow likewise render it necessary that the
union between these bones should be very strong.

The arm is a most important part of the horse,
as will be seen when we describe the muscles that
belong to it. The muscles q, r, and s, proceeding
from the shoulder-blade and the humerus, and
inserted into the elbow, have been already spoken
of. They are the grand agents in extending the
arm ; and in proportion to the power which they
e.\ert, will be the quickness and the length of the
stride. The strength of the horse, so far as his
fore-limbs are concerned, principally resides here.
Then there will naturally be a large and muscular
arm, and such a formation of the limb, and parti-
cularly of the elbow, as will enable these muscles
to act with most advantage.

The principle of the lever (referred to at p.
419) is here beautifully applicable. The elbow-
joint is the centre of motion ; the whole of the
lower part of the leg is the weight to be raised ;
and the power by which it is to be raised in one
act of progression, the extending of the limb,
is the muscles inserted into the elbow. In pro-
portion as the weight is more distant than the
power from the centre of motion, as it is in the
construction of this limb, so will be the greater
degree of energy requisite to be exerted. Supjjo-
sing that the weight, taking the knee to be the
centre of it, is eighteen inches from the elbow-
joint — that the limb weighs 601bs., and that the
elbow projects two inches from the joint — then an

energy equal to nine times the welgiit, or .jiolbs.,
will be needed to move and extend the liuib.
because the weight is nine times farther from thtj
centre of motion than the jjower is. If in another
horse the point of the elbow projects three inches
from the joint, the weight of the leg remaining the
same, only six times the force, or 360lbs., will be
required, making a difference in, or saving of,
muscular action, equal to ISOlbs. in each extension
of the arm. If a few pounds in the weight of the
rider tell so much for or against the horse in a
long race, this saving of power must make an
almost incalculable difference ; and, therefore,
judges of the horse rightly attach so much impor-
tance to the depth of the elbow, or the projection
of the point of the elbow from the joint.

When describing the proper obliqui y of the
shoulder, it was stated that the power was exerted
with most advantage in a line perpendicular to tbe
arm of the lever, and that the slightest deviation
from that line was manifestly disadvantageous.
If the reader will examine the cut, he will per
ceive that muscles from the shoulder and the bone
of the arm take a direction much nearer to a per-
pendicular line in the long than in the short
elbow, and therefore act with proportionably
greater advantage ; and if this advantage from the
direction in which the power is applied to that
which we gain from the increased length of the
bone is considered, it will be plain that the
addition of one- third to the length or projection
of the elbow would be attended by a saving of one
half in the expenditure of muscular power. There
is, however, a limit to this. In proportion as the
elbow is lengthened, it must move over a great,"r
space in order to give the requisite extension to
the limb ; and consequently the muscles which
act upon it must be lengthened, otherwise, although
the action might be easy it would be confined.
There must be harmony of proportion in the
different parts of the limb, but a deep elbow,
within a certain range, is always connected with
increased power of action.

The elbow is sometimes fractured. If the
animal is placed in the hands of a skilful veterina-
rian, although the chances of cure are certainly
against the horse, yet the owner needs not to
despair. The treatment of fracture of the elbow-
joint will be considered in its proper place.

Enlargements sometimes appear about the
elbow, either the consequence of a violent blow,
or from the calkins of the shoes injuring this part
when the horse sleeps with his legs doubled under
him. If a seton is passed through the twmour, it
will sometimes rapidly diminish, and even disap-
pear ; but if it is of considerable magnitude, the
skin should be opened aloxig the middle of the
swelling, and the tumour dissected out.

The elbow-joint is sometimes pimctured, either
E E 2

12-1

THE HOESE.

accidentally, or tbrough the brutality of the groom
or carter. The swelling is often rapid and ex-
tensive, and fatal inflammation may ensue. Rest,
and the closure of the wound, are the most im-
portant considerations.

There are other nmscles of the fore-arm em-
ployed in extending the limb. At x, page 420,
is the principal one, called the extensor metacarpi.
It is attached superiorly to the outer and fore
parts of the external condyle of the humerus, and
also to the capsular ligament, and inferiorly to the
antero-superior part of the great metacarpal bone.
Its supeiior attachments are principally fleshy,
"with a few tendinous fibres interposed. These
diminish towards the centre, but a little lower
down is a tendon, round at its origin, but gra-
dually gi'owing flat and expanding in breadth to-
wards its termination. Its office is to extend the
leg.

The next muscle in situation and importance
is seen at w, and called the extensor pedis. It
rises from the fore part of the external condyle of
the humerus, and pursues its course down the
leg, and expanding after it has passed the fetlock,
it serves the purpose of a capsular ligament, co-
vering and adhering to the pastem joints. Its
office is to extend the foot and pasterns, and, at
the same time, to assist in the extension of the
knee.

At u, page 420, is the tendon of another ex-
tensor muscle, and at 2 a curious oblique one,
passing over the tendon of x, confining it in its
situation, and likewise itself assisting in extending
or straightening the leg.

The muscles employed in bending the leg are
both numerous and powerful. Two of the super-
ficial ones are given in the cut, page 4Q2. The
first is at t, page 420; it is also seen at b, page
420. It is called the flexor mediii-s iiictacarjn,
because its office is to bend the leg. Tlie other
is seen at v, page 420. It is called ^ie flexor me-
tacarpi externits, and is also designed to flex the
leg.

The internal flexor is seen at e. Its office is
also to bend the leg.

A portion of one of the most powerful of the
flexor muscles, and powerful indeed they must be,
is delineated at c, page 420. It is the flexor
hracldi. It rises fi'om the extremity of the ridge
of the shoulder-blade in the form of a large and
round tendon, which runs between two promi-
nences in the upper part of the front of the lower
bone of the shoulder, and in as perfect a groove or
pulley as art ever contrived. This groove is lined
■with smooth cartilage ; and between it and the
tendon there is a secretion of oily fluid, so that
the tendon may play freely in the pulley without
friction. Havmg escaped from this pulley, and
passed the head of the lower bone of the shoulder,

the cord swells out into a round fleshy body, still
containing many tendinous fibres. Deeply seated,
it contributes materially to the bulk of the front
of the arm, and is inserted into the head and neck
of the bone of the arm, and likewise into the cap-
sular ligament of the elbow joint. It is the
muscle by which, almost alone, the whole of the
leg below the arm is bent, and carried forward
and upward.

It acts at great disadvantage. It is inserted
into the very head of the bone of the arm, and
expanded even upon the joint. Then the power is
applied almost close to the centre of motion, while
the weight to l)e raised is far distant from it. The
power is thirty times nearer the centre of motion
than is the weight ; and, calculating, as before, the
weight of the arm and the rest of the limb at
601bs., it must act with a force of thirty times
sixty, or ISOOlbs. In addition to this, the line
of tlie direction of the force strangely deviates from
a perpendicular. The direction of the muscle is
nearly the same as that of the limb, and the
mechanical disadvantage is almost incalculably
great. If it is calculated at only ten times more,
this muscle, and its feelde coadjutors, act with a
force of ten times ISOO, or 18,0U01bs.

"Why this almost incredible expenditure of mus-
cular power '? That the beauty of the limb might
be preserved, and the joint be compact. If the
tendon had been inserted half-way down the ann,
the elbow-joint would have offered a very unsightly
appearance.

Beauty of form, however, is the least result of
this conformation. Extensive and rapid motion
are among the excellences of the horse. He is
valuable in proportion as he has them combined
with stoutness ; and by this conformation of the
limb could he alone obtain them. Therefore the
tendon is at first unusually strong ; it plays through
the natural but perfect pulley of the bone of the
arm without friction ; the body of the muscle is
mixed with tendinous fibres, and the insertion into
the fore-arm is very extensive, lest the application
of such immense force should tear it from its adhe-
sions. There is sufficient strength in the appara-
tus ; the power may be safely applied at this
mechanical disadvantage ; and it is applied close to
the joint to give an extent and rapidity of motion
which could not otiierwise have been obtained, and
without which the horse would have been compara-
tively useless.

At the back of the arm are other flexor muscles
of great power, to bend the lower portions of the
limb. Two of them have been described belonging
to the arm and the leg, and some very peculiar
ones acting on the feet must not he omitted. Only
a small portion of one of them can be seen in our
cut, p. 420, at 1.

The firat is the flexor pedis perfoiatus. It is

THE HOUSE.

425

deeply seateil iu tlie posterior part of the arm,
where, with tlie perforaus, it forms a thick fleshy
mass, the tendons issuing from which are adapted
to the convexity and concavity of each other. As
it descends along the bone of tlie arm, it liecomes
tendinous : and, approaching the knee, it is bound
down by arches or bands of ligament, that it may
not start in sudden and violent action. Proceeding
from the knee, it widens, and partly wraps round
the tendon of the perforating muscle, and they run
down together in contact, yet not adhering ; freely
playing over each other, and a mucous fluid obviat-
ing all friction. Both of them are enclosed in a
sheath of dense cellular substance, attached to them
by numerous fibrils ; and they are likewise supported
by various ligamentous expansions.

Near the fetlock the tendon still further ex-
pands, and forms a complete ring round the tendon
of the perforating muscle. This is seen at J, p.
299. The use of this will be best explained when
the fetlock is treated of.

The perforated tendon soon afterwards di\ides,
and is inserted into the smaller and larger pastern
bones, and serves to tlex or bend the fetlock and
joints, as it had previously assisted in the fle.xion
of the knee.

The flexor perforans muscle has nearly the
same origin as the perforatus ; but it continues
muscular farther down the arm than it, and lies
before it. At the knee its tendon passes, like the
perforatus, under strong ligamentary arches, which
confine it in its situation. It then becomes round,
and is partly enveloped in the perforatus, and at the
fetlock is entirely surrounded by it. It emerges
from the perforatus when that tendon dindes, and
continues its progress alone after the other has
inserted itseK into the pasterns, and, passing over
the na\icular bone, is broadly implanted into the
posterior cavity of the foot.

It is sufficiently plain that the arm should be
large and muscular, otherwise it could not discharge
all these duties. Horsemen differ on a variety of
other points, but here they are agreed. A full and
swelling fore-arm is the characteristic of eveiy
thorough-bred horse. Whatever other good points
the animal vaiLj possess, if the arm is narrow iu
front and near the shoulder, flat on the side, and
altogether deficient in muscular appearance, that
horse is radically defective. He can neither raise
his knee for rapid action, nor throw his legs
sufficiently forward.

The ai-rn should likewise be long. In propor-
tion to the length of the muscle is the degree of
contraction of which it is capable : and in propor-
tion also to the degree of contraction will be the
extent of motion in the limb beneath. A racer,
with a short arm, would be sadly deficient in stride ;
a hunter, with the same defect, would not be able
to double his legs well under him in the leap.

There is, however, a medium in this, and the ad-
vantage of length in the arm will depend on
the use to which the horse is ap[)lied. Tlie lady's
horse, the cavalry horse, every horse in wliich
prancing action is esteemed a beauty, and in which
utility is, to a certain degree, sacriiiced to appear-
ance, must not be too long in the arm. If he is
long there, he will be proportional dy short in the
leg ; and although this is an undoul)ted excellence,
whether speed or continuance is regarded, the short
leg will not give the grand and imposing action
which fashion may require. In addition to this, a
horse with short legs may not have quite so easy
action as another wiiose length is in the shank
rather than in the arm.

THE KNKE

The Knee (M, p. 263, and cut, p. 418), answer-
ing to the human wiist, constitutes the joint or
joints between the arm and the shank or leg ; and
is far more complicated than any joint that has been
yet considered. Beside the lower heads of the
bone of the ann, and the upper heads of the three
bones of the leg, there are no less than six other
bones interposed, arranged in two rows, three in
each row, and the seventh placed behind.

What was the intention of this complicated
structure. A joint between the elbow and the fet-
lock was absolutely necessary to the action of the
horse. An iufle.xible pillar of that length could
scarcely have been lifted from the ground, much
less far enough for rapid or safe motion. It was
likewise necessary, that the interposing joint should
be so constituted as to preserve this part of the
limb in a straight dn-ection, and possess sufficient
strength to resist all common work and accidents.
Being in a straight direction, the shock or jar
between the ends of the bones of the arm and the
leg would be dreadful, and would speedily inflict
irreparable injury. The heads of all bones are
covered with elastic cartilage, in order to protect
them from injury by concussion ; but this would be
altogethei- insufficient here. Six distinct bones are
therefore placed here, each covered above and below
by a thick coating of cartilage, connected together
by strong ligaments, but separated by interposed
iiuids and membranes. The concussion is thus
spread over the whole of them— shared by the
whole of them : and, by the peculiarity of their
connexion, rendered harmless.

These six distinct bones, united to each other
by numerous and powerful ligaments, will also
afford a far stronger joint than the apposition of
any two bones, however perfect and strong might
be the capsular ligament, or by whatever other
ligaments it might be strengthened. In aildition
to the connexion between the individuitl bones,
there is a perfect capsulai* ligament here, extending
from the bone of the arm to those of the leg ; and

420

THE HORSE.

the result of the whole is, that the hardest work
and the severest accidents produce little deformit}',
and no dislocation in the knee ; nor do the sliocks
and jars of many a year cause inflammation or
disease. It is an undeniable fact, that such is the
perfect construction of this joint, and to so great a
degree does it lessen concussion, that the injuries
resulting from hard work are, almost without an
exception, found below the knee, which seems to
escape the injuries of the hock. There is a remark-
able difference in the effects of work on the knee
and the hock. The knee is subject to enormous
concussion in its strict sense. The hock to a some-
what different work. The knee altogether escapes
bony enlargements and inflammations of the liga-
ments, like spavins ; and, what is more reijiarkable,
it also escapes the damages to which the anterior
fetlock is liable from precisely the same concussion
as the knee.

The seventh bone, the trapezium, so called from
its quadrangular figure, is placed (see M, p. 263)
behind the others, and does not bear the slightest
portion of the weight. It, however, is exceedingly
useful. Two of the flexor muscles, already described,
proceed from the bone of the arm, and are inserted
into i t ; and being thus thrown off the limb, have a
less oblique direction given to them, and, therefore,
according to the principle of the lever, act with
considerably more power. It is also useful in
another way. As the tendons of the various
muscles descend the limbs, they are tied down, as
we have described, by strong ligamentous bands :
tliis is particularly the case in the neighbourhood
of the joints. The use of it is evident. The ex-
tensor tendons, which lie principally on the front
of the leg, are prevented from starting and strength-
ened and assisted iu their action ; but the flexor
tendons which are at the back would be liable to
friction, and their motion impeded, if they were
bound down too tightly. This projecting bone pre-
vents the annular or ring-like ligament from press-
ing too closely on the main flexor tendons of the
foot ; and, while it leaves them room to play, leaves
room likewise for a little bag filled with mucus to
surround them, which mucus oozing slowly out,
supplies the course of the tendons with a fluid that
prevents much injurious friction.

The knee should be broad. It should pre-
sent a very considei-able width, compared with
the arm above, or the shank below. In propor-
tion to the breadth of the knee is tlie space for the
attachment of muscles, and for the accumulation
of ligamentous expansions and bands. In propor-
t on to the breadth of the knee there will be more
strength : and likewise the direction of some mus-
cles will be less oblique, and the course of others
will be more removed from the centre of mo-
tion, in either of which cases much power will be
• gained.

BROKEN KNEES.

The treatment of broken knees is a subject of
considerable importance, for many horses are sadly
blemished, and others are destroyed, by wounds in
the knee-joint. The horse, when falling, naturally
throws his knees forward ; they receive all his
weight, and are sometimes vei^ extensively lace-
rated. The first thing to be done is, by veiy care-
ful washing with warm water, to cleanse the wound
from all gravel and dirt. It must then be ascer-
tained whether the joint is penetrated. The grat-
ing of the probe on one of the bones of the knee,
or the depth to which the probe enters the wound,
will too plainly indicate that the joint has been
opened. Should any doubt exist, a linseed-meal
poultice must be applied. This w ill at least act as
a fomentation to the wound, and will prevent or
abate inflammation ; and when, twelve hours after-
wards, it is taken off, the synovia or joint-oil, in the
fonn of a glairj', yellowish, transparent fluid, will
be seen, if the capsular ligament has been pene-
ti'ated. Should doubt remain after the first poul-
tice, a second ought to be applied.

It having been asceitained that the interior of
the joint is not injured, attention must be paid to
the wound that is actually made. The horse
should wear a cradle to prevent his getting at the
wound. A stimulating application — the common
black-oil of the farrier is as good as any — should
be lightly applied every day until healthy pus is
produced on the wound, and then a little friar's
balsam will probably effect a cure.

The opening of the joint, however, being ascer-
tained, the first and immediate care is to close the
orifice ; for the fluid which separated and lubricated
the bones of the knee being suffered to escape, they
will be brought into contact with and will rub upon
each other ; the delicate membrane with which
they are covered will be highly inflamed ; the con-
stitution will be speedily affected, and a degree of
fever will ensue that will destroy the horse ; while,
in the mean time, of all the tortures that can be
inflicted on the poor animal, none can equal that
which accompanies inflammation of the membranes
lining the joints.

The manner of closing the orifice must be left
to the judgment of the veterinary surgeon, who
alone is capable of properly treating such a case.
It may be effected by a compress enclosing the
whole of the wound, and not to be removed for
many days ; or it may be attempted by the old and
generally successful method of applying the hot
iron over the wound, and particularly over the spot
where the ligament appears to be lacerated. A
poultice may then be placed on the part, and the
case treated as a common wound. The surgeon
will find no difficulty in determining whether the
sharp edge of the common firing-iron should be

HIE HOUSE.

427

Tiseil, as would be the case if the liiceration is con-
siderable, or whether the budding-iron should be
resorted to. After the use of the cautery, the
application of a blister may, in some cases, be ser-
viceable. Should the joint-oil continue to flow,
the iron may be applied a second, or even a third
time. By its application, so much swelling is pro-
duced on the immediate puncture, and in the
neighbouring parts, as mechanically to close and
plug up the orifice.

If, however, the opening into the joint is ex-
tensive, and the joint-oil continues to flow, and the
horse is evidently suffering much pain, humanity
will dictate that he should be destroyed. The
case is hojieless. A high degree of fever will ere
long carry him off, or the inflammation will cause
a deposit of matter in the cavity of the joint that
will produce incurable lameness.

The pain caused by the iron is doubtless great ;
it is, however, necessary : but let no reader of
" The Horse" permit the torturing experiments of
the farrier to be tried, who will frequently inject
Stimulating fluids, and even oil of vitriol, into one
of the most sensible and irritable cavities in the
whole frame.

A person well acquainted with the anatomy of
the part will judge of the probability of a favour-
able result, not merely by the extent, but by the
situation of the wound. If it is low down, and
opposite to the bottom row of the bones of the
knee, a small opening into the joint will be easily
closed. A larger one needs not to cause despair,
because there is little motion between the lower
row and the bones of the leg. If it is high up,
there is more danger, because there is more motion.
If it is situated opposite to the union of the two
rows, the result is most to be dreaded, because
between these is the principal motion of the joint,
and that motion will not only disunite and irritate
the external wound, but cause dreadful friction
between the bones brought into actual contact with
each other, through the loss of the joint-oil.

Among the various methods of treating opened
knee-joint, where the lesion is very considerable,
is one introduced by Mr. Turner, of Croydon,
which must not be passed over in silence. The
wound having been cleansed, a paste is prepared
composed of wheateu flour and table-beer, which
are stirred together and boiled for five minutes, or
until they become of the consistence commonly
used by paper-hangers. This is spread on the
wound, and round the joint, and four inches above
and below it. Pledgets of tow are passed over
this and confined in their places by means of a
stocking, and over the whole is another layer, and
another stocking or bandage. This is not removed
until the joint has closed, and the synovia ceases
to flow. On the second or third day the bandage
will become drv and hard, and cause considerable

pain. It must not be meddled with before i.r
behind, but four longitudinal incisions may be
made through the bandages on each side, which
vfiW sufficiently liberate the joint and remove the
pain.*

When the knee has been much lacerated,
although the wound may be healed, some Ijlemish
will remain. The extent of this blemish will
depend on that of the original Wdund, and more
especially on the nature of the treatment that has
been adopted. Every caustic application will de-
stroy a portion of the skin, and leave a certain
mark. Should the blemish be considerable, a
mild blister may be applied over the part, after the
wound has healed. It will stimulate the hair to
grow more rapidly and thickly round the scar, and
particularly hair of the natural colour; and, by
contracting the skin, it will lessen the scar itself.
Many persons have great faith in ointments that
are said to promote the growth of the hair. If
they have this property, it must be from their
stimulating the skin in which the roots of the hair
are imbedded. These ointments usually contain a
small portion of blistering matter, in the form of
turpentine, or the Spanish-fly. The common ap-
plication of gunpowder and lard may, by blackening
the part, conceal the blemish, but can have no
possible effect in quickening the growth of the hair.

In examining a horse for purchase, the knees
should be very strictly scrutinised. A small
blemish on them should not induce us at once to
condemn the animal for a bad rider, for the merest
accident may throw the safest horse. A broken
knee, however, is a suspicious circumstance, and
calls for the most careful obsen-ation of the make
and action of the horse. If it is accompanied by
a thick and upright shouldej-, and legs far imder
the horse, and low slovenly action, he is unwise
who does not take the hint. This faulty confor-
mation has produced its natural consequence. But
if the shoulder is oblique, and the pastern of the
proper length and inclination, and the fore-arm
strong, the good judge will not reject the animal
because he may have been accidentally thrown.

The part of the limb between the knee and the
fetlock consists of three bones — a large one before,
called the cantion or shank, and two smaller or
splint bones behind (see N, p. 263). The shank-
bone is rounded in front, and flattened, or even
concave behind. It is the straightest of the lor.g
bones, as well as the most superficially situated,
for in some parts it is covered only by the ski;;.
The upper head is flat, with slight depressions
corresponding with the lower row of the bones of
the knee. The lower head is difierently and

* A full account of this inlereiting o:ieration may hi- found in
the Veleiin:irian for 1829.

428

THE HOUSE.

ciit'ioiisly foniied. It resembles a double pullej'.
There are three elevations ; the principal one in
the centre, and another on each side. Between
them are two slight grooves, and these so precisel.y
correspond with the deep depressions and slight
prominences in the upper head of the larger pastern,
and are so enclosed and guarded by the elevated
edges of that bone, that when the shank-bone and
pastern are fitted to each other, they form a perfect
hinge. They admit of the bending and extension
of the limb, but of no lateral or side motion. This
is a circumstance of very great importance in a
joint so situated, and having the whole weight of
the horse thrown upon it.

The smaller bones are placed behind the larger
ones on either side. A slight projection of the
head of each can alone be seen in front. The
heads of these bones are enlarged, and receive part
of the weight conveyed by the lower row of the
bones of the knee. They are united to the larger
bone by the same kind of substance which is found
in the colt between the bone of the elbow and the
main bone of the arm ; and which is designed, by
its great elasticity, to lessen the concussion or jar
when the weight of the animal is thrown on them.
They reach from one-half to two-thirds of the length
of the shank-bone, and, through their whole extent,
are united to it by this substance ; but, as in the
elbow, from the animal being worked too soon, or
too violently, inflammation ensues — bony matter is
deposited in the room of the ligamentous, and a
bony union takes place instead of the natural one.
There is no doubt that the ease of motion is some-
what lessened by this substitution of bone, but
other elastic principles are probably called into
more powerful action, and the value of the horse is
not perceptibly impaired, although it is hai'd to
say what secret injury may be done to the neigh-
bouring joints, and the cause of which, the lame-
ness not appearing untU a distant period, is not
suspected.

In this process, however, mischief does often
immediately extend to the neighbouring parts.
The disposition to deposit bone reaches beyond the
circumscribed space between the larger and smaller
bones of the leg, and a tumour, first callous, and
afterwards bony, is found, with part of its base
resting on the line of union between these bones.
This is called a

The splint is invariably found on the outside of
the small bones and generally on the inside of the
leg (c, p. 436). Why it should appear on the
outside of the small bones it is difficult to explain,
except that the space between these bones is occu-
pied by an important mechanism, which will be
presently described ; and, as in the case of abscess,
a natural tendency was given to them to determine

outward, that vital parts might not be injured. The
cause of their almost exclusive appearance on the
inside of the leg admits of easier explanation. The
inner splint-bone is placed nearer the centre of the
weight of the body than the other, and, from the
nature of its connexion with the bones of the knee,
actually receives more of the weight than does the
outer bone, and therefore is more liable to injury,
and inflammation, and this consequent deposit of
bony matter. The inner bone receives the ■whole
of the weight transmitted to the small bone of the
knee. It is the only support of that bone. A portion
only of one of the bones rests on the outer split-bone,
and the weight is shared between it and the shank.
In addition to this, there is the absurd practice of
many smiths of raising the outer heel of the shoe
to an extravagant degree, which throws still more
of the weight of the horse on the inner splint-bone.
Bony tumours occasionally appear on other parts
of the shank-bone, being the consequence of violent
blows or other external injuries, and are commonly
called splints.

When the splint of either sort is forming, the
horse is frequently lame, for the periosteum or
membrane covering the bone is painfully stretched ;
but when this membrane has accommodated itself
to the tumour that extended it, the lameness sub-
sides, and altogether disappears, unless the splint
be in a situation in which it interferes with the
action of some tendon or ligament, or in the imme-
diate neighbourhood of a joint. Pressing upon a
ligament or tendon, it may cause inflammation of
those substances ; or, being close to a joint, it may
interfere with its action. Splints, then, do not
necessarily cause unsoundness, and may not lessen
in the slightest degree the action or value of the
horse. All depends on their situation.

The treatment of splints, if it is worth while to
meddle with them, is exceedingly simple. The
hair should be closely shaved off' round the tumouj- ;
a little strong mercurial ointment rubbed in for two
days ; and this followed by an active blister. If
the splint is of recent formation, it will generally
yield to this, or to a second blister. Should
it however resist these applications, it can rarely
be advisable to cauterize the part, unless the
tumour materially interferes with the action of
the suspensory ligament, or the flexor tendon ;
for it not unfrequently happens, that, although the
splint may have apparently resisted this treat-
ment, it will afterwards, and at no great distance
of time, begin rapidl3' to lessen, and quite disap-
pear. There is also a natural process by which the
greater part of splints disappear when the horse
grows old.

The hydriodate of potash made into an ointment
with lard, and a small quantity of mercurial oint-
ment being added, will frequently cause the disap-
pearance of a splint of either sort

THE HOUSE.

'12'J

As for the old remedies, many of tliem brutal
enough — bi^uisiug the splint with a hammer, boring
it with a gimlet, chipping it oft' with a mallet,
sawing it oft", slitting down the skin and periosteum
over it, sweating it down with hot oils, and passing
setons over it — the voice of humanity, and the
progress of science, will consign them to speedy
oblivion.

Professor Sewell has introduced a new treat-
ment of splints, which is certainly ingenious, and
generally successful. He removes any intlamma-
tion about the part by the use of poultices or fomen-
tations, and then, the horse being cast, the opera-
tion is commenced by pinching up the skin, imme-
diately above the bony enlargement, with the finger
and thumb of the left liand, and with the knife, or
lancet, or scissors, making an orifice sufficient to
introduce a probe-pointed bistoury, with the edge
on the conve.K side. This is passed under the skin
along the whole length of the ossification beneath,
cutting through the thickened periosteum down to
the bone ; and this being effectually completed by
drawing the knife backwards and forwards several
times, a small tape or seton is inserted, and if the
tumour is of long standing, kept in during a few-
days. The operation is attended with very slight
pain to the animal. Perhaps slight inflammation
may appear, which subsides in a few days if fomen-
tation is used. The inflammation being removed,
the enlargement considerably subsides, and in many
cases becomes quite absorbed.*

The inside of the leg, immediately under the
knee, and extending to tlie head of the inner splint
bone, is subject to injury from what is termed the
speedy cut. A horse with high action, and in the
fast trot, violently strikes this part, either with his
hoof or the edge of the shoe. Sometimes bony
enlargement is the result, at others great heat and
tenderness ; and the pain from the blow seems
occasionally to be so great that the horse drops as
if he were shot. The only remedy is to take care
that no part of the shoe projects beyond the foot ;
and to let the inner side of the shoe — except the
countrj- is very deep, or the horse used for hunting
— have but one nail, and that near the toe. This
part of the hoof, being unfettered with nails, will
expand when it comes in contact with the ground,
and contract when in air and relieved from the
pressure of the weight of the body ; and, although
this contraction is to no great extent, it will be suf-
ficient to -carry the foot harmlessly by the leg.
Care should likewise be taken that the shoe is of
equal tliickness at the heel and the toe, and that
the bearing is equal on both sides.

Immediately under the knee is one of those
ligamentous rings by which the tendons are so
usefully bound downi and secured ; but if the hinder

• Vide Veterinarian, vol. viii. p. 504.

bone of the knee, the trapezium, described at
p. i'-l(j, is not sufficiently prominent, this ring will
confine the flexor tendons of the foot too tightly,
and the leg will be very deficient in depth under
the knee. This is called being lied in below tJie knee
[b, p. 43ti). Every horseman recognises it as a
most serious defect. It is scarcely compatible
with speed, and most assuredly not vnth continu-
ance. Such a horse cannot be ridden far and fast
without serious sprain of the back sinews. The
reason is plain. The pressure of the ring will
produce a degree of friction inconsistent with the
free action of tlie tendons : more force must, there-
fore, be exerted in every act of progression ; and,
although the muscles are powerful, and sufficiently
so for every ordinary purpose, the repetition of
this extra exertion will tire and strain them.

A more serious evil, however, remains to be
stated. When the back sinews, or tendons, are
thus tied down, they are placed in a more oblique
direction, and in which the power of the muscles is
exerted with greater disadvantage. A greater degree
of exertion is required, and fatigue and sprain will
not mifrequently result. There are few more
serious defects than this tying-in of the tendons
immediately below the knee. The fore-leg may
be narrow in front, but it must be deep at the side,
in order to render the horse valuable ; for then
only will the tendons liaNe free action, and the
muscular force be exerted in the most advantageous
direction. There are few good race-horses whose
legs are not deep below the knee. If there are ex-
ceptions, it is because their exertion, although vio-
lent, is butof short continuance. The race is decided
in a few minutes, and, during that short period,
the spirit and energy of the animal may success-
fully struggle with the disadvantages of form : but
where great and long-continued exertion is required,
as in the hunter or the hackney, no strength can
long contend with a palpably disadvantageous mis-
application of muscular power.

As they descend the back part of the leg, the
tendons of the perforated and perforating flexor
muscles should be far and distinctly apart from the
shank-bone. There should be space free from
thickening for the finger and thumb on either side
to be introduced between tliem and the bone, and
that extending from the knee to the fetlock. In a
perfect leg, and towards its lower part, there should
be three distinct and perfect projections visible to
the eye, as well as perceptible by the finger — the
sides of the shank-bone being the most forward of
the three ; next, the suspensory ligament ; and,
hindermost of all, the flexor tendons. ■\^Tien these
are not to be distinctly seen or felt, or there is
considerable thickening about them and between
them (d, p. 436), and the leg is round instead of
flat and deep, there has been what is commonly,
but improperly, called

430

THE HOUSE.

SPKAIN OF THE BACK-SINEWS.

These tendons are enclosed in a sheath of
dense cellular substance, in order to confine them
in tlieir situation, and to defend them from injur}'.
Between the tendon and the sheath there is a
mucous fluid to prevent friction ; but when the
liorse has been over-worked, or put to sudden and
violent exertion, the tendon presses upon the
delicate membrane lining the sheath, and inflam-
mation is produced. A different fluid is then
thrown out, which coagulates, and adhesions are
formed between the tendon and the sheath, and
the motion of the limb is more difficult and painful.
At other times, from violent or long-continued
exertion, some of the fibres which confine the
tendons are ruptured. A slight iujuiy of this
nature is called a sprain of the back-sinews or
tendons ; and, when it is more serious, the liorse
is said to have broken down. It should be remem-
bered, however, that the tendon can never be
sprained, because it is inelastic and incapable of
extension ; and the tendon, or its sheath, are
scarcely ever ruptm-ed, even in what is called
breaking down. The first injury is confined to
inflammation of the sheath, or rapture of a few of
the attaching fibres. Thisinflammation, however,
is often very great, the pain intense, and the lame-
ness excessive. The anguish expressed at eveiy
bending of the limb, and the local swelling and
heat, will clearly indicate the seat of injury.

In every serious affection of this kind, care
should be taken that the local inflammation does
not produce general disturbance of the system ;
and, therefore, the horse should be bled and phy-
sicked. The bleeding may be at the toe, by
which an important local, as well as general, effect
will be produced. The vessels of the heart will
be relieved, while fever will be prevented. Let
not the bleeding be perfonned in the farrier's
usual way of first paring down the sole, and then
taking out a piece of it at the toe of the frog ; in
which case a wound is made often difficult to heal,
and through \vhich fungous granulations from the '
sensible ptu-ts beneath will obstinately sjjring : i
but, after the sole has been well thinned, let a j
groove be cut with the rounded head of a small
drawing-knife, at the junction of the sole and tlie
cnist (see z in the next cut, p. 432). The large
vein at the toe will thus be opened, or the groove
may be widened backward until it is found. When
the blood begins to appear, the vein may be more
freely opened by a small lancet tlirust horizontally
under the sole, and almost any quantity of blood
may be easily procured. The immersion of the
foot in warm water will cause the blood to flow
more rapidly. A sufficient quantity having been
withdrawn, a bit of tow should be placed in the
groove, and a patten shoe tacked on. by which

the heels may be raised from the ground, and
much tension removed from the sinews. The
bleeding will thus be immediately stopped, and
the wound will readily heal.

As a local application, no hot farrier's oil
should come near the part, but the leg should be
well fomented with warm water two or three
times in the day, and half an hour at each time.
Between the fomentations, the leg should he en-
closed in a poultice of linseed-meal. Any herb
that pleases the owner may be added to the fo-
mentation, or vinegar or Goulard's extract to the
poultice ; for the beneficial effect of both depends
simply on the warmth of the water and the mois-
ture of the poultice. All stimulating applications
will infallibly aggravate the mischief

The horse beginning to put his foot better to
the ground, and to bear pressure on the part, and
the heat having disappeared, the object to be ac-
complished is changed. Recurrence of the inflam-
mation must be prevented, the enlargement must
be got rid of, and the parts must be strengthened.
The two latter purposes cannot be better effected
than by using an elastic bandage — one of thin
flannel will be the best. This will sustain and
sujjport the limb, while by few means are the
absorbents sooner induced to take up the effused
coagulable matter of which the swelling is com-
posed, than by moderate pressure. If the bandage
is kept wet with vinegar — to each pint of which a
quarter of a pint of spirit of wine has been added
— the skin will be slightly stimulated and con-
tracted, and the cold produced by the constant
evaporation will tend to subdue the remaining and
deep-seated inflammation. This bandage should
be daily tightened in pi'oportion as the parts are
capable of bearing increased pressure, and the
treatment should be persisted in for a fortnight.
If, at the expiration of that period, there is no
swelling, tenderness, or heat, the horse may gra-
dually, and very cautiously, be put to his usual
work.

Should there, however, remain the slightest
lameness or considerable enlargement, the leg
must be blistered, and, indeed, it would seldom be
bud practice to blister after everj' case of severe
sprain ; for the inflammation may lie deep in the
sheath of the tendons, and the part once sprained
may long remain weak, and subject to renewed
injury, not only from unusual, but even ordinary
exertion. If a blister is resorted to, time should
be given for it to produce its gradual and full
effect, and the horse should be afterwards turned
out for one or two months. We must here be
permitted to repeat that a blister should never be
used while any heat or tenderness remains about
the part, otherwise the slightest injury may be,
and often is, converted into incurable lameness.
Very severe sprains, or, much oftcner, sprains

THE HORSE.

4.31

badly treated, may require the application of the
cuulery. If from long-continued iullammation
the structure of the part is materially altered — if
the swelling is becoming callous, or the skin is
thickened and prevents the free motion of the
limb, no stimulus short of the heated iron will be
sufficient to rouse the absorbents to remove the
injurious deposit. The principal use of firing is
to rouse the absorbents to such increased action
that they shall take up and remove the diseased
thickness of the skin, and likewise the unnatural
deposit in the cellular substance beneath. The
firing should be applied in straight lines, because
the skin, contracting by the application of the
cautery, and gradually regaining its elastic nature,
will thus form the best bandage over the weakened
part. It should likewise be as deep as it can be
applied without penetrating the skin. Here,
even more particularly than in the blister, time
should be given for the full action of the firing.
This removal of diseased matter is a work of slow
progress. Many weeks pass away before it is per-
fectly accomplished ; and, after firing, the horse
should have at least a six months', and it would be
better if he could be given a twelve months' run at
grass. When the animal has been set to work in
a few weeks, and the enlargement remains, or
lameness returns, the fault is to be attributed to
the impatience of the owner, and not to the want of
power in the operation or skill in the operator.

Farriers are apt to blister immediately after
firing. A blister ma}' be useful six weeks or two
months after firing, if lameness remains ; but can
never be wanted immediately after the severe
operation of the cautery. If the iron has been
skilfully applied, subsequent blistering inflicts on
the animal, already sufficiently tortured, much
unnecessaiy and useless pain, and should never be
resorted to by him who possesses the slightest
feeling of humanity.

In examining a horse for purchase, the closest
attention should be paid to the appearance of
these flexor tendons. If there is any thickness
of cellular substance around them, that horse has
been sprained violentlj-. or the sprain has not
been properly treated. This thickening will pro-
bably fetter the motion of the tendon, and dispose
the part to the recurrence of inflammation and
lameness. Such a horse, although at the time
perfectly free from lameness, should be regarded
with suspicion, and cannot fairly be considered as
sound. He is 'only patched up for a while, and
will probably fail at the close of the first day's
hard work.

WIND GALI.S.

In the neighbourhood of the fetlock there are
occasionally found considerable enlargements,
oftener on the hind-leg than the fore-one, which
are denominated wind-galls (e, p. 436.) Between
the tendons and other parts, and wherever the
tendons are exposed to pressure or friction, and
particularly about their extremities, little bags
or sacs are placed, containing and suff'ering to
ooze slowly from them a mucous fluid to lubricate
the parts. From undue pressure, and that most
frequently caused by violent action and straining
of the tendons, or, often, from some pi'edisposition
about the horse, these little sacs are injured.
They take on inflammation, and sometimes be-
come large and indurated. There are few horses
perfectly free from them. When they first ap-
pear, and until the inflammation subsides, they
may be accompanied by some degree of lameness ;
but otherwise, except when they attain a gi'eat
size, they do not interfere ^^■ith the action of the
animal, or cause any considerable unsoundness.
The fari-iers used to suppose that they contained
wind — hence their name, wind-galls ; and hence
the practice of opening them, by which dreadful
inflammation was often produced, and many a
valuable horse destroyed. It is not uncommon
for wind-galls entirely to disappear in aged horses.
A slight wind-gall will scarcely be subjected
to treatment ; but if these tumours are numerous
and large, and seem to impede the motion of the
limb, they may be attacked first by bandage. The
roller should be of flannel, and soft pads should
be placed on each of the enlargements, and bound
down tightly upon them. The bandage should
also be wetted with the lotion recommended for
sprain of the back-sinews. The wind-gall mil
often diminish or disappear by this treatment, but
will too frequently return when the horse is again
hardly worked. A blister is a more effectual, but
too often temporary remedy. Wind-galls will
return with the renewal of work. Filing is still
more certain, if the tumours are sufficiently large
and annojing to justify our having recoui-se to
measures so severe ; for it will not only eff'ect the
immediate absorption of the fluid, and the re-
duction of the swelling, but, by contracting the
sldn, will act as a permanent bandage, and there-
fore prevent the reappearance of the tumom\
The iodine and mercurial ointments have occa-
sionally been used vrith advantage in the pro-
portion of three pai-ts of the former to two of
the latter.

432

THE HOKSE.

THK PASTERNS.

a The shank-bone.

b The upper and larger pastern-bone.

c The sessamoid-bone,

d The lower or smaller pastern-bone.

e The navicular or shuttie-bone.

/ The coffin-bone, or bone of the foot

g The suspensory ligament, inserted into the sessaraoid bone.

h A continuation of the suspensory ligament, inserted into the
smaller pastern bone.

t The small inelastic ligament, tying down the sessamoid bone
to the larger pastern-bone.

k A long ligament reaching from the pastern bone to the knee.

I The extensor tendon in.serted into both the pasterns and the
coffin-bone.

m The tendon of the perforating flexor inserted into the coffin-
bone, after having passed over the navicular bone.

n The .seat of Ihe navicular joint lameness.

o The inner or .sensible frog.

p The cleft of the homy frog.

q A ligauienl uniting the navicular bone to the smaller pastern.

r A ligament uniting the navicular bone to the coffin-bone.

s The sensible sole, between the coffin-bone and the horny sole.

/ The horny sole.

u The crust or wall of tlie foot.

V The sensible laminEe to which the crust is attached.

w The coronary ring of the crust.

X The covering of the coronary ligament from which the crust
is secreted.

z Place of bleeding at the toe.

At the back of the shauk just below the knee,
and in the space between the two splint-bones, is
found an important ligament, admirably adapted
to obviate concussion. It originates from the head
of the shank-bone, and also from the heads of the
splint-bones ; then, descending down the leg, it
fills the groove between the splint-bones, but is
not attached to either of them. A little lower
down it expands on either side, and, approaching
the pasterns, bifurcates, and the branches are in
serted into two little bones found at the back of the
upper pastern, one on each side, called the sessa-
moid bones. (See page 345, and in this cut, which
represents the pastern and foot, sawn through the

centre.) The bones form a kind of joint both
with the lower head of the shank-bone and the
upper pastern-bone, to both of which they are
united by ligaments (i and ff), but much more
closely tied to the pastern than to the shank. The
flexor tendons pass down between tliem through a
large mucous bag to relieve them from the friction
to which, in so confined a situation, they would be
exposed. The suspensory ligament is continued
over the sessamoids, and afterwards obliquely for-
ward over the pastern to unite with the long ex-
tensor tendon, and downward to the perforated
tendon, which it surrounds and fixes in its place,
and also to the smaller pastem-bone.

It will be easy to perceive, from this description
of the situation of the suspensory ligament, why
splints placed backward on the leg are more likely
to produce lameness than those which are found on
the side of it. They may interfere with the mo-
tion of this ligament, or, if they are Hrge, may
bruise and wound it.

The principal action of these ligaments is with
the sessamoid bones, which they seem to suspend
in their places, and they are therefore called the
suspensory ligaments. The pasterns (see preced-
ing cut) are united to the shank in an oblique direc-
tion, differing in degree in the different breeds of
horses, and in each adapted to the purpose for
which that breed was designed. The weight falls
upon the pastern in the direction of the shank-
bone, and the pastern being set on obliquely, a
portion of that weight must be communicated to
the sessamoids. JNluch concussion is saved by the
yielding of the pasterns, in consequence of their
oblique direction ; and the concussion which would
be produced by that portion of weight which falls
on the sessamoid bones is completely destroyed,
for there is no bone underneath to receive it.
They are suspended by this ligament- — an elastic
ligament, which gradually yields to, and is
lengthened by, the force impressed upon it, and
in this gradual yielding and lengthening, mate-
rially lessening, or generally preventing, all pain-
ful or dangerous concussion.

If the ligament lengthens, the sessamoid hones
must descend when the weight is thrown on them,
and it ivould appear that they do so. If the tho-
rough-bred horse with his long pasterns is carefully
observed as he stands, the tuft at the fetlock wall
be some inches from the turf; but when he is in
rapid motion, and the weight is throwii violently
on this joint, the tuft descends and sweeps the
very ground. This, however, is from the com-
bined action of the fetlock and pastern-joints, and
the sessamoid-bones. The sessamoids do not ac-
tually descend ; but they revolve, they partly
tm'n over. The strong ligament by which they
are attached to the pastern-bone acts as a hinge,
and the projecting part of the bone to which the

THE HORSE.

433

suspensory ligament is united, turns round with
the pressure of the weight ; so that part of the
bone becomes lower. How is it raised again '!
This ligament, strangely constructed as a liga-
ment, is elastic. It yields to the force impressed
upon it and lengthens ; but as soon as the foot is
lifted from the ground, and the weight no longer
presses, and the force is removed, its elastic
power is exerted, and it regains its former dimen-
sions, and the sessamoid-bone springs back into its
place, and by that forcible return assists in raising
the limb.*

It may be supposed that ligaments of this cha-
racter, and discharging such functions, will occa-
sionally be subject to injuiy, and, principally, to
strains. Mr. W. C. Spoonerf gives a very satis-
factory account of this. He says that " hunters
and race-horses are considerably more liable to
lesions of the suspensory ligament than any other
description of horses. The character of these
strains is verj' rarely so acute as that of the tendons.
They generally come on gradually with little in-
flammation or lameness. Occasionally the injury
is sudden and severe, but then it is rarely confined
to these ligaments, for although they may be prin-
cipally involved, the neighbouring parts are gene-
rally implicated. The usual symptoms are a slight
enlargement and lameness at first, or there may be
the former without the latter. The enlargement
is commonly confined to the ligament below the
place of bifurcation, and sometimes one division
alone is affected. With the exception of strains of
the flexor sinews, this unfits more animals for
racing than any other cause — indeed horses are
rarely or never fit for the turf after the suspensory
ligaments have been diseased," or for hunting.

The case being evidently a lesion of the sus-
pensory ligament, nothhig sliort of firing will be of
service.

The length and obliquity of the pastern vary
in the different breeds of horses, and on it depends
the elastic action of the animal, and the easiness
of his paces. The pastern must be long in pro-
portion to its obliquity, or the fetlock will be too
close to the ground, and, in rapid action, come vio-
lently into contact with it. It is necessaiy that the
fetlock should be elevated a certain distance from
the ground, and this may be effected either by a

* Mr. Perrivall very clearly describes this ; '' Furthermore, it
seems to us tliat these elastic parts assist in the elevation of the
feet from the ground in those paces in which they are called into
sudden and I'orcible action. The suspensory ligament, by its
reaction, instantaneously after its extension, aids the tiexor nmscles
in bending the pastern joints. The astonishing activity and ex-
pedition displayed in the movemems of the race-horse at speed,
seem to he referable, in part, to the promptitude with which the
suspensory ligament c.^n act befure the licxor muscles are <luly
prepared; the latter, wc should say catch, &% it were, and then
direct the limb tirst snatched from the ground by the powers of
elasticity." — Percivall's Lectures on the Veterinary Art, vol. i
p. 334.

+ Mr. W. C. Spooner on the Foot and Leg of the Horse, p. 20S.

short and upright, or a long and slanting pasteni.
In proportion as the pasteni is oblique or slanting,
two consequences will follow, less weight will be
thrown on the pastern, and more on the sessa-
moid, and, in that proportion, concussion \vill be
prevented.

Every advantage, however, has, to a certain
extent, its corresponding disadvantage. In propor-
tion to the obliquity or slanting of the pastern,
will be the stress on the fetlock-joint, and, there-
fore, the liability of that joint to injury and strain ;
and also the liability to sprain of the back-sinews
from the increased action and play of the flexor
tendons ; and likewise to injuries of the pastern-
joints, for the ligaments will be weak in proportion
to their length. The long and slanting pastem is
advantageous in the race-horse, from the spring-
iness of action and greater extent of stride by which
it is accompanied. A less degree of it is given in
the hunter who is to unite continuance of exertion
with ease of pace. For the hackney there should
be sufficient obliquity to give pleasantness of going,
but not enough to endanger continuance and
strength. Experience among horses will alone
point out the most advantageous direction of the
pastern, for the pui-pose required ; but the slightest
observation will show the necessity of considerable
variety in the structure of this part. Let the
reader imagine the heavy dray-horse with his short
and upright pasterns contending in the race; or
the race-horse with his long and weak pasterns,
endeavouring to dig his toe into the ground in
order to move some heavy weight. The concus-
sion which attends the common action of the cart-
horse is little, because his movements are slow,
and therefore the upright and strong pastern is
given to him, which he can force into the ground,
and on which he can throw the whole of his im-
mense weight. The oblique pastern is given to
the race-horse because that alone is compatible
with extent of stride and great speed. Except a
horse for general purposes, and particularly for
riding, is veiy hardly used, a little too much obli-
quity is a far less evil than a pastem too upright.
While the jolting of the upright pastern is an insuf-
ferable nuisance to the rider, it is injurious and
most unsafe to the horse, and produces many dis-
eases in the feet and legs, and particularly ring-
bone, ossification of the cartilages, and contracted
feet.

Strains of the pasteni joint ai"e not so frequent,
nor so severe as those of the fetlock, but they are
not uncommon, especially in horses with pasterns
naturally too upright. By careless observers they
are not so readily detected as m the fetlock joint,
for the increased heat roimd the pastern joint may
be overlooked.

The treatment will not differ materially from
that of the fetlock joint.

txiK r^snuNs.

^'- I

THE HORSE. 435

I. . above the in frout of the bones are seen in the accompanying
oljhs for the j cut, in which a represents the lower part of the
, oth the cap- i shank-bone ; b the sessamoid-boues ; c the upper pas-
iieuts, which i tern ; d the lower pastern ; and e the coffin-bone ;
l-tenis suffi- / are the branches of the suspensory ligaments
going to unite with the extensor tendon ; g the
long extensor tendon ; h ligaments connecting the
two pasteni-bones together ; and i the lateral car-
tilages of the foot.

SPEAIN OF THE COFFIN-JOINT.

The proof of this is when the lameness is sud-
den, and the heat and tendeniess are principally
felt round the coronet. Bleeding at the toe,
physic, fomentation, and blisters are the usual
means adopted. This lameness is not easily
in by a blister : and if removed, like
^tlock and of the back sinews, it is
indly produce a great deal of
Mef in the foot. Sprain
»ecomes a veiy serious
' by any external
leat round

' [^■(-■p J m the :
"r ! short upright Jm
!if j action, are oftem -i, .,
Ill Ijects of this disease,
II either of concussion or -|.., I ,
! "' It is also more frequent in the hind U-
!'l because from the violent action of tli.
■• propelling the horse fonvard, the pasterui uj

subject to ligamentary injury behind than befoi t .
yet tlie lameness is not so great there, because the
disease is confined principally to the ligaments, and
the bones have not been injured by concussion ;
' while from the position of the fore limbs, there
■vill generally be in them injuiy of the bones to be

43G

THE HORSE.

added to that of the ligaments. In its early stage,
and when recognised only by a bony enlargement
on both sides of the pastern-joint, or in some few
cases on one side only, the lameness is not very con-
siderable, and it is
not impossible to
remove the disease
by active blistering,
or by the applica-
tion of the cautery:
but there is so
much wear and tear
in this part of the
animal, that the in-
flammation and the
disposition to the
formation of bone
rapidly spread. The
pasterns first be-
come connected to-
gether by bone in-
stead of ligament,
and thence results
■what is called an
anchylosed or fixed
joint. From this
joint the disease
proceeds to the
cartilages of the
foot, and to the
union between the
lower pastern, and
the coffin and navi-
cular bones. The
motion of these
parts likewise is
impeded or lost,
and the whole of
the foot becomes
one mass of spongy
bone. From a dis-
position to spread,
and at first around
the pastern-joint,
which is situated
just above the co-
ronet, the disease
has acquired the
name of ringbone.

This will be
the proper place to introduce a bird's-eye view of
some of the principal lamenesses to which the fore
extremities of the horse are subject.

At a is a representation of the capped hock,
or enlargement of the joint of the elbow.

b is the tying-in of the leg below the knee.

c is the most frequent situation of splint on the
side of the shank-bone, and not producing lame-
ness after its first formation, because it does not

interfere with the motion of the knee, nor injure
the suspensory ligament.

d is the situation and appearance of the
enlargement accompanying sprain of the back
sinews. This, however, is an aggravated case ;
and the sprain may be great, and the lameness
distressing, without all this swelling.

e is the place of TOud-gall.

/ gives the appearance of ringbone when it
first appears on the side of the pastern, about the
joint, and where there is naturally some prominence
of bone.

g is the situation of sand-crack in the fore-leg.

h the situation of mallenders.

The fore-legs, when viewed in front, should be
widest at the chest, and should gradually approach
to each other as we descend towards the fetlock.
The degree of width must depend on the purpose
for which the horse is wanted. The legs of a
lieavy draught-horse can scarcely be too far apart.
His rounded chest enables him to throw more
weight into the collar ; and not being required for
speed, he wants not that occasionally increased
expansion of chest which the circular form is not
calculated to give. A hunter, a hacluie}', and a
coach-horse should have suflicient expansion of the
chest, or the legs sufficiently wide apart, to leave
room for the play of the lungs ; but depth more
than roundness of chest is here required, be-
cause the deep chest admits of most expansion
when the horse, in rapid action, and the circulation
proportionally quickened, needs most room to
breathe : yet if the breast is too wide, there will
be considerable weight thr(5wn before, and the
horse will be heavy in hand and unsafe.

Whether the legs are near to each other or
wide apart, they should be straight. The elbow
should not have the slightest inclination inward or
outward. If it inclines towards the ribs, its action
will be confined, and the leg will be thrown out-
ward when in motion, and describe a curious and
awkward curve. This will give a peculiar rolling
motion, unpleasant to the rider and unsafe to the
animal. The toe will likewise be turned outward,
which will not only prevent the foot from coming
flat on the ground in its descent, but be usually
accompanied by cutting, even more certainly than
when the toe turns inward. If the elbow is turned
outward, the toes will necessarily be turned inward,
which is a great unsightliness, and to a considera-
ble degree injurious, for the weight cannot be
perfectly distributed over the foot — the bearing
cannot be true. There will also be undue pressure
on the inner quarter, a tendency to unsafeness,
and a disposition to splint and corn. The legs
should come down perpendicularly from the elbow.
If they incline backward and under the horse,
there is undue stress on the extensor muscles ;
and, the legs being brought nearer the centre of

THE HORSE.

43-;

gravit}', too great weight is thrown forward, and the
horse is liable to knuckle over and become unsafe.
If the legs have a direction forward, the flexor
muscles are strained, and the action of the horse is
awkward and confined. The toe should be found

precisely under the point of the shoulder. If it is
a little more forward, the horse will probably be
deficient in action ; if it is more under the horse,
unsafeness will be added to still greater defect in
going

CHAPTER XVII.

THE HIND LEGS.

THE HAUNCH.

The haunch (see 0, p. '203, and the cut p. 418)
is composed of three bones. The first is the ilium,
principally concerned in the formation of the
haimch. Its extended branches behind the flanks
are prominent in every horse. When they are
more than usually wide, the animal is said to be
ragged-hipped. A branch runs up to the spine at
the commencement of the sacral vertebrte (E), and
here the haunch-bones are firmly united with the
bones of the spine. The ischium, or hip-bone, is
behind and below the ilium. Its tuberosities or
prominences are seen under the tail (cut, p. 203).
. The pubis unites with the two former below and
behind.

From the loins to the setting on of the tail a line
should be carried on almost straight, or rounded
only in a slight degree. Thus the haunch-bones
will be most ol)lique, and will produce a corre-
sponding obliquity, or slanting direction, in the
thigh-bone — a direction in which, as stated when
the fore legs were described, the muscles act with
most advantage. This direction of the haunch
is characteristic of the thorough-bred horse ; and
by the degree in which it is found, we judge to a
considerable extent of the breeding of the animal.
If the bones at D and E, p. !263, take a somewhat
arched form, as they do in the cart-horse, it is evi-
dent that the haunch-bone O would be more
upright. The thigh-bone P would likewise be so.
The stifle Q would not be so far under the body,
and the power of the horse would be considerably
impaired. The oblique direction of the haunch
and thigh bones, produced by the straightness of
the line of the spine, does not, as is commonly sup-
posed, afford increased surface for the attachment
of muscles, but places the muscles in a direction
to act with great advantage. It is in the ad-
vantageous direction, quite as much as in the
bulk of the muscle, that the strength of the horse
consists.

It will be seen, from the different cuts, that
the angles formed by the fore and hind extremities
have different directions. One points forward,
and the other backward. The action of the fore

legs thus least interferes with the chest, and that
of the hind legs with the belly.

Width of haunch is a pdint of gi'eat conse-
quence, for it evidently affords more room for
the attachment of muscles ; and even though it
should be so wide as to subject the horse to the
charge of being ragged-hipped, and maj' somewhat
offend the eye, it will not often be any detriment
to action. If the loins are broad and the horse
well ribbed home, the protuberances of the ilium
can scarcely be too far apart. Many a ragged-
hipped horse has possessed both fleetness and
strength, while but few that were narrow across
the haunch could boast of the latter quality.

The opening in the centre of these bones,
which constitutes the passage through which the
young animal is expelled from the mother, is large
in the mai'e, and in every quadruped, because there
cannot, on account of the form of the animal, be
any danger of abortion from the weight of the fcetus
pressing on the part.

The only portion of these bones exposed to
injury or fracture are the tuberosities or promi-
nences of the haunch. A fall or blow may chip
oft' or disunite a portion of them, and, if so,
there are no means of forcibly bringing the dis-
united parts together again, and retaining them in
their natural position. The power of nature, how-
ever, will gradually unite them, but that union will
be attended by deformity and lameness. A charge,
or very strong adhesive plaster, across the haunch,
may be useful, as helping, in some slight degree,
to support the parts, and hold them together.

THE THIGH.

In the lower and fore part of the hip-bones is
a deep cavity or cup for the reception of the head
of the thigh-bone.* Although in the movement
of the hind legs there cannot be the concussion to
which the fore legs are exposed (for the weight of
the body is never thrown ^'iolently upon them),
yet in the powerful action of these limbs there is

• This, although the true thigh-bone, is so concealed by thick
muscles that its situation and shape are not visible to the eye. It
is therefore frequently overlooked by horsemen, who c.ill the next
bone, extending from the stilie to the hock, the thigh.

F V

438

THE HORSE.

much strain on the joints, and we shall, therefore,
fiml that there are, in all of them, admirable pro-
visions against injury. The bead of the upper
bone of the thigh is received into a deep cup (the
acetabulum), by which it is surrounded on every
side, and dislocation from which would seem almost
impossible. But the bony cup may give way?
Not so ; provision is made against this. All three
of the haunch-bones unite in the formation of this
cup, and the sutures by which they are held toge-
gether are of such a nature, that, generally speak-
ing, no shock, or exertion, or accident, can disunite
them. There is even something more m order to
make the attachment doubly sure. In addition to
the usual capsular and other ligaments, a singularly
strong one rises from the base of the cup, and is
inserted into the head of the thigh-bone, seeming
as if it would render separation or dislocation
altogether impossible. Such, however, is the
strange power of the muscles of the hind limbs,
that, with all these attachments, sprain of the
ligaments of the thigh, or the round bone, as horse-
men call it, and even dislocation of it, are occasion-
ally fomid.

The thigh-bone is both the largest and strongest
in the frame. It is short and thick, and exhibits
the most singular prominences, and roughnesses,
and hollows, for the insertion of the immense muscles
that belong to it. Four prominences, in particular,
called by anatomists trochanters, two on the out-
side, one on the inside, and one near the head of
the bone, afford attachment to several important
muscles. The bead of tlie hone is placed at right
angles with its body, by which this important ad-
vantage is gained, that the motion of the thigh-
joint is principally limited to the act of bending
and extending, although it possesses some slight
lateral, and even some rotatoiy action. The lower
head of the thigh-bone is complicated in its form.
It consists of two prominences, which are received
into corresponding depressions in the next bone,
and a hollow in front, in which the bone of the
knee or stifle plays as over a perfect pulley.

A short description of the muscles of the hinder
extremities may not be uninteresting to the horse-
man. The next cut will contain a few of them.

The muscles of the hinder extremity are more
powerful than those of any other part of the frame,
therefore an extraordinary provision is made to
confine them in their respective situations, and
thus contribute to their security and strengtli.
"When the skin is stripped from any part, we do
not at once arrive at the muscles, hut they are
thickly covered by a dense, strong, tendinous coat,
intended to confine them to their places. This
membrane, called the fascia, is of extraordinary
strength in the hind quarter, and reaches over the
whole of the haunch and thigh, and only ceases to be
found at the hock where there are no muscles to

he protected. If the power of the muscles is suffi-
cient to dislocate or fracture the thigh-bone, they
need the support and confinement of this tendinous
coat. When this tendinous band is dissected off,
another is found beneath, which is represented at
a, raised and turned back, larger than the former,
thicker and more muscular. It proceeds from the
haunch-bones to the stifle, upon the fore and outer
part of the haunch and thigh, and is intended to
tighten and strengthen the other.

Under the part of this flat and binding muscle,
wliich is represented in our cut as raised from its

natural situation, is a large round one proceeding
from the ilium, not far from the cup which receives
the upper bone of the thigh, and running straight
down this bone, and thence its name rectus. It is
inserted into the bone of the stifle. An inspection
of the cut, p. 263, will show that it is so situated
as to be enabled to exert its great power in the
most advantageous way. It is a very prominent
muscle, and possesses immense strength. It ter-
minates in a tendon, which is short and very
strong, and which is, before its insertion into the
patella, united with the prolongation of the tendi-
nous substance at (j, in the cut, p. 439, and also
with the tendon of the muscle at i, in that cut, and
at c, in the following cut, and which is properly

THE HORSE.

4;j9

called vastus, from its great bulk. Some have
divided this into two muscles : the external and
internal. The external arising from the outer sur-
face of the upper bone of the thigh ; the internal
from the inner surface ; and they are inserted into
the upper part of the bone of the stifle, both on the
inner and outer side. These muscles act at con-
siderable mechanical disadvantage. They form a
very slight angle, not at all approaching to a right
angle ; but they are muscles of immense size,
and occupy all the fore part of the thigh from the
stifle upwards. They are powerful extensors of
the thigh, and of the hinder leg generally ; for they
are all inserted into the bone of the knee, and that
is connected by strong tendons with the hone of
the true leg.

On the inside of the thigh are several other
large fleshy muscles, which will be easily recog-
nised on the thigh of the living horse. First is a
long, narrow, prominent muscle, the sartorius, d,
arising partly from the lumbar vertebrae, and ex-
tending down the thigh — assisting in binding the
leg, and turning it inward — giving it a rotatory
motion, and also aiding in many of the natural
actions of the horse.

Next comes a broad, thin muscle, the gracilis,
e, occupying the greater portion of the surface of
the inner part of the thigh, and particularly the
prominent part of it. It arises from the lower
portion of the haunch-bone, and, in its passage
downward uniting with the last muscle, is inserted
with it into the inner and upper piut of the tibia.
It acts with great mechanical disadvantage, but
its power is equal to the task. It bends the leg
and rotates it inward.

Still, on the inside of the thigh, and forming
the posterior edge of the thigh inwards, and con-
tributing much to its bulk, is another important
muscle, the pectineus. Part of it acts with very
great mechanical advantage, and powerfully flexes
the thigh on the pelvis, and lifts and bends the
leg. It is one of the most effectual of the extensor
muscles. Considering the weight of limb which it
has to raise and flex, it had need to possess great
power.

We now turn to some of the muscles that are
evident to the eye on the outside of the thigh.

First is the ylatceus externus, situated in the
middle of the external part of the haunch. It is
of a triangular figure, attached to the antero-
superior and to the inferior spines of the ilium,
and is inserted into the smaller outer prominence
of the upper bone of the thigh. Next is the great
glutceus muscle, arising from the spinous and
transverse processes of several of the bones of the
loins, and from the sacrum, and from the different
edges of the ilium, and inserted into the great pro-
tuberance of the upper bone of the thigh (p. '263),
behind and a little above the joint that unites the

thigh to the haunch-bone. It is seen at c, in this
cut. It constitutes the upper and outer part of the

MUSCLFS OP THE OUTSIDE OF THE THIGH.

h.aunch, and gives that fulness and roundness to it
which good judges so much admire in the quarters of
the horse. It is one of the main instruments iu
progression. When the thigh has been brought for-
ward under the body by the muscles already
described, the plain action of these glutEei muscles
is to extend the haunch, and force or project the
body onward. To effect this they must be very
powerful, and therefore they are so large, and rise
from such an extensive surface. They ought, also,
to act at great mechanical advantage, and so, in one
sense, they do. Springing from the loins and the
ilium and the sacrum, they act almost in a right,
or perpendicular line ; in that line in which we
have seen that the greatest power is gained.

There is another and smaller glutaus muscle
under that which has been last described, arising
likewise from the back of the ilium, inserted into
the same protuberance of the thigh-bone, and assist-
ing in the same office. It is not visible in the cut.

These muscles, as Mr. Percivall well explains
it, are extensors either of the femoris upon the
pelvis, or the pelvis and loins upon the hind quar-
ter. When the limb has been carried in advance
under the body by the muscles of the anterior

F F i

-l»

much »tnun on the joint*, and *«• sK»1<
fin.l th«t th«-rr «pc. in all of th«m«.
viMon-i ;i'riit>«t injnrr 'I'b** h^"*!

^«r?r« of 1'

protfrted. If the jMwr of tk*

i .kxal* or ftiafi «k«

> ippofft Mid flonianMBtaf

A (MM iIm taaJfaMB haad k

Ix^ ■ CmmI haaMfdk

u.«d aad tVMd h«k.

-b-booM •• Ik* Miflc

bwrthMth*
It pncM^i
tiMimMd

I wIot tk* p«t «r tWa iM m4

;>-

• »•#

in tW fruae. It t» *ko(t mk^

•»ir. <«« <« tW

THE HORSE.

439

called rastus. from its gree bulk. Some have
divided this iuto two muscb : the external and
internal. The external arisi:; from the outer sur-
face of the upper bone of th thigh ; the internal
from the inner surface : and ney are inserted iuto
the upper part of the bone othe stitle, both on the
inner and outer side. TheS' muscles act at con-
siderable mechanical disadvitage. The_v form a
very slight angle, not at all aproachiug to a right
angle ; but they are muses of immense size,
and occupy all the fore part :' the thigh from the
stifle upwards. They are swerful extensors of
the thigh, and of the huider 1^ generally ; for they
are all inserted into the bonof the knee, and that
is connected by strong teutns with the bone of
the tnie leg.

On the inside of the tlgh are several other
large fleshy muscles, whi' Iwill be easily recog-
nised on the thigh of tlio :Mg horse. First is a
long, narrow, promuieut n ale, the saitoritis, d,
arising partly from the luiair vertebrae, and ex-
tending dovra the thigh — asisting in binding the
leg, and turning it inward-giving it a rotatory
motion, and also aitling ianany of die natui-jil
actions of the horse.

Next comes a broad, thi muscle, the gracilis,
e, occupying the greater paion of the surface of
the inner part of the thiijb and particularly the
prominent part of it. It -ises from the lower
portion of the haunch-bom and, in its passage
downward uniting with the st muscle, is inserted
with it into the inner and u^er part of the tibia.
It acts with great mechanal disadvantage, but
its power is equal to the tik. It bends the leg
and rotates it inward.

Still, on the inside of t\ thigh, and forming
the posterior edge of the tL;li inwards, and con-
tributing much to its bulk is another important
muscle, the pectineiis. Pa of it acts with very
great mechanical advantage uid powerfully flexes
the thigh on the pelvis, ari lifts and bends the
leg. It is one of the most eectual of the extensor
muscles. Considering the eight of limb which it
has to raise and flex, it haneed to possess great
power.

We now turn to some o the muscles that are
evident to the eye on the oiside of the thigh.

First is the f/lutceus e.'Tnus, situated in the

liddle of the external part f the haunch. It is

of a triangular figure, at -lied to the antero-

luperior and to the uii'tri spines of the ilium,

id is inserted into the su.ler outer prominence

I the upper bone of the th h. Next is the great

fceus muscle, arising liin the spinous and

Bsverse processes of seval of the bones of the

B, and from the sacrumaid from the different

of the ilium, and inse ed into the great pro-

ance of the upper bonof the thigh (p. ^63),

^d and a little above tt joint that unites the

thigh to the haunch-bone. It is seen at c, in this
cut. It constitutes the upper and outer pai't of the

MDSCLKS OF THE ODTSIDE OF THE THIGU.

haunch, and gives that fidness and rouudnesi
which good judges so much admire in the quari
the horse. It is one of the main instrume:
progression. When the thigh has been brou;
ward under the body by the muscles al
described, the plain action of these glutsei mi
is to extend the haunch, and force or p:
body onward. To effect this they mustS
powerful, and therefore they are so large
from such an extensive surface. They ought
to act at great mechanical advantage, and so,
sense, they do. Springing from the loins an^
ilium and the sacrum, they act almost in a
or perpendicular line ; in that line in which
have seen that the greatest power is gained

There is another and smaller glutmis niuscli
under that which has been last described, arising
likewise from the back of the ilium, inserted into
the same protuberance of the thigh-bone, and assist-
ing in the same office. It is not visible iti the cut.

F I- -i

442

THE HORSE.

■flexor metatarsi, or bender of tlie leg ; arising
from the exteraal condyle of the os femoris, and
inserted into the large and small metatarsal bones
It is a muscle of considerable jjower, although
disadvantageously situated, both as to its direction
and its being inserted so near to the joint. It
flexes the hock, the joint turning somewhat
imvards.

At A; is a short muscle extending from the
upper to the lower thigh-bones (the popliteus),
bending the stifle and turning the limb inward.

These cuts represent the situation of some of
the principal blood-vessels and nerves of the hind
extremities.

In the cut of the inside of the thigh, p. 438, p
represents the course of the principal artery ; at q
are blood-vessels belonging to the groin ; at r is
the large cutaneous vein, or the vein immediately
under the skin. The principal nerves on the
fore part of the inside of the thigh pursue their
course at t, in the direction of the subcutaneous
vein ; and those of the posterior part are seen at
s, while at u are those important ligamentous bands
at the bending of the hock which confine the tendons.

In the cut of the outside of the thigh, p. 489,
p will give the course of the anterior arteries and
veins ; q that of the principal nerves, and coming
into sight below; and r the bands described in
the former plate.

Also, in the cut of the outside of the shoulder
and arm, p. 420, the figm-es 1, 2, and 3, designate
the places of the principal artery, nerve, and vein
of the leg ; 4 gives the subcutaneous vein running
■within the arm ; and 5 the subcutaneous vein of
the side of the chest.

In the cut of the inside of the arm, p. 422,
the lines above represent, in the order from the
front, the principal nerves, arteries, and veins of
the shoulder and arm ; and, on the muscles, k
represents the principal subcutaneous vein of the
inside of the arm, and i the artery by which it is
accompanied.

The stifle joint is not often subject to sprain.
The heat and tenderness will guide to the seat of
injury. Occasionally, dislocation of the patella
has occurred, and the horse drags the injured
limb after him, or rests it on the fetlock ; the aid
of a veterinary surgeon is here requisite. The
muscles of the inside of the thigh have sometimes
been sprained. This may be detected by difiused
heat, or heat on the inside of the thigh above the
stifle. Rest, fomentations, bleedmg, and physic,
will be the proper means of cure.

THOKOHGH-PIN.

Mention has been made of u-ind-gaJh and
their treatment. A similar enlargement is found
above the hock, between the tendons of the flexor
of the foot and the extensor of the hock. As from

its situation it must necessarily project on both
sides of the hock, in the form of a round swelling,
it is called a tlwrovglt-inn, a, p. 440. It is an in-
dication of considerable work, but is rarely at-
tended by lameness. The mode of treatment must
resemble that for wind-galls. Although thorough-
pin cannot, perhaps, be pronounced to be unsound-
ness, it behoves the buyer to examine well a horse
that is disfigured by it, and to ascertain whether
undue work may not have injured him in other
respects.

THE HOCK.

This is a most important joint, occasionally the
evident, and much oftener the unsuspected seat
of lameness, and the proper formation of \Yhich is
essentially connected with the value of the horse.
It answers to the ankle in the human being.

The inferior head of the tibia is formed into two
deep grooves, with three sharpened ridges, one se-
pai'ating the grooves, and the other two constituting
the sides of them. It is seen at a in the following
cut. It rests upon a singularly-shaped bone, b,
the astragalus, which has two chcular risings or
projections, and, with a depression between them,
answering exactly to the irregularities of the tibia.
These are received and morticed into each other.
At the posterior part its convex surface is re-
ceived into a concavity near the base of another
bone, and with which it is united by veiy strong
ligaments. This bone, c, is called the os calcis,
or bone of the heel, and it prjoects upwards,
flattened at its sides, and receives, strongly im-
planted into it, the tendons of powerful muscles.
These bones rest on two others, the os cuboides, d
(cube-formed), behind, and the larger cuneiform
or wedge-shaped bone e, in front. The larger
wedge-shaped bone is supported by two smaller
ones, /, and these two smaller ones and the cu-
boides by the upper heads of the shank-bone g,
and the splint-bones h. The cuboides is placed
on the external splint-bone, and the cannon-bone,
or principal bone of the leg ; the small wedge-
bone is principally evident on the inner splint-
bone, not seen in the cut ; and the middle wedge-
bone on the shank-bone only, g. These bones
are all connected together by veiy strong liga- 1
ments, which prevent dislocation, but allow a
slight degree of motion between them, and the
surfaces which are opposed to each other are
thickly covered by elastic cartilage.

Considering the situation and action of this
joint, the weight and stress thrown upon it must
be exceedingly great, and it is necessarily liable to
much injury in rapid and powerful motion. What
are the provisions to prevent injuij ? The grooved
or pulley -like heads of the tibia and the astragalus,
received deeply into one another, and confined by
powerful ligaments, admitting freely of liinge like

THE HORSE.

action, but of uo side motion, to wliich the joint
would otherwise be exposed in rajoid movement, or

CUT OF THE UOCK.

'^^

on an une\en suiface A shght inspection of the
cut will show that the stress or weight throwni by
the tibia a on the astragalus 6, does not descend
perpendicularly, but in a slanting direction. By
this much concussion is avoided, or more readily
diffused among the different bones ; and, the
joint consisting of six bones, each of them covered
with elastic cartilage, and each admitting of a
certain degree of motion, the diminished concus-
sion is diffused among them all, and thereby neu-
tralised and rendered comparatively harmless.
Each of these bones is covered not onl}^ by
cartilage, but by a membrane secreting synovia ;
so that, in fact, these bones are formed into so
many distinct joints, separated from each other,
and thereby guarded from injury, yet united by
various ligaments — possessing altogether sufficient
motion, yet bound together so strongly as to defy

dislocation. When, however, the work which this
joint has to perform, and the thoughtlessness and
cruelty with which that work is often exacted, are
considered, it will not excite any sui-prise if this
necessarily complicated mechanism is sometimes
deranged. The hock, from its complicated struc-
ture and its work, is the principal seat of lameness
behind.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE HOCK.

First, there is inflammation, or sprain of the
hochjoint generalhj, arising from sudden violent
concussion, by some check at speed, or over-
weight, and attended with enlargement of the
whole joint, and great tenderness and lameness.
This, however, like other diffused inflammations,
is not so untractable as an intense one of a more
circumscribed nature, and by rest and fomentation,
or, perchance, firing, the limb recovers its action,
and the horse becomes fit for ordinary work.

The swelling, however, does not always subside.
Enlargement, spread over the whole of the hock-
joint, remains. A horse with an enlarged hock
must always be regarded with suspicion. In truth,
he is unsound. The parts, altered in structure,
must be to a certain degree weakened. The animal
may discharge his usual work during a long period,
without return of lameness ; but if one of those
emergencies should occur when all his energies
require to be exerted, the disorganised and weak-
ened part will fail. The purchase, therefore, of a
horse with enlarged hock will depend on circum-
stances. If he has other excellences, he will not
be uniformly rejected ; for he may be ridden
or driven moderately for many a year without
inconvenience, yet one extra hard day's work may
lame him for ever.

CURB.

There are often injuries of particular parts of
the hock-joint. Curb is an affection of this kind.
It is an enlargement at the back of the hock, three
or four inches below its point. It is represented at
d, p. 4-10, and it is either a strain of the ring-like
ligament which binds the tendons in their place,
or of the sheath of the tendons; oftener, however, of
the ligament than of the sheath. Any sudden
action of the limb of more than usual violence may
produce it, and therefore horses are found to
" throw out curbs" after a hardly-contested race, an
extraordinaiy leap, a severe gallop over heavy
ground, or a sudden check in the gallop. Young
horses are particularly liable to it, and horses that
are coic-hocked (vide cut, p. 440), — whose hocks
and legs resemble those of the cow, the hocks
being turned inward, and the legs forming a con-
siderable angle outwards. This is intelligible
enough ; for in hoclvs so formed, the annular liga-
ment must be continually on the stretch, in order
to contiue the tendon.

THE HORSE.

Curbs are generally accompanied by considerable
lameness at their first appearance, but the swel-
linfi; is not always great. They are best detected
by observing the leg sideway.

Tlie first oV>ject in attempting the cvu-e is
to abate inflammation, and this will be most
readily accomplished by cold evaporating lotions
frequently applied to the part. Equal portions of
spirit of wine, water, and vinegar, will afford
an excellent application. It will be almost
impossible to keep a bandage on. If the heat and
lameness are considerable, it will be prudent
to give a dose of physic, and to bleed from the
subcutaneous vein, whose course is represented at
r, page 438 ; and whether the injury is of the
annular ligament, or the sheath of the tendon,
more active means will be necessaiy to perfect the
cure. Either a liquid blister should be rubbed on
the part, consisting of a ^^nous or turpentine tinc-
ture of cantharides, and this daily applied until
some considerable swelling takes place ; or, what
is tlie preferable plan, the hair should be cut off,
and the part blistered as soon as the heat has been
subdued. The blister should be repeated until
the swelling has disappeared, and the horse goes
sound. In severe cases it may be necessary to
fire ; but a fair trial, however, should be given to
milder measures. If the iron is used, it should
be applied in straight lines.

There are few lamenesses in which absolute
and long-continued rest is more requisite. It
leaves the parts materially weakened, and, if the
horse is soon put to work again, the lameness will
frequently return. No horse that has had curbs
should be put even to ordinary work in less than a
month after the apparent cure, and, even then, he
sliould very gradually resume his former habits.

A horse with a curb is manifestly unsound.
A horse with the vestige of curb should be regarded
with much suspicion, or generally condemned as
unsound.

Curb is also an hereditary complaint, and
therefore a horse that has once suffered from it
should always be regai-ded with suspicion, espe-
cially if either of the parents has e.thibited it.

BOG SPAVIN.

The hock is plentifully furnished with reser-
voirs of mucus to lubricate the different portions
of this complicated joint. Some of these are
found on the inside of the joint, which could not
be represented in the cut, page 443. From over-
exertion of the joint they become inflamed, and
considerably enlarged. They are mnd-galls of the
hock. The subcutaneous vein passes over the
inside of the hock, and over some of these enlarged
mucous reservoirs, and is compressed between
them and the external integument, — the course of
the blood is partially arrested, and a portion of the

vein below the impediment, and between it and
the next valve, is distended, and causes the soft
tumour on the inside of the hock, called Bog or
Blood spavin.

This is a very serious disease, attended with no
great, but often permanent lameness, and too apt
to return when the enlargement has subsided
under medical treatment. It must be considered
as decided unsoundness. In a horse for slow
draught it is scarcely worth while even to attack it.
And in one destined to more rapid action, the
probability of a relapse should not be forgotten,
w'hen the chances of success and the expenses of
treatment are calculated.

The cause of the disease — the enlarged mucous
capsule — lies deep, and is with difficulty operated
upon. Uniform pressure would sometimes cause
the absorption of the fluid contained in cysts or
bags like these, but, in a joint of such extensive
motion as the hook, it is difficult, or almost impos-
sible, to confine the pressure on the precise spot at
which it is required. Could it be made to bear on
the enlarged bag, it would likewise press on the
vein, and to a greater degree hinder the passage of
the blood, and increase the dilatation below the
obstruction. The old and absurd method of pass-
ing a ligature above and below the enlarged portion
of the vein, and then dissecting out the tumour, is
not, in the advanced stage of veterinary science,
practised by any surgeon who regards his reputa-
tion. The only method of relief which holds out
any promise even of temporary success is exciting
considerable inflammation on the skin, and thus
rousing the deeper seated absorbents to cany
away the fluid etfused in the enlarged bag. For
this purpose, blisters or firing may be tried ; but
in the majority of cases the disease will bid defi-
ance to all appliances, or will return and baffle our
hopes when we had seemed to be accom2)lishing
our object.

A horse with bog spavin will do for ordinary
work. He may draw in a cart, or trot fairly in a
lighter carriage, with little detriment to his utility ;
but he will never do for hard or rapid work.

BONE SPAVIN.

A still more formidable disease ranks under
the name of Spavin, and is an affection of the
bones of the hock-joint. It has been stated that
the bones of the leg, the shank-bone g, page 443,
and the two small splint-bones behind, h, support
the lower layer of the bones of the hock. The
cube-bone, d, rests principally on the shank-bone,
and in a slight degree on the outer splint-bone.
The middle wedge-bone, /, rests entirely upon the
shank-bone, and the smaller wedge-bone presses
(not seen in the cut) in a very slight degree on the
shank-bone, but principally or almost entirely on
the inner splint-bone. Then the spHnt-bones sus-

THE HOUSE.

445

tain a very unequal degree of concussion and
■weight. Not only is the inner one placed more
under the body and nearer the centre of gravity,
but it has almost the whole of the weight and con-
cussion communicated to the smaller cuneiform
bone carried on to it. It is not, therefore, to be
wondered at tliat, in the violent action of this
joint in galloping, leaping, heavy draught, and
especially in young horses, and before the limbs
have become properly knit, the inner splint-bone,
or its ligaments, or the substance which connects
it with the shank-bone, should suffer material
injury.

The smith increases the tendency to this by
his injudicious management of the feet. It is a
common notion that cutting, and wounds in the
feet — from one foot treading on the other — are
prevented by putting on a shoe with a calkin on
the outer heel, that is, the extremity of the heel
being considerably raised from the ground. It is
not unusual to see whole teams of horses with the
outer heel of the hind foot considerably raised
above the other. This unequal bearing, or distri-
bution of the weight, cannot fail of being injurious.
It places an unequal strain on the ligaments of
the joints, and particularly of the hock-joint, and
increases the tendency to spavin.

The weight and concussion thus thrown on the
inner splint-bone produce inflammation of the
cartilaginous substance that unites it to the shank-
bone. In consequence of it, the cartilage is
absorbed, and bone deposited ; the union between
the splint-bone and the shank becomes bony,
instead of cartilaginous ; the degree of elastic
action between them is destroyed, and there is
formed a splint of the hind leg. This is uniformly
on the inside of the hind leg, because the greatest
weight and concussion are thrown on the inner
splint-bones. As in the fore leg, the disposition
to form bony matter having commenced, and the
cause which produced it continuing to act, bone
continues to be deposited, and it generally appears
in the form of a tumour, where the head of the
splint-bone is united with the shank, and in front
of that imion. It is seen at c, page 440. This is
called Bone Spavin. Inflammation of the liga-
ments of any of the small bones of the hock, pro-
ceeding to bony tumour, would equally class under
the name of spavin ; but, commonly, the disease
commences on the precise spot that has been
described.

While spavin is forming there is always lame-
ness, and that frequently to a very great degree :
but when the membrane of the bone has accomo-
dated itself to the tumour that extended it, the
lameness subsides or disappeai"s, or depends upon
the degree in which the bony deposit interferes
with the motion of the joint. It is well known to
horsemen, that many a hunter, with spavin that

would cause his rejection by a veterinary surgeon,
stands his work without lameness. The explana-
tion is this : there is no reason why an old bony
tumour on the outside of any of the bones of the
hock, free from connexion with the next bone, and
from any tendon, should be at all injurious; as,
for instance, one immediately under e or/, p. 443 :
but from the complicated nature of the liock, it is
difficult, if not impossible, to be quite sure of the
place, or extent, from inspection, of the tumour,
and, besides, the disposition to throw out bone
covered by the tumour, may continue and extend
to the joint. The surgeon, therefore, cannot be
perfectly safe in pronouncing a bone spavin to be
of no consequence. Horses with exceedingly large
spavins are often seen that are only slightly lame,
or that merely have a stiffness in their gait at
first starting, but which gradually goes off after a
little motion; while others, with the bony tumour
comparatively small, have the lameness so great as
to destroy the usefulness of the horse. There is
always this peculiarity in the lameness of spavin,
that it abates, and sometimes disappears, on exer-
cise ; and, therefore, a horse with regard to which
there is any suspicion of this affection should be
examined when first in the morning it is taken
from the stable.

If the spavin continues to increase, the bony
deposit first spreads over the lower wedge-bones
/, p. 44-3, for these are nearest to its original seat.
They are capable of slight motion, and share in
every action of the joint, but their principal design
is to obviate concussion. The chief motion of the
joint, and that compared with which the motion
of the other bones is scarcely to be regarded, is
confined to the tibia «, and the astragalus h, and
therefore stiffness rather than lameness may ac-
company spavin, even when it is beginning to
affect the small bones of the joint. Hence, too, is
the advantage of these bones having each its sepa-
rate ligaments and membranes, and constituting so
many distinct joints, since injury may happen to
some of them, without the effect being propagated
to the rest. When the bony deposit continues to
enlarge, and takes in the second layer of bones —
the larger wedge-bones e — and even spreads to the
cuboid bones on the other side, the lameness may
not be veiy great, because these are joints, or parts
of the joint, in which the motion is small : but
when it extends to the union of the tibia a, and
the astragalus h — when the joint, in which is the
chief motion of the hock, is attacked — the lame-
ness is indeed formidable, and the horse becomes
nearly quite useless.

Spavined horses are generally capable of slow
work. Tbey are equal to the greater part of the
work of the farm, and therefore they shoidd not be
always rejected by the small farmer, as they may
generally be procured at little price. These

446

THE HOESE.

horses are not only capable of agricultural ^York,
but they generally improve under it. The lame-
ness in some degree abates, and even the bony
tumour to a certain degree diminishes. There is
sufficient moderate motion and friction of the limb
to rouse the absorbents to action, and cause them
to take up a portion of the bony matter thrown out,
but not enough to renew or prolong inflammation.
It cannot be said that the plough affords a cure for
spavin, but the spavined horse often materially im-
proves while working at it.

For fast work, and for work that must be regu-
larly performed, spavined horses are not well cal-
culated ; for this lameness behind produces great
difficulty in rising, and the consciousness that he
■will not be able to rise without painful effort occa-
sionally prevents the horse from lying down at all ;
and the animal that cannot rest well, cannot long
travel far or fast.

The treatment of spavin is simple enough, but
far from being always effectual. The owner of the
horse will neither consult his own interest nor the
dictates of humanity, if he suffers the chisel and
mallet, or the gimlet, or the pointed iron, or
arsenic, to be used ; yet measures of considerable
severity must be resorted to. Repeated blisters
will usually cause either the absorption of the bony
deposit, or the abatement or removal of the inflam-
mation of the ligaments, or, as a last resource, the
heated iron may be applied.

The account of the diseases of the hock is not
yet completed. It is well known that the horse is
frequently subject to lameness behind, when no
ostensible cause for it can be found, and there is
no external heat or enlargement to indicate its
seat. Farriers and grooms pronounce these to be
affections of the stifle, or round bone ; or, if the
gait of the horse and peculiar stiffness of motion
point out the hock as the affected part, yet the
joint may be of its natural size, and neither heat
nor tenderness can be discovered. The groom has
his own method of unravelling the mystery. He
says that it is the beginning of spavin ; but months
and years pass away, and the spavin does not
appear, and the horse is at length destroyed as
incurably lame.

Horsemen are indebted to Mr. W. J. Goodwin,
V.S. to Her Majesty, for the discovery of the seat
of frequent lameness behind. The cut, p. 443,
represents the two layers of small bones within the
hock — the larger wedge-like bone e, above ; and
the middle /, and the smaller one below, and it
will be seen that almost the whole of the weight
of the horse, communicated by the tibia a, is
thrown upon these bones. The cube-bone d does
little more than support the point of the hock c.
It is then easy to imagine that, in the concussion
of hard work or rapid travelling, these bones, or
the delicate and sensible membranes iu which they

are wrapped, may be severely injured. Repeated
dissections of horses that have been incurably
lame behind, without anything external, during
life, to point out the place or cause of lameness,
have shown that inflammation of the membranes
lining these joints, and secreting the fluid that
lubricates them, has taken place.*

Mr. Goodwin narrates a very interesting case
in corroboration of this account of hock lameness.
The author of this work had the honour cjf being
present when the examination took place. " The
patient was a harness horse of unusual perfection,
both in shape and action, and was a great favourite
with an illustrious personage. He suddenly be-
came lame behind on the off leg, but without the
least accident or alteration of structure to acco<mt
for it. He was turned out for a short time, and
the lameness disappeared. He was then incauti-
ously made to perform his usual work, until per-
fectly incapacitated for it by returning and aggra-
vated lameness. Suspecting the seat of lameness
to be in the hock, although the joint was perfectly
unaltered in form, he was, three months after the
commencement of the lameness, blistered and fired,
and placed either in a loose place or paddock, as
circumstances seemed to require. Not the least
amendment took jilace at the end of six months,
even in his quiescent state, and, aftertwelve months
from the time of liis being given up for treatment,
he was destroyed, his case being naturally consi-
dered a hopeless one. Ulceration of the synovial
membrane was found, taking its origin between
the two cuneiform bones. These bones had become
carious, and the disease had gradually extended
itself to other parts of the joint. Mr. Goodwin
had no doubt that if the animal had been suffered
to work on for any greater length of time, necrosis,
or anchylosis of every bone concerned in the hook,
would have been the result." — (Veterinarian,
iii. 158.)

Much more depends, than they who are not well
accustomed to horses imagine, on the length of
the OS calcis, or projection of the hock. In propor-
tion to the length of this bone will two purposes
Ije effected. The line of direction will be more
advantageous, for it will be nearer to a perpendi-
cular, and the arm of the lever to which the power
is applied will be lengthened, and thus mechanical
advantage will be gained to an almost incredible
extent. The slightest lengthening of the point
of the hock will wonderfully tell in the course
of a day's work, and therefore it is that the

* These opinions of the seat and nature of obscure hock-larae-
ness are now maintained by the majority of veterinary surgeons,
although some of them difler a little with regard to the artii^ulatinn
that is generally affected, and the manner in which the depressions
or excavations on the sui'lace of these bones is eifected. In the
tenth volume of the " Veterinarian," are some valuable observations
on this subject by Professor Dick, and Messrs. Pritchard and
Spooner.

THE HORSE.

character of the os calcis is of such immense
importance.

The point of the hock is sometimes swelled.
A soft fluctuating tumour appears on it. This is
an enlargement of one of the mucous bags of
■n'hich mention has been made, and that surrounds
the insertion of the tendons into the point of the
hock. It is termed

CAPPED HOCK.

It is seldom accompanied by lameness, and yet it
is a somewhat serious business, for it is usually
produced by blows and mostly by the injuries
which the horse inflicts upon himself in the act of
lucking : therefore it is that a horse with a capped
hock is veiy properly regarded with a suspicious
eye. The whole of the hock should be carefully
examined, in order to discover whether there are
other marks of violence, and the previous histoiy
of the animal should be carefully inquired into.
Does he kick in harness or in the stall, or has he
been Ipng on a thin bed, or on no bed at all ; and
thus may the hock have been bruised, and the
swelling produced ?

It is exceedingly difiicult to apply a bandage
over a capped hock ; and puncturing the tumour,
or passing a seton through it. would be a most
injudicious practice. Blisters, or iodine, repeated
as often as may be necessaiy, are the best means
to be employed. Occasionally the tumour ^vill
spontaneously disappear ; but at other times it will
attain a large size, or assume a callous structure,
that will bid defiance to all the means that can be
emjsloyed.

MALLEXDEES AND SALLENDERS.

On the inside of the hock, or a little below it,
aS well as at the bend of the knee (h, p. 436),
there is occasionally a scurfy eruption, called nial-
lenders in the fore leg, and sallenders in the hind
leg. They seldom produce lameness ; but if no
means are taken to get rid of them, a discharge
proceeds from them which it is afterwards difficult
to stop. They usually indicate bad stable manage-
ment.

A diuretic ball should he occasionally given,
and an ointment of sugar-of-lead and tar, with
treble the quantity of lard, rubbed over the part.
Should this fail, a weak mercurial ointment may
be used. Iodine has here also been useful.

The Ime of direction of the legs beneath the
hocks, should not be disregarded. The leg should
descend perpendicularly to the fetlock. The weight
and stress will thus be equally difi'used, not only
over the whole of the hock, but also the pasterns
and the foot. Some horses have their hocks closer
than usual to each other. The legs take a divei'-
gent direction outward, and the toes also are turned
outward. These horses are said to be Cat or Cow

hocked. They are generally supposed to possess
considerable speed. Perhaps they do so ; and it is
thus accounted for. The cow-hocked horse has his
legs not only tunned more outward, but bent more
under him, and this increases the distance between
the point of the hock and the tendons of the per-
forating muscle : see b, in the cut, page 440. ■ It
increases the space which is usually occupied by
thorough-pin, see a, in the same page. Then the
point of the hock, moved by the action of the mus-
cles, is enabled to describe a greater portion of a
circle ; and in proportion to the increased space
passed over by the point of the hock, will the space
traversed by the limb be increased, and so the
stride of the horse may be lengthened, and, thus
far, his speed may be increased. But this advan-
tage is more than counterbalanced by many evils.
This increased contraction of the muscles is an
expenditure of animal power; and, as already
stated, the weight and the concussion being so
unequally distributed by this formation of the
limbs, some part must be over-strained and over-
worked, and injury must ensue. On this account
it is that the cow-hocked horse is more subject
than others to thorough-pin and spavin ; and is so
disposed to curbs, that these hocks are denominated
by horsemen ciirby hocks. The mischief extends
even farther than this. Such a horse is peculiarly
liable to windgall, sprain of the fetlock, cutting,
and knuclding.

A slight inclination to this form in a strong
powerful horse may not be veiy objectionable, but
a horse decidedly cow-hocked should never be se-
lected.

SWELLED LEGS.

The fore legs, but oftener the hind ones, and
especially in coarse horses, are sometimes subject
to considerable enlargement. Occasionally, when
the horse does not seem to labour under any other
disease, and sometimes from an apparent shifting
of disease from other parts, the hind legs suddenly
swell to an enormous degree from the hock and
almost from the stifle to the fetlock, attended by
a greater or less degree of heat, and tenderness of
the skin, and sometimes excessive and ver}- pecu-
liar lameness. The pulse likewise becomes quick
and hard, and the horse evidently labours under
considerable fever. It is acute inflammation of
the cellular substance of the legs, and that most
sudden in its attacks, and most violent in its de-
gree, and therefore attended by tlie efiiision of a
considerable quantity of fluid into the cellular
membrane. It occurs iu young horses, and in
those which are over-fed and little exercised. Fo-
mentation, diuretics, or jjurgatives, or, if there is
much fever, a moderate bleeding will often relieve
the distension almost as suddenly as it appeared.
I The kind of swelled legs most frequently occur-

448

THE HOKSE.

ing and most troublesome is of a different nature,
or rather it is most various in its liind and causes,
and consequences and mode of treatment. Some-
times the legs are filled, but there is little lameness
or inconvenience. At other times the limbs are
strangely gorged, and with a great degree of stiff-
ness and pain. Occasionally the horse is ajjpa-
rently well at night, but, on the following moniing,
one or both of the legs are tremendously swollen ;
and on its being touched, the horse catches it up
suddenly, and nearly falls as he does so. Many
horses, in seemingly perfect health, if suffered to
remain several days without exercise, \Yill have
swelled legs. If the case is neglected, abscesses
appear in various parts of the legs ; the heels are
attacked by grease, and, if proper measures are not
adopted, the horse has an enlarged leg for life.

The cure, wlien the case has not been too long
neglected, is sufficiently jjlain. Physic or diuretics,
or both, must be had recourse to. Mild cases will
generally yield to their influence ; but, if the animal
has been neglected, the treatment must be decisive.
If the horse is in high condition these should be
preceded or accompanied by bleeding; but if there
are any symptoms of debility, bleeding would only
increase the want of tone in the vessels.

Horses taken from grass and brought into close
stables very speedily have swelled legs, because
the difference of food and increase of nutriment
rapidly increase the quantity of the circulating
fluid, while the want of exercise takes away the
means by which it might be got rid of. The re-
medy here is sufficiently jjlain. Swelled legs,
however, may proceed from general debility. They
may be the consequence of starvation, or disease
that has considerably weakened the animal ; and
these parts, being farthest from the centre of cir-
culation, are the first to show the loss of power by
the accumulation of fluid in them. Here the
means of cure would be to increase the general
strength, with which the extremities would sympa-
thise. Mild diuretics and tonics would therefore
be evidently indicated.

Horses in the spring and fall are subject to
swelled legs. The powers of the constitution are
principally employed in providing a new coat for
the animal, and the extremities have not their
share of vital influence. Mingled cordials and
diuretics are indicated here — the diuretic to lessen
the quantity of the circulating fluid, and the cordial
to invigorate the frame.

Swelled legs are often teasing in horses that
are in tolerable or good health ; but where the
■work is somewhat irregular, the cure consists in
giving more eqiiable exercise, walking the horse
out daily when the usual work is not required, and
using plenty of friction in the form of hand-rubbing.
Bandages have a greater and more durable effect,
for nothing tends more to support the capillary

vessels, and rouse the action of the absorbents,
than moderate pressure. Hay-bands will form a
good bandage for the agricultural horse, and their
effect will probably be increased by previously
dipping them in water.

The physic, or the diuretic ball, may occasion-
ally be used, but very sparingly ; and only when
they are absolutely required. In the bands of the
owner of the horse, or of the veterinary surgeon,
they may be employed with benefit ; but in those
of the carter or the groom they will do far more
harm than good. The frequent and undue stimulus
of the urinary organs by the diui'etic ball, will be
too often followed by speedy and incurable debility.
If the swelling bids defiance to exercise and fric-
tion and bandage, the aid of the diuretic may be
resorted to, but never until these have failed, unless
there is an evident tendency to humour or grease.

Swelled legs, although distinct from grease, is
a disease that is apt to degenerate into it. Grease
is a specific inflammation of the skin of the heels,
sometimes of the fore-feet, but oftener of the hinder
ones. It is not a contagious disease, as some have
asserted, although when it once appears in a stable
it frequently attacks almost every horse in it. Bad
stable management is the true cause of it.

There is a peculiarity about the skin of the
heel of the horse. In its healthy state there is a
secretion of greasy matter from it, in order to pre-
vent excoriation and chapping, and the skin is
soft and pliable. Too often, however, from bad
management, the secretion of this greasy matter is
stopped, and the skin of the heel becomes red, and
dry, and scurfy. The joint still continuing to be
extended and flexed, cracks of the skin begin to
appear, and these, if neglected, rapidly extend,
and the heel becomes a mass of soreness, ulcera-
tion, and fungus.

The distance of the heel from the centre of
circulation, and the position of the hind limbs,
render the return of blood slow and difficult.
Tliere is also more variation of temperature here
than in any other part of the frame. As the horse
stands in the closed stable, the heat of this part is
too often increased by its being embedded in straw.
When the stable door is open the heels are nearest
to it, and receive first, and most powerfully, the
cold current of air. When he is taken from his
stable to work the heels are frequently covered
with mire and wet, and they are oftenest and most
intensely chilled by the long and slow process of
evaporation which is taking place from them. No
one, then, can wonder at the frequency with which
the heels are attacked by inflammation, and the
difficulty there is in subduing it.

Much error has prevailed, and it has led to
considerable bad practice, from the notion of

THE HORSE.

4ii)

humours flying about the horse, and wliich, it is
said, must have vent somewhere, and attack the
heels as the weakest part of the frame. Thence
arise the physicking, and the long course of diure-
tics, which truly weaken the animal, and often do
irreparable mischief.

Grease is a local complaint. It is produced
principally by causes that act locally, and it is most
successfully treated by local applications. Diuretics
and purgatives may be useful in abating inflam-
mation ; but the grand object is to get rid of the
inflammatory action which exists in the skin of
the heel, and to heal the wounds, and remedy the
mischief which it has occasioned.

The first appearance of grease is usually a diy
and scurfy state of the skin of the heel, with red-
ness, heat, and itchiness. The heel should be well
but gently washed with soap and water, and as much
of the scurf detached as is easily removable. An
ointment, composed of one part plum, diacet. and
seven of adeps suilliB, will usually supple, and cool,
and heal the part.

When cracks appear, the mode of treatment
will depend on their extent and depth. If they
are but slight, a lotion, composed plumbi sulph.
jij. et alumiuis 3iiij., dissolved in a pint of water,
will often speedily dry them up, and close them.
There is sometimes considerable caprice in the
application of this lotion, which has induced Pro-
fessor Morton to have recourse to alumen et tere-
binthinus vulgaris one part each, and adeps suillae
three parts, made into an ointment.

If the cracks ai'e deep, with an ichorous dis-
charge and considerable lameness, it will be neces-
sary to poultice the heel. A jioultice of linseed
meal will be generally effective, unless the dis-
charge is thin and offensive, when an ounce of
finely powdered charcoal should be mixed with the
linseed meal ; or a poultice of carrots, boiled soft
and mashed. The efficacy of a carrot-poultice is
seldom sufficiently appreciated in cases like this.

When the inflammation and pain have evi-
dently subsided, and the sores discharge good
matter, the calamine ointment may be applied with
advantage ; and the cure will generally be quick-
ened if a very diluted vitriolic or alum solution is
applied.

The best medicine will consist of mild aloetic
balls ; gentle diuretics being given towards the
close of the treatment.

After the chaps or cracks have healed, the legs
will sometimes continue gorged and swelled. A
flannel bandage, evenly applied over the whole of
the swelled part, will be very serviceable ; or,
should the season admit of it, a run at grass, par-
ticularly spring grass, should be allowed. A blister
is inadmissible, from the danger of bringing back
the inflammation of the skin, and the discharge
from it ; but the actual cautery, special care being

taken not to penetrate the skin, may occasionally
be resorted to.

In some cases the cracks are not confined to
the centre of the heels, but spread over them, and
extend on the fetlock, and even up the leg, while
the legs are exceedingly swelled, and there is a
watery discharge from the cracks, and an apparent
oozing through the skin at other places. The legs
are exceedingly tender and sometimes hot, and there
is an appearance which the farrier thinks very
decisive as to the state of the disease, and which
the better informed man should not overlook — the
heels smoke — the skin is so hot, that the watery
fluid partly evaporates as it runs from the cracks
or oozes through the skin.

There will be great danger in suddenly stopping
this discharge. Inflammation of a more important
part has rapidly succeeded to the injudicious at-
tempt. The local application should be directed
to the abatement of the inflammation. The poul-
tices just referred to should be diligently used
night and day, and especially the carrot-poultice ;
and when the heat, and tenderness, and stiffness
of motion have diminished, astringent lotions may
be applied — either the alum lotion, or a strong
decoction of oak-bark, changed, or used alternately,
but not mixed. The cracks should likewise be
dressed with the ointment above-mentioned ; and,
the moment the horse can bear it, a flannel band-
age should be put on, reaching from the coronet to
three or four inches above the swelling.

The medicine should be confined to mild diure-
tics, mixed with one-tliird part of cordial mash ;
or, if the horse is gross, and the inflammation runs
high, a dose of physic may be given. If the horse
is strong, and full of flesh, physic should always
precede and sometimes supersede the diuretics.
In cases of much debility, diuretics, with aromatics
or tonics, will be preferable

The feeding should likewise vary with the case,
but with these rules, which admit of no exception,
that green meat should be given, and more espe-
cially carrots, when they ai'e not too expensive,
and mashes, if the horse will eat them, and never
the full allowance of corn.

Walking exercise should be resorted to as soon
as the horse is able to bear it, and this by degrees
may be increased to a gentle trot.

From bad stable management at first, and
neglect during the disease, a yet worse kind of
grease occasionally appears. The ulceration ex-
tends over the skin of the heel and the fetlock, and
a fungus springs from the surface of both, highly
sensible, bleeding at the slightest touch, and inter-
spersed with scabs. By degrees, portions of the
fungus bet^in to be covered with a homy substance
protruding in the form of knobs, and collected
together in bunches. These are known by the
name of grapes. A foetid and very peculiar

450

THE HORSE.

exudation proceeds from nearly the whole of the
unnatural substance. The horse evidently suffers
much, and is gradually worn down by the discharge.
The assistance of a veterinary surgeon is here
indispensable.

Some horses are more subject to grease than
others, particularly draught horses, both heavy and
light, but particularly the former, and if they have
no degi'ee of blood in them. It was the experience
of this which partly contributed to the gradual
change of coach and other draught horses to those
of a lighter breed. In the great majority of cases,
grease arises from mismanagement and neglect.

Everything that has a tendency to excite in-
flammation in the skin of the heel is a cause of
grease. Therefore want of exercise is a frequent
source of this disease. The fluid which accumu-
lates about the extremities and is unable to re-
turn, is a source of irritation by its continued
pressure. When high feeding is added to irre-
gular or deficient exercise, the disease is evidently
still more likely to be produced. Want of clean-
liness in the stable is a fruitful source of grease.
When the heels are imbedded in filth, they are
weakened by the constant moisture surrounding
them — irritated by the acrimony of the dung and
the urine, and little prepared to endure the cold
evaporation to which they are exposed when the
horse is taken out of the stable. The absurd
practice of washing the feet and legs of horses
when they come from their work, and either care-
lessly sponging them down afterwards, or leaving
them to dry as they may, is, however, the most
common origin of grease.

When the horse is wamned by his work, and
the heels share in the warmth, the momentary
cold of washing may not be injurious, if the animal
is immediately rubbed dry ; yet even this would
be better avoided: hut to w^ash out the heels, and
then leave them partially dry or perfectly wet,
and suffering from the extreme cold that is pro-
duced by evaporation from a moist and wet sur-
face, is the most absurd, dangerous, and injurious
practice that can be imagined. It is worse when
the post-horse or the plough-horse is plunged up
to his belly in the river or pond, immediately after
his work. The owner is little aware how many
cases of inflammation of the lungs, and bowels,
and feet, and heels follow. It would, therefore,

be an excellent rule never to wash the heels of
these horses. After they have been suffered to
stand for twenty minutes in the stable, during
which time the horse-keeper or the carter may be
employed in taking care of the harness, or car-
riage, or beginning to dress the horse, the greater
part of the dirt which had collected about the
heels may be got rid of with a dry brush ; and the
rest will disappear a quarter of an hour afterwards
under the operation of a second brushing. The
trouble will not be great, and the heels will not
be chilled and subject to inflammation.

There has been some dispute as to the pro-
priety of cutting the hair from the heels.* Cus-
tom has very properly retained the hair on our
farm-horses. Nature would not have given it
had it not been useful. It guards the heel from
being injured by the inequalities of the ploughed
field ; it prevents the dirt, in which the heels are
constantly enveloped, from reaching and caking
on, and irritating the skin; it hindei'S the usual
moisture which is mixed with the clay and mould
from reaching the skin, and ,it preserves an equal
temperature in the parts. If the hair is suffered
to remain on the heels of the farm-horses, there is
greater necessity for brashing and hand-rubbing
the heels, and never washing them.

Fashion and utility have removed the hair
from the heels of our hackney and carriage
liorses. When the horse is carefully tended after
his work is over, and his legs quickly and com-
pletely dried, the less hair he has about them the
better, for then both the skin and the hair can
be made perfectly dry before evaporation begins,
or proceeds so far as to deprive the legs of their
heat. Grease is the child of negligence and mis-
management. It is driven from our cavalry, and
it wiil be the fault of the gentleman and the
farmer if it is not speedily banished from every
stable.

» Professor Stewart has the following observations :—" During
two very wet winters I have had opportunity of observing the
results of trimming and no trimming, among upwards of 600
horses. More than 300 uf these have been employed in coaching
and posting, or work of a similar kind, and about loO are cart-
horses. Grease, and other skin diseases of the heels have been of
most frequent occmrence where the horses are both trimmed and
washed ; they have been common where the horses were trimmed
but not washed, and there have been very few cases where wash-
ing or trimming were forbidden or neglected." — Slabk Economy,
p. 116.

THE HOUSE.

4.51

CHAPTER XVIII.

A The external crust seen at the quarter.

B The coronary ring.

c The little homy plates lining the crust.

D The same continued over the bars.

E E The two concave surfaces of the inside of the homy frog.

F That which externally is the cleft of the frog.

G The bars.

u The rounded part of the heels, belonging to the frog.

This smaller cut exhibits, in as satisfactory a
manner, the mechanism and structure of the base
of the foot.

a a The frog.
b The sole.
c c The bars.
d d The crust.

The foot is composed of the horny box that
covers the extremities of the horse, and the con-
tents of that box. The hoof or box is composed
of the ci-ust or wall, the coronary ring and band,
the bars, the horny lamiuce, the sole, and tlie
horny frog.

THE CRUST OE WALL OF THE HOOF.

The crust or wall, is that portion which is seen
when the foot is placed on the ground, and reaches
from the termination of the hair to the ground.
It is deepest in front, where it is called the toe,
measuring there about three inches and a half in
depth (see cut, p. 452), shallower at the sides,
which are denominated the quarters, and of least
extent behind, where it is seldom more than an
inch and a half in height, and is termed the heel.
The crust in the healthy foot presents a flat and
narrow surface to the ground, ascending obliquely
backwards, and possessing different degrees of

obliquity in different horses. In a sound hoof
the proper degree of obliquity is calculated at
forty-five degrees, or the fourth part of a semi-
circle, at the front of the foot. When the obliquity
is greater than this, it indicates undue flatness of
the sole, and the crust is said to have " fallen in."
If the obliquity is veiy much increased the sole
projects, and is said to be pumiced or convex.

If the foot is more upright, or forms a greater
angle than forty-five degrees, it indicates much
contraction, and a sole too concave ; and this differ-
ence of obliquity is often so great, that the con-
vexity or concavity of the sole may be affirmed
without the trouble of raising the foot for the pm--
pose of examination.

It is of some importance to observe whether
the depth of the crust appears rapidly or slowly to
decrease from the front to the heel. If the de-
crease is little, and even at the heel the crust is
high and deep, this indicates a foot liable to con-
traction, sand-crack, thrush, and hiflammation. The
pasterns are upright, the paces of that horse ai-e
not pleasant. On the other hand, if the cnist
rapidly diminishes in depth, and the heels are low,
this is accompanied by too great slanting of the
pastem, and disposition to sprain in the back sinew.
The foot, generally, is liable to be weak and flat,
and braised, and there is more tendency to the fre
quent, but obscure lameness, of which there will
presently be occasion to treat — the nav-icular-joint
disease.

The crust is composed of numerous homy fibres,
connected together by an elastic membranous sub-
stance, and extending from the coronet to the base
of the hoof. It differs materially in its texture, its
elasticity, its growth, and its occasional fragility,
according to the state in which it is kept, and the
cuTumstances that are acting upon it.

The exterior wall of the hoof should be smooth
and level. Protuberances or rings romid the crust
indicate that the horse has had inflammation in the
feet, and that to such a degree, as to produce an
unequal growth of bom, and probably to leave some
injurious consequences in the internal part of the
foot. If there is a depression or hollow in the front
of the foot, it betrays a sinking of the coffin-bone,
and a flat or pumiced sole. If there is a hollow at
the quarters, it is the worst symptom of bad con-
traction.

The thickness of the crust, in the front of the
foot, is rather more than half an inch ; it becomes
gradufiUy thinner towards the quarters and heels,
but this often varies to a considerable extent. In
some hoofs, it is not more than half the above thick

452

THE HORSE.

ness. If, however, there is not, in the majority of
horses, more than half an inch for nail-hold at the
toe, and not so much at the quarters, it will not
appear surprising that these horses are occasionally
wounded in shoeing, and especially as some of
them are very unmanageable while undergoing this
process.

Whilst the crust becomes thinner towards both
quarters, it is more so at the inner quarter than at
the outer, because more weight is thrown upon it
than upon the outer. IL is more under the horse.
It is under the inner splint-bone, on which so
much more of the weight rests than on the outer ;
and, being thinner, it is able to e.xpand more. Its
elasticity is called more into play, and concussion
and injury are avoided. When the expansion of
the quarters is prevented by their being nailed to
an unbending shoe, the inner quarter suffers most.
Corns are oftenest found there ; contraction begins
there ; sand-crack is seated there. Nature meant
that this should be the most yielding part, in order
to obviate concussion, because on it the weight is
principally thrown, and therefore when its power
of yielding is taken away, it must be the first to
suffer.

A careful observer will likewise perceive that
the inner quarter is higher than the outer. While
it is thin to yield to the shock, its increased surface
gives it sufficient strength.

On account of its thinnesss, and the additional
weight which it bears, the inner heel wear's away
quicker than the outer ; a circumstance that should
never be forgotten by the smith. His object is to
give a plane and level bearing to the whole of the
cnist. To accomplish this, it will be often scarcely
necessaiy to remove anything from the inner heel,
for this has already been done by the wear of the
foot. If he forgets this, as he too often seems to
do, and cuts away -nith bis knife or his buttress an
equal portion all round, he leaves the inner and
weaker quarter lower than the outer ; he throws an
uneven bearing upon it ; and produces corns and
sandcracks and splints, which a little care and
common sense might have avoided.

THE COEONAEY RING.

The crust does not vary much in thickness (see
A, page 451, and b, in the accompanying cut), until
near the top, at the coronet, or union of the hom
of the foot with the skin of the
pasterns, where (w, page 432) it
rapidly gets thin. It is in a
manner scooped and hollowed out.
It likemse changes its colour and
consistence, and seems almost
like a continuation of the skin,
but easily separable from it by
maceration or disease. This thin
part is called the coronary ring, x, p. 432. It ex-

tends round the upper portion of the hoofs, and
receives, within it, or covers, a thickened and bul-
bous prolongation of the skin, called the coronary
ligament (see b, in the accompanying cut). This
prolongation of the skin — it is nothing moi-e — is
thickly supplied with blood-vessels. It is almost
a mesh of blood-vessels connected together by
fibrous texture, and many of them are employed
in secreting or forming the crust or wall of the
foot. Nature has enabled the sensible laminae of
the coffin-bone, c, which will be presently described,
to secrete a certain quantity of hom, in order to
afford an immediate defence for itself when the
crust is wounded or taken away. Of this there is
proof when in sand-crack or quittor it is necessary
to remove a portion of the crust. A pellicle of
horn, or of firm hard substance resembling it, soon
covers the wound ; but the crust is principally
formed from this coronary ligament. Hence it is,
that in sand-crack, quittor, and other diseases in
w^hich strips of the cmst are destroyed, it is so long
in being renewed, or growing dovm. It must pro-
ceed from the coronary ligament, and so gradually
creep Aovra the foot with the natural growth or
lengthening of the hom, of which, as in the human
nail, a supply is slowly given to answer to the wear
and tear of the part.

Below the coronary ligament is a thin strip of
homy matter, w'hich has been traced to the frog,
and has been supposed by some to be connected
with the support or action of that body, but which
is evidently intended to add to the security of the
part on which it is found, and to bind together
those various substances which are collected at the
coronet. It resembles, more than anything else,
the strij) of skin that surrounds the root of the
hmnan nail, and which is placed there to strengthen
the union of the nail with the substance from which
it proceeds

THE BARS.

At the back part of the foot the wall of the
hoof, instead of continuing round and forming a
circle, is suddenly bent in as in the small cut, in
page 451 , where cl represents the base of the crust,
and e its inflection or bending at the heel. The
bars are, in fact, a continuation of the crust, form-
ing an acute angle, and meeting at a point at the
toe of the frog — see a, b, and c, in the smaller cuts
— and the inside of the bars, like the inside of the
crust — see the first and larger cut — presents a
continuance of the homy leaves, showing that it is
a part of the same substance, and helping to dis-
charge the same office.

It needs only the slightest consideration of the
cut, or of the natural hoof, to show the importance
of the bars. The arch which these form on either
side between the frog and the quarters, is admirably
contrived both to admit of and to limit to its proper

THE nOliSE.

4.>3

extent the expansion of the foot. Wlien the foot
is placed on the ground, and the weight of the
animal is thrown on the leaves of whii^h mention
has just been made, these arches will shorten and
widen, in order to admit of the expansion of the
quarters — the bow returning to its natural curve,
aiul powerfully assisting the foot in regaining its
usual form. It can also be conceived that these
bars must form a powerful protection against the
contraction, or u'iring in, of the quarters. A mo-
ment's inspection of the cut {aee g, p. 4.51) will
show that, if the bars are taken away, there will
be nothing to resist the contraction or falling in of
the quarters when the foot is exposed to any disease
or bad management that would induce it to con-
tract. One moment's observation of them will also
render evident the security which they afford to
the frog (/), and the effectual protection which
they give to the lateral portions of the foot.

Then appears the necessity of jiassing lightly
over them, and leaving prominent, when the foot
is pared for shoeing, that which so many smiths
cut perfectly away. They imagine that it gives
a more open appearance to the foot of the horse.
Horses shod for the purpose of sale have usually
the bars removed with this view ; and the smiths
in the neighbourhood of the metropolis and large
towns, shoeing for dealers, too often habitually
piursue, with regard to all their customers, the in-
jui'ious practice of removing the bars. The hornj'
frog, deprived of its guard, will speedily contract,
and become elevated and thrushy ; and the whole
of the heel, having lost the power of resilience, or
reaction, which the curve between the bar c and the
crust rf gave it (vide p. 451, cut), will speedily fall in.

THE HOENT LAMIN-E.

The inside of the cn<st is covered by thin
horny leaves (c, p. 4.51), extending all round it,
and reaching from the coronary ring to the toe.
They are about 500 in number, broadest at their
base, and terminating in the most delicate expan-
sion of horn. They not a little resemble the inner
surface of a mushroom. In front they nin in a
direction from the coronet to the toe, and towards
the quarters they are more slanting from behind
forwards. They correspond, as will be presently
shown, with similar cartilaginous and fleshy leaves
on the surface of the cotBn-bone, and form a beau-
ful elastic body, by which the whole weight of the
horse is supported.

THE SOLE

Is under and occupies the greater portion of the
concave and elastic surface of the foot (see h, p.
451), extending from the crust to the bars and frog.
It is not so thick as the crust, because, notwith-
standing its situation, it does not support so much
■weight as the crust ; and because it was intended

to expand, in order to prevent concussion, when ,
by the descent of the bone of the foot, the weight
was thrown upon it. It is not so brittle as the
crust, and it is more elastic than it. It is thickest
at the toe (see t, p. 43;i), because the first and
principal stress is thrown on that part. The coffin-
bone / is driven forward and downward in that
direction. It is likewise thicker where it unites
with the crust than it is towards the centre, for a
similar and evident reason, because there the
weight is first and principally thrown.

In a state of nature it is, to a certain degree,
hollow. The reason of this is plain. It is intended
to descend or yield with the weight of the horse,
and by that gradual descent or yielding most
materially lessen the shock which would result
from the sudden action of the weight of the animal
in rapid and violent exercise ; and this descent can
only be given by a hollow sole. A flat sole, already
pressing upon the ground, could not be brought
lower ; nor could the functions of the frog be then
discharged ; nor would the foot have so secure a
hold. Then if the sole is naturally hollow, and
hollow because it must descend, the smith should
not interfere with this important action. When
the foot will bear it, he must pare out sufficient of
the horn to preserve the proper concavity ; also a
small portion at the toe and near the crust, and
cutting deeper towards the centre. He must put
on a shoe which shall not prevent the descent of
the sole, and which not only shall not press upon
it, but shall leave sufficient room between it and
the sole to admit of this descent. If the sole is
pressed upon by the coffin-bone during the length-
ening of the ehistic lamiufe, and the shoe will not
permit its descent, the sensible part between the
coffin-bone and the horn will necessarily be bruised,
and inflammation and lameness will ensue. It is
from this cause, that if a stone insinuates itself be-
tween the shoe and the sole, it produces so much
lameness. Of the too great concavity of the sole,
or the want of concavity in it, we shall treat when
we arrive at diseases of the foot.

THE FROG.

In the space between the bars, and accurately
filling it, is the Frog. It is a triangular portion
of horn, projecting from the sole, almost on a level
with the crust, and covering and defending a soft
and elastic substance called the sensible frog. It
is wide at the heels, and there extending beyond a
portion of the crust ; narrowing rapidly when it
begins to be confined between the bars, and termi-
nating in a point at somewhat more than half the
distance from the heel to the toe. It consists of
two rounded or projecting surfaces, with a fissure
or cleft between them reaching half way Ao\w\ the
frog, and the two portions again uniting to form
the point or toe of the frog.

4o4

THE HORSE.

The frog is firmly united to the sole, but it is
perfectly distinct from it. It is of a different
nature, being softer, and far more elastic ; and it is
secreted from a different surface, for it is thrown
out from the substance which it covers. It very
much resembles a wedge with the sharp point for-
wards ; and it is placed towards the back part of
the foot. The foot is seldom put flush and flat
upon the ground, but in a direction downwards, yet
somewhat forwards ; then the frog evidently gives
safety to the tread of the animal, for it occasionally
ploughs itself into the ground, and prevents the
horse from slipping. This is of considerable con-
sequence, when some of the paces of the horse are
recollected, in which his heels evidently come first
to the ground, and in which the danger from
slipping would he very great. Reference needs
only be made to the gallop as illustrative of this.

The frog being placed at, and filling the hinder
part of the foot, discharges a portion of the duty
sustained by the crust ; for it supports the ^veight
of the animal. It assists, likewise, and that to a
material degree, in the expansion of the foot. It
is formed internally of two prominences on the
sides (see a, p. 37'2), and a cleft in the centre, pre-
senting two concavities with a shsu'p p)'ojection in
the middle, and a gradually rounded one on each
side. It is also composed of a substance peculiarly
flexible and elastic. What can be so well adapted
for the expansion of the foot when a portion of the
weight of the body is thro\\Ti on it ? How easily
will these irregular surfaces yield and spread out,
and how readily return again to their natural state ?
In this view, therefore, the horny frog is a power-
ful agent in opening the foot; and the diminution
of the substance of the frog, and its elevation above
the ground, are both the cause and the consequence
of contraction — the cause, as being able no longer
powerfully to act in expanding the heels, and the
consequence, as obeying a law of nature, by which
that which no longer discharges its natural function
is graduallj' removed. It is, however, the cover
and defence of the internal and sensible frog, which
will be presently treated of; enough, however, has
been said to show the absurdity of the common
jn-uCtice of unsparingly cutting it away. In order
to discharge, in any degree, some of the offices
which we have assigned to it, and fidly to discharge
even one of them, it must come in occasional con-
tact -nith the ground. In the imshod horse it is
constantly so : but tlie additional support given by
the shoes, and more especially the hard roads over
which the horse is now compelled to travel, render
this complete exposure of the frog to the ground,
not only unnecessary, but injurious. Being of so
nmch softer consistence than the rest of the foot,
it woidd be speedily worn away : occasional pres-
sure, however, or contact with the ground, it must
have.

The rough and detached parts should be cut
off at each shoeing, and the substance of the frog
itself, so as to bring it just above or within the
level of the shoe. It will then, in the descent of
the sole, when the weight of the horse is thrown
upon it in the putting down of the foot, descend
likewise, and pressing upon the ground, do its
duty : while it will be defended from the wear, and
bruise, and injury that it would receive if it came
upon the ground with the first and full shock of
the weight. This will be the proper guide to the
smith in shoeing, and to the proprietor in tlie
direction which he gives. The latter should often
look to this, for it is a point of very great moment.
A few smiths carry the notion of fror/ pressure to
an absurd extent, and leave the frog beyond
the level of the sole, — a practice which is dange-
rous in the horse of slow draught, and destructive
to the hackney or the hunter ; but the majority of
them err in a contrary way, and, cutting off too
much of the frog, lift it above the ground, and
destroy its principal use. It should be left just
above, or within the level of the shoe:

THE COFFIN-BONE.

The interior part of the foot must now be con-
sidered. The lower pastern, a small portion of
which (see d, p. 433) is contained in the homy
box, has been already described, p. 435. — Beneath
it, and altogether inclosed in the hoof, is the
cofliu-bone, or proper bone of the foot (see /, p.
432, and d, fig. 1, p. 435). It is fitted to, and
fills the fore part of the hoof, occupying about half
of it. It is of a light and spongy structure (see </,
fig. 1, p. 435), and filled with numerous minute
foramina. Through these pass the blood-vessels
and nerves of the foot, which are necessarily
numerous, considering the important and various
secretions there carrying on, and the circulation
through the foot, which could not possibly be
kept up if these vessels did not run through the
substance of the bone. Considering the manner
in which this bone is inclosed in the horny box,
and yet the important surfaces around and below
it that are to be nouvislied with blood, the circula-
tion which is thus carried on within the very
body of the bone is one of the most beautiful pro-
visions of nature that is to be found in the whole
frame. No inconvenience can arise from occa-
sional or constant pressure, but the bone allows
free passage to the blood, and protects it from
every possible obstruction.

The fore part of the coffin-bone is not only
thus perforated, but it is curiously rougliened for
the attachment of the numerous minute lamime
about to be described. On its upper surface it
presents a concavity for the head of the lower pas-
tern, p. 435. In front, immediately above d, is a
striking prominence, into which is inserted the

THE HOUSE.

4 ")0

extensor tendon of the foot. At the back, e, p. 4l)-j,
it is sloped for articulation with the navicular l)one,
and more underneath, is a depression for the recep-
tion of the perforating flexor tendon m, continued
down the leg, passing over the navicular hone at n,
and at length inserted into this bone. On either
side, as seen p. 435, are projections called the
wings or heels of the cofflu-ljone, and at the bot-
tom it is hollowed to answer to the convexity of the
internal part of the sole.

That which deserves most attention in the
coffin-bone is the production of the numerous
lamintE round its front and sides. They are pro-
longations of the thick and elastic membrane
covering it, and consist of cartilaginous, fleshy
plates, proceeding from it, rumiing Aovra the
coffin-bone, and corresponding with and received
between the horny leaves that line the inside of
the hoof-bone — each horny plate being received
between two sensitive plates, and vice versa. These
laminfe are exceedingly sensitive and vascular, and
elastic, and, as first simply and beautifully ex-
plained by Mr. Percivall, their elasticity is not
inherent in the lamiuiB, but in the substance
which coiniects these laminae with the cofiin-bone,
and which, while it contains highly elastic proper-
ties, affords a convenient bed for the numerous
vessels that secrete the laminte. While the
animal is at rest, the whole weight of the horse is
supported by them, and not by the sole. This
extraordinary fact has been put to the test of
experiment. The sole, bars, and frog were re-
moved from the foot of a horse, and yet as he
stood, the coffin-bone did not protrude, or in the
slightest degree descend ; but when the rapidity
with which the foot descends is added to the
weight of the horse, these little leaves, horn}' and
fleshy, gradually lengthen, and suffer the bones to
press upon the sole. The sole then descends, and
in descending, expands ; and so, by an admirable
mechanism, the violent shock which would be pro-
duced by the pressure of such a weight as that of
the horse, and the velocity with which it descends,
is lessened or destroyed, and the complicated
apparatus of the foot remains uninjured. When
the foot is again lifted, and the weight which
pressed upon it is removed, the principle of elas-
ticity is called into exercise, and by it the sole
resumes its concavity, and the horny frog its folded
state ; — the quarters return to their former situa-
tion,— the leaves regain their former length, and
everything is prepared for a repetition of action.

THE SENSIBLE SOLE.

Between the coffin-bone and the horny sole is
situated the sensible sole, p. 432, formed above of
a substance of a ligamentous or tendinous nature,
and below of a cuticular or skin-like substance
plentifully supplied with blood-vessels. It was

placi'd between the coffin-bone and the sole, by its
yielding structure to assist in preventing concus-
sion, and also to form a supply of horn for the
sole. It extends beyond the coffin-bone, but not
at all under the frog. Leaving a space for the
frog, it proceeds over the bars, and there is
covered by some laminre, to unite with those that
have been described, p. 451, as found in the
bars. It is here likewise thicker, and more
elastic, and by its elasticity is evidently assisting
in obviating concussion. It is supplied with ner-
vous fibres, and is highly sensiljle, as the slightast
experience in horses will evince. The lameness
which ensues from the jiressure of a stone or
of the shoe on the sole is caused by inflammation
of the sensible sole. Corns result from bruise
and inflammation of the sensible sole, between the
crust and the bar.

THE SENSIBLE FROG.

The coffin-bone does not occupy more than one-
half of the hoof. The posterior part is filled by a
soft mass, partly ligamentous, and partly tendinous
(o, p. 432). Its shape below corresponds with
the cavities of the horny frog ; in front it is
attached to the inferior part of the coffin-bone ; and
farther back, it adheres to the lower part of the
cartilages of the heels, where they begin to form
the rounded protuberances that constitute the heel
of the foot. It occupies the whole of the back
part of the foot above the horay frog and between
the cartilages. Running immediately above the
fi'og, and along the greater part of it, we find the
perforans flexor tendon, which passes over the
navicular bone, e, p. 432, and is inserted into the
heel of the coffin-bone.

THE NAVICULAR BONE

Is placed behind and beneath the lower pastern-
bone, and behind and above the heel of the coffin-
bone, e, p. 432, so that it forms a joint with both
bones, and answers a very important office in
sti'engthening the union between these parts, in
receiving a portion of the weight which is thrown
on the lower pastern, and in enablmg the flexor
tendon to act with more advantage. Supposing
that this tendon wei"e inserted into the coffin-bone
mthout the intervention of the navicular bone, it
w'ould act at great mechanical disadvant.nge in
bending the pastern, for it is inserted near the end
of the coffin-bone, and the weight, concentrated
about the middle of the bone, is far off, and re-
quires a great power to raise it; but when the
navicular bone is interposed, the centre of motion
becomes the posterior edge of that bone, where it
is in contact with the tendon, and then it will bo
seen that the distance of the power from the centra
of motion is nearly or quite the same as the weiglit,
and very great expenditure of muscular power will

G G 2

456

THE HOESE.

be saved. In the one case, the power must be at
least double the weight, in the other they will be
nearly equal ; and also the angle at which the
tendon is inserted, is considerably more advanta-
geous. Perhaps this is the principal use of the
navicular bone ; yet at the same time we are aware
of the benefit which accrues (see p. 432) from a
portion of the weight being taken from the coffln-
bone, and thrown on the navicular bone, and from
it on the tendon, and the tendon resting on the
elastic frog underneath. The navicular bone is
sometimes, but inaccurately, said to descend with
the motion of the foot. It does not do that. It
cannot ; for it is connected both with the pastem
and cofiin-bones by inelastic ligaments. When,
however, the horny bulb, with its tuft of hair, at
the back of an oblique fetlock, descends in the
rapid gallop, and almost touches the ground, the
navicular bone, being as it were a part of the pastern,
must descend with it. A\'ith this exception, both
in the e.xteuding and the bending of the pastern,
the navicular bone turns or rolls upon the other
bones rather than descends or ascends, and with
this remarkable advantage, that when the pastern
is extended (see p. 43'2), the navicular bone is
placed in that situation which enables the flexor
tendon to act with greatest advantage in again
bending the foot.

THE CARTILAGES OF THE FOOT.

There is a groove extending along the upper
part of the coffin-bone and on either side, except
at the protuberance wdiich receives the extensor
tendon e, p. 432, occupied by cartilage, which,
like the crust, is convex outwards and concave in-
wards. It extends to the very posterior part of the
foot, rising about the quarters half an inch or more
above the hoof, and diminishing in height forward
and backward. These cartilages occupy a greater
portion of the foot than does the coffin-bone, as
will be seen in the lowest cut, p. 435, where they
are represented as extending far behind the coffin-
bone. They are held in their situation not merely
by this groove, but by other connexions with the
coffin-bone, the navicular bone, and the flexor
tendon, and are thus perfectly secured.

Below are other cartilages connected with the

under edges of the former, and on either side of
the frog.

Between these cartilages is the sensible frog,
filling up the whole of the space, and answering
several important purposes, being an elastic bed
on which the navicular bone and the tendon (see
p. 432) can play with security, and without con-
cussion or shock, by w'hich all concussion commu-
nicated to the cartilages of the foot are destroyed
— by which these cartilages are kept asunder, and
the expansion of the upper part of the foot pre-
served. As the descent of the sole increases the
width of the lower part of the foot, so the eleva-
tion of the frog, a portion of it being pressed
upward and outward by the action of the navicular
bone and tendon, causes the expansion of its upper
part. Precisely as the strong muscle peculiar to
quadrupeds at the back of the eye (see p. 277),
being forcibly contracted, presses upon the fatty
matter in which the eye is imbedded, which may
be displaced, but cannot be squeezed into less
compass, and which, beingforced towards the inner
corner of the eye, drives before it that important
and beautiful mechanism the haw, so the elastic
and yielding substance the frog, being pressed
upon by the ua^^cular bone and the tendon, and
the jiasteru, and refusing to be condensed into less
compass, forces itself out on either side of them,
and expands the lateral cartilages, which again, by
their inherent elasticity, recur to their former
situation, when the frog no longer presses them
outward. It appears, that by a different mechan-
ism, but both equally admirable, and referable to
the same principle, viz., that of elasticity, the
expansion of the upper and lower portions of the
hoof are eflected, the one by the descent of the
sole, the other by the compression and rising of the
frog.

It is this expansion upward, which contributes
principally to the preservation of the usefulness
of the horse, when our destructive methods of shoe-
ing are so calculated to destroy the expansion
beneath. In draught horses, from the long-con-
tinued as well as violent pressure on the frog, and
from the frog on the cartilage, inflammation is
occasionally produced, which terminates in the
cartilages being changed into bony matter.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE DISEASES OF THE FOOT.

Of these there is a long list. That will not be
wondered at by those who have duly considered the
complicated structure of the foot, the duty it has
to perform, and the injuries to which it is exposed.
It will be proper to commence with that which is

the cause of many other diseases of the foot, and
connected with almost aU.

INFLAMM.VTION OF THE FOOT, OR ACUTE FOUKDER.

The sensible laminae, or fleshy plates on the

THE IIOKSK.

457

front and sides of the coffin-bone, being replete
with blood-vessels, are, like every other vascular
part, liable to inflammation, from its usual causes,
and particularly from the violence with which, in
rapid and long-continued action, these parts are
strained and bruised. When in a severely con-
tested race they have been stretched to their utmost,
while, at the fullest stride of the horse, his weight
has been thrown on them with destructive force ;
or, when the feet have been battered and bruised
in a hard day's journey, it will be no wonder if
inflammation of the over-worked parts should
ensue, and the occurrence of it may probably be
produced and the disease aggravated by the too
prevalent absurd mode of treating the animal. If
a horse that has been ridden or driven hard is
suffered to stand in the cold, or if his feet are
washed and not speedily dried, he is very likely to
have " fever in the feet." There is no more fruit-
ful source of inflammation in the human being, or
the brute, than these sudden changes of tempera-
ture. This has been explained as it regards grease,
but it bears more immediately on the point now
under consideration. The danger is not confined
to change from heat to cold. Sudden transition
from cold to heat is as injurious, and therefore it
is that so many horses, after having been ridden
far in frost and snow, and placed 'immediately in
a hot stable, and littered up to the luiees, are
attacked by this complaint. The feet and the
lungs are the organs oftenest attacked, because
they have previously suffered most by our mis-
management, and are most disposed to take on
disease, and that which would cause slight inflam-
mation of other parts, or trifling general derange-
ment, will produce all its mischief on these organs ;
therefore it is that horses, the crust or lamins of
whose feet are wai-ped or obliquely placed, ai'e most
subject to it.

Sometimes there is a sudden change of inflam-
mation from one organ to another. A horse may
have lalioured for several days under evident in-
flammation of the lungs ; all at once that will sub-
side, and the disease will appear in the feet, or
inflammation of the feet may follow similar aifec-
tions in the bowels or the eyes. In cases of se-
vere inflammation of the lungs, it may not be bad
practice to remove the shoes and poultice the feet.

To the attentive observer the symptoms are
clearly marked, and yet there is no disease so
often overlooked by the groom and the carter, and
even by the veterinary surgeon. The disease may
assume an acute or a chronic form. The earliest
symptoms of fever in the feet are fidgetiness, fre-
quent shifting of the fore-legs, but no pawing,
much less any attempts to reach the belly with the
hind-feet. The pulse is quickened, the flanks
heaving, the nostrils red, and the horse, by his
an.\ious countenance, and possibly moaning, indi-

cating great pain. Presently he looks about his
litter, as if preparing to lie down, but he does not
do so immediately ; he continues to shift liis
weight from foot to foot ; he is afraid to draw his
feet sufficiently under him for the purpose of lying
down : but at length he drops. Tlie circumstance
of his lying down at an early period of the disease
will sufficient!}' distinguish inflammation of the
feet from that of the lungs, in which the horse ob-
stinately persists in standing until he drops from
mere exhaustion. His quietness when down will
distinguish it from colic or inflammation of the
bowels, in both of which the horse is up and down,
and frequently rolling and kicking when down.
When the grievance is in the feet, the horse expe-
riences so much relief, from getting rid of the
weight painfully distending the inflamed and
highly sensible laminte, that he is glad to lie as
long as he can. He will likewise, as clearly as
in inflammation of the lungs or bowels, point out
the seat of disease by looking at the part. His
muzzle mil often rest on the feet or the affected
foot. He must be inattentive who is not aware of
what all this indicates.

If the feet are now examined, they will be
found evidently hot. The patient will express
pain if they are slightly rapped with a hammer,
and the artery at the pastern will throb violently.
No great time will now pass, if the disease is suf-
fere 1 to pursue its course, before he will be per-
fectly unable to rise ; or, if he is forced to get up,
and one foot is lifted, he will stand with difficulty
on the other, or perhaps drop at once fi'om inten-
sity of pain.

The treatment will resemble that of other in-
flammations, with such differences as the situation
of the disease may suggest. Bleeding is indis-
pensable ; and that to its fullest extent. If the
disease is confined to the fore-feet, four quarts of
blood should be taken as soon as possible from the
toe of each at the situation pointed out, fig. z, p.
43'2, and in the manner already described; care
being taken to open the artery as well as the vein.
The feet may likewise be put into warm water, to
quicken the flow of the blood, and increase the
quantity abstracted. Poultices of linseed meal,
made very soft, should cover the whole of the foot
and pastern, and be frequently renewed, wliich
will promote evaporation from the neighbouring
parts, and possibly through the pores of the hoof,
and, by softening and rendering supple the hoof,
will relieve its painful pressure on the swelled and
tender parts beneath. More fully to accomplish
this last purpose, the shoe should be removed, the
sole pared as thin as possible, and the ci^ust, and
particularly the quartei's, well rasped. All this
must be done gently, and with a great deal of
patience, for the poor animal can scarcely bear his
feet to be meddled with. There used to be occa'

458

TUK HOKSE.

sional doutt as to the aclministi'ation of physic,
from fear of metastasis of inflammation, which has
sometimes occurred, and been generally fatal.
When, however, there is so much danger of losing
the patient from the original attack, we must run
the risk of tlie other. Sedative and cooling me-
dicines should be diligently administered, consist-
ing of digitalis, nitre, and emetic tartar.

If no amendment is observed, three quarts of
blood should be taken from each foot on the follow-
ing day. In extreme cases, a third bleedmg of
two quarts may be justifiable, and, instead of the
poultice, cloths kept wet with water in which
nitre has been dissolved immediately before, and
iu the proportion of an ounce of nitre to a pound
of water, may be wrapped round the feet. About
the third day a blister may be tried, taking in the
whole of the pastern and the coronet ; but a cradle
must previously be put on the neck of the horse,
and the feet must be covered after the blister, or
they will probably be sadly blemished. The
horse should be kept on mash diet, unless green
meat can be procured for him; and even that
should not be given too liberally, nor should he,
in the slightest degree, be coaxed to eat. When
he appears to be recovering, his getting on his
feet should not be hurried. It should be left per-
fectly to his own discretion ; nor should even
walking exercise be permitted until he stands firm
on his feet. When that is the case, and the sea-
son win permit, two months' run at grass will be
veiy serviceable.

It is not always, however, or often, that in-
flammation of the feet is thus easily subdued ;
and, if it is subdued, it sometimes leaves after it
some fearful consequences. The loss of the hoof
is not an unfrequent one. About six or seven
days from the first attack, a slight separation will
begin to appear between the coronet and the hoof.
This should be carefully attended to, for the sepa-
rated horn will never again unite with the parts
beneath, but the disunion will extend, and the
hoof will be lost. It is true that a new hoof will
be formed, but it will be smaller in size and
weaker than the first, and will rarely stand hard
woi'k. When this separation is observed, it will
be a matter of calculation with the proprietor of
the horse whether he will suffer the medical treat-
ment to proceed.

CHRONIC LAMINITIS.

This is a species of founder, insidious in its
attack, and destructive to the horse. It is a
milder form of the preceding disease. There is
lameness, but it is not so severe as in the former
case. .The horse stands as usual. The crust is
wai-ni, and that warmth is constant, but it is not
often probably greater than in a state of health.
The surest symptom is the action of the animal.

It is diametrically opposite to that in the navicular
disease. The horse throws as much of his weight
as he can, on the posterior parts of his feet.

The treatment should be similar to that re-
commended for the acute disease — blood-letting,
cataplasms, fomentations, and blisters, and the
last much sooner and much more frequently than
iu the former disease.

PUMCED FEET.

The sensible and hoi-ny little plates which
were elongated and partially separated during the
intensity of the inflammation of founder, will not
always perfectly unite again, or will have lost
much of their elasticity, and the coffin-bone, no
longer fully supported by them, presses upon the
sole, and the sole becomes flattened, or convex,
from this unnatural weight, and the horse acquires
a pumiced foot. This will also happen when the
animal is used too soon after an attack of inflam-
mation of the feet, and before the lamiufe have re-
gained suflicient strength to support the weight of
the horse, or to contract again by their elastic
power when they have yielded to the weight.
When the coffin-bone is thus thrown on the sole,
and renders it pumiced, the crust at the front of
the hoof will "fall in," leaving a kind of hollow
about the middle of it.

Pumiced feet, especially in horses with large,
wide feet, are frequently produced without this
acute inflammation. Undue work, and especially
much battering of the feet on the pavement, will
extend and sprain these laminte so much, that
they will not have the power to contract, and thus
the coffin-bone will be throwii backward on the
sole. A veiy important law of nature will unfor-
tunately soon be active here. When pressure
is applied to any part, the absorbents become busy
in removing it ; so, when the coffin-bone begins to
press upon the sole, the sole becomes thin from
the increased wear and tear to which it is sub-
jected by contact with the ground, and also be-
cause these absorbents are rapidly taking it away.

This is one of the diseases of the feet for
which there is no cure. No skill is competent to
eifect a reunion between the separated fleshy and
horny laminse, or to restore to them the strength
and elasticity of which they have been deprived,
or to take up that hard horny substance which
speedily fills the space between the crust and the
receding coffin-bone. Some efforts have been
made to palliate the disease, but they have been
only to a slight degree successful. If horses, on
the first appearance of flat feet, were turned out
in a dry place, or put into a box for two or three
months, sufficient sti'ess would not be thrown on
the laminfB to increase the evil, and time might
be given for the growth of horn enough in the sole
to support the coffin-bone ; yet it is much to be

THE IlOUSIi.

4')D

doubted whether these horses would ever be use-
ful, eveu for ordinaiy purposes. The slowest
work required of them would drive the cofEn-boue
on the sole, and the projection would gradually
reappear, for no power and no length of time can
again unite the separated leaves of the coffin-bone
and the hoof. All that can be done in the way of
palliation is by shoeing. Nothing must press on
the projecting and pumiced part. If the projec-
tion is not considerable, a thick bar shoe is the
best thing that can be applied ; but should the
sole have much descended, a shoe with a very wide
web, bevelled off so as not to press on the part,
may be used. These means of relief, however,
are only temporary, the disease will proceed ; and at
no great distance of time, the horse will be useless.

The occasional removal of the shoe, and com-
pelling tlie horse to stand for awhile on the crust
and lamince, has been resorted to. The bar shoe
and the leathern sole, and occasional dressing with
tar ointment have had their advocates, and it is
sufficiently plain that the pumiced foot should have
plenty of cover.

A somewhat similar affection, known by the
name of a " Seed}^ Toe," is thns described by Mr.
W. C. Spooner : — ■" It can scarcely be called a
disease, but it is rather a natural defect, which
may be considerably increased by labour and bad
shoeing. It arises from too great dryness of the
horn, wliich renders it brittle, and causes its fibres
to separate. There is a want cif that tough elastic
material which connects the longitudinal fibres
together, and produces that strong bond of union
between them and the horny laminae and the sole.
There is a hollow space -(vithin the foot, which
sometimes extends upward and around, so as to
admit a large probe. Neither the bone nor the
laminae, however, ai'e exposed, but are still pro-
tected by the internal portion of the crust. The
only thing to be done is to anoint the foot occa-
sionally, jtarticularly the affected part, with tar
and grease. A blister may also be applied to e.x-
cite the development of anew growth of horn, that
which is become dry and brittle being occasionally
cut away." *

CONTRACTION.

The cut, p. -151, will give a fair idea of the
young healthy foot, approaching nearly to a circle,
and of which the quarters form the widest part,
and the inner quarter (this is the near foot) rather
wider than the outer. This shape is not long
preserved in many horses, but the foot increases
in length, and narrows in the quarters, and parti-
cularly at the heel, and the frog is dimmished iu
width, and the sole becomes more concave, and
the heels higher, and lameness, or at least a short-
ened and feeling action, ensues.

* Spooner on the Foot of the Horse.

It must be premised that there is a gre:it deal
more horror of contracted heels than there is occa-
sion for. Many persons reject a horse at once if
the quarters are wiring in ; but the fact is, that
although this is an utniatural form of the hoof, it
is slow of growth, and nature kindly makes that
provision for the slowly altered form of the hoof
which she does in similar cases — she accommo-
dates the parts to the change of form. As the
hoof draws in, the parts beneath, and particularly
the coffin-bone, and especially the heels of that
bone, diminish ; or, after all, it is more a change
of form than of capacity. As the foot lengthens
in proportion as it narrows, so does the coffin-bone,
and it is as perfectly adjusted as before to the bo.^c
in which it is placed. Its lamintB are in as inti-
mate and perfect union with those of the crust as
before the hoof had begun to change. On this
account it is that many horses, with very contracted
feet, are perfectly sound, and no horse should be
rejected merely because he has contraction. He
should undoubtedly be examined more carefully,
and with considerable suspicion ; but if he has
good action, and is otherwise unexceptionable,
there is no reason that the purchase should not be
made. A horse with contracted feet, if he goes
sound, is better than another with open but weak
heels.

The opinion is perfectly erroneous that con-
traction is the necessary consequence of shoeing.
There can be no doubt that an inflexible iron ring
being nailed to the foot prevents, to a very consi-
derable degree, the descent of the sole and the
expansion of the heels below ; and it is likewise
probable, that when the expansion of the heels is
prevented they often begin to contract. But here
again nature, cut off from one resource, finds othei's.
If one of the jugular veins is lost, the blood pur-
sues its course by other channels, and the horse
does not appear to suffer in the slightest degree.
Thus also if the expansion of the heels below is
diminished, that of the cartilages above is made
more use of. If the coffin-bone has not so much
descent downward, it probably acquires one back-
ward, and the functions of the foot are usefully if
not perfectly performed. The plain proof of this
is, that although there are many horses that are
injured or ruined by bad shoeing, there are othere,
and they are a numerous class, who suffer not at
all from good shoeing, and scarcely even from bad.
Excejit it be from accident, how seldom is the
farmer's horse lame ? and it might even be farther
asked, how seldom is his foot much contracted '?
Some gentlemen who are careful of their horses
have driven them twenty years, and principally
over the rough pavement of towns, without a day's
lameness. Shoeing may be a necessary evil, but
it is not the evil which some speculative persons
have supposed it to be ; and the undoubted fact is,

4G0

THE HOUSE.

that ■wlien the horse is put to real hard work, and
when the injury produced Ly shoeing in destroying
the expansibility of the foot ■n'onld most of all show
itself, the foot lasts a great deal longer than tlie
leg; nay, horsemen tell lis that one pair of good
feet is worth two pairs of legs.

Having thus premised that contraction is not
inevitably accompanied by lameness, and that
shoeing, with all its evils, does not necessarily
injure the foot, those cases of contraction, too
numerous, which are the consequence of our stable
management, and which do cripple and ruin the
horse, may be considered. There is nothing in
the appearance of the feet which would enable us
to decide when contraction is or is not destructive
to the usefulness of the animal ; his manner of
going, and his cajiability for work, must be our
guides. Lameness usually accompanies the be-
ginning of contraction ; it is the invariable attend-
ant on rapid contraction, but it does not always
exist when the iviring in is slow or of long standing.

A very excellent writer, particularly when treat-
ing of the foot of the horse, Mr. Blaine, has given
us a long and correct list of the causes of injurious
contraction, and most of them are, fortunately,
under the control of the owner of the animal. He
places at the head of them, neglect of paring. The
lioof is continually growing, the crust is lengthen-
ing, and the sole is thickening. This is a provision
for the wear and tear of the foot in an unshod state ;
but when it is protected by a shoe, and none of the
horn can be worn away by coming in contact with
the ground, and the growth of honi continues, the
hoof grows high, and the sole gets thick, and, in
consequence of this, the descent of the sole and
the expansion of tlie heels are prevented, and con-
traction is the result. The smith might lessen, if
not prevent the evil, by carefully thinning the sole
and lowering the heels at each shoeing ; but the
first of these is a matter of considerable labour,
and the second could not be done effectually with-
out being accompanied by the first, and therefore
they are both neglected. The prejudice of many
owners of horses assists in increasing the evil ; they
imagine that a great deal of mischief is done by
cutting away the foot. Mischief may be the result
of injudicious cutting, when the bars are destroyed
and the frog is elevated from the ground ; but more
e\'il results from the unyielding thickness of horn
impairing the elastic and expansive principle of
the foot. If gentlemen would occasionally stand
by, and see that the sole is properly thinned, and
the heels lowered, they would be amj)ly repaid in
the comfort and usefulness of the horse.

Ill-judged economy is another source of this
disease. If the shoes of one smith will, with ordi-
naiy work, last a little more than three weeks,
while another contris-es to make his last six weeks,
he is supposed to be the better workman and the

more honest man, and he gets the greater part of
the custom. His shoe is suffered to remain on
during the whole time, to the manifest injury of
the feet, and that injuiy is materially increased by
the greater thickness and weight of these shoes,
and the tightness with which they are fastened on,
the nails being necessarily placed nearer to the
quarters, and possibly an additional nail or two
used in the fastening, and these also applied at the
quarters. There is no rule which admits of so little
exception, as that, once in about every three weeks,
the growth of horn which the natural wear of the
foot cannot get rid of, should be pared away — the
toe should be shortened in most feet — the sole
should be thinned, and the heels lowered. Every
one who has carefully observed the shape of the
horse's foot, must have seen that in proportion to
its height or neglected growth, it contracts and
closes round the coronet. A low-heeled horse
might have other serious defects, of which it will
be our duty to speak, but he has seldom a contracted
foot.

Another source of contraction is the want of
natural moisture. The unshod colt has seldom
contracted feet, nor does the horse at grass acquire
them, because the hoof is kept cool and damp by
occasional rain, and by the regular dew. It is thus
rendered supple, and its elasticity is preserved, and
the expansive power of the foot is uninjured. The
hoof of the stabled horse sometimes has not one
drop of moisture on it for several days. The effect
of this, in the contraction of the horn, is sufficiently
evident. Hence the propriety of stopping the feet
where there is the least tendency to contraction.
The intelligent and careful gi'oom will not omit it
a single night. Cow-dung, with a small portion of
clay to give it consistence, is a common and very
good stopping. A better one is a piece of thick
felt cut to the shape of the sole and soaked in
water. The common stopping of tar and grease is
peculiarly objectionable, for it closes the pores of
the feet, and ultimately increases the dryness and
brittleness which it was designed to remedy.

The usua> management of the farmer's horse
that is often turned out after his daily task is ex-
acted, or whose work is generally performed where
the feet are exposed to moisture, is an excellent
preventive against contraction.

Some persons have complained much of the
influence of litter. If the horse stands many hours
in the day with his feet imbedded in straw, it is
supposed that the hoof must be unnaturally heated ;
and it is said that the horn will contract under the
influence of heat. It is seldom, however, that the
foot is so surrounded by the litter that its heat will
be sufficiently increased to produce this effect. It
will be difficult to produce the case in which con-
traction, or thmsh, or tenderness, have been pro-
duced by the horse standing on dry litter. There

THE HORSE.

461

are thousands of horses that stand upon straw
twenty hours out of the tw^ent3'-four, without receiv-
ing the slightest injury from it. The autlior of
this work is not one of those who would, during the
day, remove all litter from under the horse. It
gives a naked and uncomfortable appearance to the
stable. There is a considerable difference in our
own feelings whether we stand for an hour or two
on the hard stones, or a soft carpet, and especially
whether we beat our feet upon the one or the other.
Humanity and a proper care of the foot of the
horse should induce the owner to keep some litter
under the animal during the day ; but his feet need
not sink so deeply in it that their temperature be-
comes much affected. If the straw is suffered to
remain until it is wet, hot, and rotten, the effluvia
jiroceeding from it may produce cough, or inflam-
mation of the eyes, or thrushes in the feet ; but a
light bed of straw, with tolerable attention to clean-
liness, can never do harm. " There are horses,"
says Professor Stewart, " that, in the habit of paw-
ing and stamping, slip about and sometimes lame
themselves on the bare stones ; many disposed to
lie down during the day, will not, or ought not, to
do it, with a slight portion of litter under them. It
is a frequent observation with regard to road horses,
and many others, that the more a horse lies the
better he works. Lame or tender-footed horses
cannot lie too much, and a great deal of standing-
ruins the best legs and feet. Some horses, indeed,
do not need this day-bedding, but many are the
better for it, and none are the worse."*

Thrushes are much oftener the consequence
than the cause of contraction. The horny frog,
yielding to the pressure of the contracted quarters,
is diminished in size, and the lower portion of the
fleshy frog becomes iinprisoned, irritated, and in-
flamed, and pus or matter is discharged at the cleft ;
yet there are many heels in the last stage of con-
traction that are not thrushy. On the other hand,
thrush never long existed, accompanied by much
discharge, without producing a disposition to con-
traction ; therefore, thrush may be considei'ed as
both the cause and consequence of "contraction.

The removal of the bars takes away a main
impediment to contraction. Their use in assisting
tlie expansion of the foot has been already stated,
and should a disposition to contraction be produced
by any other cause, the cutting aviaj of the bars
would hasten and aggravate the e\il ; but the loss
of the bar would not of itself produce contraction.

The contraction, however, that is connected
with permanent lameness, although increased by
the circumstances which we have mentioned, usually
derives its origin from a different source, and from
one that acts violently and suddenly. Inflamma-
tion of the little plates covering the coflin-bone is
the most usual cause ; and a degree of inflammation

• Stewart's Stable Economy, p. ]39.

not sufficiently intense to be characteristd as acute
founder, but quickly leading to sad results, may
and does spring from causes almost unsuspected.
There is one fact to which we have alluded, and
that cannot be doubted, that contraction is exceed-
ingly rare in the agricultural horse, but frequently
occurs in the stable of the gentleman and the
coach-proprietor. It is rare where the horse is
seemingly neglected and badly shod ; and frequent
where every care is taken of the animal, and the
shoes are unexceptionable and skilfully applied.
Something may depend upon the breed. Blood
horses are particularly liable to contraction. Not
only is the foot naturally small, but it is disposed
to become narrower at the heels. On the other
hand, the broad, flat foot of the cart-horse is
subject to diseases enough, but contraction is
seldom one of the number.f In horses of equal
blood not a little seems to depend upon the colour,
and the dark chesnut is proverbially prone to con-
traction.

Whatever is the cause of that rapid contraction
or narrowing of the heels which is accom25anied by
severe lameness, the symptoms may be easily dis-
tinguished. While standing in the stable the horse
will point with, or place forward, the contracted
foot, or, if both feet are affected, he will alternately
place one before the other. When he is taken out
of the stable, he will not, perhaps, exhibit the de-
cided lameness which characterises sprain of the
flexor tendon, or some diseases of the foot ; but his
step will be peculiarly short and quick, and the
feet will be placed gently and tenderly on the
ground, or scarcely lifted from it in the walk or the
trot. It would seem as if the slightest irregularity
of surface would throw the animal down, and so it
threatens to do, for he is constantly tripping and
stumbling. If the fore feet are carefully observed,
one or both of them will be narrowed across the
quarters and towards the heels. In a few cases
the whole of the foot appears to be contracted and
shrunli ; but in the majority of instances, while tlie
heels are narrower, the foot is longer. The con-
traction appears sometimes in both heels : at other
times in the inner heel only ; or, if both are affected,
the inner one is wired in the most, either from the
coronet to the base of the foot, or only or principally
at the coronet — oftener near the base of the foot —
but in most cases the hollow being gi-eatest about

+ A vjilni ,1 r.ir;, OM>n-h!it sviggcsts, that the difference between
these two l-i: ■ i i, - ^ may perhaps throw some light on the
subjec^t. 11. liid and heavy pressure on the frog in

the cart-hol.^. i ..ui;iLc^ '.■.•>-iiieation of the cartilages from which Uie
blood-horse ij. free. In the quiclincss of the action of the blond-
horse, the expansion of the frog is not sufficiently continued to pro-
duce this efleci : hut the concussion is severe, and the frog and the
shorter lumiua towards the heel are the first to suffer, and contrac-
tion ensues. We do not find contraction in the hind feet, where
there is little contraction, nor ossification, because the pressure is
chiefly on the toe. Quick draught horses have it both ways, but
chielly in contraelioii.

The reader will form his own opinion on this subject.

4 02

THE HORSE.

mid-way between the coronet and the bottom of the
foot. This irregulaiity of contraction, and uncer-
tainty as to the place of it, prove that it is some
internal disorganization, the seat of which varies
with the portion of the attachment between the
hoof and the foot that was principally strained or
injured. In every recent case the contracted part
will be hotter- than the rest of the foot, and the
sole toII, in the majority of cases, be unnaturally
concave.

Of the treatment of contraction attended with
lameness, little can be said that will be satisfactory.
Numberless have been the mechanical contrivances
to oppose the progress of contraction, or to force
back the foot to its original shape, and many of
them have enjoyed considerable but short-lived
reputation. A clip was placed at the inside of each
heel, which, resting on the bars, was intended to
afford an insurmountable obstacle to the further
wu-ing in of the foot, while the heels of the shoe
were bevelled outward in order to give the foot a
tendency to expand. The foot, however, continued
to contract, until the clip was imbedded in the horn,
and worse lameness was produced.

A shoe jointed at the toe, and with a screw
adapted to the heels, was contrived,by which, when
softened by poulticing, or immei'sion in wai'm
water, the quartei-s were to be irresistibly widened.
They were widened by the daily and cautious use
of the screw until the foot seemed to assume its
natural form, and the inventor began to exult in
having discovered a cure for contraction : but, no
sooner was the common shoe again applied, and the
horse had returned to his work, than the heels
began to narrow, and the foot became as contracted
as ever. Common sense would have foretold that
such must have been the result of this expansive
process ; for the heels could have been only thus
forced asunder at the expense of partial or total
separation from the interior portions of the foot
with which ihej were in contact.

The contracted heel can rarely or never perma-
nently expand, for this plain reason, that although
we may have power over the crust, we cannot renew
the laminse, or restore the portion of the frog that
has been absorbed.

If the action of the horse is not materially
impaired, it is better to let the contraction alone,
be it as great as it will. If the contraction has
evidently produced considerable lameness, the
owuer of the horse will have to calculate between
his value if cured, the expense of the cure, and
the probability of failure.

The medical treatment should alone be undei'-
taken by a sldlful veterinary surgeon, and it will
principally consist in abating any mflammation that
may exist, by local bleeding and physic, paring the
sole to the utmost extent that it will bear ; rasping
the quarters as deeply as can be, without their being

too much weakened, or the coronary ring (see- b,
p. 4.33) injured ; rasping deeply likewise at the toe,
and perhaps scoring at the toe. The horse is
afterwards made to stand during the day in wet
clay, placed in one of the stalls. He is at night
moved into another stall, and his feet bound up
thickly in wet cloths ; or he is turned out into wet
pasturage, with tips, or, if possible^ without them,
and his feet are frequently pared out, and the
quarters lightly rasped. In five or six months the
horn will generally have grown do^\Ti, when he may
be taken up, and shod with shoes unattached by
nails on the inner side of the foot, and put to gentle
work. The foot will be found very considerably
enlarged, and the owner will, perhaps, think that
the cure is accomplished. The horse may, possibly,
for a time stand very gentle work, and the inner
side of the foot being left at liberty, its natural
expansive process may be resumed : the internal
part of the foot, however, has not been healthily
filled up ^vith the expansion of the crust. If that
expansion has been effected forward on the quarters,
the crust will no longer be in contact with the
lengthened and narrowed heels of the coffin-bone.
There will not be the natural adhesion and strength,
and a very slight cause, or even the very habit of
contraction, will, in spite of all care and the free-
dom of the inner quarter, in very many instances,
cause the foot to wire in again as badly as before.

THE NAVICDLAR-JOIST DISEASE.

Many liorses with well-formed and open feet
become sadly and permanently lame, and vete-
rinary surgeons have been puzzled to discover tlie
cause. The farrier has had his convenient exj^la-
nation "the shoulder;" but the scientific jsracti-
tioner may not have been able to discover an os-
tensible cause of lameness in the whole limb.
There is no one accustomed to horses who does
not recollect an instance of this.

By reference to the cut, e, p. 433, it will be
seen that, behind and beneath the lower pastern-
bone, and behind and above the heel of the coffin-
bone, is a small bone called the navicular or
shuttle bone. It is so placed as to strengthen
the union between the lower pastern and the
coffin-bone, and to enable the flexor tendon, which
passes over it in order to be inserted into the
bottom of the coffin-bone, to act with more advan-
tage. It forms a kind of joint with that tendon.
There is a great deal of weight thrown on the
navicular-bone, and from the navicular-bone on the
tendon ; and there is a great deal of motion or
play between them in the bending and extension
of the pasterns. It is very easy to conceive that,
from sudden concussion, or from rapid and over-
strained motion, and that, perhaps, after the
animal has been sometime at rest, and the parts
have not adapted themselves for motion, there

THE HOUKE.

40 '3

may be too much play liehveen the bone and the
tendon — the dehcate membrane which covers the
bone, or the cartilage of the bone, may be bruised,
and inflamed, and destroyed ; that all the painful
effects of an inflamed and open joint may ensue,
and the horse be irrecoverably lame. Numerous
dissections have shown that this joint, formed by
the tendon and the bone, has been the frequent,
and the almost invariable, seat of these obscure
lamenesses. The membrane covering the carti-
lage of the bone has been found in an ulcerated
state ; the cartilage itself has been ulcerated and
eaten away ; the bone has become carious or de-
cayed, and bony adhesions have taken place be-
tween the navicular and the pastern and the
coffin-bones, and this part of the foot has often
become completely disorganised and useless. This
joint is probably the seat of lameness, not only in
well-formed and perfect feet, but in those which
become lame after contraction ; for in proportion
as the inner frog is compressed by the contraction
of the heels, and is absorbed by that pressure, and
the sole is become concave, and the horny frog,
and the coffin-bone too, thereby elevated, there
will be less room for the action of this joint, and
more danger of the tendon and the delicate mem-
brane of the navioular-bone being cnished be-
tween that bone and the homy frog.

Stable management has little to do with the
production of this disease, any farther than if a
horse stands idle in the stable several days, and
the structure of the foot, and all the apparatus
connected with motion, become unused to exer-
tion, and indisposed for it, and he is then sud-
denly and violently exercised, this membrane is
very liable to be bniised and injured. This,
amongst other evils, will be lessened by a loose
box, in which a horse will always take some
exercise.*

The cure of navicular disease is difficult and
uncertain. The first and all-important point is
the removal of the inflammation in this very sus-
ceptible membrane. Local bleediug, poidtioiug,
and physic will be bur principal resources. If
there is contraction, this must, if possible, be re-
moved by the means already pointed out. If

* To Mr. James TLiiner the veterinary profession is indebted
for a knowledije of the seat and cunse of tLis lameness. In the
year 1816 he first alluded to it, and the tiuth and importance of
his discovery is now universally allowed.

According to Mr. Turner, conti-action of the hoof is more or
less apparent in the majority of horses that have been accustomed
to be shod. This is often long before they have attained the
highest value for work, and not unfreqiiently before they are five
years old. This contraction is not, however, necessarily con-
nected with lameness — a large proportion of horses in the very
miclst of labour are perfectly free from lameness.

The next deviation from nature is the passive state to which
the foot is submitted at least twenty-two or twenty.thi'ee hours out
iif the twenty-four, and sometimes for several ctmsecutive days.
Let this be compared with the few hours during which the feet of
a horse at paslui-e are in a quiescent state, and there will be no
cause of surprise in tlie chai'ge of form and position, and cha-

there is no contraction, it will nevertheless bo
prudent to get rid of all surrounding pressure, and
to unfetter, as much as possible, the inside heel
of the colEn-bone, by paring the sole and i-asping
the quarters, and using the shoe without nails on
the inner quarter, and ajiplying cold poultices to
the coronet and the whole of the foot. Thi.s is a
case, however, which must be turned over to the
veterinary surgeon, for be tdone, from his know-
ledge of the anatomy of the foot, and the precise
seat of the disease, is competent to treat it. If
attacked on its earliest appearance, and before
ulceration of the membrane of the joint has taken
place, it may be radically cured : but ulceration
of the membrane -nill be with difficulty healed,
and caries of the bone will for ever remain.

Blistering the coronet will often assist in pro-
moting a cure by diverting the inflammation to
another part, and it will materially quicken the
growth of the horn. A setou passed through the
frog by a skilful operator, and approaching as
nearly as possible to the seat of disease, has been
seiwiceable.

In cases of old contraction, attended by a short
and feeling step, neurotomy, or the excision of a
portion of the nerve (for an explanation of the
nature and effects of which see p. '299), may be
resorted to with decided advantage. Not only
will the lameness be removed, but, by the foot
being again brought fidly and firmly upon the
ground, the inner side of the shoe being unfet-
tered by nails, a portion of the contraction may be
removed by the sole being allowed to descend and
the foot to expand at each contact with the ground.

Even when the navioular-joint is particularly
suspected, if there is no apparent inflammation
(and that would be readily detected by the heat of
the foot), neurotomy may be practised with tlie
hope of alleviating the sufferings of the animal,
and thus removing a portion of the lameness ; but
if the lameness is extreme, either with or without
contraction, and especially if there is heat about
the foot, the operation is dangerous. There is,
probably, ulceration of the membrane — possibly,
decay of the bone ; and the additional friction to
which the parts would be subjected, by the freer

racter, and the state of contraction — which takes place in the foot
deprived of its natural pressure and motion.

The first consequence of contraction is the gradual displace-
ment of the navicular and coifin bones. They ascend within the
hoof An unnatural arch is formed by the ascent of the frog, and
the delicate synovial membrane lining the joint is crushed and
bruised by the very material which nature has bestowed as a de-
fence. This bruise of the synovial membrane lining the joint is
the veiitable source of this complaint, the actual cause of the
whole not consisting in the wear and tear of the part, but having
its origin in rest. It is engendered in the stable, but it becomes
permanently established by sudden violence out of it. General
contraction of the foot of tlie horse may take place to a great ex-
tent with comparative impunity, but it is a partial contraction or
pressure which is the root of the evil. — Turner on ihc Xavkular
Disease, Veterinarian, vol. ii.,p. o3.

IG4

THE HORSE.

action of the horse, the sense of pain being re-
moved, would cause that ulceration or decaj to
proceed more rapidly until the foot would be com-
pletely disorganised, or the tendon would be gra-
dually worn through by rubbing against the
roughened surface of the bone.

SAND-CKACK.

This, as its name imports, is a crack or divi-
sion of the hoof from above downward, and into
which sand and dirt are too apt to insinuate
themselves. It is so called, because it most fre-
quently occurs in sandy districts, the heat of the
sand applied to the feet giving them a disposition
to crack. It occurs both in the fore and the hind
feet. In the fore feet it is usually found in the
inner quarter (see g, p. 4301, but occasionally in
the outer quarter, because there is the jDrincipal
stress or effort towards expansion in the foot, and
the inner quarter is weaker than the outer. In
the hind feet the crack is almost invariably found
in the front, because in the digging of the toe
into the ground in the act of drawing, the prin-
cipal stress is in front.

This is a most serious defect. It indicates a
brittleness of the crust, sometimes natural, but
oftener the consequence of mismanagement or
disease, which, in spite of every means adopted,
will probably be the source of future annoyance.
On a hoof that has once been thus divided no de-
jiendence can be placed, unless, by great care, the
natural suppleness of the horn has been restored
and is I'etained.

Sand-crack may happen in an instant from a
false step or over-exertion, and therefore a horse,
although he may spring a sand-crack within an
hour after the purchase, cannot be returned on
that account.

It is always necessary to examine the inner
quarter of the foot at the time of pm-chase, for it
has more than once occuiTsd that, by low dealers,
and particularly at fairs, a sand-crack has been
neatly covered with pitch, and then, the whole of
the hoof having been oiled, the injury was so
adroitly concealed that an incautious person
might be easily deceived.

Tlie crack sometimes does not penetrate
through the horn. It then causes no lameness ;
nevertheless, it must not be neglected. It shows
that there is brittleness, which should induce the
purchaser to pause ; and, if proper means are not
taken, it will generally soon penetrate to the
quick. It should be pared or rasped fairly out ;
and if the paring or rasping has been deep, the
foot should be strengthened by a coating of pitch,
with coarse tape bound over it, and a second
coating of pitch covering this. Every crack should
be pared or rasped to ascertain its depth. If it
penetrates through the crust, even although no

lameness exists, a firing-ii-on, red-hot, should be
passed somewhat deeply above and below it, in
order to prevent its lengthening — the edges should
lie thinned to remove any painful or injurious
pressure, and the foot should be bound up in the
manner directed, care being taken that the shoe
does not press upon the crust immediately under
the sand-crack.

If the crack has penetrated through the ciiist,
and lameness has ensued, the case is more serious.
It must be carefully examined, in order to ascer-
tain that no dirt or sand has got into it ; the edges
must be more considerably thinned, and if any
fungus is beginning to pirotrude through the crack,
and is imprisoned there, it must be destroyed by
the application of the butyr (chloride) of antimony.
This is preferable to the cautery, because the
edges of the born will not be thickened or rough-
ened, and thus become a source of after-irritation.
The iron must then be run deeply across, above,
and below the crack, as in the other case ; a
pledget of dry tow being placed in the crack, in
and over it, and the whole bomid down as tightly
as possible. On the third day the part should be
examined, and the caustic again applied if neces-
sary : but if the crack is dr3% and defended by a
hard homy crust, the sooner the pitch plaster is
put on the better.

The most serious case is, when, from tread or
neglect, the coronet is divided. The growth of
horn proceeds from the coronaiy ligament, and
unless this ligament is sound the horn will grow
down dismiited. The method to be here adopted
is to run the back of the firing-iron over the coro-
net where it is divided. Some inflammation ^vill
ensue ; and when the scab produced by the cauteiy
peels off, as it will in a few days, the division will
be obliterated, and sound and united horn ■will
grow down. When there is sufficient horn above
the crack, a horizontal line should be drawn with
a firing-iron between the sound horn and the
crack. The connexion between the sound part
and the crack will thus be prevented, and the
new horn will gradually and safely descend, but
the horse should not be used until sufficient horn
has grown down fairly to isolate the crack. In
this case, as in almost every one of sand-crack, the
horse should be kept as quiet as possible. It is
not in the power of the surgeon to effect a perfect
cure, if the owner will continue to use the animal.
When the horn is divided at the coronet, it will
be five or six months before it will grow fairly
down, and not before that, should the animal be
used even for ordinary work. When, however,
the horn has grown an inch from the coronet, the
horse may be turned out — the foot being well de-
fended by the pitch plaster, and that renewed as
often as it becomes loose — a bar-shoe being worn,
chambered so as not to press upon the hoof imme-

THE HORSE.

4C5

(liately under the crack, and that shoe being taken
off, the sole pared out, and any bulbous projection
of new horn being removed once in every three
weeks.

To remedy the undue brittleness of the hoof,
there is no better application than that recom-
mended in page 457, the sole being covered at the
same time with the common cow-dung or felt
stopping.

TEEAD AND OVEB-EEACU.

Under these terms are comprised bruises and
■wound of the coronet, inflicted by the other feet.

A Tread is said to have taken place when the
inside of the coronet of one hind foot is struck by
the calldu of the shoe of the other, and a bruised
or contused wound is inflicted. The coronary ring
is highly vascular externally, and within it is car-
tilaginous ; the blow, therefore, often produces
much pain and hemorrhage, and contusion and
destruction of the parts. The womid may appear
to be simple, but it is often of a sadly complicated
natm-e, and much time and care will need to be
expended in repairing the mischief. Mr. Perci-
vall veiy accurately states that " the wound has,
in the first place, to cast oft' a slough, consisting
of the bruised, separated, aud deadened parts ;
then the chasm thereby exposed has to granulate ;
and finally, the sore has to cicatrize and form new
lioni."-'

A tread, or wound of the coronet, must never
be neglected, lest gravel should insinuate itself
into the wound, and form deep ulcerations, called
sinuses or jjijics, and which constitute quittor.
Although some mildly stimulating escharotic may
be occasionally required, the caustic, too frequently
used by farriers, should be carefully avoided, not
only lest quittor should be formed, but lest the
coronary ligament should be so injured as to be
afterwards incapable of secreting perfect horn.
When properly treated, a tread is seldom produc-
tive of much injury. If the dirt is well washed
out of it, and a pledget of tow, dipped in Friar's
balsam, bound over the wound, it will, in the ma-
jority of cases, speedily heal. Should the bruise
be extensive or the wound deep, a poultice may be
applied for one or two days, and then the Friar's
balsam, or digestive ointment. Sometimes a soft
tumour will form ou the part, which will be
quickly brought to suppui'ation by a poultice ; and
when the matter has run out, the ulcer will heal
by the application of the Friar's balsam, or a weak
solution of blue vitriol.

An Over-reach is a tread upon the heel of the
coronet of the fore foot by the shoe of the corres-
ponding hind foot, and either inflicted by the toe
or by the inner edge of the inside of the shoe.

* Pcrcivall'sHippopathoIogy, vol. i., p. 2JS.

The preventive treatment is the bevelling, or
rounding off, of the inside edge or rim of the hind
shoes. The cure is, the cutting away of the loose
parts, the application of Friar's balsam, and pro-
tection from the dirt.

There is a singular species of over-reaching,
termed Forging or Clicking. The horse, in the act
of trotting, strikes the toes of the hind shoes
against the fore ones. The noise of the clicking
is unpleasant, and the trick or habit is not altoge-
ther free from danger. It is most frequent in
young horses, and is attributable to too great acti-
vity or length of stride in the hind legs. The
rider may do something by keeping the head of
the horse well up ; but the smith can effect more
by making the hind shoes of clicking horses short
in the toe, and having the web broad. When they
are too long, they are apt to be torn off — when too
narrow, the hind foot may bi-uise the sole of
the fore one, or may be locked fast between the
branches of the fore shoe.f

FALSE QUAETEE.

If the coronary ligament, by which the hom of
the crast is secreted, is divided by some cut or
bruise, or eaten through by any caustic, there will
occasionally be a division in the horn as it grows
down, either in the form of a pemiauent sand-
crack, or one portion of the hom overlapping the
other. It occasionally follows neglected sand-
crack, or it may be the consequence of quittor.
This is exteriorly an evident fissure in the hom,
and extending from the coronet to the sole, but
not always penetrating to the laminfe. It is a very
serious defect, and exceedingly difficult to remedy;
for occasionally, if the horse is over-weighted or
hurried on his journey, the fissure will open and
bleed, and very serious inconvenience and lameness
may ensue. Grit and dii't may insinuate itself
into the aperture, and penetrate to the sensible
lamin®. Inflammation will almost of necessity be
produced ; and much mischief will be effected.
'While the energies of the animal are not severely
taxed, he may not experience much inconvenience
or pain; but' the slightest exertion will cause the
fissui-e to expand, and painful lameness to follow.

This is not only a vei-y serious defect, but one
exceedingly difliciilt to remedy. The coronary
ligament must be restored to its perfect state, or
at° least to the discharge of its perfect function
Much danger would attend the application of the
caustic in order to effect this. A bhster is rarely
sufficiently active: but the application, not too
severely, of a heated flat or rounded iron to the
coronet, at the injured part, affords the best chance
of success — the edges of the horn on either side
of the crack being thinned, the hoof supported,

+ Stewart's Stable Economy, p. 3U3.

460

THE HORSE.

and the separated parts held together by a firm
encasement of pitch, as described when speaking
of the treatment of sand-crack. The coronet
must be examined at least once in every fortnight,
in order to ascertain whether the desired union
has taken place ; and, as a palliative during the
treatment of the case, or if the treatment should
he unsuccessful, a bar-shoe may be used, and care
taken that there be no bearing at or immediately
under the separation of the horn. This will be
best effected, when the crust is thick and the quar-
ters strong, by piaring off a little of the bottom of
the crust at the part, so that it shall not touch the
shoe ; but if the foot is weak, an indentation or
hollow should be made in the shoe. Strain or con-
cussion on the immediate part will thus be avoided,
and, in sudden.or violent exertion, the crack will
not be so likely to extend upward to the coronet,
when whole and somid horn has begun to be formed
there-
in some cases false quarter assumes a less
serious character. The horn grows down whole,
but the ligament is unable to secrete that which is
perfectly healthy, and, therefore, a narrow-slip of
horn of a different and lighter colour is produced.
This is sometimes the best result that can be jDro-
cured when the surgeon has been able to obliterate
the absolute crack or separation. It is, however,
to be regarded as a defect, not sufficient to con-
demn the horse, but indicating that he has had
sand-crack, and that a disposition to sand-crack may
possibly remain. There will also, in the generality
of cases, be some degree of tenderness in that
quarter, which may produce slight lameness when
unusual exertion is required from the horse, or the
shoe is suffered long to press on the part.

QtllTTOR.

This has been described as being the result of
neglected or bad tread or over-reach ; but it may
be the consequence of any wound in the foot, and
in any part of the foot. In the natural process of
ulceration, matter is thrown out from the wound.
It precedes the actual healing of the part. The
matter which is secreted in wounds of the foot is
usually pent up there, and, increasing in quantity,
and urging its way in every direction, it forces the
little fleshy plates of the coffin-bone, from the horny
ones of the crust, or the horny sole from the fleshy
sole, or even eats deeply into the internal parts of
the foot. These pipes or sinuses run in every
direction, and constitute the essence oiquittor.

* James Chirk, wLose works have not been valued as they
deserve, expresses in few words the real state of the case, and the
course that should be pursued : —

" We may so far palbate the complaint as to render the horse
sometiiing useful by using a shoe of sucli a construction as will
support the limb without resting or pressing too much upon the
weakened quarter." A proper slopping should also cover the sole,
on which some coarse tnw may be pliiced, and a piece of leather
over that ; the whole being coniincd by a broad web-shoe.

If it arises from a wound at the bottom of the
foot, the purulent matter which is rapidly formed is
pent up there, and the nail of the shoe or the stub
remains in the wound, or the small aperture which
was made is immediately closed again. This mat-
ter, however, continues to be secreted, and separates,
the horny sole from the fleshy one to a considerable
extent, and at length forces its way upwards, and
appears at the coronet, and usually at the quarter,
and there slowly oozes out, while the aperture and
the quantity discharged are so small 'that the inex-
jDerieuced would have no suspicion of the extentef the
mischief within, and the difficulty of repairing it.
The opening may scarcely admit a probe into it,
yet over the greater part of the quarter and the sole
the horn may have separated from the foot, and
the matter may have penetrated under the carti-
lages and ligaments, and into the coffin-joint. Not
only so, but two mischievous results may. have been
produced, — the pressure of the matter wherever it
has gone has formed. ulcerations thatare indisposed
to heal, and that .require the application of strong
and painful stimulants to induce them to heal ;
and, worse than this, the horn, once separated from
the sensible parts beneath, will never again unite ■
with them. Quitter may occur in both the fore and
the hind feet.

It will be sufficiently plain that the aid of a
skilful practitioner is here requisite, and also the
full exercise of patience in the proprietor of the
horse. It may te necessary to remove much of the
homy sole, which will be speedily reproduced when
the fleshy surface beneath can be brought to a
healthy condition ; but if much of the horn at the
quarters must be taken away, five or six months
may probably elapse before it will be sufficiently
grown down agam to render the horse useful.

Measures of considerable severity are indispen-
sable. The application of some caustic will alone
produce a healthy action on the ulcerated surfaces ;
but on the ground of interest and of humanity we
protest against that brtital practice, or at least the
extent to which it is carried, that is pursued by
many ignorant smiths, of coring out, or deeply
destroying the healthy as well as the diseased parts
— and parts whi(di no process will again restore.
The unhealthy surface must be removed ; but the
cartilages and ligaments, and even portions of the
bone, need not to be sacrificed.

The experienced veterinary surgeon will alone
be able to counsel the proprietor of the horse when,
in cases of confirmed quitter, there is reasonable
hope of permanent cure. A knowledge of the
anatomy of the foot is necessary to enable him to
decide what jmrts, indispensable to the action of the
animal, may have been irreparably injured or de-
stroyed, or to save these parts from the destructive
effect of torturing caustics. When any portion of
the bone can be felt by the probe the chances of

THE HORSE.

4C7

success are diminished, and the owner and the
operator should pause. When the joints are ex-
posed, the case is hopeless, althougli, in a great
many iustancesi, the hones and the joints are e.\-
posed hy the remedy and not by the disease. One
hint may not be necessary to the practitioner, but
it may guide the determination and hopes of the
owner : if, when a probe is introduced into the fis-
tulous orifice on the coronet, the direction of the
sinuses or jnjies is backward, there is much proba-
bility that a perfect cure may be effected ; but if
the direction of tlie sinuses is forward, the cure is
at best doubtful. In the first instance, there is
neither bone nor joint to be injured ; in the other,
the more important parts of the foot are ui danger,
and the principal action and concussion are found.
Neglected bruises of the sole sometimes lay the
foundation for quittor. When the foot is flat, it is
very liable to be hniised if the horse is ridden fast
over a rough and stony road ; or, a small stone, insi-
nuating itself between the shoe and the sole, or con-
fined hy the curvature of the shoe, will frequently
lame the horse: The heat and tenderness of the
part, the occasional redness of the horn, and-the
absence of puncture, will clearly mark the bruise.
The sole must then be thinned, and particularly
over the bruised jiart, and, in neglected oases, it
must be pared even to the quick, in order to ascer-
tain whether the inflammation has run on to sup-
puration. Bleeding at the toe will be clearly indi-
cated ; and poultices, and such other means as have
either been described under " Inflammation of the
Feet," or will be pointed out under the next head.
The principal causes of bruises of the foot are
leaving the sole too much exposed by means of a
narrow-webbed shoe, or the smith paring out the
sole too closely, or the pressure of the shoe on the
sole, or the introduction of gravel or stones between
the shoe and the sole.

The author subjoins the mode of cure in this
diseiise, as it has been practised by two veterinaiy
surgeons. They are both excellent, and, so far as
can well be the case, satisfactory.

Mr. Peixivall says : — " The ordinaiy mode of
cure consists in the introduction of caustic into the
sinus ; and so long as the cartilage pireserves its
integrity — hy which I mean, is free from caries —
tliis is perhaps the most prompt and effectual mode
of proceeding. The farrier's practice is to mix
ab(jut half a drachm of corrosive sublimate in piow-
der ^^ith tmce or thrice the quantity of flour, and
make them into a paste with water. This he takes
up hy little at a time with the point of his probe,
and works it about in the sinus until the paste ap-
pears rising in the orifice above. After this is
done he commonly has the horse walked about for
an hour or two, or even sent to slow work again,
which produces a still more effectual solution of
the caustic, at the same time that it tends greatly

to its uniform and thorough diffusion into every re-
cess and winding of the sinus. The consequence
of this sharp caustic dressing is a general slough
from the sinus. Every part of its interior surface
is destroyed, and the dead particles become agglu-
tinated, and cast off along with the discharges in
the form cif a dark firm curdled mass, which the
fan'ier calls the core ; and so it commonly proves,
for gi'anulations follow close behind it, and fill up
the sinus."*

The other mode of treatment, is that of Mr.
Newport, a surgeon of long standing : — " After the
shoe has been removed, thin the sole until it will
yield to the pressure of the thumb ; then cut the
under parts of the wall in an oblique direction
from the heel to the anterior part, immediately
under the seat of complaint, and only as far as it
extends, and rasp the side' of the wall thin enough
to give way to the pressure of the over-distended
parts, and put on a bar-shoe rather elevated from
the frog. Ascertain with a probe the direction of
the sinuses, and introduce into them a saturated
solution of sulphate of zinc, by means of a small
syringe. Place over this dressing the common ca-
taplasm, or the tui-pentine ointment, and renew
the -application every twenty-four hours. I have
frequently found three or four such applications
complete a cure. I should recommend that ^vhen
the probe is introduced, in order to ascertain the
pi'ogress of cure, that it be gently and carefully
used, otherwise it may break doTvn the new-formed
lymph. I have found the solution very valuable,
w'here the synovial fluid has escaped, but not to be
used if the inflammation of the parts is great. "f

PRICK OR WOUND IN THE SOLE OR CKUST.

This is the most frequent cause of quittor. It
is evident that the sole is veiy liable to be wounded
by nails, pieces of glass, or even shai-p flints.
Every part of the foot is subject to injuries of this
description. The usual place at which these
wounds are found is in the hollow between the
bars and the frog, or in the frog itself In the fore
feet the injur}' will be generallj' recognised on the
inner quarter, and on the hind feet near the toe.
In fact these are the thinnest parts of the fore and
hind feet. Much more frequently the lamiuoe are
wounded by the nail in shoeing ; or if the nail
does not penetrate through the internal surface of
the crust, it is driven so close to it that it presses
upon the fleshy parts beneath, and causes irritation
and inflammation, and at length ulceration. When
a horse becomes suddenly lame, after the legs have
been carefully examined, and no cause of lameness
appears in them, the shoe should be taken off. In
many cases the oflending substance ^vill be imme-
diately detected, or the additional heat felt in some

* Percivair.s Hiiipop.ithology, vol. i., p. 218.
+ The Veterinarian, vol. i., p. 329,

468

THE HORSE.

part of the foot will point out tlie seat of injury ;
or, if the crust is rapped with the hammer all
round, the flinching of the horse will discover it ;
or pressure with the pincers will render it evident.

When the shoe is removed for this examina-
tion the smith should never be permitted to
wrench it off, but each nail should be drawn sepa-
rately, and examined as it is drawn, when some
moisture appearing vipon it will not unfreipiently
reveal the spot at which matter has been thrown
out.

Sudden lameness occurring within two or three
days after the horse has been shod, will lead to the
suspicion that the smith has been in fault ; yet no
one who cousidei's the thinness of the crust, and
the difficulty of shoeing many feet, will blame him
for sometimes pricking the animal. His fault will
consist in concealing or denying that of which he
will almost always be aware at the time of shoeing,
from the flinching of the horse, or the dead sound,
or the peculiar resistance that may be noticed in
the driving of the nail. We would plead the cause
of the honest portion of an humble class of men,
who discharge this mechanical part of their busi-
ness with a skill and good fortune scarcely credible :
but we resign those to the reproaches and the
punishment of the owner of the horse who too
often, and with bad policy, deny that which acci-
dent, or possibly momentary carelessness, might
have occasioned, and the neglect of which is fraught
with danger, although the mischief resulting from
it might at the time have been easily remedied.

When the seat of mischief is ascertained, the
sole should be thinned round it, and at the nail-
hole, or the puncture, it should be pared to the
quick. The escape of some matter will now pro-
bably tell the nature of the injury, and remove its
consequences. If it be punctm-e of the sole effected
by some nail, or any similar body, picked up on
the road, all that will be necessary is a little to
enlarge the opening, and then to place on it a pled-
get of tow dipped in Friar "s balsam, and over that
a little common stopping. If there is much heat
and lameness, a poultice should be applied.

The part of the sole that is wounded and the
depth of the wound should be taken into considera-
tion. It will be seen, by reference to the cut in
p. 432, that a deep puncture towards the back
part of the sole, and penetrating even into the
sensible frog, may not be productive of serious con-
sequence. There is no great motion in the part,
and there are no tendons or bones in danger.
A puncture near the toe may not be followed by
much injury. There is little motion in that part
of the foot, and the internal sole covering the
coflln-boue will soon heal. A punctm-e, however,
about the centre of the sole may wound the flexor
tendon where it is inserted into the coffin-bone, or
may even peiiotxate the joint which unites the na-

vicular bone with the coffin-bone, or pierce through
the tendon into the joint which it forms with the
navicular bone, and a degree of inflammation may
ensue, that, if neglected, may be fatal. Many
horses have been lost by the smallest puncture of
the sole in these dangerous points. All the ana-
tomical skill of the veterinarian should be called
into requisition, when he is examining the most
trifling wound of the foot.

If the foot has been wounded by the wrong
direction of a nail in shoeing, and the sole is well-
pared out over the jiart on the first appearance of
lameness, little more will be necessary to be done.
The opening should be somewhat enlarged, the
Friar's balsam applied, and the shoe tacked on
with or without a poultice, according to the degree
of lameness or heat, and on the following day all
will often be well. It may, however, be prudent
to keep the foot stopped for a few days. If the
accident has been neglected, and matter begins to
be formed, and to be pent up and to pi'ess on the
neighbom'ing parts, and the horse evidently suffers
extreme pain, and is sometimes scarcely able to
put his foot to the ground, and much matter is
poured out when the opening is enlarged, further
precautions must be adopted. The fact must be
recollected that the living and dead horn will never
unite, and every jwrtion of the horny sole that has
separated from the fleshy sole above must be
removed. The sejxtration must he followed as far
as it reaches. Much of the success of the treatment
depends on this. No small strip or edge of sepa-
rated horn must be suffered to press upon any part
of the wound. The exposed fleshy sole must then
be touched, but not too severelj', with the butyr
(chloride) of antimony, some soft and dry tow being
spread on the part, the foot stopped, and a poultice
placed over all if the inflammation seems to re(iuire
it. On the following day a thin pellicle of horn
will frequently be found over a part or the whole
of the wound. This should be, yet very lightly,
again touched with the caustic ; but if there is an
appearance of fungus sprouting from the exposed
surface, the apjilication of the butyr must be more
severe, the tow being again placed over it, so as to
afford considerable yet imiform pressure. Many
days do not often elapse before the new horn
covers the whole of the wound. In these exten-
sive openings the Friar's balsam will not always
be successful, but the cure must be effected by the
judicious and never-too-severe use of the caustic.
Bleeding at the toe, and physic, will be resorted
to as useful auxiliaries when much inflammation
arises.

In searching the foot in order to ascertain the
existence of prick, there is often something very
censurable in the carelessness with which the
honi is cut away between the bottom of the crust
and the sole, so as to leave little or no hold for the

THE HORSE

4G!}

nails, altbough some months must elapse before
the horn will grow down sufficiently far for the
shoe to be securely fastened.

When a free opening has been made below,
and matter has not broken ont at the coronet,
it will rarely be necessary to remove any portion
of the horn at the quarters, although we may be
able to ascertain by the use of the probe that the
separation of the crust extends for a considerable
space above the sole.

In the angle between the bars (c, p. 452) and
the quarters, the horn of the sole has some-
times a red appearance, and is more spongy and
softer than at any other part. The horse flinches
when this portion of the horn is pressed upou, and
occasional or permanent lameness is produced.
This disease of the foot is termed Corns ; bearing
this resemblance to the corn of the human being,
that it is produced by pressure and is a cause of
lameness. When corns are neglected, so much
inflammation is produced in that part of the sen-
sible sole, that suppuration follows, and to that,
quitter succeeds, and the matter either undermines
the horuy sole, or is discharged at the coronet.

The pressure hereby produced manifests itself
in various ways. When the foot becomes con-
tracted, the part of the sole enclosed between the
external crust that is wiring in, and the bars that
are opposing that contraction (see cut, p. 45^), is
placed in a kind of vice, and becomes inflamed ;
hence it is rare to see a contracted foot without
corns. When the shoe is suffered to remain on
too long, it becomes imbedded in the heel of the
foot ; the external crust grows down on the outside
of it, and the bearing is thrown on this angular por-
tion of the sole. No part of the sole can bear
continued pressure, and inflammation and corns
are the result. From the length of wear the shoe
sometimes becomes loosened at the heels, and
gravel insinuates itself between the shoe and the
cmst, and accumulates in this angle, and some-
times seriously wounds it.

The bars are too freqviently cut away, and then
the heel of the shoe must be bevelled inward, in
order to answer to this absm'd and injurious shap-
ing of the foot. By this slanting direction of the heel
of the shoe inward, an unnatural disposition to con-
traction is given, and the sole must sulfer in two ways
— in being pressed upou by the shoe, and squeezed
between the outer crust and the external portion
of the bar. The shoe is often made unnecessarily
narrow at the heels, by which this angle, seem-
ingly le^s disposed to bear pressure than any
other part of the foot, is exposed to accidental
bruises. If, in the paring out of the foot, the
smith should leave the bars prominent, he too
frequently neglects to pare away the horn in the

angle between the bars and the external crust ; or
if he cuts away the bars, he scarcely touches the
horn at this point ; and thus, before the horse has
been shod a fortnight, the shoe rests on this angle
and produces corns. The use of a shoe for the
fore feet, thickened at the heels, is, and especially
in weak feet, a source of corns, from the undue
bearing there is on the heels, and the concussion
to which they are subject.

The unshod colt rarely has corns. The heels
have their natural power of expansion, and the
sensible sole at this part can scarcely be imprisoned,
while the projection of the heel of the crust and
the bar is a sufficient defence from external injury.
Corns seem to be the almost inevitable conse-
quence of shoeing, which, by limiting, or in a man-
ner destroj-ing, the expansibility of the foot, must,
when the sole attempts to descend, or the coffin-
bone has a backward and downward direction (see
cut, p. 43^), imprison and injure this portion of
the sole. This evil consequence is increased when
the shoe is badly formed, or kept on too long,
or when the paring is omitted or injudiciously
extended to the bars. By this unnatural pressure
of the sole, blood is thrown out, and enters into
the pores of the soft and diseased horn which
is then secreted ; therefore the existence and the
extent of the corn is judged of by the colour and
softness of the horn at this place.

Corns are most frequent and serious in horses
with thin horn and flat soles, and low weak heels.
They do not often occur in the outside heel. It is
of a stronger construction than the inside one.
The method adopted by shoeing-smiths to ascer-
tain the existence of corn by the pain evinced
when they pinch the bar and crust with their
irons, is very fallacious. If the horn is naturally
thin, the horse will shrink under no great pressure
although he has no corn, and occasionally the bars
are so strong as not to give way under any pressure.
The cure of old corns is difficult ; for as all
shoeing has some tendency to produce pressure
here, the habit of throwing out this diseased horn
is difficult to get rid of when once contracted ;
recent corns, however, will yield to good shoeing.
The first thing to be done is well to pare out
the angle between the crust and the bars. Two
objects are answered by this : the extent of the
disease will be ascertained, and one cause of it
removed. A very small drawing knife must be
used for this purpose. The corn must be pared
out to the very bottom, taking care not to wound
the sole. It may then be discovered whether
there is any eff'usion of blood or matter under-
neath. If this is suspected, an opening must
be made tla-ough the horn, the matter evacuated,
the separated liorn taken away, the com'se and ex-
tent of the sinuses explored, and the treatment
recommended for quittor adopted. Should there

470

THE HORSE.

be no collection of fluid, the but}'!- of antimony
should be applied over the whole extent of the
com, after the horn has been thinned as closely as
possible. The object of this is to stimulate the
sole to throw out more healthy horn. In bad cases
a bar-shoe may be put on, so chambered, that
there shall be no pressure on the diseased part.
This may be worn for one or two shoeings, but not
constantly, for there are few frogs that would bear
the constant pressure of the bar-shoe ; and the
want of pressure on the heel, generally occasioned
by their use, would produce a softened and bul-
bous state of the heels, that would of itself be an
inevitable soiu'ce of lameness.

Mr. Turner is in the habit of using a shoe that
promises to lessen to a -very material degree the
sufferings of the horse. The ground surface of
the shoe is so bevelled off, that it does not come
into contact with the ground, and thus much
concussion is saved to the horse. A slight space,
however, should be left betvi'cen the heel of the
foot, and that of the shoe ; and which cannot be
better occupied than by the leather sole, prevent-
ing the insinuation of foreign bodies, and yet pre-
serving the heel from concussion.

In unusually troublesome cases of corns, I'e-
course should be had to the bar-shoe.

Mr. Spooner, of Southampton, very properly
states, that the corns occasionally festei', and the
purulent matter which is secreted, having no de-
pendent orifice, ascends, torturing the animal to a
dreadful extent, and breaks out at the coronet.
These cases are very troublesome. Sinuses are
formed, and the evil may end in quittor. A large
and free dependent orifice must then be made, and
poultice applied ; to which should succeed a solu-
tion of sulphate of zinc, with the application of
the compound tar ointment.

The cause of corn is a most important subject
of inquiry, and wliich a careful examination of the
foot and the shoe will easily discover. The cause
being ascertained, the effect may, to a great extent
be afterwards removed. Turning out to grass,
after the horn is a little grown, first with a bar-
shoe, and afterwards with the shoe fettered on one
side, or with tips, will often be serviceable. A
horse that has once had corns to any considerable
extent should, at every shoeing, have the seat of
corn well pared out, and the butyr of antimony
applied. The seated shoe (hereafter to be described)
should be used, with a web sufficiently thick to
cover the place of corn, and extending as far back
as it can be made to do without injury to the frog.
Low weak heels should be rarely touched with
the knife, or anything more be done to them, than
liglitly to rasp them, in order to give them a level
surface. The inner heel should he particularly
spared. Corns are seldom found in the hind feet,
because the hesls are stronger, and the feet are

not exposed to so much concussion ; and when
they are found there, they are rarely or never pro-
ductive of lameness. There is nothing perhaps
in which the improvement in the veterinary art
has relieved the horse from so much suffering as
shoeing. Where corns now exist of any conse-
quence, they are a disgrace to the smith, the
groom, and even to the owner.

This is a discharge of offensive matter from the
cleft of the frog. It is inflammation of the lower
surface of the sensible frog, and during which pus
is secreted together with, or instead of horn.
When the frog is in its sound state the cleft sinks
but a little way into it ; but when it becomes con-
tracted or otherwise diseased, it extends in length,
and penetrates even to the sensible horn within,
and through this unnaturally deepened fissure the
thrushy discharge proceeds. A plethoric state of
the body may be a predisposing cause of thrush, but
the immediate and grand cause is moisture. This
should never be forgotten, for it will lead a great
way towards the proper treatment of the disease.
If the feet are habitually covered with any moist
application — his standing so much on his own
dung is a fair example — thrush will inevitably
appear. It is caused by anything that interferes
with the healthy structure and actioji of the frog.
We find it in the hinder feet oftener and worse
than in the fore, because in our stable manage-
ment the hinder feet are too much exposed to the
peniicious effects of the dung and the urine,
moistening, or as it were macerating, and at the
same time irritating them. The distance of the
hinder feet from the centre of the circulation
would also, as in a case of grease, more expose
them to accumulations of fluid and discharges
of this kind. In the fore feet, thrushes are usually
connected with contraction. We have stated that
they are both the cause and the effect of contraction.
The pressure on the frog from the wiring in of the
heels will produce pain and inflammation ; and
the inflammation, by the increased heat and sus-
pended function of the part, will dispose to con-
traction. Horses of all ages, and in almost all
situations, are subject to thnish. The unshod
colt is frequently thus diseased

Thrushes are not always accompanied by lame-
ness. In a great many cases the appearance of
the foot is scarcely, or not at all altered, and the
disease can only be detected by close examination,
or the peculiar smell of the discharge. The frog
may not appear to be rendered in the slightest
degree tender by it, and therefore the horse may
not be considered by many as unsound. Every
disease, however, should be considered as legal
unsoundness, and especially a disease which,
although not attended with present detriment,

THE HOKSE.

471

must not be neglected, for it will eventually injure
and lame the horse. All other things being right,
a horse should not be rejected because he has
a slight thrush, for if the shape of the hoof is not
altered, experience tells that the thrush is easily
removed ; but if this is not soon done, the shape of
the foot and the action of the horse will be altered,
and manifest unsoundness will result.

The progress of a neglected thrush, although
sometimes slow, is sure. The frog begins to con-
tract in size — it becomes rough, ragged, brittle,
tender — the discharge is more copious and more
offensive — the horn gradually disappears— a mass
of hardened mucus usurps its place — this easily
peals off, and the sensible frog remains exposed —
the horse cannot bear it to be touched — fungous
granulations spring from it — they spread around —
tne sole becomes under-run, and canker steals
over the greater part of the foot.

There are few errors more common or more
dangerous tlian this, that the existence of thrush
is a matter of little conser[uence, or even, as some
suppose, a benefit to the horse — a discharge for
superabundant humours— and that it should not
be dried up too qiuckly, and in some cases not
dried up at all. If a young colt, fat and full of
blood, has a bad thrush, with much discharge, it
will be prudent to accompany the attempt at cure
by a dose of physic or a course of diuretics. A
few diuretics may not be injurious when we are
endeavoui'iug to dry up thrush in older horses :
but the disease can scarcely be attacked too soon,
or subdued too rapidly, and especially when it
steels on so insidiously, and has such fatal conse-
quences in its train. If the heels once begin to
contract through the baneful effect of thrush, it
will, with difficulty, or not at all, be afterwards
removed.

There are many recipes to stop a running
thrush. Almost every application of an astrhigent,
but not of too caustic nature, will have the effect.
The common ^gyptiacum (vinegar boiled with
honey and verdigrease) is a good liniment ; but the
most effectual and the safest — drying up the dis-
charge speedily, but not suddenly — is a paste com-
posed of blue vitriol, tar, and lard, in proportions
according to the virulence of the canker. A pledget
of tow covered with it should be introduced as deeply
as possible, yet without force, into the cleft of the
frog eveiT night, and removed in the morning be-
fore the horse goes to work. Attention should at
the same time, as in other diseases of the foot, be
paid to the apparent cause of the complaint, and
that cause should be carefully obviated or removed.
Before the application of the paste, the frog should
be examined, and every loose part of the horn or
hardened discharge removed ; and if much of the
frog is then exposed, a larger and wider piece of
tow covered with the paste may be placed over it,

in addition to the pledget introduced into the cleft
of the frog. It will be necessary to preserve the
frog moist while the cure is in progress, and this
may be done by filling the feet with tow covered by
common stopping, or using the felt pad, likewise
covered with it. Turning out would be prejudicial
rather than of benefit to thrushy feet, except the
dressing is continued, and the feet defended from
moisture.

Is a separation of the horn from the sensible part
of the foot, and the sprouting of fungous matter
instead of it, occupying a portion or even the whole
of the sole and frog. It is the occasional conse-
quence of bruise, puncture, com, quittor, and thnisli,
and is exceedingly difficult to cure. It is more
freijuently the consequence of neglected thmsh than
of any other disease of the foot, or rather it is
thrush involving the frog, the bars, and the S(de, and
making the foot in one mass of rank jiutrefaction.

It is oftenest found in, and is almost peculiar
to the heavy breed of cart horses, and partly result-
ing from constitutional predisposition. Horses
with white legs and thick skins, and much hair
upon their legs, — the very character of many dray
horses, — are subject to canker, especially if they
have had an attack of grease, or their heels are
habitually thick and greasy. The disposition to
canker is certainly hereditary. The dray horse
likewise has this disadvantage, that in order to give
him font-hold, it is sometimes necessary to raise
the heels of the hinder feet so high, that all pres-
sure on the frog is taken away ; its functions are
destroyed, and it is rendered liable to disease.
Canker, however, arises mostly from the peculiar
injury to which the feet of these horses are subject
from the enormous shoes with which they are
covered — the bulk of the nails with v.hieh these
shoes are fastened to the foot, the strain of the foot
in the violent although short exertion of moving
heavy weights ; but, most of all, neglect of the feet
and the filthiuess of the stable in these establish-
ments.

Although canker is a disease most difficult to
remove, it is easily prevented. Attention to the
jJunctures to which these heavy horses, with their
clubbed feet and brittle hoofs, are more than any
others subject in shoeing, and to the bruises and
treads on the coronet, to which from their awkward-
ness and weight they are so liable, and the greasy
heels which a very slight degree of negligence will
produce in them, and the stopping of the thrushes,
which are so apt in them to run on to the separa-
tion of the horn from the sensible frog, will most
materially lessen the number of cankered feet.
Where this disease often occurs, the owiier of the
team may be well assured that there is gross mis-
management either iu himself or his horsokeeper,

H n 2

472

THE HORSE.

or the smith, or the surgeon, and it will rarely be
a difficult matter to detect the precise nature of
that mismanagement.

The cure of canker is the business of the vete-
rinary surgeon, and a most painful and tedious
business it is. The principles on which he pro-
ceeds are, first of all, to remove the extraneous
fungous growth, and for tliis purpose he will need
the aid of the knife and the caustic, or the cauteiy,
for he should cut away eveiy portion of horn which
is in the slightest degree separated from the sen-
sible parts beneath. He will have to discourage
the growth of fresh fungus, and to bring the foot
into that state in which it will again secrete healthy
lioni. Here he will remember that he has to do
with the surface of the foot ; that this is a disease
of the surface only, and that there will be no neces-
sity for those deeply-corroding and torturing caus-
tics which penetrate to the very lione. A slight
and daily application of the chloride of antimony,
and that not where the new horn is forming, but
on the surface which continues to be diseased, and
accompanied by as firm but equal pressure as can
be made — the careful avoidance of the slightest
degree of moisture — the horse being exercised or
worked in the mill, or wherever the foot will not
be exposed to wet, and that exercise adopted as
early as possible, and even from the beginning if
the malady is confined to the sole and fi'og — these
means will succeed if the disease is capable of cure.
Humanity, perhaps, will dictate that, considering
the long process of cure in a cankered foot, and the
daily torture of the caustic, and the sutferiug which
would otherwise result from so large or exposed a
smiace, the nerves of the leg should be divided in
order to take away the sense of pain ; but then,
especial care must be taken that the horse is placed
in such a situation, and exposed to such work, that,
bemg insensible to pain, he may not injuriously
batter and bruise the diseased parts.

Medicine is not of much avail in the cure of
canker. It is a mere local disease ; or the only
cause of fear is, that so great a determination of
blood to the extremities having existed during the
long progress of cure, it may in some degree con-
tinue, and produce injury in another form. Grease
has occasionally followed canker. They have been
known to alternate. It may, therefore, he prudent,
when the cure of a cankered foot is nearly efi'ected,
to subject the horse to a course of alteratives or
diuretics.

OSSIFICATION OF THE CARTILAGES.

Mention has been made of the side cartilages
of the foot, occupying (see cut, page 43.5) a con-
siderable portion of the external side and back part
of the foot. They are designed to preserve the
expansion of the upper part of the foot, and espe-
cially when that of the lower part is limited or

destroyed by careless shoeing. These cartilages
are subject to inflammation, and the result of that
inflammation is, that the cartilages are absorbed,
and bone substituted in their stead. This ossifica-
tion of the cartilages frequently accompanies ring-
bone, but it may exist without any affection of the
pastern joint. It is oftenest found in horses of
heavy draught. It arises not so much from con-
cussion, as from sprain, for the pace of the horse
is slow. The cause, indeed, is not well understood,
but of the effect there are too numerous instances.
Veiy few heavy draught horses arrive at old age
without tills change of stnicture ; and particularly
if they are much employed in the paved streets.
The change commences sometimes at the anterior
part of the cartilage, but much oftener at the pos-
terior and inferior part. " From the combined
operation of great weight and high action, the feet,
and particularly the heels, come with great force
on the ground. The cartilages, being imbedded
in the heels of the feet, are, therefore, the parts
that receive the greatest degree of concussion, the
consequence of which is that subacute inflammation
is set up, and the secreting vessels deposit ossific
instead of cartilaginous matter, in the I'oom of that
which is absorbed in the usual process of nature."*

No evident inflammation of the foot, or great,
or perhaps even perceptible lameness, accompanies
this change ; a mere slight degree of stiffness may
have been observed, which, in a horse of more
rapid jiace, would have been lameness. Even
when the change is completed, there is not in many
cases anything more than a slight increase of stiff'-
ness, little or not at all interfering with the useful-
ness of the horse. When this altered stracture
appears in the lighter horse, the lameness is more
decided, and means should be taken to arrest the
progress of the change. These are blisters or
firing ; but, after the parts have become bony, no
operation will restore the cartilage. Some benefit,
however, will be derived from the use of leather
soles. Advantage has resulted from bar-shoes in
conjunction with leather.

Connected with ringbone the lameness may be
very great. This has been spoken of iu page 436.

WEAKNESS OF THE FOOT.

This is more accurately a bad formation, than
a disease ; often, indeed, the result of disease, but
in many instances the natui'al construction of the
foot. The term iceak foot is familiar to every
horseman, and the consequence is too severely felt
by all who have to do with horses. In the slanting
of the crust from the coronet to the toe, a less
angle is almost invariably formed, amounting pro-
bably to not more than forty instead of forty-five
degrees ; and, after the horse has been worked for
one or two years the line is not straight, but a little

• W. C. Spooner on the Foot of the Horse, p. 249.

THE IJOltSE.

473

indented or hollow, midway between the coronet
and the toe. This h^is been described as the ac-
companiment of pumiced feet, bat it is often seen
in weak feet, that, although they might become
pumiced by severity of work, do not otlierwise have
the sole convex. The crust is not only less oblique
than it ought to be, but it has not the smooth,
even appearance of the good foot. The surface is
sometimes irregularly roughened, but it is much
ofceuer roughened in circles or rings. The form
of the crust likewise presents too much the appear-
ance of a cone ; the bottom of the foot is unnatu-
rally wide in proportion to the coronet ; and the
whole of the foot is generally, but not always,
larger than it should be.

When the foot is lifted, it will often present a
round and circular appearance, with a fulness of
frog, that would mislead the inexperienced, and
indeed be considered as almost the perfection of
structure ; but, being examined more closely, many
glaring defects will be seen. The sole is flat, and

the smith finds that it will bear little or uo paring.
The bars are small in size. They are not cut
away by the smith, but tliey can be scarcely said
to have any existence. The heels are low, so low
that the very coronet seems almost to touch the
ground ; and the crust, if examined, appears
scarcely thick enough to hold the nails.

Horses with these feet can never stand much
work. They will be subject to corns, to bruise.s of
the sole, to convexity of the sole, to jiuuctures in
nailing, to breaking away of the crust, to inflam-
mation of the foot, and to sprain and injuiy of the
pastern, and the fetlock, and the flexor tendon.

These feet admit of little improvement. Shoe-
ing as seldom as may be, and with a light yet wide
concave web ; little or no paring at the time of
shoeing, and as little violent work as possible, and
especially on rough roads, may protract for a long
period the evil day, but he who buys a horse with
these feet will sooner or later have cause to repent
his bargain.

CHAPTER XX.

FRACTURES.

AccrDENTS of this description are not of frequent
occurrence, but when' they do happen it is not
always that the mischief can be repaired ; occa-
sionally, however, and much more frequently than
is generally imagined, the life of a valuable animal
might be saved if the owner, or the veterinary
surgeon, would take a little trouble, and the patient
is fairly tractable, and that, in the majority of cases,
he will soon become. The number of valuable
animals is far too great that are destroyed under a
confused notion of the difficulties of controlling
the patient, or the incurable character of the acci-
dent. Messrs. Blaine and Percivall have given a
valuable record of the usual cases and treatment
of fracture which occur in the practice of the Eng-
lish veterinary surgeon, and the splendid work of
Hurtrel d'Arboval contains a record of all that has
been attempted or effected on the Continent. The
author of this volume must confine himself to a
rapid survey of that which they have described,
adding a few cases that have been brought under his
own observation, or communicated to himby others.
With the exception of accidents that occur in
casting the animal for certain operations, and his
struggles duriug the operation, the causes of
Fracture are usually blows, kicks, or falls, and
the lesion may be considered as simple, confined
to one bone, and not protruding through the skin
— or compound, the bone or bones protruding
through the skin — or complicated, where the bone
is broken or splintered in more than one direction.

The duty of the veterinary surgeon resolves itself
into the replacing of the displaced bones in their
natural position, the keeping of them in that posi-
tion, the healing of the integument, and the taking
of such measures as will prevent any untowai-d
circumstances from afterwards occrn'ring.

In the greater number of cases of fracture ti
will be necessary to place the horse under consi-
derable restraint, and even to suspend or sling him.

The cut in the next page contains a view of
the suspensory apparatus used by INIr. Percivall.
A broad piece of sail-cloth, furaished with two
breechings, and two breast-girths, is placed under
the animal's belly, and, by means of ropes and
pulleys attached to a cross beam above, he is
elevated or lowered as circumstances may require.
It will seldom be necessary to lift the patient quite
off the ground, and the horse will be quietest, and
most at his ease, when his feet are suffered just to
touch it. The head is confined by two collar ropes,
and the head-stall well padded. Many horses may
plunge about and be difficult to manage at first,
but, generally spealdug, it is not long ere they
become perfectly passive.

The use of the different buckles and straps
which are attached to the sail-cloth will be evident
on inspection. If the horse exhibits more than
usual uneasiness, other ropes may be attached to
the corners of the sail-cloth. This will afford
considerable relief to the patient, as well as add
to the security of the bandages

In many cases the fracture, alilinugli a simple
one, may be visible on the slightest inspection ; in
others, there may be merely a suspicion of its ex-
istence. Here will be exhibited the skill and the
humanity of the educated surgeon, or the reckless-
ness and brutality of the empiric. The former
■will carefully place his patient in the position at
once the least painful to the sufferer, and the most
commodious for himself. He will proceed with
gentleness, patience, and management — no rough
handling or motion of the parts, inflicting torture
on the animal, and adding to the injury already re-
ceived. It is interesting to observe how soon the
horse comprehends all this, and submits to the ne-
cessary inspection ; and how complete and satis-
factory the examination terminates under the super-
intendence of the humane and cautious practitioner,
while the brute in human shape fails in compre-
hending the real state of the case.

Heat, swelling, tenderness, fearfulness of the
slinhtest motion, crepitus, and especially change of
the natural position of the limb, are the most fre-
q^uent indications of fracture.

The probability of reunion of the parts depends
upon the depth of the wound connected with the
fracture — the contusion of the soft parts in the im-
mediate neighbourhood of it — the blood-vessels,
arterial or venous, that have been wounded — the
propinquity of some large joint to which the in-
flammation may be communicated — dislocation of
the extremities of the fractured joint — injuries of
the -periosteum — the existence of sinuses, caries,
or necrosis, or the fracture being compound, or
broken into numerous spiculae or splinters.

In a horse tliat is fidl of flesh, the cure of frac-

ture is diflBcult ; likewise in an old or wom-out
horse — or when the part is inaccessible to the hand
or to instruments — or when separation has taken
place between the parts that were beginning to
unite — or where the surrounding tissues have been
or are losing their vitality — or when the patient
is already afflicted with any old or permanent
disease.

It may be useful briefly to review the various
seats of fracture.

FRACTURE OF THE SKULL.

The skull of the horse is so securely defended
by the yielding I'esistance of the tempioral muscle,
that fracture rarely occurs except at the occipital
ridge ; and should a depression of bone be there
effected, it will produce complete coma, and bid
defiance to all surgical skill. Fracture of the skull
is generally accompanied by stupidity, convulsive
niotions of the head or limbs, laborious breathing,
and a staggering walk. The eyes are almost or
quite closed, the head is carried low, and the lower
lip hangs down. Blows on the cranium, which the
bnitality of man too often inflicts, as well as many
accidents, are very serious matters, and require
considerable attention, for, although it may have
been ascertained that the cranium is uninjured,
there may be considerable concussion of the brain.

It having been known that a horse had received
a violent blow on the head, the strictest examina-
tion of the part should take place. An artilleiy
horse broke loose from his groom, and, after gal-
loping about, dashed in to his own stall with such
force as sadly to cut his face under the forelock.
The farrier on duty sewed up the wound, proper

THE HORSE.

475

dressings were applied, and in a little more than a
fortnight the wound was healed and tlie horse dis-
missed, apparently well. Four daj's afterwards
the patient moved stiffly ; the jaws could not he
separated more than a couple of inches, and there
was evident locked jaw. The horse was cast, and the
place where the wound had been was most carefully
examined. On cutting to the bottom of it, a frac-
ture was discovered, and a piece of bone three-
fourths of an inch long was found on the centre of
the parietal suture. This was removed — the
would was properly dressed, and a strong aloeiic
drink was given with great difficulty. The aloetic
drink was repeated — the bowels became loosened
—the tetanic symptoms diminished, and in less
than three weeks the horse was perfectly cured.*

This is a very interesting case. There was
some carelessness in entrusting the treatment of
the wound to the farrier ; but the surgeon after-
wards repaired the error as well as he could, and
no one was better pleased than he was at the
result. A violent blow being received on the
forehead, the part should always be most carefully
examined.

Hurtrel D'Arboval relates three cases of fi-ac-
ture of the skull. One occurred in a mare that ran
violently against a carriage. The skull was de-
pressed, and a portion of bone was removed, but it
was four months ere complete reunion of the edges
was effected. Another horse received a ^iolent
kick on the forehead. The union of the dejiressed
bones was effected after the external wound was
healed, but there was always a depression, an inch
in length. An aged mare met with the same acci-
dent. A depression here remained as large as a
finger.

FKACTL'KE OF THE AECH OF THE CEBIT OF THE EYE.

A very interesting accomit of this, followed by
perfect cure, is related at p. 284.

FRACTURE OF THE NASAL EONES.

This will sometimes occur from falling, or he
produced by a kickfi-om another horse, or the bm-
tality of the attendant or the rider. We have seen
a passionate man strike a liorse about the head with
a heavy hunting-whip. The danger of punishment of
this kind is obvious ; and so would be the propriety
of using the whip for another purpose. A fracture
of this kind is generally accompanied by a lacera-
tion of the membrane of the nose, and considerable
hiemorrhage, which, however, may generally be
arrested by the application of cold water. The
fractured portion of bone is usually depressed,
and, the space for breathing being diminished,
ditBculty of respiration occurs. The author had a
case of fracture of both nasal bones. He was ena-
bled to elevate the depressed parts, but the intlam-

• Veterinarian, vol. vii., p. 142.

maticm and swelling were so great, that the animal
was threatened will) suflFucaliijn. The operation of
tracheotomy wasresorted to, and the animal did well.

If there is fracture of the nasal hones with de-
pression, and only a little way from the central
arch and the section between the nostrils, a slightly
curved steel rod may be cautiously introduced into
the passage, and the depressed portions carefully
raised. If this cannot be effected, the trephine
must be applied a little above or below the fracture,
and the elevator or steel rod be introduced through
the aperture. If the fracture is in any other pHrt
of the bone, it will be impossible to reach it with
the elevator, for the turbinated bones are in the
way. The trephine must then he resorted to in
the first instance. The wound, if there is any,
must be covered, and a compress kept on it.

A writer in a French journal relates a case in
which a horse was violently kicked, and there was
a contused wound with depression of bone. The
trephine was applied. Fifteen splinters were ex-
tracted, and the case terminated well. It never-
theless too often happens that, in the^e injmies of
the nasal membrane, the inflammation will obsti-
nately continue in despite of all that the surgeon
(•an do, and the natural termination of every injiuy
of the membrane of the nose, and, in fact, of
every chronic disease of the frame, will appear —
glanders.

If, however, gkanders do not appear, some por-
tion of bone may remain depressed, or the mem-
brane may be thickened by inflammation. The
nasal passage will then be obstructed, and a diffi-
culty of breatliing, resembling roaring, w"ill ensue.

THE SUPEEIOE MAXIT.LAJIY OE UPPER JAW-BONE

Will occasionally be fractured. Mr. Cartwright
had a case in which it was fractm'ed by a
kick at the situation where it unites with the
laclir}-mal and malar bones. He applied the tre-
phine, and removed many small pieces of bone.
The wound was then covered by adhesive plaster,
and in a month the parts were healed.

i\Ir. Clayworth speaks of a mare who, being
ridden almost at speed, fell and fractured the upper
jaw, three inches above the comer incisors. The
front teeth and jaw were turned like a hook com-
pletely within the lower ones. She was cast, a
balling iron put into her mouth, and the surgeon,
exerting considerable force, pulled the teeth out-
ward into their former and proper situation. She
was then tied up so that she could not rah her
muzzle against anything, and was well fed with
bean-meal, and linseed tea. ]\Iuch inflammation
ensued, but it gradually subsided, and, at the ex-
piration of the sixth week, tlie mouth was quite
healed, and scarcely a vestige of the fracture re-
mained.

A veiy extraordinary and almost incredible ac-

47(5

THE HOKSE.

count of a fracture of tlie superior maxillarj' Lone
is given in the records of the Royal and Central
Society of Agriculture in France. A horse -was
kicked by a companion. There was fracture of the
upper part of the superior maxillary and zygomatic
bones, and the eye was almost forced out of the
socl^et. Few men would have dared to midertal^e
a fracture like this, but M. Revel shrank not fi'om
his duty. He removed several small splinters of
bone — replaced tlie larger bones — retm'ued the eye
to its soclcet — confined the parts by means of
sufficient sutm'es — slung the horse, and rendered
it impossible for the animal to rub his head against
anything. In six weeks the cure was complete.

THE MAXtLL.iRY BONE OR LCVTEB JAW

Is more subject to fracture, and particularly in
its branches between the tushes and the lower
teeth, and at the sj'mphysis between the two
branches of the jaw. Its position, its length
and the small quantity of muscle that covers it,
especially anteriorly, are among the causes of its
fracture ; and the same circumstances combine to
render a reunion of the divided parts more easy to
be accomplished. Mr. Blaine relates that in a
fracture of the lower jaw he succeeded by maldng
a strong leather frame that exactly encased the
whole jaw. The author of this volume has effected
the same object by similar means.

M. H. Boulay attended a horse, fracture of
whose lower maxillary had taken place at the neck
of that bone, between the tushes and the comer in-
cisor teeth. The whole of the interior part of the
maxillary bone in which the incisor teeth were
planted was completely detached from the other
portion of the bone, and the parts were merely held
together by the membrane of the moth.

The horse was cast — the corner tooth on the left
side extracted — the wound thoroughly cleansed —
the fractured bones brought into con tact — some holes
were drilled between the tushes and the second inci-
sor teeth, above and below, tlu-ough which some pieces
of brass wire were jjassed. and thus the jaws were
apparently fixed immoveably together. The neck
of the maxillary bone was surroimded by a sufficient
compress of tow, and a ligature tied around it,
with its bearing place on the tushes, and all motion
thus prevented.

The horse was naturally an untractable animal,
and in his effoits to open his jaws the wires yielded
to his repeated straggles, and were to a certain de-
gree separated. The bandage of tow was, however,
tightened, and was sufficient to retain the frac-
tured edges in apposition.

The mouth now began to exhale an infectious
and gangrenous odour ; the animal was dispi-
rited, and would not take any food ; gangrene was
evidently approaching, and Mr. Boulay determined
to ampv.tats the inferior portion of the maxillary

bone, the union of which seemed to be impossible.
The sphacelated portion of the maxillary was en-
tirely removed ; every fragment of bone that had an
oblique dii-ection was sawn away, and the rough and
uneven portions wliicli the saw could not reach were
rasped off.

Before night, the horse had recovered his natu-
ral spirits, and was searching for something to eat.
On the following day a few oats were given to him,
and he ate them with so much appetite and ease,
that no one looking at him would think that he
had been deprived of his lower incisor teeth. On
the following day some hay was given to him,
which he ate without difficulty, and in a fortnight
was dismissed, the wounds being nearly healed.*

In the majority of these cases of simple frac-
ture a cure might be effected, or should, at least,
be attempted, by means of well-adapted bandages
around the muzzle, confined by straps. It will
always be prudent to call in veterinai-y aid, and it
is absolutely necessary in case of compound frao
ture of the lower jaw.

FKACTUBE OF THE SPINE.

This accident, fortunately for the horse, is not
of frequent occurrence, but it has been unifonnly
fatal. It sometimes happens in the act of falling,
as in leaping a wide ditch ; but it oftener occurs
while a horse is straggling during a painful opera-
tion. It is generally sufficiently evident while the
horse is on the ground. Either a snap is heard,
indicative of the fracture, or the struggles of the
hind-limbs suddenly and altogether cease. In a
few cases the animal has been able to get up and
walk to his stable ; in others, the existence of the
fractui^e has not been apparent for several hours :
showing that the vertebrae, although fractured, may
remain in their place for a certain jseriod of time.
The bone that is broken is usually one of the pos-
terior dorsal or anterior lumbar vertebrae. There
is no satisfactory case upon record of reunion of
the fractured parts.

In the human being, the depressed portion of
the spinal arch and of the fractured vertebrse have
been removed by a dextrous operation, and sensi-
bility and the power of voluntary motion have, in
cases few and far between, been restored ; but in
the horse this has rarely or never been effected.
We should consider him a bold operator, but we
should not very much dislike him, who made one
trial, at least, how far surgical skill might be avail-
able here.

Mr. W. C. Spooner relates an interesting case,
and many such have probably occurred. A horse
had been clipped about three weeks, and was after-
wards galloped sharply on rough ground, and
pulled up suddenly and repeatedly for the purpose

» Rec. I'e Med. VeL, Nov. 183S.

THE HOUSE.

477

of sweating him. After that he did not go so well
as before, and would not canter readily, although
he had previousl}' been much used to that pace.
Two days before he was destroyed, the groom was
riding him at a slow pace, when he suddenly gave
way beliind and was carried home, and could not
afterwards stand. He had, doubtless, fractured
tlie spine slightly when pulled up suddenly, but
without displacing the bones.*

M. Dupuy was consulted respecting a mare
apparently palsied. She had an uncertain and
staggering walk, accompanied by evident pain.
After various means of relief had in vain been tried
during five-and-twenty days, she was destroyed. A
fracture of the last dorsal vertebra was discovered.
It had never been quite complete, and ossifio union
was beginning to take place.

FKACTURE OF THE EIBS.

These fractures are not always easily recog-
nised. Those that are covered by the scapula may
e.\ist for a long time without being detected, and
those that are situated posteriorly are so thickly
covered by muscles as to render the detection of
the injury almost impossible. A man was trying
to catch a mare in a field. She leaped at the
gate, but failing to clear it, she fell on her back on
tlie opposite side. She lay there a short time,
and then got up, and trotted to the stable. She
was saddled, and her master, a heavy man, can-
tered her more than three miles. She then be-
came unusually dull and sluggish, and was left on
the road. She was bled ; and on the following
morning an attempt was made to lead her home.
She was not, however, able to travel more than a
mile. On the following morning she was evidently
in great pain, and a veterhiaiy surgeon discovering
a slight depression of the spinous processes of the
eleventh and twelfth dorsal vertebrfe, and detecting
a certain crepitus, ordered her to be destroyed.
On jiost mortem examination, the twelfth dorsal
vertebra was foimd fractured, and the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth ribs on the near side were
all fractured about two inches from their articula-
tion with the vertebrae.i-

Hurtrel DArboval says that " the two ribs
behind the elbow are the most subject to fracture,
and the false ribs, from the yielding motion which
they possess, are least liable." The ordinary
causes of fracture are kicks and blows, or falls on
the chest, and especially in leaping. The frac-
tures are generally about their middle, and, in the
true ribs, commonly oblique. They are occasion-
ally broken into splinters, and if those splinters
are directed hiward, they may seriously wound the
pleura or lungs. In order most certainly to detect
the situation and extent of these fractures, it may

■ Veterinarian, vol. xi., p. 207.
+ Veterinarian, vol. iii.. p. 681.

be necessary to trace tlie rib through its whole
extent, and should there be any irregularity, to
press firmly upon it above and below in order to
ascertain the nature and extent of the injury.

If fracture is detected, it is not often that much
essential good can be done. If there is little or
no displacement, a broad roller should be tightly
drami round the chest, in order to prevent as much
as possible the motion of the ribs in the act of
breathing, and to throw the labour on the diaphragm
and the abdominal muscles until the fractured
parts are united. If the fractured parts protrude
outwards, a firm compress must be placed upon
them. If they are depressed, it will always be
advisable to place a firm bandage over the seat of
fracture, although, perhaps, there may be scarcely
the possibility of elevating them to any consider-
able degree. Should much irritation be the con-
sequence of the nature or direction of the fracture,
proper means must be adopted to allay the consti-
tutional disturbance that may be produced. Gene-
ral or local bleedmgs will be most serviceable.*

FEACTUHE OF THE PELVIS.

This is not of frequent occcurrence, on account
of the thickness of the soft parts which surround
the pelvis, and protect it from injury, but it is of
a most serious character when it does take place,
on account of the violence which must have been
necessary to produce it. The usual causes are
falls from a considerable height, or heavy blows
on the pelvis. The injury may have reference to
the internal or external portion of the pelvis. In
the first case, the danger may not be discovered
until irreparable mischief is produced. When it is
chiefly external, the altered appearance of the hip
speaks for itself. It is rarely in our power to afford
any assistance in cases hke this, except when there
are fractured portions of the bone that may be par-
tially or entirely removed, or the projecting spine
of the ilium is only partially fractured.

M. Levrat gives an interesting account of a
case of fracture of the right side of the pelvis, near
the acetabulum, in leaping a wide ditch when
hunting. "The lameness which it occasioned,"
says he, " was such that the toe of the foot was
scarcely permitted to touch the ground while the
motion was at all rapid. "When the motion was
slow the foot was placed flat on the ground, but
with great difficulty moved forward. On applying
my right hand to tlie fractured part, which did not
exhibit any heat, and seizing with my left hand the
point of the thigh, I felt a movement of the ischium,
which easily enabled me to judge of the fracture

t Ca.ses of nncliylosis of the vertebite of the horse are loo fre-
quent, from the heavy weights and sudden and violent concussion
which are too frequently thiown on these parts. Complete auchv-
losis of all the dorsal and lumbar vertebvte have been produced,
extending even to the haunch. — Sandilbrt's Mus. AnaL, vol. it. ,
p. 38 to 44., and iii., p. 243.

478

THE HORSE.

and its seat, and to discover that none of the frac-
tured parts were displaced. I ordered her to be
kept quiet for tliree weeks, and then permitted to
wander about the stable. At the end of two months
she was mounted and exercised at a foot pace, and
in another mouth she was enabled to sustain the
longest day's work without lameness. In the fol-
lowing year she was placed in the stud of the Baron
de Stael, where she produced some good foals.*

The annals of the school at Alfort contain the
case of an old mare with fracture of the pelvis and
of the left ischium, and in whom union of the bones
was effected so promptly, that ou the thirtieth day
very little lameness remained, and she shortly
returned to her usual work. She soon afterwards
died from some other cause, and the state of the
osseous parts was thoroughly examined. These
cases, however, stand almost alone, and post ?nortein
examination discovers fractures of the ischium and
the pelvis, and each bone divided into many jjieces,
so that it is impossible for the hind quarters of the
animal to be supported — also fractures of the ex-
ternal angle of the ilium, which rarely is again
consolidated, aud roughness of the bony fragments,
which produce sad laceration of the soft parts.
Fracture of the ischium presents almost insuper-
able difficulties — that of the ilium is uniformly
fatal.f

FEACTUEE OF THE TAIL.

This accident is not of frequent occurrence,
except from accidental entanglement, or the appli-
cation of brute force. The fracture is easily re-
cognised, frequently by the eye and always by the
fingers. If the tail is not amputated, a cord passed
over a pulley, and with a small weight attached to
it, will bring the separated bones again into apposi-
tion, and in about a month the natural cartilage
of the part wiU be sufficiently re-instated.

FRACTDEES OF THE I.IMBS.

These, fortunately, are of rare occurrence in
the horse, for although their divided edges might
be easily brought again into apposition, it would be
almost impossible to retain them in it, for the
slightest motion would displace them. A rapid
survey of each may not, however, be altogether
useless.

FEACTDEE OF THE SHOULDER.

The author is not aware of the successful treat-
ment of this accident by any English veterinary
surgeon. Mr. Fuller attempted it, but from the
difiicully of keeping the divided edges of the bone
in apposition with each other, and the natural un-
tractableness of the animal, and symptoms of teta-

• Rec. de Med. Vet., Nov. 1831, and Veterinarian, vol. vi ,
p. 390.

+ Diet. Vet. Mar. Hnitrel D'Alboval, vol. ii., p. 586.

nus beginning to appear, the patient was destroyed.
The fracture was a little above the neck of the
scapula, aud the muscles were dreadfully lace-
rated. J

It is not at all times easy to discover the ex-
istence and precise situation of fracture of the hu-
menis. The lameness is very great — the animal
will not bear at all upon the broken limb — he will
drag it along the ground — he will move slowly and
with difficulty, and his progression will consist of a
succession of short leaps. The lifting of the foot
will give very great pain. If he is roughly handled,
he will sometimes rear, or throw himself suddenly
down. By careful application of the hand a crepitus
will more or less distinctly be heard. The chances
are always materially against the union of a fracture
of the humerus. The patient must be kept con-
stantly suspended, and splints and bandages care-
fully applied. M. Delaguette attended an entire
draught-hoi'se, whose humerus had been fractured
by the kick of a mare. The fracture extended
longitudinally through two-thirds of the length of
the bone, and the parts were separated from each
other. They were brought again into apposition,
and kept so by means of pitch plasters and splints.
The horse was put into slings ; the pavement of the
stable was taken up ; a hollow dug under the frac-
tured limb, and this depression filled with straw,
in order to afford a soft support to the foot. He
was bled, gruel alone given as food, and injections
daily administered.

On the 2.5th day the rollers were removed and
replaced. On the -tOth day he began to rest on
the fractured limb. On the BOth day the bandages
were removed — the fracture had been well consoli-
dated, and the horse rested his weight upon it. It
is reluctantly added that he was afterwards de-
stroyed, on account of some disease of the loins. ||

FEACTUEE OF THE ARM.

This accident is not of unfrequent occurrence.
It commonly takes an oblique direction, and is
usually first discovered by the displacement of the
limb. Mr. Gloag, of the 10th Hussars, gives an
interesting account of a case tbat occurred in his
practice. " An entire black cart-horse was grazing
in a field, into which some mai-es were accidentally
turned. One of them kicked him severely a little
above the knee. He, however, contrived to get
home, and, being carefully examined, there was
found a simple fracture of the radius, about an inch
and a half above the knee. The ends of the frac-
tured bone could be heard distinctly grating against
each other, both in advancing the leg aud turning
it sideway from the body. He was immediately
placed in a sling not completely elevated from the

t Veterinarian, vol. viii., p. 143.
II Journal Pratique, Dec. 1834.

THE HOUSE.

479

grouiul, but in whicli lie could occasionally relieve
himself by standing. The leg was well bathed
with warm water, and the ends of the bone brought
as tme to their position as possible. Some thin
slips of green wood were then immersed in boiling
water until they would readily bend to the shape
of the knee, and tliey were tied round the joint,
reaching about nine inches above and six below
the knee, the ends of them being tied round with
tow.

" A fortnight aftenvards he became very trouble-
some, knocking his foot on the ground, and when,
at the expiration of the sixth week, he was taken
from the slings, there was a considerable bony de-
posit above the knee. This, however, gradually
subsided as the horse regained liis strength, and,
with the exception of turning the leg a little
outwards, he is as useful as ever for common pur-
poses."*

FEACTUEE OF THE ELBOW.

This is far more exposed to danger than the
two last bones, and is oftener fractured. The frac-
ture is generally an oblique one, and about two-
thirds from the summit of the limb. It is imme-
diately detected by the altered action, and different
appearance of the limb. It is not so difficult of
reduction as either the humerus or the scapula,
when the fracture is towards the middle of the
bone. A great quantity of tow saturated with pitch
must be placed around the elbow, and confined with
firm adhesive plasters, the ground being hollowed
away in the front of the injured leg, so that no
pressure shall be made by that foot.

FEACTUEE OF THE FEMUR.

Considering the masses of muscle that suiTound
this bone, and the immense weight which it sup-
ports, it would naturally be deemed impossible to
reduce a real fracture of the femur. If the divided
bones are ever united, it is a consequence of the
simple repose of the parts, and their tendency to
imite. Professor Dick, however, relates a very
singular and interesting account of the cure of frac-
ture of the femiu'. He was requested to attend a
" bay mare that had met with an accident in leaping
a sunken fence. He found a wound in the stifle
of the hind leg, nmning tranvsersely across the
anterior of the articulation, about an inch and a
half in length, and hi it was a portion of bone that
had been fractured, and that bad escaped from its
situation towards the inside of the stifle, where it
was held by a portion of ligament. The isolated
nature of the fractured portion, the difficidty, or
rather impossibility of replacing it in its situation,
and the few vessels which the connecting medium
possessed, rendered it impossible that union would
be effected ; he therefore determined to remove it.

• Veterinarian, vol. iv., p. 422.

Having enlarged the wound, and divided the
portion of capsular ligament which retained it in
its place, he extracted the bone, and found it to be
the upper part of the inner anterior conayie of the
femur, measuring three inches in length, one inch
and a half in breadth, and about an inch in thick-
ness, and being in shape nearly similar to the lon-
gitudinal section of a hen's egg.

After the removal of the bone the animal seemed
veiy much relieved ; the wound was firmly sewed
up, adhesive strapping applied over it, and the pait
kept wet with cold water.

Two da}"^ afterwards considerable swelling had
taken place ; she seemed to suffer much, and there
was some oozing from the wound. Fomentations
were again applied, and she was slung.

She now began rapidly to improve, and, although
one of the largest articulations in the body had been,
laid open, and a part of the articular portion of the
bone removed, the woimd healed so rapidly that in
three weeks she walked with little lameness to a
loose box. At the expiration of another three
weeks the Professor again visited her. On being
led out she trotted several times along the stable
yard, apparently sound, with the exception of
moving the limb in a slight degree wider than
usual, and so completely was the part recovered
that, had it not been for a small scar that remained,
a stranger could not have known that such an acci-
dent had taken place.f

FEACTUEE OF THE PATELLA.

This does occasionally, though very seldom
occur. It is usually the consequence of \-iolent
kicks, or blows, and if this singular bone is once
disunited, no power can bring the di^-ided por-
tions of the bone together again,

FEACTUEE OF THE TIBLA.

This affection is of more frequent occui'-
rence, and of more serious consequence than
we were accustomed to imagine it to be. Mr.
Trump, twelve yeai's ago, first called the at-
tention of the profession to some singular cir-
cumstances connected with the tibia. A large
draught hoi-se belonging to the Dowlais Iron
Company, at Merthyr Tydvil, came in from his
labour very lame in the near hind leg, but with
no visible sign of any severe injuiT being received.
The foot was searclied, but nothing farther was
done. He stood in the stable several days, and
then was turned into a field, and was discovered
one morning with the limb dependent, and a frac-
tion of the tibia just above the hock.

Fourteen or sLxteeu months after that, another
horse came home from a jomiiey of seven miles,
lame, with a slight mark on the inside of the
thigh — a mere scratch, and veiy little tumefac-

+ Veterinarian, vol. ii., p. MO.

480

THE HORSE.

tion. There was notliing to account for such se-
vere lameness : hut, a few mornings afterwards,
the tibia was seen to be fractured. The front of
the bone was splintered as from a blow.

Two months after that, another horse had
been observed to be lame seven or eight daj'S. A
slight scratch was observed on the inside of the
thigh, with a little swelling, and increased heat
and tenderness just above the hock. Mr. Trump
had examined the foot during the time that the
horse stood in the stable, not being satisfied that
the apparently slight injui-y on the thigh could
account for the lameness. He was turned to
grass, and three days afterwards the tibia was
found broken at the part mentioned, and evidently
from a blow. Were there not positive proof of
the circumstance, it would have been deemed im-
possible that a fracture, and of such a bone, could
have existed so long without detection.*

Mr. J. S. Mayer gives an interesting account
of the successful treatment of a case of fracture of
the tibia. The simplicity of the process will, we
trust, encourage many another veterinary surgeon
to follow his example.

"A horse received a blow on the tibia of the
near leg. but little notice was taken of it for two
or three days. When, however, we were called in
to examine him, we found the tibia to be obliquely
fractured about midway between the hock and the
stifle, and a small wound existing on the inside
of the leg. It was set in the following manner :
— The leg from the stifle dowTi to the hock was
well covered with an adhesive compound ; it was
then wrapped round with fine tow, upon which
another layer of the same adhesive mixture was
laid, the whole being well splinted and bandaged
up, so as to render what was a slightly compound
fracture a simple one. The local inflammation
and sympathetic fever that supervened were kept
down by antiphlogistic measures. At the end of
six weeks the bandages and splints were removed,
and readjusted in a similar way as before, and at
the termination of three months from the time of
the accident he was discharged, cured, the splints
being wholly taken off", and merely an adhesive
stay kept on the leg. The horse is now at work
and quite sound, there being merely a little
thickening, where the callus is formed."!

FEACTURE OF THE HOCK.

This is not of frequent occurrence, but very
difficult to treat, from the almost impossibility of
finding means to retain the bone in its situation.
A case, however, somewhat simple in its nature
occurred in the practice of Mr. Cartwright. A

* VeCerinarian, vol. iii.,p. 394.

+ The Ti iinsactinns of the Vet. Med. Association. Some
other ca.ses of the suceessful treatment of Iractures are related in
this work.

colt, leaping at some rails, got his leg between
them, and, unable to extricate himself, hung over
on the other side. After being liberated it ap-
peared on examination, that there was a simple
horizontal fracture of the whole of the os calois
about the middle. A splint was contrived so as
to reach from the middle of the tibia to that of
the cannon bone, and this was applied to the
front of the leg, keeping the hock from its usual
motion, and relaxing the muscles inserted into the
OS calcis. Underneath this splint a charge was
applied about the part, in order to form a level
surface for the splint to rest upon. The whole
was bound together by proper adhesive bandages,
and he was ordered to be kept quiet in the stable,
but not to be slung. In about two months the
hock was fired and became perfectly sound. J

FRACTURE OF THE CANNON OR SHANK BONE.

This is of more frequent occurrence than that
of any other bone, on accoimt of the length of the
leg, and the danger to which it is exposed. There
is rarely any difficulty in detecting its situation,
but there is sometimes a great deal in bringing
the divided edges of the bone again into appo-
sition. A kind of windlass, or a power equal to
it, is occasionally necessary to produce sufficient
extension in order to effect the desired purpose :
but the divided edges being brought into apposi-
tion are retained there by the force of the muscles
above. Splints reaching from the foot to above
the knee should then be applied. The horse
should be racked up during a fortnight, after
which, if tlie case is going on well, the animal
may often be turned out.

In cases of compound fracture the wounds
should be carefully attended to : but Mr. Percivall
says that he knows one or two old jiractitioners,
who are in the habit of treating these cases in a
very summary and generally successful manner.
They employ such common support, with splints
and tow and bandages, as the case seems to re-
quire, and then the animal with his leg bound up
is turned out, if tlie season permits ; otherwise he
is placed in a yard or box, where there is not much
straw to incommode his movements. The animal
will take care not to impose too much weight on
his fractured limb ; and, provided the parts are well
secured, nature will generally perform the rest.||

FRACTURE OF THE SESSAMOID BONES.

There are but two instances of this on record.
The first is related by Mr. Fuller of March. He
was galloping steadily and not rapidly a horse of
his own, when the animal suddenly fell as if he
had been shot. He was broken down in both

i Veterinarian, vol. iii., p. 69.

11 Percivall's Hippopatholoyy, vol. i , p. 269.

THE HORSE.

481

fore legs. The owner very humanely ordered
him to be immediately destroyed. Both the per-
forans and perforatus tendons of the near fore leg
■were completely ruptured, just where they pass
over the sessamoid bone, which was fractured in a
transverse direction. The sessamoid bone of the
off leg was fractured in the same direction, but the
tendons were entire. '-•=

The second case is one described by Mr. Har-
ris of Preston. A strong coach-lilie animal was
galloped rapidly. He had not got more tlian a
hundred yards before he suddenly fell, and it was
•with great difficulty that he could be led home, a
distance of about two miles. There was soon con-
siderable swelling in the off fore leg — great pain
on the animal's attempting to walli, and his fetlock
nearly touched the ground. Some slight crepitus
could be detected, but the e.x^act seat of it could
not be ascertained. Mr. Harris considered the
case as hopeless, but the owner would have some
means tried to save the animal. He was accord-
ingly bled and physicked, and cold lotions and
bandages were applied to the foot. Two days
afterwards some bony spiculae began to protinide
through the skin, and, the case being now per-
fectly hopeless, the animal was destroyed. The
inner sessamoid bone was shivered to atoms.-j-

FK.VCTUBE OF THE UPPER PASTEEN.

Thick and strong, and movable as this bone
seems to be, it is occasionally fractured. This has
been the consequence of a violent effort by the
horse to save himself from falling, when he has
stumbled, — it has happened when he has been in-
cautiously permitted to run down a steep descent —
and has occurred when a horse has been travell-
ing on the best road, and at no great pace.

The existence of fracture in this bone is, gene-
rally speaking, easily detected. The injured foot
is as lightly as possible permitted to come in con-
tact with the ground. As little weight as may be
is thrown on it, or, if the animal is compelled to
use it, the fetlock is bent down nearly to the ground,
and the toe is turned upward. If the foot is
rotated, a crepitus is generally heard.

This, however, is not always the case. M.
Levrat was requested to examine a horse that had
suddenly become lame. The near hind leg was
retracted, and the foot was kept from touching the
ground. He carefully examined the foot, and dis-
covered that much pam was expressed when the
pastern was handled. He suspected fracture of
the bone, but he could not detect it. He bled the
animal, ordered cooling ajjplications to the part,
and gave a dose of physic. Three days afterwards
he again saw his patient, and readily detected a

* Veterinarian, vol. iii., p. 393.
+ Veterinarian, vol. v., p. 375.

fracture, taking a direction obliquely across the
pastern.*

The probability of success in the treatment of
this fracture, depends on its being a simple or
compound one. If it runs laterally across the
bone, it may be readily and successfully treated —
if it extends to the joints above and below, it will
probably terminate in anchylosis, and if the bone
is shivered, as it too frequently is, into various
jxarts, there would scarcely seem the possibility of
a successful treatment of the case. The instances,
however, ai'e numerous in which the case termi-
nates successfully. Hurtrel DArboval recom-
mends that a bandage steeped in some adhesive
matter should be applied from the coronet to the
middle of the leg. On this some wet pasteboard
is to be moulded, enveloped afterwards in a linen
bandage. A small splint is now to be applied
before and behind and on each side, and the hollow
places ai'e filled with tow, in order to give them an
equal bearing. If this does not appear to be suffi-
ciently secure, other splints, thicker and broader,
are placed over those extending to the knee or the
hock.

The case related by M. Levrat was treated in
this way. It will be comparatively seldom that it
will be necessary to suspend the patient. The
animal, under the treatment of M. Levrat, kept his
foot in the air for nearly three weeks. At the end
of that period he now and then tried to rest his toe
on the litter. Six weeks after the accident, he
began to throw some weight on the foot ; and a few
days afterwards he was able to go to a pond, about
fifty paces from his stable, and where, of his own
accord, he took a foot-bath for nearly an hour at a
time. At the expiration of another month he was
mounted, and went veiy well at a walking pace ; he
was, however, still lame when he was trotted.

Another horse, treated by the same surgeon,
was soon able to rest on the bad leg, in order to
change his position — he was allowed three weeks
after that, and then commenced his former daily
work — the drawing of a hea-\'y cait. He limped a
little when he was trotted ; but did as much slow-
work as he was ever accustomed to do.

FR.A.CTUEE OF THE LOWER P.iSTERN.

Although this bone is much shorter than the
upper pastern, there are several instances of frac-
ture of it. The fractures of this bone ai'e commonly
longitudinal, and often present a lesion of continu-
ity extending from the larger pastern to the coffin-
bone. It is frequently splintered, the splinters
taldug this longitudinal direction. Hurtrel DAr-
boval relates three cases of this, and in one of them
the bone was splintered into four pieces. In several
instances, however, this bone has been sepai'ated

t Rce. du M^J. Vet., Nov. 1S31

482

THE HORSE.

into eight or ten distinct pieces. When the frac-
ture of the bone is neither compound nor compli-
cated, it may be perfectly reduced by proper ban-
daging, and, in fact, there have been cases, in
■which union has taken place with slight assistance
from art beyond the application of a few bandages.

M. Gazot relates a very satisfactoiy terminatiou
of fracture of this bone in a carriage-horse. The
animal fell, and was totally unable to rise again.
He was placed on some hurdles, and drawn home.
A veterinary surgeon being consulted, recognised
fracture of the lower pastern in both feet, and
advised that the animal should be destroyed. It
was a favourite horse, between five and six years
old, and the owner determined to give it a chance
of recovery.

M. Gazot was consulted. He plainly recog-
nised a transverse fracture in the lower pastern of
the right leg, and a longitudinal one in the left
psistern. They were both of them simple fractures.
The horse was manageable and seemed to compre-
hend the whole affair. He had plenty of good
litter under him, which was changed twice in the
day. The first object that was attempted to be
accomplished was the healing of the excoriations
that had taken place in drawing him home, and
abating the inflammation that was appearing about
the pasterns.

At the termination of the first week all these
were healed, the horse fed well, and was perfectly
quiet, except that when he was tired of lying on
one side he contrived to get on his knees and then
to raise himself on his haunches, and, having
voided his urine and his dung, he turned himself
upon the other side, without the bandages round
his pasterns being in the slightest degree interfered
with.

At the expiration of the second week he seemed
to wish to get up. The groom had orders to assist
him, and a sling was passed under him. Some
oats were placed in the manger, and he seemed to
enjoy the change for a little while. Soon after-
wards he began to be uneasy, and a copious per-
spiration appeared on every part. He was imme-
diately lowered, when, with evident delight, he
stretched out his head and his legs, and lay almost
without motion during several hours. On the fol-
lowing day he was again placed in the sling, and
again lowered as soon as he appeared to be fatigued.

At the expiration of a month from the time of
the accident he could get up without assistance,
and would continue standing two or three hours,
when he lay down again, but with a degree of pre-
caution that was truly admirable. The bandages
around the pasterns had been continued until this
period, and had been kept wet with a spirituous
embrocation. The horse was encouraged to walk
a little, some corn being offered to him in a sieve.
He was sadly lame, and the lameness was consi-

derably greater in the left than in the right foot.
A calculous enlargement could also be felt in the
direction of the fracture on each pastern ; but it
was greatest in the left fetlock, and there was
reason to fear the existence of ancholysis between
the pastern bones of the left leg. That foot was
surrounded with emollient cataplasms, and, two
days afterwards, was pared out, and the cautery
applied over both pasterns, the sjiirituous embro-
cation being continued.

A fortnight afterwards the effect of the cauteiy
was very satisfactory. The action of the part was
*more free, and there was no longer any fear of
anchylosis. It was however deemed prudent to
apply the cautery over the right pastern. Walking
exercise was now recommended, and in the course
of another month the lameness was much dimi-
nished. It was most on the left side, which, how-
ever, had resumed its former degree of inclination.

At the expiration of four months the horse was
sent to work. His master, however, doubting the
stability of the cure, sold him, for which he ought
to have had his own legs broken, and he fell into
bad hands. He was worked hardly and half-
starved ; nevertheless, the calculus continued to
diminish, and the lameness altogether disappeared.
He soon, however, passed into better hands. He
was bought by a farmer at Chalons, in whose ser-
vice he long remained, in good condition, and
totally free from lameness. His last owner gave
him the name of .Old Broken Leg.*

FHACTURE OF THE COFFIN BO.NF..

This is an accident of very rare occurrence, and
difficult to distinguish from other cattses of lame-
ness. The animal halts very considerably — the
foot is hot and tender — the puin seems to be ex-
ceedingly great, and none of the ordinary causes of
lameness are percei\ed. According to Hui'trel
D'Arboval, it is not so serious an accident as has
been represented. The fractured portions cannot
be displaced, and in a vascular bone lilce this, the
union of the divided parts will be readily effected.

Mr. Percivall very properly remarks, tliat,
" buried as the coffin and navicular bones are
within the hoof, and out of the way of all external
injury as well as of muscular force, fracture of them
cannot proceed from ordinary causes. It is, per-
haps, thus produced : — in the healthy foot, in con-
sequence of the elasticity of their connections,
these bones yield or spring under the impression
the y receive from the bones above, and thus are
enabled to bear great weights, and sustain violent
shocks without injury ; but, disease in the foot is
often found to destroy this elasticity, by changing
the cartilage into bone, which cannot receive the

* Recueil de Med. Vet. 1834, p. 7. No apology is offered for
the introduction of cases lil;c this. The cause of science and of
humanity is equally served.

THE HORSE.

483

same weight and concussion without risk of frac-
ture. Horses that have undergone the operation
of neurotomy more frequently meet with this acci-
dent than others, because they batter their sense-
less feet with a force which, under similar circum-
stances, pain would forbid the others from doing."*

FRACTURE OF THE NAVICULAR BONE

has been sufficiently considered under the article
" Navicular Joint Disease," p. 463.

Mr. Mayer sums up his account of the treat-
ment of fractures in a way that reflects much
credit on him and the profession of which lie is a
member. " Let your remedies," says he, " be
governed by those principles of science, those dic-
tates of humanity, and that sound discretion,
which, w-hile they raise the moral and intellectual
superiority of man, distinguish the master of his
profession from the bungling empiric"!

CHAPTER XXI.

ON SHOEING.

The period when the shoe began to be nailed
to the foot of the horse is uncertain. William the
Norman introduced it into our country.

We have seen, in the progress of our inquiry,
that, while it affords to the foot of the horse that
defence which seems now to be necessary against
the destructive effects of our artificial and flinty
roads, it has entailed on the animal some evils.
Jt has limited or destroyed the beautiful expansi-
bility of the lower part of the foot— it has led to
contraction, although that contraction has not
always been accompanied by lameness — in the
most careful fixing of the best shoe, and in the
careless manufacture and setting on of the bad
one. irreparable injury has occasionally been done
to the horse.

We will first attend to the preparation of the
foot for the shoe, for more than is generally
imagined, of its comfort to the horse and its safety
to the riiler, depends on this. If the master
would occasionally accompany the horse to the
forge, more expense to himself and punishment
to the horse would be spared than, perhaps, he
would think possible, provided he will take the
pains to understand the matter himself, otherwise
he had better not interfere.

The old shoe must be first taken off. We
have something to observe even here. The shoe
was retained on the foot by the ends of the nails
lieiug twisted off, turned down, and clenched.
These clenches should be first raised, which the
smith seldom tiikes the trouble thoroughly to do;
but after looking carefully round the crast and
loosening one or two of the clenches, he takes hold
first of one heel of the shoe, and then of the other,
and by a violent wi-ench separates them from the
foot : then, by means of a third wrench, applied to
the middle of the shoe, he tears it off. By these
means he must enlarge every nail-hole, and
weaken the future and steady hold of the shoe,

* Ptrcivall's Hippopathology, vol. i., p. 272.

and sometimes tear off portions of the crust, and
otherwise injure the foot. The horse generally
shows by his flinching that he suffers from the
violence with which this preliminaiy operation too
often is performed. The clenches should always
be raised or filed off ; and, where the foot is
tender, or the horse is to be examined for lame-
ness, each nail should be partly punched out.
According to the common system of procedure,
many a stub is left in the crast, the source of future
annoyance.

The shoe having been removed, the smith
proceeds to rasp the edges of the crust. Let not
the stander-by object to the apparent violence
which he uses, or fear that the foot will suffer.
It is the only means that he has to detect whether
any stubs remain in the nail-holes ; and it is the
most convenient method of removing that portion
of the crust into which dut and gravel have insi-
nuated themselves.

Next comes the important process of paring out,
with regard to which it is almost impossible to lay
down any specific rules. This, however, is un-
doubted, that far more injury has been done by
the neglect of paring, than by carryinjj; it to too
great an extent. The act of paring is a work of much
more labour than the jjroprietor of the horse often
imagines. The smith, except he is overlooked,
will frequently give himself as little trouble about
it as he can ; and that portion of horn which,
in the unshod foot, would be worn away by con-
tact with the ground is suffered to accumulate
month after month, until the elasticity of the sole
is destroyed, and it can no longer descend, and its
other functions are imjeded, and foundation is laid
for corn, and contraction, and navicular disease,
and inflammation. That portion of horn should
be left on the foot, which will defend the internal
parts from being braised, and yet suffer the
external sole to descend. How is this to be ascer-

+ Vet. Trans., vol. i., p. 245.

4ft4

THE HOKSE.

tallied ? The strong pressure of the thumb of the
smith will be the best guide. The buttress, that
most destructive of all instruments, being, except
on very particular occasions, banished from every
respectable forge, the smith sets to work with his
drawing-knife, and removes the growth of horn,
imtil the sole will yield, although in the slightest
possible degree, to the strong pressure of his
thumb. The proper thickness of horn will then
I'emain.

If the foot has been previously neglected, and
the horn is become very hard, the owner must not
object if the smith resorts to some other means to
soften it a little, and takes one of his flat irons,
and having heated it, draws it over the sole, and
keeps it, a little while, in contact with the foot.
When the sole is really thick, this rude and appa-
rently barbarous method can do no harm, but
it should never be permitted with the sole that is
regularly pared out.

The quantity of horn to be removed in order
to leave the proper degree of thickness wUl vary
with different feet. From the strong foot a great
deal must be taken. From the concave foot the
horn may be removed until the sole will yield to a
moderate pressure. From the flat foot little needs
to be pared ; while tlie pumieed foot should be
deprived of nothing but the ragged parts.

The paring being nearly completed, the knife
and the rasp of the smith must be a little watched,
or he will reduce the crust to a level with the sole,
and thus endanger the bruising of it by its pres-
sure on the edge of the seating. The crust should
be reduced to a perfect level, all round, but left a
little higher than the sole.

The heels will require considerable attention.
From the stress which is thrown on the inner heel,
and from the weakness of the quarter there, the horn
usually wears away considerably faster than it would
on the outer one, and if an equal portion of horn
were pared from it, it would be left lower than the
outer heel. The smith should, therefore, accom-
modate his paring to the comparative wear of the
heels, and be exceedingly careful to leave them
jJrecisely level.

If the reader will recollect what has been said
of the intention and action of the bars, he will
readily perceive that the smith should be checked
in his almost universal fondness for opening the
heels, or, more truly, removing that which is
the main impediment to contraction. The portion
of the heels between the inflexion of the bar and
the frog should scarcely be touched — at least the
ragged and detached parts alone should be cut
away. The foot may not look so fair and open,
but it will last longer without contraction.

The bar, likewise, should be left fully promi-
nent, not only at its first inflexion, but as it runs
down the side of the frog. The heel of the shoe

is designed to rest partly on the heel of the foot
and partly on the bar, for reasons that have been
already stated. If the bar is weak, the growth of
it should be encouraged ; and it should be scarcely
touched when the horse is shod, unless it has
attained a level with the crust. The reader
will recollect the observation which has been
already made, that the destniction of the bars not
only leads to contraction by removing the grand
impediment to it, but by adding a still more
powerful cause in the slanting direction which
is given to the bearing at the heels, when the bar
does not contribute to the support of the weight.

It will also be apparent that the horn between
the crast and the bar should be carefully pared
out. Every horseman has observed the relief
which is given to the animal lame with corns
when this angle is well thiimed. This relief,
however, is often but temjiorary ; for when the
horn grows again, and the shoe presses upon it,
the torture of the horse is renewed.

The degree of paring to which the frog must
be subjected will depend on its prominence, and
on the shape of the foot. The principle has
already been stated, that it must be left so far
projecting and prominent, that it shall be just
within and above the lower surface of the shoe ; it
will then descend vntH the sole sufficiently to dis-
charge the functions that have been attributed to
it. If it is lower, it will be bruised and injured ;
if it is higher, it cannot come in contact .with the
ground, and thus be enabled to do its duty. The
I'agged parts must be removed, and especially
those occasioned by thrush, but the degree of
j)aring must depend entirely on the principle just
stated.

It appears, then, that the office of the smith
requires some skill and judgment in order to be
properly discharged ; and the proprietor of horses
will find it his interest occasionally to visit the
forge, and complain of the careless, or idle, or
obstinate fellow, while he rewards by some trifling
gratuity the expert and diligent workman. He
should likewise remember that a great deal more
depends on the paring out of the foot than on the
construction of the shoe ; that few shoes, except
they press ujjon the sole or are made outrageously
bad, will lame the horse ; but that he may be very
easily lamed from ignorant and improper paring
out of the foot.

THE PUTTING ON OF THE SHOE.

The foot being thus prepared, the smith looks
about for a shoe. He should select one that as
nearly as possible fits the foot, or may be easily
altered to the foot. He will sometimes, and
especially if he is an idle and reckless fellow, care
little about this, for he can easily alter the foot to
the shoe. The toe-knife is a very convenient

thp: horse.

4H5

instrument for him, and plenty of horn can be
struck off with it. or removed by the rasp, in order
to make the foot as small as the shoe ; while
he cares little, although by this destructive method
the crust is materially tliinncd where it should
receive the nail, and the danger of puncture and
of pressure upon the sole is increased ; and a foot
so artiticially diminished in size will soon grow
over the shoe, to the hazard of considerable or
permanent lameness.

While the horse is travelling, dirt and gravel
are apt to insinuate themselves between the web
of the shoe and the sole. If the shoe were flat,
they would be permanently retained there, and
would bruise the sole, and be productive of injury ;
but when the shoe is properly bevelled off, it
is scarcely possible for them to remain. They
must be shaken out almost every time that the
foot comes in contact with the ground.

The web of the shoe is likewise of that thick-
ness that when the t\iot is properly pared, the
prominent part of the frog shall lie just within and
above its ground surface, so that in the descent of
the sole the frog shall come sufficiently on the
ground to enable it to act as a wedge and to
expand the quarters, while it is defended from the
wear and injury it would receive if it came on the
ground with the iirst and full sho^ik of the weight.

The nail-holes are, on the ground side, placed
as near the outer edge of the shoe as they can
safely be, and brought out near the inner edge
of the seating. The nails thus take a direc-
tion inward, resembling that of the crust itself,
and have firmer hold, while the strain upon
them in the common shoe is altogether prevented,
and the weight of the horse being thrown on
a flat surface, contraction is not so likely to be
produced.

The smith sometimes objects to the use of this
shoe on account of its not being so easily formed
as one composed of a bar of iron, either flat or
a little bevelled. It likewise occupies more time
in the forging ; but these objections would vanish
when the owner of the horse declared that he
would have him shod elsewhere, or when he con-
sented— as, in justice, he should — to pay some-
what more for a shoe that required better worlv-
mansliip. and longer time in the construction.

It is expedient not only that the foot and
ground surface of the shoe should be most accu-
rately level, but that the cnist should be exactly
smoothed and fitted to the shoe. Much skill and
time are necessary to do this perfectly with the
drawing-knife. The smith has adopted a method
of more quickly and more accurately adapting the
shoe to the foot. He pares the crust as level as
he can, and then he brings the shoe to a heat
somewhat below a red heat, and applies it to the
foot, and detects any little elevations by the deeper

colour of the burned horn. This practice has been
much inveighed against; but it is the abuse, and
not the use of the thing which is to be condemned.
If the shoe is not too hot, nor held too long
on the foot, an accuracy of adjustment is tlius
obtained which the knife would be long in produ-
cing, or would not produce at all. If, however,
the shoe is made to burn its way to its seat, with
little or no previous preparation of the foot, the
heat must be injurious both to the sensible and
insensible parts of the foot.

The heels of the shoe should be examined as
to their proper width. AVhatever is the custom of
shoeing the horses of dealers, and the too preva-
lent practice in the metropolis of giving the foot
an open appearance, although the posterior part of
it is thereby exposed to injury, nothing is more
certain than that, in the horse destined for road-
work, the heels, and particularly the seat of com,
can scarcely be too well covered. Part of the shoe
projecting externally can be of no possible good,
but will prove an occasional source of mischief, and
especially in a heavy country. A shoe, the web of
which projects inward as far as it can without
touching the frog, affords protection to the angle
between the bars and the crust.

Of the manner of attaching the shoe to the foot
the owner can scarcely be a competent judge ; he
can only take care that the shoe itself shall not be
heavier than the work requires — that, for work a
little hard the shoe shall still be light, with a bit
of steel welded into the toe— that the nails shall
be as small, and as few, and as far from the heels
as may be consistent with the security of the shoe ;
and that, for light work at least, the shoe shall not
be driven on so closely and firmly as is often done,
nor the points of the nails be brought out so high
up as is generally practised.

There are few cases in which the use of calkins
(a turning up or elevation of the heel) can be ad-
missible in the fore-feet, except in frosty weather,
when it may in some degree prevent unpleasant or
dangerous slipping. If, however, calkins are used,
they should be placed on both sides. If the outer
heel only is raised with the calkin, as is too often
the case, the weight cannot be thrown evenly on
the foot, and undue straining and injury of some
part of the foot or of the leg must be the necessaiy
consequence. Few things deserve more the attention
of the horseman than this most absurd and injurious
of all the practices of the forge. One quarter of an
hour's walking, with one side of the shoe or boot
raised considerably above the other, will painfully
convince us of what the horse must suffer from this
too common method of shoeing. It cannot be ex-
cused even in the huudng shoe. If the horse is
ridden far to cover, or galloped over much hard

1 I

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Tax BvSISC.

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488

THE HORSE.

other attacliment, between the shoe and the crust.
The portion of the crust which is rasped off from
the inner surface of the shoe is now, we believe,
not often removed from the side of the foot; it has
an unpleasant appearance, and the rasjiing is some-
what unnecessary. The heel of this shoe exhibits

the method which Mr. Tm-ncr has adopted, and
with considerable success, for the cure of corns;
he cuts away a portion of the ground surface at the
heel, and all injurious compression or concussion
are rendered in a manner impossible.

There can be no doubt that this one-sided nail-
ing has been exceedingly useful. It has, in many
a case that threatened a serious termination, re-
stored the elasticity of the foot, and enabled it to
discharge ils natural functions. It has also restored
to the foot, even in bad cases, a great deal of its
natural formation, and enabled tlie hoi'se to dis-
charge his duty with moi'e ease and pleasure to
himself, and greater security to his rider.

It is difficult to tell what was the character of
" the old English shoe." It certainly was larger
than there was any occasion for it to be, and nearly
covered the lower surface of the foot. The nail-
holes were also far more numerous than they are
at present. The ground side was usually some-
what convex. " The effect of this," says Mr. W.
C. Spooner, " was to place the foot in a kind of
hollow dibh, which effectually prevented its proper

expansion, the crust resting on a mere ledge
instead of a flat surface ; and on the ground side,
from the inner rim coming to the ground tir.st, the
weight was almost supported by the nails and
clinches, which were pl.iced, four or live on each
side, at some distance from the toe, and ajiproach-
ing nearly to the heels."*

It was an improvement to make the ground

• A Treatise on tbe Fool of (be Hoise, by Mr. W. C. Spooner,

surface flat, and to take care that it did not press
on the sole. At length, however, came the con-
cave-seated shoe of Osnier, which was advocated
by Mr. Clark, of Edin\)urgh, improved by Mr.
Moorcroft, and ultimately became very generally
and usefully adopted.

THE HUNTING SHOE.

The hunter's shoe is different from that com-
monly used, in form as well as in weight. It is

THE HORSE.

489

lapft

not 80 much bevellerl ofF as tho common concare-
geated shoe. Sufficient space alone is left for the
introduction of a picker between the shoe and the
sole, othenvise, in going over heavy ground, the
clay would insinuate itself, and by its tenacity
loosen, and even tear off the shoe. The heels
likewise are somewhat shorter, that they may not
be torn off by the toe of the hind-feet when gallop-
ing fast, and the outer heel is frerjuently but inju-
diciously turned up to prevent slipping. If calkins
are necessarj', both heels should have an equal
bearing.

THK B.\R-SHOE.

A bar-shoe is often exceedingly useful. It is
the continuation of the common shoe round the
heels, and by means of it the pressure may be
taken off from some tender part of the foot, and
thrown on another which is better able to bear it,
or more widely and equ'illy diffused over the whole
foot. It is principally resorted to in cases of corn,
the seat of which it perfectly covers — in pumiced
feet, the soles of which may be thus elevated above
the ground an 1 secured from pressure — in sand-
crack, when the pressure may be removed from the
fissure, and thrown on either side of it, and in
thrushes, when the frog Ls tender, or is become
cankered, and requires to be frequently dressed,
and the dressing can by this means alone be re-
tained. In these cases the bar-shoe is an excellent
contrivance, if worn only for one or two shoeings.
or as long as the disea.se requires it to be worn,
but it must be left off as soon as it can be dispensed '
with. If it Ls used for the protection of a diseased
foot, however it may be chambered and laid off the j
frog, it will soon become flattened upon it ; or if
the pressure of it is thrown on the frog, in order
to relieve the sand-crack or the com, that frog
must be very strong and healthy which can long j
bear the great and continued pressure. More I
mischief Ls often produced in the frog than pre-
viously existed in the part that was relieved. It
will be plain that in the use of the bar-shoe for
com or sand-crack, the crust and the frog should
be precLsely on a level : the bar also should be the 1
\\idest part of the shoe, in order to afford as ex-
tended bearing as possible on the frog, and there-
fore less likely to be injurious. Bar-shoes are
evidently not safe in frosty weather. They are
never safe when much speed is required from the '
horse, and they are apt to be wrenched off in a i
heavy, clayey country. [

Tips are short shoes, reaching only half round
the foot, and worn while the horse is at grass, in
order to prevent the crust being torn by the occa-
sional hardness of the ground, or the pawing of
the animal. The quarters at the same time being

free, the foot disposed to contract has a chance of
expanding and regaining its natural shape.

THE EXPAKDIS'O SHOE.

Our subject would not be complet* if we did not
describe the suppo-sed expanding shoe, although it
is now almost entirely out of u.se. It is either
seated or concave like the common shoe, with a
joint at the toe, by which the natural expaasion of
the foot is said to be permitted, and the injurious
consequences of shoeing prevented. There is,
however, this radical defect in the jointed shoe,
that the nails occupy the same situation as in the
; common shoe, and prevent, as they do, the gra/lual
expansion of the sides and quarters, and allow only
of a hinge-like motion at the toe. It is a most
' imperfect accommodation of the expansion of the
foot to the action of its internal parts, and even
this accommodation is a.fforded in the slightest
possible degree, if it is affjrded at all. Either the
nails fix the sides and quarters as in the common
shoe, and then the joint at the toe is useless ; or,
if tliat joint merely opens like a hinge, the nail-
holes near the toe can no longer correspond with
those in th? quarters, which are uneqaally expand
ing at every point. There will be more stress on
the crust at these holes, which will not only en-
large them and destroy the fixed attachment of the
siioe to the hoof, but often tear away portions of
the crust. This shoe, in order to answer the
intended purpose, should consLst of many joints,
running along the sides and quarters, which would
make it too complicated and expensive and frail
for general ase.

While the shoe is to be attached to the foot by
nails, we mast be content with the concave-seited
or unilateral one, taking care to place the n lil-
holes as far from the heels, and particularly frim
the inner heel, as the state of the f)ot and the
nature of the work will admit ; and where the
country is not too heavy nor the work too severe,
omitting all but two on the inner side of the foot.

FELT OB LE.^THEB SOLES.

When the foot is bruised or inflamed the con-
cussion or shock produced by the hard contact of
the elastic iron with the ground gives the animal
much pain, and aggravates the injury or disease.
A strip of felt or leather is, therefore, sometimes
placed between the seating of the shoe and the
cnist, which, from its want of elasticity, deadens
or materially lessens the vibration or shock, and
the horse treads more freely and is evidently re-
lieved. This is a gjod contrivance while the in-
flammation or tenderness of the foot continues, but
a very bad practice if constantly adopted. The
naDs cannot be driven so surely or sscurelv when
this substance is interposed between the shoe and
the foot. The contraction and swelling of the felt

^^f

490

or kaiiter irom me enen oi motsom or dr
viD sooa mtder the Mmhmft wt die siv:
firm — tkae vQl be too Bocfa pier «poii the b^
the iMil-holes will eokiige, and the crost r.
broken •aaj.

After ■uiiwk or extenBre fcnnses at the
or where the sole it thin and flat and tender,
mnetimes wyered with a piece of leather, fitu
the sole, and nailed on widi the shoe. Thb
be allowed as a tenpotaiy de&nce ot the ioot
there is the same ofcjeetion to its peimantu
from the insecnritj of heumag. and the stn
the crast, and the ire^nent cn^^pin^ of it-
are also these adiliiiiaial ineonTenieneea. tfaa;
hollow between the sole and tlw leather ts
with sto|)ping and tow, it b exeeedinglT di&:
introdoce them so erenlr and acraratf-lV r^
pcodnee pamal or iBjnrioas pnasiiie.
work wiQ almost inrariablT so der.
ding, as to eanse meiiaal piriinir
eootaet of the sole with stoffing of
kind win prodnce. not a heahhj. eh>
that of a scalr, sfmngr natnre — aB'i
is not thus filled, grsrel and dirt -
ihenwflTea, and eat into and injue tii« i -

The geneml halst of stopping the Ceet r
some eonsideratioB. It is a rerr good or
bad pmctiee. scconling to diaonstances. \
the sole is fiat and thin it AotU K>
except on the ereningbefeeeshoemg.
appUcaoon of a littte inuistnie m^
paring of the foot safer and BMte ek:T .
oftener nsed it wanU soften thei>oC,'and
increase the teitdency to descent, bottheo:
oMuixeMce of lament as from pebbles or irn
hties of the road.

Profieasor Stewart gives a valoaUe wv-
the proper apfrficatiaa of stopping. •■ Fami es
sddom reqoire aoT stopping. Their f--:' ^^
snffioent moistore in the fidds. or. : r
get macfa. ther not do need mndi. C ■.:
in the town shoold be stopped eirry -
n^it, nntil Mondar mommg. Fast f^oic
Bhoold be stopped once a week, or often«r
winter, and ererr second ni^t in the hot •▲»
of summer. Oroggjr hwses. and all tboee
high heels, eoncave shoes, or hot and tender
or an exabenmee ct horn. lequifg stopping all it
ererr night. When ne^ected, espedallj
weather, the scde becomes hsrd and rigid, ani e
horse goes lame, or becomes lame if he verc it
so before."*

One of two sabstances. or a mixtnre of boc!
generallj used for stopping the feel— day
eow-dong. The clav osed alone is too hard,
dries tco rapidly. Many horses have been
by it If it is csed in the stable, it shoold al
be removed before the horse aoes to work. It

• Sc' » ».n » Seabfc (X^vooerr, p. H7.

withi

sole, tow

Thei
tsgomgat I
daring '
needs to be
erery 1

in the middle
are getting*
coontrr.

ilr. PerriTall
occupies a verr
bacUedon the fool
win sene as a
on the road, o
the nce^Kme
'---■■'her: or m

-ed feet thu

' ;^ and daily
lowing p^ge is a shott ]

Fr
that the shoe, or inm i
of three fwimtipmL parts.i
appendages; which i
resemblance to the
miidU har. the bnnd
the tip ; and the j
e bar. extending to|
itfffmdmfet are. the
jeetiag from the frmrt of thJ
b^ ahinge npon the tot-Hip^
nisfaed with two ircm
two clips at the heels of
respond t^^Mtee-clip ;
toe of ,
heebi

•

•*^

whii
andbou
the hoof I

491

^The heel and coronet-strap is furnished with
pads and two sliding loops : one, a moveable
eposes ou the heel, to defend that part from

-Toe.Clasp

'inge
;C!ip

Heel Clip'

the pressure and friction of tht p ; the other,
a pad attached to the strap m e buckle, af-
fords a similar defence to the uet, in fronf
The heel-strap runs through ili upper riii_
crosses the heel, and encircles tJic ronet, and it-
office is to keep the heels of the tje closely ap- i
plied to the hoof, and to prevent tha from slidiuf» I
forward. ° I

In the application of the sand the foot is '
taken up with one hand, and th shoe slipped
upon it with the other. With the ime hand the
shoe is retained in its place, while le foot is gra-
dually let down to rest on the grcnd. As soon
as this is done, the straps are dra-i as tight as
possible and buckled.

The following cut presents an acirate delinea-
tion of the sandal, when properly fasted on the foot.
Horses occasionally fall from id riding, or
bad shoeing, or over-reaching, or riuwkward way
of setting on the saddle. The heaarbe neck, the
back, or the legs, will tenest suffer.
■^ ^cult to get the anim on his legs
lly if he is old, or exlusted, or in-
fall. The principal .tiject is, to
*head, and to render in tixed point
^he muscles may act in tpporting the

iKe is in harness, it is ^dom that he
itil he is freed from 4 sliafts and

way,
sary,
horse
hecoUt

492

THE HOKSE.

CHAPTER XXII.

OPERATIONS.

These belong more to the veterinary surgeon
than to the proprietor of the horse, but a short
account of tlie manner of conducting tlie principal
ones shonlJ not be omitted.

It is frequently necessary to bind the human
patient, and in no painful or dangerous operation
should this be omitted. It is more necessary to
bind the horse, who is not under the control of
reason, and whose struggles may not only be inju-
rious to himself but dangerous to the operator.

The ti-evis is a machine indispensable in
every continental forge ; even the quietest horses
are there put into it to be shod.

The side-line is a very simple and useful me-
thod of confining the horse, and placing him in
sufficient subjection fur the operations of docking,
nicking, and slight firing. The long line of the
Jiobblcs. or a common cart-rope with a noose at the
end, is fastened on the pastern of the hind-leg that
is not to be operated on. The rope attached to it
is then brought over the neck and round the
withers, and there tied to the portion that comes
from the leg. The leg may thus be drawn so far
forward that, while the horse evidently cannot kick
with that leg, he is disarmed of the other ; for he
would not have sufficient support under him if he
attempted to raise it : neither can he easily use
his fore-legs, or, if he attempts it, one of them may
be lifted up, and then he becomes nearly powerless.
If necessary, the aid of the twitch or the barnacles
may be resorted to.

For every minor operation, and even for many
that are of more importance, this mode of re-
straint is sufficient, especially if the operator has
active and determined assistants ; and we confess
that we are no friends to the casting of horses, if
it can possibly be prevented. When both legs are
included in the hobble or rope — as in another
way of using the side-line — the horse may appear
to be more secure ; but there is greater danger of
his falling in his violent struggles during the
operation.

For castrating and severe firing the animal
must be thrown. The safety of the horse and of
the operator will require the use of the improved
hobbles, by which any leg may be released from
confinement, and returned to it at pleasure ; and,
when ihe operation is ended, the whole of the legs
may be set at liberty at once without danger.
The method of putting the legs as closely toge-
ther as possible before the pull — the necessity of
the assistants all pulling together — and the power
which one man standing at the head and firmly
holding the snaflHe-bridle, and another at the

haunch pushing the horse when he is beginning to
fall, have in bringing him on the proper side, and
on the very spot on which he is intended to lie,
need not to be described. It will generally be
found most convenient to throw the patients on
the off side, turning them over when it is re-
quired. This, however, is a method of securing
the horse to which we repeat that we are not par-
tial, and to which we should not resort except ne-
cessity compelled; for in the act of falling, and in
the struggles after falling, many accidents have
occurred both to the horse and the surgeon.*

Among the minor methods of restraint, but
sufficient for many purposes, are the twitch and
the barnacles. The former consists of a noose
passed through a hole at the end of a strong stick,
and in which the muzzle is inclosed. The stick
being turned round, the muzzle is securely retained,
while the horse suffers considerable pain from the
pressure — sufficiently great, indeed, to render him
comparatively inattentive to that which is produced
by the operation ; at the same time he is afraid to
struggle, for every motion increases the agony
caused by the twitch, or the assistant has power
to increase it by giving an additional turn to the
stick.

The degree of pain produced by the application
of the twitch should never be forgotten or unneces-
sarily increased. In no case shoidd it be resorted
to when milder measures would have the desired
effect. Grooms and horsekeepers ai'e too much
in the habit of having recourse to it, when they
have a somewhat troublesome horse to manage.
The degree of useless torture which is thus inflicted
in large establishments is dreadful ; and the tem-
per of many a horse is too frequently completely
spoiled.

The barnacles are the handles of the pincers
placed over and inclosing the muzzle, and which,
being compressed by the assistant, give pain almost
equal to that of the twitch. These may appear to
be barbarous modes of enforcing submission, but
they are absolutely indispensable. In a few in-
stances the blindfolding of the horse terrifies him
into submission ; but this is not to be depended
upon. The twitch should be resorted to when the
least resistance is offered ; and when that, as it
occasionally does, renders the horse more violent,
recourse must be had to the side-line or the
hobbles.

* The safest and best hobbles ave those invented by Mr.
Glnag and improved by Mr. Daws, as represented in the Veteri-
nanan, vol, x., p. 108, and vol. \i., p. 163. The thumb-screw
(fig. 3) should, however, be inverted.

THE HORSE.

4fi3

In the painful examination of tlie fore-leg or
foot while on the ground, the other foot should be
held up by an assistant ; or, if his aid is required
in an operation, the knee may be fully bent, and
the pastern tied up to the arm. When the hind-
leg is to be examined in the same way, the fore-leg
on that side should be held or fastened up.

BLEEDING.

The operation of bleeding has been already de-
scribed (p. 36^), but we would remind our readers of
the necessity, in every case of acute inflammation,
of making a large orifice, and abstracting the blood
as rapidly as possible, for the constitution will thus
be the more speedily and beneficially affected ; and
also of the propriety of never determining to take
a precise quantity of blood, but of keeping the
finger on the artery until the pulse begins to
faulter, or the strong beating of fever becomes
softer, or the animal is faint, or the oppressed
pulse of inflammation of the kuigs is rounder and
fuller.

In cases of inflammation, and in the hands of
a skilful practitioner, bleeding is the sheet-anchor
of the veterinarian ; yet few things are more to be
reprobated than the indiscrimate bleeding of the
groom or the farrier.

The change which takes place in the blood
after it is drawn from the vein is diligently noticed
by many practitioners, and is certainly deserving
of some attention. The blood coagulates soon
after it is taken from the vein. The coagulable
part is composed of two substances : that which
gives colour to the blood, and that in which the
red particles float. These, by degrees, separate
from each other, and the red particles sink to the
bottom. If the coagulation takes place slowly',
the red particles have more time to sink through
the fluid, and there appears on the top a thick,
yellowish, adhesive substance, called the buffy coat.
The slowness of the coagulation and the thickness
of buffy coat are indicative of inflammation, and of
the degree of inflammation.

In a healthy state of the system, the coagu-
lation is more rapid, the red particles have not
time to fall through, and the buffy coat is thin.
These appearances are worth observing ; but much
more dependence is to be placed on the character
and change of the pulse, and the symptoms gene-
rally. When the horse is exhausted and the
system nearly broken up, the blood will sometimes
not coagulate but be of one uniform black colour
and loose texture. When the blood runs down
the side of the vessel in which it is received, the
coagulation will be very imperfect. When it is
drawn in a full stream, it coagulates slowly, and
when procured from a smaller orifice, the coagula-
tion is more rapid. Every circumstance affecting
the coagulation and apipearance of the blood, the

pulse, and the general symptoms, should be most

attentively regarded.

A great deal of mystery is associated with
bleeding in the management of the racer and the
hunter. The labour of the turf and the field
having ceased, there is frequently some difficulty
in preventing a plethoric state of the constitution —
a tendency to inflammatoi-j^ complaints. If the
horse is rapidly accumulating flesh, it may be
prudent to abstract blood, dependent in quantity
on the age and constitution of the animal. Atten-
tion to this may prevent many a horse from going
wrong ; but tlae custom that once prevailed of
bleeding every horse a fortnight or more after the
racing or hunting season had passed, is decidedly
objectionable.

As preparatory to work, bleeding is far from
being so much employed as it used to be. As a
universal practice, when the horse is first taken
from grass, it now scarcely e.xists. It would not
always be objected to, if the horse was fat and full
of flesh, but, otherwise, it is a custom more honoured
in the breach than the observance. It certainly
produces very considerable effect. More rapidly
than any species of diet — more rapidly than any
sweating or purging, it reduces the condition of
the horse, but, we have often thought, at the ex-
pense of those essentials to life and health that
cannot be easily replaced.

BLISTERING.

We have spoken of the effect of Blisters, when
treating of the various diseases to which they are
applicable. The principle on which they act is,
that no two intense inflammations can exist in
neighbouring parts, or perhaps in the system, at
the same time. Hence we apply some stimulating
acrimonious substance to the skin, in order to excite
external inflammation, and thus lessen or remove
that which exists in some deeper seated and,
generally, not far distant part. Hence, also, we
blister the sides in inflammation of the lungs — the
abdomen in that of the bowels — the legs in that
of the cellular substance surrounding the sheaths
of the tendons, or the sheaths themselves, and the
coronet or the heel in inflammation of the navi-
cular joint.

Blisters have likewise the property of increas-
ing the activity of the neighbouring vessels : thus
we blister to bring the tumour of strangles more
speedily to a head— to rouse the absorbents gene-
rally to more energetic action, and cause the dis-
appearance of tumours, and even callous and bony
suijstances.

The judgment of the practitioner will decide
whether the desired effect will be best produced
by a sudden and violent action, or by the continu-
ance of one of a milder character. Inflammation
should be met by active blisters ; old enlaj-gements

491

THE HOUSE.

and swellings will be most certainly removed by
milder stimulants — by the process which fai'riers
call stveatin// down.

There are few more active or effectual blisters
than the Spanish ily, mixed with the proportions
of lard and resin that will be hereafter stated.
The best liquid or sweating blister is an infusion
of the fly iu spirit of tm-pentine, and that lowered
with neat's-foot oil according to the degree of
activity required.

In preparing the horse for blistering, the hair
should be clipped or shaved as closely as possible,
and the ointment thoroughly nibbed in. Much
fault is often found with the ointment if the blister
does not rise, but the failure is generally to be
attributed to the idleness of the operator.

The head of the horse sliould be tied up dm-ing
the first two days ; except that, when the sides are
blistered, the body-cloths may be so contrived as to
prevent the animal from nibbling and blemishing
the part, or blistering his muzzle. At the expira-
tion of twenty-four hours, a little olive or neat's-
foot oil should be applied over the blister, which
will considerably lessen the pain and supple the
part, and prevent cracks in the skin that may be
■ difficult to heal. The oil should be applied morn-
ing and night, until the- scabs peel off. When
they begin to loosen, a lather of soap and water
applied with a sponge may hasten then' removal,
but no violence must be used.

Every particle of litter should be carefully re-
.moved from the stall, for the sharp ends of the
straw coming in contact with a part rendered so
tender and irritable by the blister, will cause a
very great annoyance to the animal. After the
second day the horse may be suffered to lie down ;
but the possibility of blemishing himself should be
prevented by a cradle or wooden necldace, con-
sisting of round strips of wood, stmng together,
reaching from the lower jaw to the chest, and
preventing him from sufficiently tui-uuig or bend-
ing his head, to get at the blistered part.

A blister thus treated \rill rarely produce the
slightest blemish. When the scabs ai-e all removed,
the blister may be repeated, if the case shoidd
appear to require it, or the horse may be turned
out.

In inflammations which threaten hfe, a bhster
can scarcely be too active or extensive. In inflam-
mation of the lungs it should reach over the whole
of the sides, and the greater part of the brisket,
for, should a portion of the fly be absorbed, and
produce strangurij (inflammation, or spasmodic
affection of the neck of the bladder), even this new
irritation may assist in subduing the first and more
dangerous one. In blistering, however, for injuries
or diseases of the legs or feet, some caution is
necessaiy. When speaking of the treatment of
sprain of the back sinews, p. 431, it was stated

that " a blister should never be used while any
heat or tenderness remained about the part," for
we should then add to the superficial inflammation
instead of abating the deeper-seated one, and en-
largements of the limb and extensive ulcerations
might follow, which would render the horse per-
fectly unserviceable. When there is a tendency
to grease, a blister is a dangerous thing, and has
often agravated the disease. In winter, the inflam-
mation of the skin produced by blistering is apt to
degenerate into grease ; therefore, if it should be
necessai'y to blister the horse during that season,
great care must be taken that he is not exposed to
cold, and, particularly, that a current of cold air
does not come upon the legs.

The inhuman practice of blistering all round at
the Same time, and perhaps high on the legs,
cannot be too strongly repi'obated. Many a valu-
able horse has been lost tlu'ough tlie excessive
general irritation which this has produced, or its
violent effect on the urinary organs, and that has
been particularly the case, when corrosive subli-
mate has entered into the composition of the
blister.

If strangmy should appear, the horse shoidd
be plentifully supplied with linseed tea, which is
thus best prepared — a gallon of boiling water is
thrown on half a pound of linseed ; the infusion
suffered to stand until nearly cold, and the clean
mucilaginous fluid then poured off. Three quar-
ters of a pound of Epsom salts should also be
given, dissolved in a quart of water, and, after
that, a ball eveiy six hom's, containing opium, and
camphor, with linseed-meal and treacle.

Half a pound or a pound of good mustard
powder, made into a paste -nith boiluig water, and
applied hot, will often produce as good a blister as
cantharides. It is a preferable one, when, as in
inflammation of the kidneys, the effect of cantha-
rides on the urinary organs is feared. Hartshorn
is not so effectual. Tincture of croton makes an
active liquid blister, and so do some of the pre-
pai'ations of iodine.

Whatever seeming cnielty may attend this
operation, it is in many cases indispensable. The
principle on which we have recom-se to it is similar
to that which justifies the use of a blister — by pro-
ducing supei"ficial inflammation ^ e maybe enabled
to get i-id of a deeper-seated one, or we may excite
the absorbents to remove an unnattnal bony or
other tumour. It raises more intense external in-
flammation than we can produce by any other
means. It may be truly said to be the most power-
ful agent that we have at our disposal. Human-
ity, however, will dictate, that on account of the
inflammation which it excites, and the pain it in-
flicts, it should only be had recourse to when milder

THE HORSE.

495

means have failed, except in those cases iu which
experience has taught us that milder means rarely
succeed.

The part which is to be submitted to the
operation should be shaved, or the hair cut from
it as closely as possible with the trimming scissors.
This is necessary in order to bring the h'on into
immediate contact with the skin, and likemse to
prevent the smoke that will arise from the bunied
hair obscui-ing the view of the operator. The horse
must then be thrown. This is absolutely necessary
for the safety both of the operator and the animal.
The side-line may be applied in a shorter time,
and so many hands may be not wanted to cast the
horse ; but no person can fire accurately, or with the
certainty of not penetrating the skin, e.vcept the
animal is eftectually secured by the hobbles.
Although accidents have occurred in the act of cast-
ing, yet many more have resulted to the operator,
the assistants, or the horse, in a protracted opera-
tion, when the side-line only has been used.

The details of the operation belong to the
veterinary sm'geon. The grand points to be
attended to are to have the edge of the iron
round and smooth — the iron itself at, or rather
below, a red heat — to pass it more or less rapidly
over the skin, and with slighter or greater pressure
according to the degree of heat — to burn into the
skin until tlie line produced by the iron is of a
brown colour, rather light than dark, and, by all
means, in common cases, to avoid penetratinci the
skin. Leaving out of the question the additional
cruelty of deep firing, when not absolutely required,
we may depend on it that if the skin is bumed
through, inflammation, and ulceration, and slough-
ing will ensue, that will be with much difficulty
combated — that will unavoidably leave imnecessary
blemish, and that has destroyed many valuable
horses. It may happen, nevertheless, that by a
sudden plunge of the animal the sldn will be
unavoidably cut thi-oiigh. The act of firing re-
quires much skill and tact, and the practitioner
caimot be always on his guard against the strag-
gles of the tortured beast. It will, also, and not
uufrequendy, occur that the skin, partially divided,
will separate in two or three days after the opera-
tion. This must not be attributed to any neglect
or unsldlfulness of the surgeon, and the idoeration
thus produced will be slight and easily treated,
compared with that caused by actually burning
through the skin.

A very considerable change has taken place in
the breed of many of the varieties of the horse.
and the labour exacted from him. As illustrations
of this we refer to the altered character and pace
of the modem hunter and the additional increase
of speed required from the coach and the post horse ;
the exertion being limited only by the degree to
which every rau-scle and every nerve can be ex-

tended, while the calculation between the utmost
exaction of cruelty and the expenditure of vital
power, is reduced to the merest fraction. The
consequence of this is, that the horse is subjected
to severer injm-ies than he used to be, and
severer measures are and must be employed to
remedy the evil. Hence the hoi'rible applications
of the actual cautery to the horse that have dis-
graced the present day. Lesions — gashes have
been made on either side of the tendon of the
leg, which it took no fewer than seven months
to heal. Was there nothing short of this length-
ened torture that could have been done to
relieve the victim ? Coidd he not have been
more lightly fired for the road or for the pur-
poses of breedmg ? Was there no pasture on
which he had earned a right to graze ? — or
could he not have been destroyed ? These sad
lesions will occasionally come before the prac-
titioner and the owner. It will be for the firet
to advocate that which, on a careful view of
the case, mercy prompts ; and the latter, except
there is a reasonable prospect of ultimate enjoy-
ment, as well as usefulness, should never urge a
continuation of suffering.

Supposing, however, that jiirospect to exist, the
surgeon must discharge his duty. These gashes,
after a while, begin to close, and then commences the
beautiful process of granulation. Little portions of
the integument form on the centre of the wound,
and the sides of the wound creep closer together, and
the skin steals over the surface, until the chasm is
perfectly closed. In order to insure the continu-
ance of this, a ridge of contracted integument
as hard as any cartilage,, but without its elasticity,
runs from one end of the lesion to the other,
tightei', and harder, and more effectual every week,
and month, and year, and lasting during the life
of the animal. Therefore, the veterinarj' surgeon
is not to be too severely censured, if after due
consideration, he is induced to undertake one
of these fearful operations : but let him do it
as seldom as he can, and only when every circum-
stance promises a favourable result.

Some practitioners blister immediately after
firing. As a general usage it is highly to be
reprobated. It is wanton and useless cruelty. It
may be required in bony tumours of consider-
able extent, and long stimdiug, and interfering
materially with the action of the neighbouring
joint. Spavin accompanied by much lameness,
and ring-bone spreading round the coronet and
involving the side caitilages or the pastem joint,
may justify it. The inflammation is rendered
more intense, and of considerably longer duration.
In old affections of the round bone it may be
admitted, but no excuse can be made for it iu
slighter cases of sprain or weakness, or staleuess.

Ou the day after the operation, it will be

496

THE HORSE.

prudent gently to rub some neat's-foot oil, or lard
over the wound. This will soften the skin, and
render it less likely to separate or ulcerate. A
bandage would add to the irritation of the part.
Any cracks of the skin, or ulcerations that may
ensue, must be treated with the calamiue ointment.

It will be evident that there is an advantage
derived from firing to which a blister can have no
pretension. The skin, partially destroyed by the
iron, is reinstated and healed, not merely by the
formation of some new matter filling up the
vacuity, but by the gradual drawing together and
closing of the separated edges. The skin, there-
fore, is lessened in surface. It is tightened over
the part, and it acts, as just described, as a salu-
tary and permanent bandage. Of the effect of
pressure in removing enlargements of every kind,
as well as giving strength to the part to which it
is applied, we have repeatedly spoken ; and it is
far from being the least valuable effect of the
operation of firing, that by contracting the skin, it
affords a salutary, equable, and permanent pres-
sure. It was on this principle, but the practice
cannot be defended, that colts which were not
very strong on the legs, used to be fired round
the fetlock, and along the back sinew, or over the
hock, in order to brace and strengthen the parts.
It is on the same pi-inciple that a racer or hunter,
that has become stale and stiff, is sometimes fired
and turned out. For whatever reason the horse is
fired, he should, if practicable, be turned out,
or soiled in a loose box, for three or four months
at least. The full effect intended to result from
the external irritation is not soon produced, and
the benefit derived from pressure proceeds still
more slowly. In the thickened and tender state
of the skin, and the substance beneath, a return
to hard work, for some weeks after firing, -n'ould
be likely to excite new inflammation, and cause
even worse mischief than that which before
existed.

Some weeks pass before the tumified parts
begin to contract, and they only, who have had
experience in these cases, can imagine how long,
with gentle voluntary exercise, the process of
absorption is carried on. He who would expect
that much good should accrue from the operation
of firing, must be content to give up his horse for
three or four months; but if he will use him
sooner, and a worse lameness should follow, let
him blame his own impatience, and not the
inefficiency of the means, or the want of skill in
the surgeon.

The firing in every case should be either in
longitudinal or parallel lines. On the back
sinews, the fetlock, and the coronet, this is pecu-
liarly requisite, for thus only will the skin contract
so as to form the greatest and most equable
pressure.

Some practitioners may pride themselves on
the accuracy of their diamonds, lozenges, and
feathers, but plain straight lines, about half an
inch from each other, will constitute the most
advantageous mode of firing. The destroying
of deeply-seated inflammation, by the exciting of
violent inflammation on the skin, is as well ob-
tained ; and common sense will determine, that
in no way can the pressure which results from the
contraction of the skin be so advantageously em-
ployed— to which may be added, that it often leaves
not the sliffhtest blemish.

Are pieces of tape or cord, passed, by means of an
instrument resembling a large needle, either
through abscesses, or the base of ulcers with deep
sinuses, or between the skin and the muscular or
other substances beneath. They are retained there
by the ends being tied together, or by a knot at each
end. The tape is moved in the wound twice or
thrice in the day, and occasionally wetted with
spirit of turpentine, or some acrid fluid, in order
to increase the inflammation which it produces, or
the discharge which is intended to be established.

In abscesses, such as occur in the withers or
the poll, and when passed from the summit to the
very bottom of the swelling, setons are higlily
useful, by discharging the purulent fluid and
suffering any fresh quantity of it that may be
secreted to flow out ; and by the degree of inflam-
mation which they excite on the interior of the
tumour, stimulating it to throw out healthy granu-
lations which gradually occupy and fill the hol-
low. In deep fistulous wounds they are indis-
pensalile, for except some channel is made through
which the matter may flow from the bottom of
the wound, it will continue to penetrate deeper
into the j^art, and the healing process will never
be accomplished. On these accounts, a seton
passed through the base of the ulcer in poll-evil
and fistulous withers is of so much benefit.

Setons are sometimes useful by promoting a
discharge in the neiglibourhood of air inflamed
part, and thus diverting and carrying away a por-
tion of the fluids which distend or overload the
vessels of that part ; thus a seton is placed with
considerable advantage in the cheek, when the
eyes are much inflamed. We confess, however,
that we prefer a rowel under the jaw.

With this view, and to excite a new and differ-
ent inflammation in the neighbourhood of a part
already inflamed, and especially so deeply seated
and so difficult to be reached as the navicular joint,
a seton has occasionally been used with manifest
benefit, but w-e must peremptorily object to the in-
discriminate use of the frog-seton for almost every
disease of the frog or the foot.

In inflammations of extensive organs setons

THE HORSE.

■197

afford only feeble aid. Their action is too circum-
scribed. In iutlamraation of the cliest or the in-
testines, a rowel is preferable to a seton ; and a
blister is far better than either of them.

On the principle of exciting the absorbents to
action, for the removal of tumours, as spavin or
splent, a blister is quicker in its action, and far
more effectual than any seton. Firing is still more
useful.

The shortening of the tail of the horse is an
operation which fashion and the convenience of the
rider require to be peiformed on most of these
animals. The length of the dock, or stump, is a
matter of mere caprice. To the close-cropped tail
of the waggon-horse, however, we decidedly object,
from its perfect ugliness, and because the animal
is deprived of every defence against a thousand
torturers. The supposition that the blood which
would have gone to the nourishment of the tail
causes greater development and strength in the
quarters, is too absurd to deserve serious refutation.
It is the i-ump of the animal being wholly unco-
vered, and not partly hidden by the intervention of
the tail, that gives a false appearance of increased
bulk.

The operation is simple. That joint is searched
for ■which is the nearest to the desired length of
tail. The hair is then turned up. and tied round
with tape for an inch or two above this joint ; and
that which lies immediately upon the joint is cut
off. The horse is fettered with the side-line, and
then the veterinaiy surgeon with his docking-
machine, or the fai'mer with his carving-knife and
mallet, cuts through the tail at one stroke. Con-
siderable bleeding ensues, and frightens the timid
and the ignorant ; but if the blood were suffered
to flow on until it ceased of its own accord, the
colt, and especiall}' if he were very young, would
rarely be seriously injured. As, however, the
bleeding would occasionally continue for some
hours, and a great quantity of blood might be lost,
and the animal might be somewhat weakened, it is
usual to stop the hcemorrhage by the application of
a red-hot iron to the stump. A large hole is made
in the centre of the iron, that the bone may not be
seared, which would e.\foliate if it were burned
with any severity, or drop off at the joint above,
and thus shorten the dock. The iron rests on the
muscular parts round the bone, and is brought into
contact with the bleeding vessels, and very speedily
stops the hremorrhage. Care should be taken that
the iron is not too hot — and that it is not held too
long or too forcibly on the part, for many more
horses would be destroyed by severe application of
the cautery, than by the bleeding being left to its
own course.

Powdered resin sprinkled on the stump, or

indeed any other application, is worse than useless.
It causes unnecessary irritation, and sometimes
extensive ulceration ; but if the simple iron is
moderately applied, the horse mny go to work im-
mediately after the operation, and no dressing w^ill
be afterwards required. If a slight bleeding
should occur after the cautery, it is much better to
let it alone than to run the risk of inflammation
or locked-jaw by re-applying the iron with greater
severity.

Some farmers dock their colts a few days after
they are dropped. This is a commendable custom
on the score of humanity. Xo colt was ever lost
by it ; and neither the growth of the hair, nor the
beauty of the tail, is in the least impaired.

This barbarous operation was once sanctioned
by fashion, and the breeder and the dealer even
now are sometimes tempted to inflict the torture
of it in order to obtain a ready sale for their colts.
It is not, however, practised to the extent that it
used to be, nor attended by so many circumstances
of cruelty.

We must here introduce a small portion of the
anatomy of the horse, which we had reserved for
this place. The eighteen dorsal vertebrae or bones
of the back (see d, p. 344), and the five lumbar
vertebrae or bones of the loins (/, p. 344), have
already been described. The continuation of the
spine consists of the sacrum, composed of five
bones (/t, p. 344), which, although separate in the
colt, are in the full-grown horse miited into one
mass. The bones of the ilium, the upper and side
portion of the haunch, articulate strongly with the
sacrum, forming a bony union rather than a joint.
The spinal marrow and the blood-vessels here ge-
nerally begin to diminish, and numerous branches
of nerves are given out, which, joined by some from
the vertebrae of the loins, form the nervous appa-
ratus of the hind-legs.

The bones of the tail (i, p. 344) are a conti-
nuation of those of the sacrum. They are fifteen
in number, gradually diminishing in size, and losing
altogether the character of the spinal vertebrae.
Pi'olougations of the spinal marrow run through
the whole of them, and likewise some arterial ves-
sels, which are a continuation of those which sup-
ply the sacrum. Much attention is paid bv pereons
who are acquainted with the true form of the horse
to this continuation of the sacral and tail-bones.
From the loins to the setting on of the tail the
line should be nearly straight, or inclining only a
slight degree downward. There is not a surer
test of the breed of the horse than this straight
line from the loins to the tail; nor. as was shown
when the muscles of the quarters were described, is
there any circumstance so much connected with the
mechanical advantage with wliich these muscles act.

4n8

THE HORSE.

The tail seems to be designed to perfect the
beauty of tlie horse's form. There are three sets
of muscles belonging to the tail : the erector
coccygis, situated on the superior and lateral jsart
of it, and by the action of which (d, p. 439) the
tail may be both elevated and drawn on one side —
the depressor coccygis, on the inferior and lateral
fiart of it, by the action of which the tail may be
both lowered and drawn on one . side — and the
curvator coccygis, by the action of which the tail
may be cui'ved or flexed on either side. The
depressor and lateral muscles are more powerful
that the erector ones, and when the horse is
undisturbed, the tail is bent down close on the
buttocks ; but when he is excited, and particularly
when he is at speed, the erector muscles are called
into action, the tail is elevated, and there is an
appearance of energy and spirit which adds mate-
rially to Ills beauty. To perpetuate this, the
oj)eration of nicking was contrived. The depressor
muscles and part of the lateral ones are cut
thi'ough, and the erector muscles, left vrithout any
antagonists, keep the tail in a position more or
less erect, according to the whim of the operator
or the depth to which the incisions have been
carried.

The operation is thus performed : — The side-
line is put on the horse, or some persons deem it
more prudent to cast him, and that precaution we
should be disposed to recommend ; the hair at
the end of the tail is securely tied together, for
the purpose of afterwards attaching a weight to it ;
the operator then grasps the tail in his hand, and,
lifting it up, feels for the centre of one of the
bones — the prominences at the extremities will
guide him — from two to four inches from the root
of the tail, according to the size of the horse ; he
then, with a sharp knife, divides the muscles
deeply from the edge of the tail on one side to the
centre, and, continuing the incision across the
bone of the tail, he makes it as deep on the other
side. One continued incision, steadily yet rapidly
made, will accomplish all this. If it is a blood-
horse that is operated on, this will be sufficient.
For a hunter, two incisions are usually made, the
second being about two inches below the first, and
likewise as nearly as possible in the centre of one
of the bones.

On a hackney, or cocktail, a third incision is
made ; for fashion has decided that his tail shall
be still more elevated and curved. Two incisions
only are made in the tail of a mare, and the
second not very deep.

When the second incision is made, some fibres
of the muscles between the first and second will
project into the wound, and must be removed by a
pair of curved scissors. The same must be done
with the projecting portions from between the
second and third incisions. The womids should

then be carefully examined, in order to ascertain
that the muscles have been equally divided on
eaclt side, otherwise the tail will be carried awry.
This being done, pledgets of tow must be intro-
duced deeply into each incision, and confined, but
not too tightly, by a bandage. A vei-y profuse
bleeding mill alone justify any tightness of band-
age, and the ill consequences that have resulted
from nicldng are mainly attributable to the un-
necessary force that, is -used in confining these
pledgets. Even if the bleeding, immediately after
the operation, should have been very great, the
roller must be loosened in two or three hours,
otherwise swelling and inflammation, and even
death, may possibly ensue. Twenty-four hours
after the operation, the bandage must be quite
removed ; and then, all that is necessary, so far
as the healing of the incisions is concerned, is to
keep them' clean.

If, however, the tail were suffered to hang
down, the divided edges of the muscles would
again come in contact with each other, and close ;
the natural depression of the tail would remain ;
and the animal would have been punished for no
purpose. The wounds must remain open, and
that can only be accomplished by forcibly keeping
the tail curved back during two or three weeks.
For this purpose a cord, one or two feet in length,
is aflixed to the end of the hair, which terminates
in another divided cord, each division going over a
pulley on either side of the back of the stall. A
weight is hung at either extremity sufficient to
keep the incisions properly open, and regulated
by the degree in which this is wished to be accom-
plished. The animal will thus be retained in an
uneasy position, although, after the first two or
three days, probably not one of acute pain. It is
barbarous to increase this uneasiness or pain by
affixing too great a weight to the cords ; for it
should be remembered that the proper elevated
cmwe is given to the tail, not by the weight keep-
ing it in a certain position for a considerable lime,
but by the depth of the first incisions, and the
degree in which the wounds are kept open. By
every ounce of weight bej'ond that which is neces-
saiy to keep the incisions apart, unnecessary suf-
feiing is inflicted. Some practitioners use only
one pulley ; others do not use any, but put on a
light girth, and tie a cord from the end of the
tail to the girth, bending it over the back. The
double pulley, however, is the least painful to the
horse, and more perfectly secures the proper ele-
vation and straight direction of the tail.

The dock should not, for the first three or
four days, be bi'ought higher than the back.
Dangerous irritation and inflammation would pro
bably be produced. It may, after that, be gradually
raised to an elevation of forty-five degrees. The
horse should be taken out of the pulleys, and

THE HOUSE.

499

gently exercised once or twice every day ; but the
pulleys cannot finally be dispensed with until a
fortnight after the wounds have healed, because
the process of contraction, or the approach of the
divided parts, goes on for some time after the
skin is perfect over the incisions, and the tail
would thus sink below the desired elevation.

If the tail has not been unnecessarily extended
by enormous weights, no bad consequences will
usually follow ; but if considerable inflammation

should ensue, the tail must be taken from the
pulley and diligently fomented with simple warm
water, and a dose of physic given. Locked-jav?
has, in some rare instances, followed, under whicji
the horse generally perishes. The best means of
cure in the early state of this disease is to am-
putate the tail at the joint above the highest
incision. In order to prevent the hair from
coming off, it should be unplaited and combed out
every fourth or fifth day.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE VICES AND DISAGREEABLE OR DANGEROUS HABITS OF THE HORSE.

The horse has many excellent qualities, but he has
likewise defects, and these occasionally amounting
to vices. Some of them may be attributed to
natural temper, for the human being scarcely dis-
covers more .peculiarities of> habit and disposition
tlian does the horse. The majority of them, how-
ever, as perhaps in the human being, are conse-
quences of a faulty education. Their early in-
structor has been ignorant and brutal, and they
have become obstinate and vicious.

RESTIVENESS.

At the head of the vices of the horse is Res-
tiveness, the most annoying and the most dan-
gerous of all. It is the produce of bad temper
and worse education; and, like all other habits
founded on nature and stamped by education, it
is inveterate. Whether it appears in the form of
kicking, or reaiing, or plunging, or bolting, or in
any way that threatens danger to the rider or
the horse, it rarely admits of cure. A determined
rider may to a certain extent subjugate the animal ;
or the horse may have his favourites, or form his
attachments, and rath some particular person he
may be comparatively or perfectly manageable ;
but others cannot long depend upon him, and
even his master is not always sure of him. It is
a rule, that admits of very few exceptions, that he
neither displays his wisdom nor consults his safety,
who attempts to conquer a restive horse.

An excellent veterinary surgeon, and a man of
great experience in horses, Mr. Castley, truly said,
in " The Veterinarian," — " From whatever cause
the vicious habits of horses may originate, whether
from some mismanagement or from natural bad-
ness of temper, or from what is called in Yorkshire
a mktetch, whenever these animals acquire one of
them, and it becomes in some degree confirmed,
they veiy seldom, if ever, altogether forget it. In
reference to driving it is so true, that it may be
taken as a kind of aphorism, that if a horse kicks

once in harness, no matter from what cause, he
will be liable to kick ever afterwards. A good
coachman may drive him, it is true, and may make
him go, but he cannot make him forget his vice ; and
so it is in riding. You may conquer a restive
horse — you may make him go quiet for months,
nay, almost for years together ; but I aifii-m that,
under other circumstances, and at some future
opportunity, he will be sure to return to his old
tricks."

Mr. Castley gives two singular and conclusive
instances of the truth of this doctrine. " When a
very young man," says he, " I remember pur-
chasing a horse at a fair in the north of England,
that was offered very cheap on account of lus being
unmanageable. It was said that nobody could
ride him. We found that the animal objected to
have anj'thing placed upon his back, and that,
when made to move forward with nothing more
than a saddle on, he instantly threw himself down
on his side with great violence, and would then
endeavour to roll upon his back.

" There was at that time in Y'^orkshire, a
famous colt-breaker, known by the name of
Jumper, who was almost as celebrated in that
country for taming vicious horses into submission,
as the famed Whisperer was in Ireland. We put
this animal into Jumper's hands, who took him
away, and in about ten days brought him home
again, certainly not looking worse in condition,
but perfectly subdued and almost as obedient as a
dog ; for he would lie down at this man's bidding,
and only rise again at his command, and carry
double or anything. I took to riding him myself,
and may say, that I was never better carried for
six or eight mouths, dming which time he did not
show the least vice whatever. I then sold him to
a Lincolnshire farmer, who said that he would
give him a summer's run at grass, and show him
as a very fine horse at the great Horncastle fair.
" Happening to meet this gentleman on the

500

THE HORSE.

following year, I naturally enough inquired after
my old friend. ' Oh,' said he, ' that was a bad
business — the horse turned out a sad rebel. The
first time we attempted to mount him, after
getting him up from grass, he in an instant threw
the man down with the greatest violence, pitching
him several yards over his head ; and after that
he threw every one that attempted to get on his
back. If he could not throw his rider, he would
throw himself down. We could do nothing with
him, and I was obliged at last to sell him to go
in a stage-coach.' "

In the next story, Jumper's counterpart and
superior, the Irish Whisperer, is brought on the
the stage, and, although be performed wonders, he
could not radically cure a restive horse. " At tlie
Spring Meeting of 1804, Mr. Whalley's King
Pippin was brought on the Curragh of Kildare to
run. He was a horse of the most extraordinary
savage and \'icious disposition. His particular
propensity was that oiflybuj at and worrying any
person who came within his reach, and if be had
an opportunity, he would get his head round, seize
liis rider by the leg with his teeth, and drug him
down from his back. For this reason he was
always ridden with what is called a sword ; which
is a strong flat stick, having one end attached to
the cheek of the bridle, and the other to the girth
of the saddle, a contrivance to prevent a horse of
this kind from getting at his rider.

" King Pip])in had long been difficult- to ma-
nage and dangerous to go near to, but on the
occasion in question he could not be got out to run
at all. Nobody could put the bridle -upon his head.
It being Easter Monday, and consequently a great
holiday, there was a large concom-se of people
assembled at the Curragh, consisting principally of
the neighbouring peasantry ; and one countryman,
more fearless than the rest of the lookers-on, for-
getting, or perhaps never dreaming that the better
part of courage is discretion, volunteered his ser-
vices to bridle the horse. Xo sooner had he com-
mitted himself in this operation, than King Pippin
seized him somewhere about the shoulders or
chest, and, says Mr. Watts (Mr. Castley's infor-
mant\ ' I know of nothing I can compare it to, so
much as a dog shaking a rat.' Fortunately for the
poor fellow, his body was very thickly covered with
clothes, for on such occasions an Irishman of this
class is fond of displaying his wardrobe, and if he
has three coats at all in the world, he is sure to put
them all on.

" This circumstance, in all probability, saved
the individual who had so gallantly volunteered
the forlorn hope. His person was so deeply enve-
loped in extra-tegimients, that the horse never got
fairly hold of his skin, and I understand that he
escaped with but little injury, beside the sadly rent
and totally ruined state of his holiday toggery.

" The Whisperer was sent for, who, having
arrived, was shut up with the horse all night, and
in the morning he exhibited this hitherto ferocious
animal, following him about the course like a dog
— lying down at his command — suffering his mouth
to be opened, and any person's hand to be intro-
duced into it — in short, as quiet almost as a sheep.

" He came out the same meeting, and won his
race, and his docility continued satisfactory for a
considerable time ; but at the end of about three
years his vice returned, and then he is said to have
killed a man, for which he was destroyed."

It may not be uninteresting, in this connexion,
to give some account of this tamer of quadruped
vice. However strange and magical his power
may seem to be, there is no doubt of the truth of
the account that is given of him. The Rev. Mr.
Townsend, in his Statistical Survey of Cork, first
introduced him to the notice of the public gene-
rail}', although his fame had long spread over that
part of Ireland. We, however, give the following
extract from " Croker's Fairy Legends and Tra-
ditions of Ireland," Part II., p. 200, for his per-
formances seem the work of some elfin sprite,
rather than of a rude and igno]-ant horse-breaker.

"He was an awkward, ignorant rustic of the
lowest class, of the name of SulHvan, but better
known by the appellation of the Whisperer. His
occupation was horse-breaking. The nickname he
acquired from the vulgar notion of his being able
to communicate to the animal what he wished by
means of a whisper; and the singularity of his
method seemed in some degree to justify the sup-
position. In his own neighbourhood the notoriety
of the fact made it seem less remarkable, but I
doubt if any instance of similar subjugating talent
is to be found on record. As far as the sphere of
his control extended, the boast of veni, vidi, vici,
was more justly claimed by Sullivan than even by
Cfesar himself.

" How his art was acquired, and in what it con-
sisted, is likely to be for ever vmknown, as he has
lately (about 1810) left the world without divulg-
ing it. His son, who follows the same trade, pos-
sesses but a small portion of the art, having either
never learned the true secret, or being incapable of
putting it into practice. The wonder of his skill
consisted in the celerity of the operation, which
was performed in privacy, without any apparent
means of coercion. Every description of horse,
or even mule, whether previously broken or unhan-
dled, whatever their peculiar habits or vices might
have been, submitted without show of resistance
to the magical influence of his art, and in the
short space of half an horn- became gentle and
tractable. This effect, though histantaneously
produced, was generally durable. Though more
submissive to him than to others, the animals
seemed to have acquired a docility imknown before.

THE HORSE.

501

" When sent for to tame a vicious beast, for
which he was either paid according to the distance,
or generally two or three guineas, he directed the
stable, in which he and the object of the experi-
ment were, to be shut, with orders not to open the
door until a signal was given. After a, tete-u-tete oi
about half an hour, during which little or no bustle
was heard, the signal was made, and, upon opening
the door, the horse appeared lying down, and the
man by liis side, playing with him like a child with
a puppy dog. From that time he was found per-
fectly willing to submit to any discipline — however
repugnant to his nature before." " I once," con-
tinues Mr. Croker, " saw his skill tried on a horse,
which could never before be brought to stand for a
smith to shoe him. The day after Sullivan's half
hour's lecture, I went, not without some incredu-
lity, to the smith's shop, with many other curious
spectators, where we were eye-witnesses of the com-
plete success of his art. This, too, had been a
troop horse, and it was supposed, not without rea-
son, that after regimental discipline had failed, no
other would be found availing. I observed that
the animal appeared terrified whenever Sullivan
either spoke to or looked at him ; how tliat extra-
ordinary ascendancy could have been obtained, is
difficult to conjecture.

" In common cases this mysterious prepara-
tion was unnecessary. He seemed to possess an
instinctive power of inspiring awe, the result,
perhaps, of natural intrepidity, in which, I believe,
a great part of his art consisted ; though the cir-
cumstance of the tete-a-tete shows that, on particu-
lar occasions, something more must have been
added to it. A facidty like this would, in some
hands, have made a fortune, and I understand that
great offers were made to him, for the exercise of
his art abroad. But hunting was his passion. He
lived at home in the style most agreeable to his
disposition, and nothing could induce him to quit
Duhallow and the fox-hounds."

]\Ir. Castley witnessed the total failure of the
younger Sullivan. He says, " we have in the
regiment a remakably nice horse, called Lancer,
that has always been very difficult to shoe, but
seven or eight years ago, when we first got him,
he was downright vicious in that respect. When
the I'egiraent was stationed at Cork, the farrier-
major sought out the present Sullivan, the sou of
the celebrated Whisperer, and brought him up to
the barracks in order to try his hand upon Lancer,
and make him more peaceable to shoe ; but 1
must say this person did not appear to possess
any particular controlling power over the animal
more than any other man. Lancer seemed to
pay no attention whatever to his charm, and at
last fairly- beat him out of the forge. Time,
however, and a long perseverance in kind and
gentle treatment, have effected what force

could not. The horse is now pretty reasonable
to shoe."*

* An account, bearing considerable resemblance to the feats of
the English horse-tamer, has been lately laid before the public.

Mr. Catlin has pnblished an account, the ^'cracity of which is
unimpeached, of his travels among the Nuith .American Indians.
He thus describes the manner in which the Indian tames the wild
horse. " He coils his lasso on his arm, and gallops fearlessly intu
the herd of wild horses. He soon gels it over the neck of one of
the number, when he inslantly dismounts, leaving his own horse,
and runs as fast as he can, letting the lasso pass out gradually and
carefully through his hands, nntil the horse falls for want of
breath, and lies helpless on the ground. The Indian advances
slowly towards the horse's head, keeping the lasso light upon his
neck, until he fasteus a pair of hobbles on the animal's two fore
I'eet, and also loosens the lasso, giving the horse a chance to
breathe, and passing a noose round the under jaw, by which he
gets great power over the atfrighled animal, that is rearing and
plunging when it gets breath, and by which, as he advances, hand
over hand, towards the horse's nose, he is able to hold it down,
and prevent it from throwing itsi-lf over on its back. By this
means he gradually advances, until he is able to place bis hand on
the animal's nose and over its eyes, and, at length, to breathe into
its nostrils, when it soon becomes docile and conquered ; so that
he has little else to do than to remove the hobbles from its feet,
and lead or ride it to the camp. The animal is so completely
conquered, that it submits quietly ever after, and is led or rode
away with very little difficulty."

Mr. Ellis, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, happened to
read this account, and he felt a natural desire to ascertain how far
Ibis mode of horse-taming might be employed among British
horses. He soon had the opportunity of putting the veracity of
the slory to Ihe test. His brother-in law had a filly, not yet a year
old, that had been removed from her dam three months before, and
since that time had not been taken out of the stable. A great
amateur in everything relating to horses was present, and at his
request it was determined that the experiment of the efficacy of
breathing into the nostrils should be immediately piu to tlie test.
The filly was brought from the stable, the amateur leading ber
by the halter. She was quite wild, and bolted, and dragged the
ainateur a considerable distance. He had been using a short
halter ; he changed it for a longer one, and was the n able to lead
the little scared thing to the front of the house. The experiment
was tried under manifest disadvantage, for the filly was in the
open air, several strangers were about her, and both the owner and
the amateur were rather seeking amusement from the failure than
knowledge from the success of their experiment.

The filly was restive and frightened, and with great difficulty
the amateur managed to cover her eyes. At lengtli he succeeded,
and blew into the nostrils. No particular efi'ecl seemed to follow.
He then breathed into her nostrils, and the moment he did so, the
filly, who had very much resisted having her eyes blindfolded, and
had been very restive, stood perfectly still and trembled. From
that time she became very tractable. Another gentleman also
breathed into her nostrils, and she evidently enjoyed it, and kept
putting up her nose to receive the breath.

On the following morning she was led out again. She was
perfectly tractable, and it seemed to be almost impossible to
fi-ighten her.

A circumstance which, in a great measure, corroborated the
possibility of easily taming the most ftrocious horses, occurred on
the next day. A man, on a neighbouring farm, was attempting to
break-in a very restive colt, who foiled him in every possible way.
After several manceuvres the amateur succeeded in breathing into
(me of the nostrils, and from that moment all became easy. The
horse was completely subdued. He suifered himself to be led
quietlv away with a loose halter, and was perfectly at command.
He was led through a field in which were four horses that had
been his companions. They all surrounded him; he took no
notice of them, but quietly followed his new master. A sur-
cingle was buckled on him, and then a saddle, and he was finally
tiited with a bridle. The whole experiment occupied about an
hour, and not in a single instance did he rebel.

On the next day, however, the breaker, a severe and obstinate
fellow, took him in hand, and, according to his usual custom,
began to beat him most cruelly. The horse broke from him.
and became as unmanageable as ever. The spirit of the animal
had been subdued but not broken.

5(52

THE HORSE.

BACKING OR GIBBING.

One of tlie first kinds of restiveness, taking
tliem in alphabetical order, is backing or gibbing.
These are so closely allied that we hardly know
Low to separate them. Some horses have the
habit of backing at first starting, and that more
from playfulness than desire of mischief A mo-
derate application of the ^Yhip will usually be ef-
fectual. Others, even after starting, exhibit con-
siderable obstinacy and viciousness. This is fre-
quently the effect of bad breaking. Either the
shoulder of the horse had been wrung when he
was first put to the collar, or he had been foolishly
accustomed to be started in the break tiji-hill, and,
therefore, all his work coming upon him at once,
he gradually acquired this dangerous habit.

A hasty and passionate breaker will often
make a really good tempered young horse an in-
veterate gibber. Every young horse is at first
shy of the collar. If lie is too quickly forced to
throAV his weight into it, he will possibly take a
dislike to it, that will occasionally show itself in
the form of gibbing as long as he lives. The
judicious horse-breaker will resort to no severity,
even if the colt should go out several times with-
out even touching collar. The example of his
companion will ultimately induce him to take to
it voluntarily and effectually.

A large and heavy stone should be put behind
the wheel before starting, when the horse, finding
it more difficult to back than to go forward, will
gradually forget this unpleasant trick. It will
likewise be of advantage, as often as it can be
m.anaged, so to start that the horse shall have to
back up-hill. The difiBculty of accomplishing this
will soon make him readily go forward. A little
coaxing, or leading, or moderate flagellation, will
assist in accomplishing the cure.

When, however, a horse, thinking that he has
had enough of work, or has been improperly
checked or corrected, or beginning to feel the
painful pressure of the collar, swerves, and gibs,
and backs, it is a more serious matter. Persua-
sion should first be tried ; and, afterwards, reason-
able coercion, but no cruelty : for the bmtality
which is often exercised in attempting to compel
a gibbing horse to throw himself habitually into
the collar, never yet accomplished the purpose.
The horse may, perhaps, be whipped into motion ;
but if he has once begun to gib, he will have re-
course to it again whenever any circumstance
displeases or annoys him, and the habit will be so
rapidly and completely formed, that he will become
insensible to all severity.

It is useless and dangerous to contend with a
horse determined to back, unless there is plenty of
room, and, by tight reining, the driver can make
him back in the precise direction he wishes, and

especially up-hill. Such a horse should be imme-
diately sold, or turned over to some other work.
In a stage-coach as a wheeler, and particularly as
the near-wheeler ; or, in the middle of a team at
agricultural work, he may be serviceable. It will
be useless for him to attempt to gib there, for he
will be dragged along by his companions whether
he will or not ; and, finding the inutility of resist-
ance, he ^vill soon be induced to work as well as any
horse in the team. The reformation will last while
he is thus employed, but, like restiveness gene-
rally, it will be delusive when the horse returns
to his former occupation. The disposition to annoy
wrill very soon follow the power to do it. Some
instances of complete reformation may have oc-
curred, but they are rare.

When a horse, not often accustomed to gib,
betrays a reluctance to work, or a determination
not to work, common sense and humanity will
demand that some consideration should be taken
before measures of severity are resorted to. The
horse may be taxed beyond his power. He soon
discovers whether this is the case, and by refusing
to proceed, tells his driver that it is so. The ut-
most cruelty will not induce many horses to make
the slightest effort, when they are conscious that
their strength is inadequate to the task. Some-
times the withers are wrung, and the shoulders
sadly galled, and the pain, which is intense on level
ground and with fair draught, becomes insupport-
able when he tugs up a steep acclivity. 1'hese
things should be examined into, and, if possible,
rectified ; for, under such circumstances, cruelty
may produce obstinacy and vice, but not willing
obedience.

They who are accustomed to horses know what
seemingly trivial circumstances occasionally pro-
duce this vice. A horse, whose shoulders are raw,
or have frequently been so, will not start with a
cold collar. When the collar has acquired the
warmth of the parts on which it presses, the animal
will go without reluctance. Some determined
gibbers have been refonned by constantly wearing
a false collar, or strip of cloth round the shoulders,
so that the coldness of the usual collar should
never be felt ; and others have been cured of gib-
bing by keeping the collar on night and day, for
the animal is not able to lie down completely at
full length, which the tired horse is always glad to
do. When a horse gibs, not at starting, but while
doing his work, it has sometimes been useful to
line the collar witli cloth instead of leather ; the
perspiration is readily absorbed, the substance
which presses on the shoulders is softer, and it may
be far more accurately eased off at a tender place.

BITING.

This is either the consequence of natural fero-
city, or a habit acquired from the foolish and teasing

THE HORSE.

503

play of grooms and stable-boys. When a horse is
tickled and pinched by thovightless and mischievous
youths, he will first i)i-(l(inl In liite his tormentors ;
by degrees he will jirncin! r.nilier, and actually
bite them, and, very simhi ui'ior I hat, he will be the
first to challenge t<5 the combat, and, without pro-
vocation, seize some opportunity to gripe the incau-
tious tormentor. At length, as the love of mis-
chief is a propensity too easily acquired, this war,
half playful and half in earnest, becomes habitual
to him, and degenerates into absolute viciousness.
It is not possible to enter the stall of some
horses without danger. The animal gives no
warning of his intention ; he is seemingly quiet
and harmless : but if the incautious by-stander
comes fairly within his reach, he darts upon him,
and seldom fails to do some mischief. A stallion
addicted to biting is a most formidable creature.
He lifts the intruder — he shakes him — he attacks
him with his feet — he tramples upon him, and
there are many instances in which he effects irre-
parable mischief A resolute groom may escape.
A^'lien he has once got firm hold of the head of the
horse, he may back him, or muzzle him, or harness
him ; but he must be always on his guard, or in a
moment of carelessness he may be seriously injured.
It is seldom that anything can be done in the
way of cure. Kindness will aggravate the evil,
and no degree of severity will correct it. " I have
seen," says Professor Stewart, "biters punished
until they trembled in every joint, and were ready
to drop, but have never in any case known them
cured by this treatment, or by any other. The
lash is forgotten in an hour, and the horse is as ready
and determined to repeat the offence as before. He
appears unable to resist the temptation, and in its
worst form biting is a sjsecies of insanity."*

Prevention, however, is in the power of every
proprietor of horses. While he insists on gentle
and humane treatment of his cattle, he should
systematically forbid this horse-play. It is that
which can never be considered as operating as a
reward, and thereby rendering the horse tractable ;
nor does it increase the affection of tlie animal for
his groom, because he is annoyed and irritated by
being thus incessantly teased.

GETTING THE CHEEK OF THE BIT INTO THE MOUTH.

Some horses that are disposed to be mischiev-
ous try to do this, and are very expert at it. They
soon find what advantage it gives them over their
driver, who by this manoeuvre loses almost all
command. Harsh treatment is here completely
out of the question. All that can be done is, by
some mechanical contrivance, to render the thing
difficult or impossible, and this may be managed
by fastening a round piece of leather on the inside
of the cheek of the bit.

♦ Stewart's Stable Economy, p. 160.

This, as a vice, is another consequence of the
culpable habit of grooms and stable-ljoys of tea.sing
the horse. That which is at first an indication of
annoyance at the pinching and tickling of the groom,
and without any design to injure, gradually be-
comes the expression of anger, and the effort to do
mischief. The horse likewise too soon recognises
the least appearance of timidity, and takes advan-
tage of the discoveiy. There is no cure for this
vice ; and he cannot be justified who keeps a kick-
ing horse in his stable.

Some horses acquire, from mere irritability and
fidgetiness, a habit of kicking at the stall or the
bail, and particularly at night. The neighbouring
horses are disturbed, and the kicker gets swelled
hocks, or some more serious injuiy. This is also
a habit very difficult to correct if suffered to become
established. Mares are far more subject to it than
horses.

Before the habit is inveterately established, a
thorn bush or a piece of furze fastened against the
partition or post will sometimes effect a cure.
When the horse finds that he is pretty severely
pricked he will not long continue to punish him-
self. In confirmed cases it may be necessary to
have recourse to the log, but the legs ai'e often not
a little bruised by it. A rather long and heavy
piece of wood attached to a chain has been buckled
above the hock, so as to reach about half way
down the leg. When the horse attempts to kick
violently, his leg will receive a severe blow : this,
and the repetition of it, may, after a time, teach
him to be quiet.

A much more serious vice is kicking in harness.
From the least annoyance about the rump or
quarters, some horses will Idck at a most violent
rate, and destroy the bottom of the chaise, and
endanger the limbs of the driver. Those that are
fidgety in the stable are most apt to do this. If
the reins should perchance get under the tail, the
violence of the kicker will often be most outrageous ;
and while the animal presses down his tail so
tightly that it is almost impossible to extricate the
reins, he continues to plunge until he has demolished
everything behind him.

This is a vice standing foremost in point of
danger, and which no treatment will always con-
quer. It will be altogether in vain to tiy coercion.
If the shafts are very strong and without flaw, or if
they are plated with iron underneath, and a stout
kicking-strap resorted to which will bai'ely allow
the horse the proper use of his hind limbs in pro-
gression, but not permit him to raise them suffici-
ently for the pm-pose of kicking, he may be pre-
vented from doing mischief; or if he is harnessed
to a heavy cart, and thus confined, his efforts to
lash out will be restrained : but it is frequently a

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THE HORSE.

crib-biting lias very properly teen decided to be
unsoundness. We must not look to tlie state
of the disease at the time of purchase. The ques-
tion is, does it exist at all '? A case was tried
before Lord Tenterden, and thus decided : " a
horse with crib-biting is unsound."

It is one of those tricks which are exceedingly
contagious. Every companion of a crib-biter in
the same stables is likely to acquire the habit, and
it is the most inveterate of all habits. The edge
of the manger will in vain be lined with iron, or
with sheep-skin, or \vith sheep-skin covered with
tar or aloes, or any other unpleasant substance.
In defiance of the annoyance which these may
occasion, the horse will persist in the attack on his
manger. A strap buckled tightly round the neck,
hy compressing the windpipe, is the best means of
preventing the possibility of this trick ; but the
strap must he constantly worn, and its pressure is
too apt to produce a worse affection, viz. an irrita-
tion in the windpipe, which terminates in roaring.

Some have recommended turning out for five
or six months ; but this has never succeeded
except with a young horse, and then rarely. The
old crib-biter will employ the gate for the same
purpose as the edge of his manger, and we have
often seen him galloping across a field for the
mere object of having a gripe at a rail. Medicine
will be altogether thronn away in this case.

The only remedy is a muzzle, with bars across
the bottom ; sufficiently wide to enable the animal
to pick up his com, and to pull his hay, but not to
grasp the edge of the manger. If this is worn for
a considerable period, the horse may be tired
of attempting that which he cannot accomplish,
and for a while forget the habit, but, in a majority
of cases, the desire of crib-biting will return with
the power of gratifying it.

The causes of crib-biting are various, and some
of them beyond the control of the proprietor of the
horse. It is often the result of imitation ; but it
is more frequently the consequence of idleness.
The high-fed and spirited horse must be in mis-
chief if he is not usefully employed. Sometimes,
but we believe not often, it is produced by partial
starvation, whether in a bad straw-yai'd, or from
unpalatable food. An occasional cause of crib-
biting is the frequent custom of grooms, even
when the weather is not severe, of dressing them
in the stable. The horse either catches at the
edge of the manger, or at that of the partition
on each side, if he has been turned, and thus
he forms the habit of laying hold of these sub-
stances on every occasion.

\V1ND-SUCKING.

This bears a close analogy to crib-biting. It
arises from the same causes ; the same pui-pose is
accomplished ; and the same results follow. The

horse stands with his neck bent ; his head drawn
inward ; his lips alternately a little opened and
then closed, and a noise is heard as if he were
sucking. If we may judge from the same compara-
tive want of condition and the flatulence which we
have described under the last head, either some
portion of wind enters the stomach, or there is an
injurious loss of saliva. This diminishes the value
of the horse almost as much as crib-biting ; it is
as contagious, and it is as inveterate. The only
remedies, and they will seldom avail, are tying the
head up, except when the horse is feeding, or
putting on a muzzle with shark spikes towards
the neck, and which will prick him whenever he
attempts to rein his head in for the purpose of
wmd-sucking.

Of this habit mention has been made at p.
434 ; and we would advise the owner of a cutting
horse, without tiymg any previous experiments of
raising or lowering the heels, to put on the cuttiug
foot a shoe of even thickness from heel to toe, not
projecting in the slightest degree beyond the
crust, and the crust itself being rasped a little at
the quarters. The shoe should be fastened as
usual on the outside, but \\'ith only one nail on the
inside, and that almost close to the toe. The
principle on which this shoe acts has been ex-
plained at p. 487.

NOT LYING DOWN.

It not uncommonly happens that a horse will
seldom or never lie down in the stable. He some-
times continues in appai'ent good health, and feeds
and works well ; but generally his legs swell, or
he becomes fatigued sooner than another horse.
If it is impossible to let him loose in the stable, or
to put him into a spare box, we know not what is
to be done. No means, gentle or cruel, will force
him to lie down. The secret is that he is tied up,
and either has never dared to lie down through
fear of the confinement of the halter, or he has
been cast in the night, and severely injured. If
he can be suffered to range the stable, or have a
comfortable box, in which he may be loose, he will
usually lie down the first night. Some few horses,
however, will lie down in the stable, and not in a
loose box. A fresh, well-made bed, will generally
tempt the tired horse to refresh himself with
sleep.

OVER-REACH.

This unpleasant noise, known also by the term
"clicking," arises- from the toe of the hind foot
knocking against the shoe of the fore foot. In the
trot, one fore leg and the opposite hind leg are first
lifted from the ground and moved forward, the
other fore leg and the opposite hind leg remaining

THE IIOllSK.

507

fixed ; but, to keep tlie centre of gravity within
the base, and as the stride, or space passed over by
tliese legs, is often greater than the distance be-
tween the fore and hind feet, it is necessary that
the fore feet shoukl be alternately moved out of
the way for the hind ones to descend. Then, as
occasionally happens with hoi'ses not perfectly
broken, and that have not been taught their paces,
and especially if they have high liinder quarters and
low fore ones, if the fore feet are not raised in
time the hind feet will strike them. The fore foot
will generally be caught when it has just begun to
be raised, and the toe of the hind foot will meet
the middle of the bottom of the fore foot. It is an
unpleasant noise, and not altogether free from dan-
ger ; for it may so happen that a horse, the action
of wliose feet generally so much interferes with
each other, may advance the hind foot a little more
rapidly, or raise the fore one a little more slowly, so
that the blow may fall on the heel of the shoe, and
loosen or displace it ; or the two shoes may be
looked together, and the animal may be thrown :
or tlie contusion may be received even liigher, and
on the tendons of the leg, and considerable swel-
ling and lameness may follow.

If the animal is young, the action of the horse
may be materially improved ; otherwise nothing
can be done, except to keep the toe of the hind
foot as short and as round as it can safely be, and
to bevil off and round the toe of the slioe, like that
wliich has been worn by a stumbler for a fortnight,
and, perhaps, a little to lower the heel of the fore
foot.

A blow received on the heel of the fore foot in
this manner has not unfrequentlj', and especially
if neglected, been followed by quittor.*

The heel most frequently suffers in over-reach-
ing, although the pastem is sometimes injured. It
usually or almost always occurs in fast paces on
deep ground. The injury is inflicted by the edge
of the inner part of the shoe. The remedj^ is the
cutting away the edge of the shoe. An account of
the most successful treatment of over-reacli has
been given in p. 405.

r.A.wrxG.
Some hot and irritable horses are restless even
in the stable, and paw frequently and violently.
Their litter is destroyed, the floor of the stable

* Mr. Simpson relates an interesting though unfortunate case
of this interference after the operation of neurotomy ; —

" An old but splendid horse had been sadly lame in the off
fore foot during some months. Many plans of treatment were
adopted, wilhi>ut the desired effect ; and at length it was deter-
mined to have recourse to neurotomy. A portion of the metacarpal
ner\'e was excised on both sides, just above the fetlock. Three
weeks allerwards, the horse being quite free from lameness, he was
put into harness, and driven about twelve miles. He appeared to
go very well, but, on arriving at hisjomney's end, it was found
that the off hind foot was covered witli blood, and the heels of the
neurotomised foot were dreadfully bruised and cut, from repeated
blows from the corresponding foot behind. In order to remedy

broken up, the shoe.s worn out, the feet bniised,
and the legs sometimes sprained. If this habit
does not ex.ist to any great extent, yet the stable
never looks well. Shackles are the only remedy,
with a chain sufficiently long to enable the horse
to shift his posture, or move in his stall ; but these
must be taken off at night, otherwise the animal
will seldom lie down. Except, however, the horse
possesses peculiar value, it will be better to dis-
pose of him at once, than to submit to the danger
and inconvenience that he may occasion.

A horse will sometimes partly chew his hay,
and suffer it to drop from his mouth. If this does
not proceed from irregular teeth, which it will be the
business of the veterinarj' surgeon to rasp down, it
will be found to be connected with sore tliroat, and
then the horse will exhibit some other symptom of
indisposition, and particularly, the swallowing of
water will be accomjianied by a peculiar gulpuig
effort. In this case the disease (eatanii, with sore
throat) must be attacked, aud the quiddiug will
cease.

This is a very pleasaut and perfectly safe
amusement for a horse at grass, but cannot be
indulged in the stable without the cliance of his
being dangerously entangled with tlje collar reinv
aud being cast. Yet, although the liorse is cast,
and bruised, and half-strangled, he will rolJ again
on the follomng night, and continue tO' db so aS'
long as he lives. The only remed}' is not a very
pleasant one to the horse, nor always- quite safe ;
yet it must be had recourse to if the habit of rolling
is inveterate. " The korse," says Mr. Castley,
" should be tied with length enough of collar to lie
down, but not to allow of his head resting on the
ground ; because, in order to roll over,, a horse ia
obliged to place his head quite dbwa upon the
ground."

We have briefly treated of the cause of this
vice at page 2Sd, and observed that while it ia
often the result of cowardice, or playfulness, or
want of work, it is at other times the consequence
of a defect of sight. It has been remm-ked, and

this, Uie toe of the hind foot was ordered to be shortened as much
as possible.

" Four days afterwards he was driven again with the same con-
tusions, but did not appear to feel the slightest pain, either when
the blows were inflicted or when he was examined i^ain some days

after

uds.

"There was not the same activity in this foot that there
had been before the operation, and it could not get out of the
way of the hind foot, a circumstance that would hardly have been
expected, for it is the general belief that, although "sensation is
destroyed in the foot, the locomotive powers of the leg are imim-
paired. This deserves future inquiiy." — The Veterinarian, vol.
viii., p. 242.

508

THE HOUSE.

we believe veiy tnily, that shj'ing is oftener a vice
of half or quarter-bred horses, than of those ^Yho
have in them more of the genuine racing blood.

In the treatment of shying, it is of great im-
portance to distinguish between that -which is the
consequence of defective sight, and what results
from fear, or newness of objects, or mere affectation
or skittishness. For the first, the nature of which
we have explained at page 282, eves-y allowance
must be made, and care must be taken that the
fear of correction is not associated with the ima-
gined existence of some terrifying object. The
severe use of the whip and the spur cannot do good
here, and are likely to aggravate the vice tenfold.
A word half encouraging and half scolding, with a
gentle pressure of the heel, or a slight touch of the
spur, will tell the horse that there was notliiug to
fear, and will give him confidence in his rider on a
future occasion. It should be remembered, how-
ever, that although a horse that shies from defec-
tive sight may be taught considerable reliance on
his rider, he can never have the cause of the habit
removed. We may artificially strengthen the
human sight, but that of the horse must be left to
itself.

The shying from skittishness or affectation is
<jiiite a different affair, and must be conquered :
but how? Severity is altogether out of place. If
he is forced into contact with the object by dint of
■correction, the dread of punishment will afterwards
he associated with that object, and, on the next oc-
casion, his startings will be more frequent and
more dangerous. The way to cure him is to go
cm, turning as rlittle as possible out of the road,
;giving a harsh word or two, and a gentle touch
with the spur, and thesi taking no more notice of
the matter. After a few times, whatever may have
been the object which te chose to select as the
j)retended cause of affright, he will pass it almost
without notice.

1(1 -page 4.15., -under tlie head " breaking-in,"
we described how the colt may be cured of the
habit of shying from fear or newness of objects ;
,and, if he then is accustomed as much as possible
to the objects among which his services will be
required, he will not possess this annoying vice
when he gi'ows to jnaturer age.

Mr. John Lawrence, in his lafst work on the
horse, says, •' These animals generally fix on
some particular shying butt: for example, I recol-
lect having, at different periods, three hacks, all
very powerful ; the one made choice of a wind-mill
for the object or butt, the other a tilted waggon,
and the last a pig led in a string. It so happened,
however, that 1 rode the two former when amiss
from a violent cold, and they then paid no more
atfentiou to either wind-mills or tilted waggons
than to any other objects, convincing me that
their shying when in health and spirits was pure

affectation ; an affectation, however, which may be
speedily united with obstinacy and vice. Let it
be treated with marked displeasure, mingled with
gentle, but decided firmness, and the habit will be
of short endurance." *

It is now generally admitted by all riding-
masters and colt-bi-eakers, that a great deal more
is to be effected by lenient than by harsh treat-
ment. Rewai'ds are found to operate more bene-
ficially than punishments; and therefore the most
scientific and practised riding-masters adopt
methods based upon the former. The writer of the
present work remembers a very remarkable in-
stance of the efficacy of this plan, or rather of its
vast and decided superiority over violence of the
worst description. A vicious thorough-bred horse
had baffled the efforts of every one into whose
hands he had been put in order to be rendered
tractalile : at length a foreigner of considerable
repute among the equestrians of the "school,"
took him to make trial of; and in the course of a
twelvemonth had rendered him so quiet that not
only could any person ride him with the utmost
safety ; but, at the same time, he was so docile
and tractable that he could be induced, by certain
signs, to lie down and permit his rider to mount
before he arose again.

The same forbearance and humanity have been
practised with the same beneficial results upon
shy horses. With all such persons as are best
able to give counsel in cases of shyness, the lan-
guage is now-a-days, " let the horse alone" —
" take no notice of his shyness" — " work him well
and accustom him to the objects he dislikes, and
in time he will of himself leave off his trick of
shying."

This is good advice ; but, let it not be misin-
terpreted. Let it not be understood to mean that
the animal is to receive any encouragement to shy ;
for by no other expression can be characterised that
erroneous and foolish practice of pattiilg the horse,

* " We will suppose a case — a very common one, an every-
day one. A man is riding a young horse upon the high road in
the country, and meets a stage-ioach. What mth the noise, the
bustle, the imposing appearance allogclher, and the slashing of the
coachman's whip, the animal at its approach erects his head and
crest, pricks his ears, looks affiighted, and no sooner comes along-
side ol' the machine than he suddenly slarts out of the road. His
rider, annoyed by this, instantly commences a round of castigalion
with whip," spur, and curb, in which he persists until the horse, as
as well as himself, has lost his temper; and then one whips,
spurs, and pulls, and the otlicr jumps, plunges, frets, and throws up
his head, until both, pretly well exhausted by the conflict, grow
tranquil again and proceed on their journey, though nol for some
time afterwards in their former mutual confidence and satisfaction.
Should they in their road, or even on a distant day, [meet with
another coach, what is the consequence ? The horse is not only
more alarmed than before, but now, the moment he has started,
being conscious of his fault and expecting chastisement, he jumps
about in fearful agitation, making plunges to strike into a gallop,
and attempting to run away. So that by this correction, instead
of rendering his horse tranquil during the passage of a coach, the
rider adds to the evil of shying that of subsequently plimgiug, and
perhaps running away." — The Veterinarian, vol. i., p. 96.

THE HOUSE.

500

or " making much of him," either just before or
during the time he evinces shyness. The former
is bad, because it draws the attention of the animal
to the object he dreads ; the latter is worse, be-
cause it tills him with the impression either that
the object itself is really terrific, or that he has
acted right in shying at it, and ought to do so
again.

Whether we are approaching the friglitful ob-
ject, or the horse is actually shying, " we should
let him alone" — " we should take uo notice what-
ever of him" — neither letting him perceive that
Vie are aware that we are advancing towards any-
thing he dislikes ; nor do more with him, while in
the act of shying, than is necessary for due restraint
with a steady hand upon the rein. We may de-
pend upon it, that battling on our part will only
serve to augment affright and arouse resistance
on his, and that the most judicious course we
can pursue is to persevere in mild forbearant
usage.

Shying on coming out of the stable is a habit
that can rarely or never be cured. It proceeds
fi'om the remembrance of some ill-usage or hurt
which the animal has received in the act of pro-
ceeding from the stable, such as striking his head
against a low doorway, or entangling the harness.
Coercion will but associate greater fear and more
determined resistance with the old recollection.
Mr. Castley gives an interesting anecdote, which
tends to prove that while severity ^vill be worse
than useless, even kind treatment will not always
break a confirmed habit. " I remember a very
fine grey mare that had got into this habit, and
never could he persuaded to go through a doorway
%vithout taking an immense jump. To avoid this,
the servants \ised to back her in and out of the
stable ; but the mare happening to meet with a
severe injury of the spine, was no longer able to
back ; and then I have seen the poor creature,
when brought to the door, endeavouring to balance
herself, with a staggering motion, upon her half-
paralysed hind extremities, as if making prepara-
tion and summoning up resolution for some great
effort ; and then, when urged, she would plunge
headlong forward with such violence of exertion, as
often to lose her feet, and tumble down, altoge-
ther most pitiable to be seen. This I merely
mention," he continues, " as one proof how inve-
terate the habits of horses are. They are evils, let
it always be remembered, more easy to prevent
than to cure."

When the cure, how-ever, is early attempted, it
may be so far overcome that it will be unattended
with danger or difficulty. The horse should be
bridled when led out or in. He should be held
short and tight by the head, that he may feel he
has not liberty to make a leap, and this of itself is
often sufficient to restrain him. Punishment or a

threat of punishment will be highly improper. It
is only timid or high-spirited horses that acquire
this habit, and rough usage invariably increases
their agitation and teri'or. Some may be led out
quite at leisure when blindfolded ; others when
they have the haniess bridle on ; some will best
take their own way; and a few may be ridden through
the doorway that cannot be led. By quietness and
kindness, however, the horse will be most easily
and quickly subdued.

SLIPPING THE COLL.\R.

This is a trick at which many horses are so
clever that scarcely a night passes without their
getting loose. It is a vei-y serious habit, for it
enables the horse sometimes to gorge himself
with food, to the imminent danger of staggers ; or
it exposes him, as he wanders about, to be kicked
and injured by the other horses, while his restless-
ness will often keep the whole team awake. If
the web of the halter, being fu'st accurately fitted to
his neck, is suffered to slip only one wa}', or a strap
is attached to the halter and buckled round the
neck, but not sufficiently tight to be of serious
inconvenience, the power of slipping the collar will
be taken away.

He must be a skilful practitioner or a mere
pretender who promises to remedy this habit. If
it arises from a heavy forehand, and the fore legs
being too much under the horse, no one can alter
the natural frame of the animal : if it proceeds
from tenderness of the foot, gi'ogginess, or old
lameness, these ailments are seldom cured. Also,
if it is to be traced to habitual carelessness and
idleness, no whipping will rouse the drone. A
known stumbler should never be ridden, or driven
by any one who values his safety or his life. A
tight hand or a sti'ong bearing-rein are precautions
that should not be neglected, although they are
generally of little avail ; for the inveterate stumbler
will rarely be able to save himself, and this tight
rein may sooner and farther precipitate the rider.
If, after a trip, the horse suddenly starts forward,
and endeavours to break into a shai-p trot or canter,
the rider or driver may be assured that others
before him have fruitlessly endeavoured to remedy
the nuisance.

If the stumbler has the foot kept as short and
the toe pared as close as safety will permit, and the
shoe is rounded at the toe, or has that shape given
to it which it naturally acquires in a fortnight from
the peculiar action of such a horse, the animal may
not stumble quite so much ; or if the disease which
produced the habit can be alleviated, some trifling
good may be done; but in almost every case a
stumbler should be got rid of, or put to slow and
heavy work. JS the latter alternative is adopted.

510

THE HORSE.

he m&y trip as much as he pleases, for the weiglit
of the load and the motion of the other horses will
keep him upon his legs.

WEAVING.

This consists in a motion of the head, neck,
and body, from side to side, like the shuttle of a

name which is given to this peculiar and incessant
and unpleasant action. It indicates an impatient,
irritable temper, and a dislike to the confinement
of the stable. A horse that is thus incessantly on
the fret will seldom carry flesh, or be safe to ride
or drive. There is no cure for it, but the close
tying up of the animal, or at least allowing him but

weaver passing through the web, and hence the | one loose rein, except at feeding-time.

CHAPTEK XXIV.

THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF THE HORSE.

This is a most important part of our subject, even
as it regards the fanner, although there are com-
paratively few glaring errors in the treatment of
the agricultural horse : but it comes more esf)ecially
home to the gentleman, who is too often and too
implicitly under the guidance of an idle, and igno-
rant, and designing groom.

We will arrange the most important points of
general management under the following lieads :

The breathing of pure air is necessaiy to the
existence and the health of man and beast. It is
comparatively lately that this has been admitted
even in the management of our best stables. They
have been close and hot and foul, instead of aiiy
and cool and wholesome. The effect of several
horses being shut up in the same stable is com-
pletely to empoison the air ; and yet, even in the
present day, there are too many who carefully close
every aperture by which a breath of fresh air can by
possibility gain admission. In effecting this, even
the key-hole and the threshold are not forgotten.
What, of necessity, must be the consequence
of this ? Why ! if one thought is bestowed on
the new and dangerous character that the air is
assuming, it will be too evident that sore throat,
and swelled legs, and bad eyes, and inflamed lungs,
and mange, and grease, and glanders, will scarcely
ever be long out of that stable.

Let this be considered in another point of view.
The horse stands twenty or two-and-twenty hours
in this unnatural vapour bath, and then he is sud-
denly strip)ped of all his clothing, he is led into the
open air, and there he is kept a couple of hours or
more in a temperature fifteen or twenty degrees
below that of the stable. Putting the inhumanity
of this out of the question, must not the animal
thus unnaturally and absurdly treated be subjected
to rheumatism, catarrh, and vai'ious other com-
plaints ? Does he not often stand, hour after hour,
in the road or the street, while his o^vner is wann-
ing himself within, and this perhaps after every
pore has been opened by a brushing gallop, and his

susceptibility to the painful and the injurious
influence of cold has been excited to the utmost ?

It is not so generally known, as it ought to be,
that the return to a hot stable is quite as dangerous
as the change from a heated atmosphere to a cold
and biting air. Many a horse that has travelled
without harm over a bleak country has been sud-
denly seized with inflammation and fever when he
has, immediately at the end of his journey, been
surrounded with heated and foul air. It is the
su;lden change of temperature, whether from heat
to cold, or from cold to heat, that does the mis-
chief, and yeai^ly destroys thousands of horses.

Mr. Clark of Edinburgh was the first who ad-
vocated the use of well ventilated stables. After
him Professor Coleman established them in the
quarters of the cavaliy troops ; and there cannot
be a doubt that he saved the Government many
thousand pomids every year. His system of ventila-
tion, however, like many other salutary innovations,
was at first strongly resisted. Much evil was pre-
dicted; but, after a time, diseases that used to dis-
mount whole troops almost entirely disappeared
from the army.

The stable should be as large, compared with
the number of horses that it is destined to con-
tain, as circumstances will allow. A stable for six
horses should not be less than forty feet in length,
and thirteen or fourteen feet wide. If there is no
loft above, the inside of the roof should always be
plastered, in order to prevent direct currents of air
and occasional droppings from broken tiles. The
heated and foul air should escape, and cool and pure
air be admitted, by elevation of the central tiles ;
or by large tubes carried through the roof, with
caps a little above them, to prevent the beating in
of the rain ; or by gratings placed high up in the
walls. These latter apertures should be as far
above the horses as they can conveniently be placed,
by which means all injurious draught will be pre-
vented.

If there is a loft above the stable, the ceiling
should be plastered, in order to prevent the foul
air from penetrating to the hay above, and injuring

•-''y«'*<*fc''

THE HORSE.

511

both its taste and its wliolesomeness ; ami no open-
in>,'s slioulil be allowed above the racks, through
which the hay may be thrown into them ; for they
will permit the foul air to ascend to the provender,
and also in the act of filling the rack, and while
the horse is eagerly gazing upward for his food, a
grass seed may fall into the eye, and produce consi-
derable inflammation. At other times, when the
careless groom has left open the trap-door, a
stream of cold air beats down on the head of the
horse.

The stable with a loft over it should never be
less than twelve feet high, and proper ventilation
should be secured either by tubes carried through
the loft to the roof, or by gratings close to the ceil-
ing. These gratings or openings should be en-
larged or contracted by means of a covering or
shutter, so that dming spring, summer, and autumn,
the stable may possess nearly the same tempera-
ture with the open air, and in winter a temperature
of not more than ten degrees above that of the
external atmosphere.

A hot stable has, in the mind of the groom,
been long connected with a glossy coat. The
latter, it is thought, cannot be obtained without
the former.

To this we should reply that, in winter, a thin,
glossj' coat is not desirable. Nature gives to every
animal a warmer clothing when the cold weather
approaches. The horse — the agricultural horse
especially — acquires a thicker and a lengthened
coat, ill order to defend him from the suiTounding
cold. Man puts on an additional and a warmer
covering, and his comfort is increased and his health
preserved by it. He who knows anything of the
farmer's horse, or cares about his enjoyment, will
not object to a coat a little longer and a little
roughened when the wintiy wind blows bleak.
The coat, however, needs not to be so long as to be
unsightly ; and warm clothing, even in a cool
stable, wOl, with plenty of honest grooming, keep
the hair sufficiently smooth and glossy to satisfy
the most fastidious. The over-heated air of a close
stable saves much of this grooming, and therefore
the idle attendant unscrupulously sacrifices the
health and safety of the horse. When we have
presently to treat of the hair and skin of the horse,
this will be placed in a somewhat different point
of view.

If the stable is close, the air will not only be
hot, but foul. The breathing of every animal con-
taminates it ; and when, in the course of the night,
with every aperture stopped, it passes again and
again through the lungs, the blood cannot un-
dergo its proper and healthy change ; digestion
wDl not be so perfectly performed, and all the
functions of life are injured. Let the o^^'ner of a
valuable horse think of his passing twenty or
twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours in this

debilitating atmosphere ! Nature does wonders in
enabling eveiy animal to accommodate itself to the
situation in which it is placed, and the horse that
lives in the stable-oven suffers less from it than
would scarcely be conceived possible ; but he does
not, and cannot, possess the power and the hardi-
hood wliich he would acquire under other circum-
stances.

The air of the improperly close and heated
stable is still farther contaminated by the urine
and dung, which rapidly ferment there, and give
out stimulating and unwholesome vapours. When
a person first enters an ill-managed stable, and
especially early in the morning, he is annoyed, not
only by the heat of the confined air, but by a pun-
gent smell, resembling hartshorn ; and can he be
surprised at the inflammation of the eyes, and the
chronic cough, and the disease of the lungs, by
which the animal, who has been all night shut up
in this vitiated atmosphere, is often attacked ; or
if glanders and farcy should occasionally break out
in such stables ? It has been ascertained by che-
mical experiment that the urine of the horse con-
tains in it an exceedingly large quantity of harts-
horn ; and not only so, but that, influenced by the
heat of a crowded stable, and possibly by other
decompositions that are going forward at the same
time, this ammoniacal vapour begins to be rapidly
given out almost immediately after the urine is
voided.

When disease begins to appear among the in-
habitants of these ill-ventilated places, is it won-
derful that it should rapidly spread among them,
and that the plague-spot should be, as it were,
placed on the door of such a stable '? When dis-
temper appears in spring or in autumn, it is in
very many cases to be traced to such a pest-house.
It is peculiarly fatal there. The horses belonging
to a small establishment, and rationally treated,
have it comparatively seldom, or have it lightly ;
but among the inmates of. a crowded stable it is
sure to display itself, and there it is most fatal.
The experience of eveiy veterinary surgeon, and of
eveiy lai-ge proprietor of horses, will corroborate
this statement. Agriculturists should bring to
their stables the common sense which directs them
in the usual concerns of life, and should begin,
when their pleasures and their property are so
much at stake, to assume that authority and to en-
force that obedience, to the lack of which is to be at-
tributed the greater part of bad stable-management
and horse-disease. Of nothing are we more cer-
tain than that the majority of the maladies of the
horse, and those of the worst and most fatal cha-
racter, are directly or indirectly to be attributed to
a deficient supply of air, cruel exaction of work,
and insufficient or bad fai-e. Each of these evils
is to be dreaded — each is, in a manner, watching
for its prey ; and when they are combined, more

512

THIi HORSE.

tliau half of the inmates of the stable are often
swept away.

Every' stable shonld possess -within itself a
certain degree of ventilation. The cost of this
would be triBing, and its saving in the preserva-
tion of valuable animals may be immense. The
apertures need not be lai-ge, and the whole may be
so contrived that no direct current of air shall fall
on the horse.

A gentleman's stable should never be without
a thermometer. The temperature should seldom
exceed 70° degrees in the summer, or sink below
40° or 50° in the winter.

Having spoken of the vapour of hartshorn,
which is so rapidly and so plentifnlly given out
from the urine of a horse in a heated stable, we
next take into consideration the subject of litter.
The first caution is frequently to remove it. The
early extrication of gas shows the rapid putrefaction
of tile urine ; and the consequence of which will be
the rapid putrefaction of the litter that has been
moistened by it. Everything liastening to decora-
position should be carefully removed where life and
health are to be preserved. The litter that has
been much wetted or at all softened by the urine,
and is beginning to decay, should be swept away
eveiy morning ; the greater part of the remainder
may then be piled under the manger ; a little being
left to prevent the painful and injurious pressure
of the feet on the hard pavement during the day.
The soiled and macerated portion of that which
was left should be removed at night. In the better
kind of stables, however, the stalls should be com-
pletely emptied eveiy morning.

No heap of fermenting dung should be suffered
to remain during the dny in the corner or in any
part of the stable. With regard to this the direc-
tions of the master should be peremptory.

The stable should be so contrived that the
urine shall quickly ruii off, and the offensive and
injurious vapour from the decomposing fluid and
the litter will thus be materially lessened ; if, how-
ever, the urine is carried away by means of a gutter
running along the stable, the floor of the stalls
must slant towards that gutter, and the declivity
must not be so great as to strain the back sinews.
and become an occasional, although unsuspected,
cause of lameness. Mr. R. Lawrence well observes,
that, "if the reader will stand for a few minutes
■with his toes higher than his heels, the pain he
will feel in the (.'alves of his legs will soon convince
him of the truth of this remai-k. Hence, when a
horse is not eating, he always endeavours to find
his level, either by standing across the stall or else
as far back as his halter will permit, so that his
hind-legs may meet the ascent of the other side of
the channel."

This inclination of the stall is also a frequent
cause of contraction of the heels of the foot, by
throwing too great a proportion of the weight upon
the toe and removing that pressure on the heels
which tends most to keep them open. Care, there-
fore, must be taken that the slanting of the floor of
the stalls shall be uo more than is sufficient to
drain off the urine with tolerable rapidity. Stalls
of this kind certJiinly do best for mares ; but for
horses we much prefer those with a grating in the
centre, and a slight inclination of the floor on eveiy
side tow-ards the middle. A short branch may
communicate with a larger drain, by means of
which the urine may be carried off to a resen-oir
outside the stable. Traps are now contrived, and
may be procured at little expense, by means of
which neither any offensive smell nor current of
air can pass through the grating.

The farmer should not lose any of the urine.
It is from the dung of the horse that he derives a
principal and the most valuable part of his manure.
It is that which earliest takes on the process of
putrefaction, and forms one of the strongest and
most durable dressings. That which is most of all
concerned with the rapidity and the perfection of
the decomposition is the urine.

Humanity and interest, as well as the appear-
ance of the stable, should induce the proprietor of
the horse to place a moderate quantity of litter
under him during the day. The farmer who wants
to convert every otherwise useless substance into
manure, will have additional reason for adopting
this practice : especially as he does not confine
himself to that to which in towns and in gentle-
men's stables custom seems to have limited the
bed of the horse. Pea and bean haum, and potato-
tops, and heath, occupy in the stable of the farmer,
during a part of the year-, the place of wheaten and
oaten straw. It should, however, be remembered,
that these substances are disposed more easily to
ferment and putrefy than straw, and therefore
should be more carefully examined and oftener
removed. It is the faulty custom of some farmers
to let the bed accumulate until it reaches almost
to the horse's belly, and the bottom of it is a mass
of dung. If there were not often many a hole and
cranny through which the wind can enter and dis-
perse the fold air, the health of the animal would
materially suffer.

This neglected branch of stable-management
is of far more consequence than is generally
imagined ; and it is particularly neglected by those
for whom these treatises are principally designed.
The farmer's stable is frequently destitute of any
glazed window, and has only a shutter, which is
raised in warm weather, and closed when the
weather becomes cold. When the horse is in the

> > '

THE IIOKSE.

.■513

Bta'ule only iluriiig a few hours in the Jay, tliis is
not of so iiiuc li lunsequence, nor of so much, pro-
halily, willi regard to liorses of slow work ; but to
caiTiage-horscs ami haekneys, so far, at least, as
the eyes are concerueil, a dark stable is little less
injurious than a foul aud heated one. In order to
illustrate this, reference may be made to the un-
pleasant feeling, and the utter impossibility of
seeing distinctly, when a man suddenly emerges
from a dark place into the full blaze of day. Tlie
sensation of mingled pain and giddiness is not
soon forgotten ; and some minutes pass befoi'e the
eye can accommodate itself to the increased light.
If this were to happen every day, or several times
in the day, the sight would be irreparably in-
jured, or possibly blindness would ensue. Can
we wonder, then, that the horse, taken from a
dark stable into a glare of light, feeling, probably,
as we should do under similar circumstances, and
unable for a considerable time to see anything
aroinid him distiuctl}-, should become a starter, or
that the fi-eijuently repeated violent effect of sud-
den light should induce inflammation of the eye so
intense as to terminate in blindness? There is,
indeed, no doubt that horses kept in dark stables
are frequently notorious starters, and that abomi-
nable habit has been properly traced to this cause.

Farmers know, and should profit by the know-
ledge, that the darkness of tlje stable is not unfre-
quently a cover for great uncleanliuess. A glazed
window, with leaden divisions between the small
panes, would not cost much, and would admit a
degree of light somewhat more approaching to that
of day, and at the same time would render the
concealment of gross inattention and want of
cleanlhiess impossible.

If plenty of light is admitted, the walls of the
stable, and especially that portion of them which
is before the horse's head, must not be of too
glaring a colour. The constant reflection from a
white wall, and especially if the sun shines into
the stable, will be as injurious to the eye as the
sudden changes from darkness to light. The per-
petual slight e.\cess of stimulus -will do as much
mischief as the occasional but more violent one
when the animal is taken from a kind of twilight
to the blaze of day. The colour of the stable,
therefore, should depend on the quantity of light.
Where much can be admitted, the walls should be
of a grey hue. Where darkness would otherwise
jirevail, frequent whitewashing may in some de-
gree dissipate the gloom.

For another reason it mil be evident that the
stable should not [jossess too glaring a light : it is
the resting-place of the horse. The work of the
farmer's horse, indeed, is confined principally to
the day. The hour of e.^ertion tiaviug passed, the
anira.J returns to his stable to feed and to repose,
aud the latter is as necessary as the former, in

order to prepare him for renewed work. Some-
thing apprnaihing to the dimness of twilight is
requisite Uj induce tiie animal to compose himself
to sleep. Tliis half-light more particularly suits
horses of heavy work, and who draw almost as much
by the weight of carcass which they can throw into
the collar, as liy the degiee of nmscular energy of
which they are capable. In the quietness of a
dimly-lighted stable they obtain repose, and accu-
mulate flesh and fat. Dealers are perfectly aware
of this. They have their darkened stables, in
which the young horse, with little or no exercise,
and fed upon rniishes and ground corn, is made up
for .sale. Tlie round and jilump appearance, how-
ever, which may delude the unwary, soon vani-shes
with altered treatment, and the animal is found to
be unfit for hard work, and predisposed to many
an inflammatory disease. The circumstances, then,
under wliich a staljle somewhat daikened may be
allowed, will be easily determined by the owner of
the horse ; but, as a general rule, dark stables are
unfriendly to cleanliness, and the frequent cause of
the vice of starting, and of the most serious dis-
eases of the eyes.

Of this much need not be said to the agricul-
turist, since custom, and, apparently without ill
effect, has allotted so little of the comb and brush
to the farmer's horse. The animal that is worked
all day, and turned out at night, requires little more
to be done to him than to have the dirt brushed
off his limbs. Regular grooming, by rendering his
skin more sensible to the alteration of temperature,
and the inclemency of the weather, would be pre-
judicial. The horse that is altogether turned out
needs no grooming. Tiie dandrilf or scurf which
accumulates at the roots of the hair, is a provision
of nature to defend him from the wind and the cold.

It is to the stabled horse, highly fed, and little
or in'egularly worked, that grooming is of so much
consequence. Good rubbing with the brush or the
curiy-comb opens the pores of the skin, circulates
the blood to the e.xtremiiies of the body, produces
free and healthy perspiration, and stands in the
room of exercise. No horse will cai'ry a tine coat
without either unnatural heat or dressing. They
both effect the same pui-pose ; they both increase
the insensible perspiration: but the first does it at
the expense of health and strength, while the
second, at the same time that it produces a glow on
the skin, and a determination of blood to it, rouses
all the energies of the frame. It would be well
for the proprietor of the horse if he were to insist —
and to see tliat his orders are really obeyed — that
the fine coat in which he and his groom so much
delight, is produced by honest )ubbing, and not by
a heated stable and thick clothing, and most of all,
not by stimulating or injurious spices. The horse

514

THE HOUSE.

should be regularly dressed eveiy day, in addition
to the grooming that is necessary after work.

AVhen the weather will permit the horse to he
taken out, he should never be groomed in the
stable, unless he is an animal of peculiar value, or
placed for a time under peculiar circumstances.
Without dv.'elling on the want of cleanliness, when
the scurf and dust that are brushed from the horse
lodge in his manger, and mingle with his food,
experience teaches, that if the cold is not too great,
the animal is braced and invigorated to a degree
that cannot be attained in the stable, from being
dressed in the open air. There is no necessity,
however, for half the punishment which many a
groom inflicts upon the horse in the act of dressing ;
and particularly on one whose skin is thin and
sensible. The curry-comb should at all times be
lightly applied. With many horses its use may be
almost dispensed with; and even the brush needs
not to be so hard, nor the points of the bristles so
irregular as they often are. A soft bi'ush, with a
little more weight of the hand, will be equally
effectual, and a great deal more pleasant to the
horse. A hair-cloth, while it will seldom irritate
and tease, will be almost sufficient with horses that
have a thin skin, and that have not been neglected.
After all, it is no slight task to dress a horse as it
ought to be done. It occupies no little time, and
demands considerable patience, as well as dexterity.
It will be readily ascertained whether a horse has
been well dressed by rubbing him with one of the
fingers. A greasy stain will detect the idleness
of the gi'oom. When, however, the horse is
changing his coat, both the curry-comb and the
bmsh shoidd be used as lightly as possible.

Whoever would be convinced of the benefit of
friction to the horse's skin, and to the horse gene-
rally, needs only to observe the effects produced by
well hand-nibbing the legs of a tired horse. While
every enlargement subsides, and the painful stiff-
ness disappears, and the legs attain their natural
warmth, and become fine, the animal is evidently
and rapidly re^'iviug ; he attacks his food with
appetite, and then quietly lies down to rest.

Our observations on this important branch of
stable-management must have only a slight refer-
ence to the agricultural horse. His work is usually
regular and not exhausting. He is neither pre-
disposed to disease by idleness, nor worn out by
excessive exertion. He, like his master, has
enough to do to keep him in health, and not enough
to distress or injure him : on the contraiy, the
regularity of his work prolongs life to an extent
rarely v^dtnessed in the stable of the gentleman.
Our remarks on exercise, then, must have a
general bearing, or have principal reference to
those persons who are in the middle stations

of life, and who contrive to keep a horse for
business or pleasure, but cannot afford to maintain
a sen'ant for the exjjress purjwse of looking after
it. The first rale we would lay down is, that
every horse should have daily exercise. The
animal that, with the usual stable feeding, stands
idle for three or four days, as is the case in many
establishments, must suffer. He is predisposed
to fever, or to grease, or, most of all, to diseases
of the foot ; and if, after three or foiu' days of
inactivity, he is ridden far and fast, he is almost
sm-e to have inflammation of the lungs or of the feet.

A gentleman or tradesman's horse suffers a great
deal more from idleness than he does from work.
A stable-fed horse should have two liours' exercise
eveiy day, if he is to be kept free from disease.
Nothing of extraordinaiy or even of ordinaiy
labour can be effected on the road or in the field
without sufficient and regular exercise. It is this
alone which can give energy to the system, or
develop the powers of any animal.

How then is this exercise to be given ? As
much as possible by, or imder the superintendence
of the owner. The exercise given by the groom
is rarely to be depended upon. It is inefficient or
it is extreme. It is in many cases both irregular
and injurious. It is dependent upon the caprice
of him who is performing a task, and who will
render that task subservient to his own pleasure
or jiui-pose.

In training the hunter and the race-horse,
regidar exercise is the most impoiiaut of all con-
siderations, however it may be forgotten in the
usual management of the stable. 'The exercised
horse will discharge his task, and sometimes a
severe one, with ease and pleasure ; while the idle
and neglected one will be fatigued ere half his
labour is accomplished, and, if he is pushed a little
too far, dangerous inflammation vrill ensue. How
often, nevertheless, does it happen, that the horse
which has stood inactive in the stable three or
four days, is ridden or driven thirty or forty miles
in the course of a single day ! This rest is often
purposely given to prepare for extra exertion ; —
to lay in a stock of strength for the perfonnance
of the task required of him : and then the owner
is surprised and dissatisfied if the animal is
fairly knocked up, or possibly becomes seriously
ill. Nothing is so common and so preposterous,
as for a person to buy a horse from a dealer's stable,
where he has been idly fattening for sale for many
a day, and immediately to give him a long run
after the hounds, and then to complain bitterly,
and think that he has been impiosed upon, if the
animal is exhausted before the end of the chase,
or is compelled to be led home suffering from
violent inflammation. Eegular and gradually
increasing exercise would have made the same
horse appear a treasure to his owntr.

THE nORSE.

615

Exercise should be somewhat proportioned to
the age of the horse. A young liorse requires
more than an old one. Nature has given to young
animals of every kind a disposition to activity ;
but the e.\ercise must not be violent. A great
deal depends upon the manner in which it is
given. To preserve the temper, and to promote
health, it should be moderate, at least at the
beginning and the termination. The rapid trot,
or even the gallop, may be resorted to in the
middle of the exercise, but the horse should be
brought in cool. If the owner would seldom
intrust his horse to boys, and would insist on the
exercise being taken within sight, or in the neigh-
bourhood of his residence, many an accident and
irreparable injur}' would be avoided. It should be
the owner's pleasure, and it is bis interest, person-
ally to attend to all these things. He manages
every other part of his concerns, and he may
depend on it that he suffers when he neglects,
or is in a manner excluded from, his stables.

The system of manger-feeding is becoming
general among farmers. There are few horses
that do not habitually waste a portion of their
hay ; and by some the greater part is pulled down
and trampled under foot, in order first to cull the
sweetest and best locks, and which could not
be done while the hay was enclosed in the rack.
A good feeder will afterwai-ds pick up much of that
which was thrown down ; but some of it must
be soiled and rendered disgusting, and, in many
cases, one-third of this division of their food is
wasted. Some of the oats and beans are imper-
fectly chewed by all horses, and scarcely at all by
hungry and greedy ones. The appearance of the
dung will sufficiently evince this

The observation of this induced the adoption
of manger- feeding, or of mixing a portion of chaff
with the corn and beans. By this means the
animal is compelled to chew his food ; he cannot, to
any great degree, waste the straw or hay : the
chaff is too hard and too sharp to be swallowed
without considerable mastication, and, while he is
forced to grind that down, the oats and beans are
ground with it, and yield more nourishment ; the
stomach is more slowly filled, and therefore acts
better on its contents, and is not so liJvely to
be overloaded ; and the increased quantity of saliva
thrown out in the lengthened maceration of the
food, softens it, and makes it more fit for digestion.

Professor Stewart very properly remarks that
" many horses swallow their com in great haste,
and when much is eaten that habit is exceedingly
dangerous. The stomach is filled — it is over-
loaded before it has time to make preparation for
acting on its contents — the food ferments, and
painful or dangerous colic ensues. By adding

chaff to his com, the horse must take more time

to eat it, and time is given for the commencement
of digestion, l)efore femientation can occur. In
this way chaff is very useful, especially after long
fasts."*

If, when considerable provender was wasted,
the horse maintained his condition, and was able
to do his work, it was evident that much might be
saved to the farmer, when he adopted a system by
which the horse ate all that was set before him ;
and by degrees it was found out, that even food
somewhat less nutritious, but a gi'eat deal cheaper,
and which the horse either would not eat, or would
not properly grind down in its natui'al state, might
be added, while the animal would be in quite as
good plight, and always ready for work.

Chaff may be composed of equal quantities of
clover or meadow hay, and wheaten, oaten, or
barley straw, cut into pieces of a quarter or half an
inch in length, and mingled well together ; the al-
lowance of oats or beans is afterwards added, and
mixed with the chaff. Many farmers vei-y pro-
perly bruise the oats or beans. The whole oat is
apt to slip out of the chaff and be lost ; but when
it is bruised, and especially if the chaff is a little
wetted, it will not readily separate ; or, should a
portion of it escape the grinders, it wi!l be partly
prepared for digestion by the act of braising. The
prejudice against bruising the oats is, so far as the
farmer's horse, and the waggon horse, and eveiy
horse of slow draught, are concerned, altogether
unfounded. The quantity of straw in the chaff
will always counteract any supposed purgative
quality in the binjised oats. Horees of quicker
draught, except they are naturally disposed to
scour, will thrive better with bruised than with
whole oats ; for a greater quantity of nutriment
will be extracted from the food, and it will always
be easy to apportion the quantity of straw or beans
to the effect of the mixture on the bowels of the
horse. The principal alteration that should be
made in the horse of harder and more rapid work,
such as the post-horse, and the stage-coach horee,
is to increase the quantity of hay, and diminish
that of straw. Two trusses of hay may be cut
mth one of straw.

Some gentlemen, in defiance of the prejudice
and opposition of the coachman or the gi'oom,
have introduced this mode of feeding into the
stables of their carriage horses and hackneys, and
with manifest advantage. There has been no loss
of condition or power, and considerable saving of
provender. This system is not, however, calcu-
lated for the hunter or the race-hoi-se. Their food
must lie in smaller bulk, in order that the action
of the lungs may not be impeded by the distension
of the stomach j yet many hunters have gone well

• Stewart's Stable Economy, p. 223.

516

THE HORSE.

over the field who have been manger-fed, the pro-
portion of corn, however, being materially increased.

For the agricultural and cart horse, eight
pounds of oats and two of beans should be added
to every twenty pounds of chaff. Thirty-four or
thirty-six pounds of the mixture will be sufficient
for any moderate-sized horse, with fair, or even
hard work. Tlie dray and waggon horse may re-
quire forty pounds. Hay in the raclt at night is,
in this case, supposed to be omitted together. The
rack, however, may remain, as occasionally useful
for the sick horse, or to contain tares or other
green meat.

Horses are very fond of this provender. The
majority of them, after having been accustomed to
it, will leave the best oats given to them alone, for
the sake of the mingled chaff and com. We
would, however, caution the farmer not to set
apart too much damaged hay for the manufacture
of the chaff. The horse may be tlius induced to
eat that which he would otherwise refuse ; but if
the nourishing property of the hay has been im-
paired, or it has acquired an injurious principle,
the animal will either lose condition, or become
diseased. Much more injury is done by eating
damaged hay or musty oats than is generally
imagined. There will be sufficient saving in the
diminished cost of the provender by the inti'oduo-
tion of the straw, and the improved condition of
the horse, without poisoning him with the refuse
of the farm. For old horses, and for those with
defective teeth, chaff is peculiarly useful, and for
them the grain should be broken down as well as
the fodder.

While the mixture of chaff with the com pre-
vents it from being too rapidly devoured and a
portion of it swallowed whole, and therefore the
stomach is not too loaded with that on which, as
containing the most nutriment, its chief digestive
power should be exerted, yet, on the whole, a great
deal of time is gained by this mode of feeding,
and more is left for rest. When a horse comes
in wearied at the close of the day, it occupies,
after he has eaten his corn, two or three hours to
clear his rack. On the system of manger-feeding,
the chaff being already cut into small pieces, and
the beans and oats bruised, he is able fully to sa-
tisfy his appetite in an hour and a half. Two ad-
ditional hours are therefore devoted to rest. This
is a circumstance deserving of much consideration
even in the farmer's stable, and of immense conse-
quence to the postmaster, the stage-coach pro-
prietor, and the owner of every hard-worked
horse.

Manger food will be the usual support of the
farmer's horse during the winter, and while at
constant or occasional hard work; but from the
middle of April to the end of July, he may be fed
with this mixture in the day and turned out at

night, or he may remain out during eveiy rest-
day. A team in constant employ should not,
however, be suffered to be out at night after the
end of July.

The farmer should take care that the pasture
is thick and good ; and that the distance from the
yard is not too great, or the fields too large, other-
wise a very considerable portion of time will be
occupied in catching the horses in the morning.
He will likewise have to take into consideration
the sale he would have for his hay, and the neces-
sity for sweet and untrodden pasture for his cattle.
On the whole, however, turning out in this way,
when circumstances will admit of it, will be found
to be more beneficial for the horse, and cheaper
than soiling in the yard.*

The horse of the inferior farmer is sometimes
fed on hay (jr grass alone, and the animal, al-
though he rarely gets a feed of corn, maintains
himself in tolerable condition, and does the work
that is required of him : but hay and grass alone,
however good in quality, or in whatever quantity
allowed, will not support a horse under hard work.

Other substances containing a larger propor-
tion of nutriment in a smaller compass, have been
added. They shall be briefly enumerated, and an
estimate formed of their comparative value.

In almost every part of Great Britain, oats
have been selected as that portion of the food
which is to afford the principal nourishment. They
contain seven hundred and forty-three parts out of
a thousand of nutritive matter. They should be
about or somewhat less than a year old, heavy,
dry, and sweet. New oats will weigh ten oi' fifteen
per cent, more than old ones ; but the difference
consists principally in watery matter, which is
gradually evaporated. New oats are not so readily

* Professor Stewart thus sums up the comparative advantage
of chaff and racked feeding: —

" Where the stablemen are careful, wa.ste of fodder is dimi-
nished, but not prevented, by feeding from the manger.

" Where the racks are good, careful stablemen may prevent
nearly all waste of fodder without cutting it.

"An acciurate dit,lributiou of the fodder is not a very important
object.

'' No horse seems to like his corn the better for being mingled
■with chatf.

*' Among half-starved horses chaff-cutting promotes the con-
sumittion of damaged fodder.

*' Full-fed horses, rather than eat the mixture of sound with
unsound, will reject the whole, or eat less than their woik
demands.

" Chaff is more easily eaten than hay. This is an advantage
to old horses and others working all day — a disadvantage when
the horses stand long in the stable.

" Chaff insures complete mastication and deliberate digestion
of the corn. It is of considerable, and of most importance in this
respect. All the fodder needs not to be mingled with the corn,
one pound of chaff being sutEcient to secure the mastication and
slow ingestion of four pounds of corn.

"The cost of cutting all the fodder, especially for heavy-
horses, is repaid only when hay is dear, and wasted in large
quantities

" Among hard-working horses bad food .■should never be cut."
— Skwait's Stable Economy, p. 225.

THE HORSE.

il7

grouud down by tlie teeth as old ones. They
form a more glutinous mass, difficult to digest,
and, when eaten in considerable quantities, are
apt to occasion colic and even staggers. If they
are to be used before they are from three to five
months old, they would be materially improved by
a little liiln-drjing. There is uo fear for the
horses from simple drying, if the corn was good
when it was put in the kiln. The old oat forms,
when chewed, a smooth aud uniform mass, which
readily dissolves in the stomach, and yields the
nourishment which it contains. Perhaps some
chemical cliange may have been slowly elfected in
the old oat, disposing it to be more readily assi-
milated. Oats should be plump, bright in colour,
and free from unpleasant smell or taste. The
musty smell of wetted or damaged corn is produced
by a fungus which grows upju the seed, and which
li;is an injurious effect on the urinary organs, and
often on the intestines, producing profuse staling,
inrtammatiou of the kidneys, colic, and inflamma-
tion of the bowels.

This musty smell is removed by kiln-drying
the oat ; but care is here requisite that too great a
degree of heat is not employed. It should be suf-
ficient to destroy the fungus without injuring the
life of the seed. Many persons, but without just
cause, have considerable fear of the kiln-burnt oat.
It is said to produce inflammation of the bladder,
and of the eyes, and mangy affections of the skin.
The fact is, that many of the kiln-dried oats that
are given to horses were damaged before they were
dried, and thus became unhealthy. A considerable
improvement would be effected, by cutting the
uutlireshed oat-straw into chaff, and the exjiense
of threshing would be saved. Oat-straw is better
than that of barley, but does not contain so much
nutriment as that of wheat.

^^'^hen the horse is fed on hay and oats, the
quantity of the oats must vary with his size and
the work to be performed. In winter, four feeds,
or from ten to fourteen pounds of oats in the day,
will be a fair allowance for a horse of fifteen hands
one or two inches high, and that has moderate
work. In summer, half the quantity, with green
food, will be sufiicient. Those who work on the
farm have from ten to fourteen pounds, and the
hunter from twelve to sixteen. There are no
efficient and safe substitutes for good oats ; but,
on the contrary, we are much inclined to believe
that they possess an invigorating property which
is not found in other food.

Oatmeal will form a poultice more stimulating
than one composed of linseed meal alone — or they
may be mingled in different proportions as cir-
cumstances require. In the form of gruel it con-
stitutes one of the most important articles of diet
for the sick horse — not, indeed, forced upon him,
but a pail containing it being slung in his box.

and of which he will soon begin to drink when
water is denied. Few grooms make gojd gruel;
it is either not boiled long enough, or a sufficient
quantity of oatmeal has not been used. The pro-
portions should be, a pound of meal tlirown int ) a
gallon of water, and kept constantly stirr-d until
it boils, and tive minutes afterwards.

White-water, made by stirring a pint of oat-
meal in a pail of watei-, the chill being taken iVoui
it, is an excellent beverage for the thirsty and tired
horse.

Barley is a common food of the horse on vari-
ous parts of the Continent, and, until the intro-
duction of the oat, seems to have constituted almost
his only food. It is more nutritious than oats,
containing nine hundred and twenty parts of nu-
tritive matter in every thousand. There seems,
however, to be something necessary besides a great
proportion of nutritive matter, iu order to render
any substance wholesome, strengthening, or fat-
tening ; therefore it is that, in many horses that
are hardly worked, and, indeed, in horses generally,
barley does not agree with them so well as oats.
They are occasionally subject to inflammatory
complaints, and particularly to surfeit and niauje.

When barley is given, the quantity should not
exceed a peck daily. It should always be bruised,
and the chaff should consist of equal quantities of
hay and barley-straw, and not cut too short. If
the farmer has a quantity of spotted or unsaleable
barley that he wishes thus to get rid of, he must
very gradually accustom his horses to it, or he will
probably produce sei'ious illness among them. For
horses that are recovering from illness, barley, in
the form of malt, is often serviceable, as tempting
the appetite aud recruiting the strength. It is
best given in mashes^water, considerably below
the boiling heat, being poured upon it, and the
vessel or pail kept covered for half an hour.

Grains fresh from the mash-tub, either alone,
or mixed with oats or chaff, or both, may be occa-
sionally given to horses of slow draught ; they
would, however, affoi'd very insufficient nourish-
ment for horses of quicker or harder work.

Wheat is, in Great Britain, more rarely given
than barley. It contains nine hundred and fifty-
five parts of nutritive matter. When farmei-s
have a damaged or unmarlietable sample of wheat,
they sometimes give it to their horses, and, being
at first used iu small quantities, they become ac
customed to it, and thrive aud work well : it must,
however, always be bruised and given iu chaff.
Wheat contains a greater portion of f/hiten, or
sticky adhesive matter, than any other kind of
grain. It is difficult of digestion, and apt to cake
and form obstructions in the bowels. This wi!l
oftener be the case if the horse is suffered to drink
much water soou after feeding upon wheat.

Fermentation, colic, and death, are occasionally

518

THE HOKSE.

the consequence of eating any great quantity of
wlieat. A horsetbat is fed on wheat should have
very little hay. The proportion should not he
more than one truss of hay to two of straw.
Wheaten flower, boiled in water to tlie thickness
of starch, is given with good effect in over-purging,
and especially if combined with chalk and opium.

Bran, or the ground husli of the wheat, used to
be frequently given to sick horses on account of
the sujjposed advantage derived from its relaxing
the bowels. There is no doubt that it does operate
gently on the intestinal canal, and assists in quick-
ening the passage of its contents, when it is occa-
sionally given; but it must not be a constant, or
even frequent food. Mr. Ernes attended three
mills at which many horses were kept, and tliere
were ahvays two or three cases of indigestion from
the accumulation of brand or pollard in the large
intestines. Bran may, however, be useful as an
occasional aperient in the form of a mash, but
never should become a regular article of food.

Beans. — These form a striking illustration of
the principle, that the nourishing or strengthening
effects of the different articles of food depend more
on some peculiar jiroperty whicli they possess, or
some combination which they form, than on the
actual quantity of nutritive matter. Beans contain
but five hundred and seventy parts of nutritive
matter, yet they add materially to the vigour of
the horse. There are many horses that will not
stand hard work without beans being mingled with
their food, and these not horses whose tendencj' to
purge it may be necessary to restrain by the as-
tringeney of the bean. Thei'e is no traveller who
is not aware of the difference in the spirit and
continuance of his horse whether he allows or
denies him beans on his jouniey. They afford not
merely a temporary stimulus, but they may be
daily used without losing their power, or producing
exhaustion. They are indispensable to the hard-
worked coach-horse. Washy horses could never
get througli their work without them; and old
horses would often sink under the task imposed
upon them. They should not be given to the
horses whole or split, but crushed. This ^vill make
a material difference in the quantity of nutriment
that will be extracted. They are sometimes given
to turf horses, but only as an occasional stimulant.
Two pounds of beans may, with advantage, be
mixed with the chaff' of the agricultural horse,
during the winter. In summer the quantity of
beans should be lessened, or they should be alto-
gether discontinued. Beans are generally given
•whole. This is very absurd ; for the young horse,
whose teeth are strong, seldom requires them;
while the old horse, to whom they are in a mr.nner
necessary, is scarcely able to masticate them,
swallows many of them whole which be is unable
to break, and drops nuicli corn from his mouth in

the ineffectual attempt to crush them Beans
should not be merely split, but crushed ; they will
even then give sufficient employment to the
grinders of the animal. Some postmasters use
chaff with beans instead of oats. With hardly-
worked horses they may possibly be allowed ; but,
in general cases, beans, without oats, would be too
binding and stimulating, and would produce
costiveness, and probably megrims or staggers.

Beans should be at least a twelvemonth old
before they are given to the horse, and they should
be carefully preserved from damp and mouldiness,
which at least disgust the horse if they do no
other harm, and harbour an insect that destroys
the inner part of the bean.

The straw of the bean is nutritive and whole-
some, and is usually given to the horses. Its
nutritive properties are supposed to be little
inferior to those of oats. The small and plump
bean is generally the best.

Peas are occasionally given. They appear to
be iu a slight degree more nourishing than beans,
and not so heating. They contain five hundred
and seventy-four parts of nutritive matter. For
horses of slow work they may be used ; but the
quantity of chaff should be increased, and a few
oats added. They have not been found to answer
with horses of quick draught. It is essential that
they should be crushed ; otherwise, on account of
their globular form, they are apt to escape from
the teeth, and many are swallowed whole. Ex-
posed to warmth and moistm'e in the stomach,
they swell considerably, and may painfully and
injuriously distend it. The peas that are given
to horses should be sound, and at least a twelve-
month old.

In some northern counties pea-meal is fre-
quently used, not only as an excellent food for the
horse, but as a remedy for diabetes.

Linseed is sometimes given to sick horses —
raw, ground, and boiled. It is supposed to be
useful in cases of catarrh.*

Herbage, green and dry, constitutes a principal
part of the food of the horse. There are few things
with regard to which the farmer is so careless as
the mixture of grasses on both his upland and
meadow pasture. Hence we find, in the same
field, the ray-grass, coming to perfection only in a
loamy soil, not fit to cut until the middle or latter

* " Mr. Black, veterinary .surpeon nf the 14lh DragoouR, says
that sugar was tiied as an atlicle of iboil during the Peninsular
War. Ten horses were selected, eaeh ot" whieh got 8 lbs. a day
at four rations. They took it vci-y readily, and their coats
became fine, smooth, and glossy. They got no corn, and only
7 lbs. of hay. instead of the ordinary allowance, whir^li is 12 lbs.
The sugar seemed to supply the place of the com so well, that
it would have been probalaly given abroad : but peace came, and
the circumstances that rendered the use of sugar for corn desirable
ceased, and the horses returned to their usual diet. That the
sugar might not be appropriated to other jiurposes it was .slightly
scented with assafcetida,^ which did not produce any apparent
effect upon them."

TiJi; iionsr.

519

part of Jul}', and yielding little aftermath ; the
meadow fox-tail, best cultivated in a clayey soil, fit
for the scythe in the beginning of June, and yield-
ing a plentiful aftermath ; the glaucous fescue-
grass, ready at the middle of June, and rapidly
deteriorating in value as its seeds ripen ; and the
fertile meadow-grass, increasing in value until the
end of July. These are circumstances the import-
ance of which will, at no distant period, be recog-
nised. In the mean time, Sinclair's account of
the different grasses, or the condensation of the
most important part of his work in Sir Humphry
Davy's Agricultural Chemistry, or Low's Elements
of Practical Agriculture, are well deserving of the
diligent perusal of the farmer.

Hay is most in perfection when it is about a
twelvemonth old. The horse perhaps would pre-
fer it earlier, but it is neither so wholesome, nor
so nutritive, and often has a purgative quality.
When it is about a year old, it retains or should
retain somewhat of its green colour, its agreeable
smell, and its pleasant taste. It has undergone
the slow process of fermentation, by which the
sugar which it contains is developed, and its nutri-
tive quality is fully exercised. Old hay becomes
dry and tasteless, and innutritive and unwhole-
some. After the grass is cut, and the hay stacked,
a slight degree of fermentation takes place in it.
This is necessary for the development of the sac-
charine principle ; but occasionally it proceeds too
far and the hay becomes mow-burnt, in which state
it is injurious, or even jjoisouous. The horse soon
shows the etfect which it has upon him. He has
diabetes to a considerable degree — he becomes
hide-bound — his strength is wasted — his thirst is
excessive, and he is almost worthless.

Where the system of manger-feeding is not
adopted, or where hay is still allowed at night,
and chaff and corn in the day, there is no error
into which the farmer is so apt to fall as to give an
undue quantity of hay, and that generally of the
worst kind. If the manger system is good, there
can be no necessity for hay, or only for a small
quantity of it ; but if the rack is over-loaded, the
greedy horse will be eating all night, instead of
taking his rest — when the time for the morning
feed arrives, his stomach will be already filled,
and he \rill be less capable of work from the want
of sleep, and from the long-continued distension
of the stomach rendering it impossible for the
food to be properly digested.

It is a good practice to sprinkle the hay with
water in which salt has been dissolved. It is evi-
dently more palatable to the animal, who will leave
the best unsalted hay for that of an inferior qua-
lity that has been moistened with brine ; and there
can be no doubt that the salt very materially
assists the process of digestion. The preferable
way of salting the hay is to sprinkle it over the

different layers as the rick is formed From its
attraction for wate;-, it would combine with that
excess of moisture which, in wet seasons, is the
cause of too rapid and violent fermentation, and of
the hay becoming mow-bunit, or the rick catcljiiig
fire, and it would become more incorporated with
the hay. The only objection to its being thus
used is, that the colour of the hay is not Sebright;
but this will be of little consequence for home con
sumption.

Of the value of Tares, as forming a portion of
the late spring and summer food of the stabled
and agricultural horse, there can be no doubt.
They are cut after the pods are formed, but a con-
siderable time before the seeds are ripe. They
supply a larger quantity of food for a limited time
than almost any other forage-crop. The vicia satira
is the most profitable variety of the tare. It is
very nutritive, and acts as a gentle aperient.
When surfeit-lumps appear on the sldn, and the
horse begins to rub himself against the divisions
of the stall, and the legs swell, and the heels
threaten to crack, a few tares, cut up with the
chaff, or given instead of a portion of the hay, will
afford considerable relief. Ten or twelve pounds
ma}' be allowed daily, and half that weight of hay
subtracted. It is an erroneous notion, that, given
in moderate quantities, they either roughen the
coat or lessen the capability for hard work.

Rye Grass affords a valuable article of food,
but is inferior to the tare. It is not so nutritive.
It is apt to scour, and, occasionally, and late in
the spring, it has appeared to be injurious to the
horse.

Clover, for soiling the horse, is inferior to the
tare and the lye grass, but, nevertheless, is useful
when they cannot be obtained. Clover hay is,
perhaps, preferable to meadow hay for chaflf. It

j will sometimes tempt the sick horse, and may be
given with advantage to those of slow and heavy

[ work ; hut custom seems properly to have forbid-

I den it to the hunter and the hackney.

Lucern, where it can be obtained, is preferable
even to tares, and Sain-foin is superior to lucern.
Although they contain but a small quantity of nu-
tritive matter, it is easily digested, and perfectly
assimilated. They speedily put both muscle and
fat on the horse that is worn down by labour, and
they are almost a specific for hide-bound. Some
farmers have thought so highly of lucern as to sub
stitute it for oats. This may be allowable for the
agricultural horse of slow and not severe work,
but he from whom speedier action is sometimes
required, and the horse of all work, must have a
proportion of hard meat within him.

The Swedish Turnip is an article of food the
value of which has not been sufficiently appre-
ciated, and particularly for agricultui-al horses.
Although it is far from containing the quantity of

L L 3

'» kl akMl

THE HORSE.

521

deserves more serious attention mn is generally
given to it.

When extra work is require! -om the animal,
the svstem of management is ot'ie injudicious, for
a double feed is put before him. ;:d as soon as he
has swallowed it he is started, t would be_ far
better to give him a double feed a the previous
evening, which would be digestl before he is
•wanted" and then he might set ot in the moru-
in<» after a very smdl portion olcorn has been
given to him, or perhaps only a ttle hay. One
of the most successful methods of labling a horse
to get well through a long journe is to give him
only a little at atime while on tJ road, and at
nif'ht to indulge him with a doule feed of corn
and a full allowance of beans.

Water. — This is a part of staie management
little regarded by the farmer. H.lets his horses
loose morning and night, and ley go to the
nearest pond or brook and drink leir fill, and no
harm results, for they obtain tha kind of water
which nature designed them to 1i;b, in a manner
prepared for them by some unlunni iutiueuce of
the atmosphere, as well as by tl deposition of
many saline admixtures. The dih-ence between
hard and soft water is known t very one. In
hard water "soap will curdle, v. ibles will not
boil soft, and the saccharine n r of the malt
cannot be fully obtained in the ] ■ ss of brewing.
There is nothing in which tlu; i rent effect of
hard and soft water is so evi.i' uis in the sto-
mach and digestive orgaris •■( • horse. Hard
water, drawn fresh from the w. l.vill assuredly
make the coat of a horse unaccustaed to it stare,
and it will not unfrequently grii'emd otherwise
injure him. Instinct or exi^r . 'e has made
even the horse himself cmh- i - f this, for he
will never drink hard water il iihas access to
soft, and he will leave the most unsparent and
pure water of the well for a riveialthough the
stream may be turbid, and even fothe muddiest
pool.* He is injured, however, m so much by
the hardness of the well-water as > its coldness
— particularly by its coldness in summer, and
when it is many degrees below tl temfierature
cf the atmosphere. The water in le brook and
the pond being warmed by long eaosure to the
air, as well as having become S't, the horse
drinks freely of it without danger.

If the horse were watered thre times a day,
and especially in summer, he wild often be
saved from the sad torture of thst, and from
many a disease. Whoever has bserved the
eagerness with which the over-wor>d horse, hot
and tiled, plunges his muzzle into tl pail, and the

• Same trainers hare so much fear of harmr strange water,
that th' y carry with them to the different cooes the water that
the animal ha. been accustome.l to drink, at that which they
know agrees with it

difficulty of stopping him tmtil he has drained the
last drop, may form some idea of what he had
previously suffered, and will not wonder at the
violent spasms, and inllauimatiou, and sudden
death, that often result.

There is a prejudice in the minds of many
persons against tlie horse being fahly supplied
with water. They think that it injures his wind,
and disables him for quick and hard work. If ha
is galloped, as he too often is, immediately after
drinking, his wind may be irreparably injured;
but if he were oftener suffered to satiate his thirst
at the intervals of rest, he would be happier and
better. It is a fact unsuspected by those who
have not carefully observed the horse, that_ if he
has frequent access to water he will not drink so
much in the course of the day, as another will do,
who, to cool his parched mouth, swallows as fast
as he can, and knows not when to stop.

On a journey, a horse should be liberally sup-
phed with water. When he is a little cooled, two
or three quarts may be given to him, and after
that, his feed. Before he has finished his corn
two or three quarts more may be offered. He
will take no harm if this is repeated three or four
times during a long and hot day.

It is a judicious rule with travellers, that when
a horse begins to refuse his food, he should be
pushed no°farther that day. It may, however,
be worth while to try whether this does not pro-
ceed from thirst, as much as from exhaustion, for
in many instances his appetite and his spirits will
return soon after he has partaken of the refresh-
ing draught.

MANAGEMENT OF THE FEET.

This is the only division of stable management
that remains to be considered, and one sadly ne-
glected by the carter and groom. The feet should
be carefully examined every morning, for the
shoes maybe loose and the horse would have been
stopped in the middle of his work ; or the clenches
may be raised, and endanger the wounding of his
legs ; or the shoe may begin to press upon the
so?e or the heel, and bruises of the sole, or corn,
may be the result ; and the horse having stood so
long in the stable, every little hicrease of heat m
the'' foot, or lameness, will be more readily de-
tected, and serious disease may often be pre-
vented.

When the horse comes in at night, and after
the harness has been taken off and stowed away,
the heels should be well brushed out. Hand-
rubbing will be preferable to washing, especially
in the° agricultural horse, whose heels, covered
with long hair, can scarcely be dried again. If
the dirt is suffered to accumulate in that long
hair, the heels will become sore, and grease will
follow ; and if the heels are washed, and par-

622

THE HORSE.

ticalarly during the winter, grease -will result from
tlie coldness occasioned by the slow evaporation of
the moisture. The feet should be stopped — even
the feet of the farmer's horse, if he remains in
the stable. Very little clay should be used in the
stopping, for it will get haixl and press upon the
sole. Cow-dung is the best stopping to preserve
the feet cool and elastic ; but, before the stopping
is applied, the picker should be run round the
whole of the foot, between the shoe and the sole,

in order to detect any stone that may have insin-
uated itself there, or a wound on any other part of
the sole. For the hackney and hunter, stopping
is indispensable. After several days' hard work
it will afford very great relief to take the shoes
off, having put plenty of litter under the horse, or
to turn him, if possible, into a loose-box ; and the
shoes of every horse, whether hardly worked or
not, should be removed or changed once in every
three weeks.

CHAPTER XXV,

THE SiaN AND ITS DISEASES.

The skin of the horse resembles in construction
that of other animals. It consists of three layers,
materially differing in their structure and office.
Externalh' is the cuticle, — the epidermis or scarf-
skin — composed of innumerable thin transparent
scales, and extending over the whole animal. If
the scarf-skin is examined by means of a micro-
scope, the existence of scales like those of a fish
is readily detected. In the action of a blister
they are raised from the skin beneath in the form
of pellucid bladders, and in some diseases, as in
mange, they are thrown off in hard, diy, white
scales, numerous layers of which are placed one
above another. In every part of the body the
scarf-skin is permeated by innumerable pores,
some of which permit the passage of the hau'—
through others, the perspirable matter finds a
passage — others are perforated by tubes through
which various unctuous secretions make their
escape, while, through a fourth variety, numerous
fluids and gases are inhaled. It is destitute of
nerves and blood-vessels, and its principal use
seems to be to protect the cutis from injury, and
to restrain and moderate its occasional morbid
sensibility.

There is at all times a singular change taking
place in this outer covering of the animal. There
is a constant alteration and renewal of every pait
of it, but it adheres to the true skin through the
medium of the pores, and also numerous little
eminences, or projections, which seem to be pro-
longations of the nerves of the skiu. The cuticle
is in itself insensible ; but one of its most import-
ant functions is to protect and defend the parts
beneath, which are so often exposed to the effects
of a morbid sensibility.

Beneath the cuticle is a thin soft substance,
through which the pores and eminences of the
true skin pass. It is termed the rete mucosiim,
from its web-like structure, and its soft mucous
consistence. Its office is to cover the minute
vessels and ner\es in their way from the cutis to

the cuticle. It is also connected with the colour
of the skin. In horses with white hair, the rete
mucosum is white ; it is brown in those of a
brown colour — black in the black, and in patches
of different colours with those the hue of whose
integument varies. Like the cuticle, it is repro-
duced after abrasion, or other injury.

The cutis, or true skin, lies beneath the rete
mucosum. It is decidedly of a fibrous texture,
elastic, but with difficulty lacerated — exceedingly
vascular, and highly sensitive. It is the substance
which is converted into leather when removed
from the body, and binds together the different
parts of the frame. In some places it does this
literally, and clings so closely to the substance
beneath that it scarcely admits of any motion •
this is the case about the forehead and the back,
while upon the face, the sides, and flanks, it hangs
in loosened folds. In the parts connected with
progression it is folded into various duplicatures,
that the action of the animal may admit of the
least possible obstruction. The cutis is tliinuest,
and most elastic, on those parts that are least
covered with hair, or where the hair is altogether
deficient, as the lips, the muzzle, and the inside
of the flanks.

"Whatever is the colour of the rete mucosum,
the tnie skin is of a pale white ; in fact, the cutis
has no connection with the colour of the hair. Of
its general character, Mr. Percivall gives a veiy
accurate description : — " It appears to consist of a
dense substratum of cellular tissue, with which
are interwoven fibres of a ligamentous nature, in
such a manner that innumerable areolae, like tlie
meshes of a net, are formed in it. These areote
open, through correspondent pores in the cuticle,
tijjon the external surface, and are for the pm-pose
of transmitting thither blood-vessels and absorb-
ents, giving passage to the hair, and lodging the
various secretory organs of the skin."*

♦ Percival's Anatomy of the Horse, p. 400

THE HORSE.

r)k!3

Over a great part of the frame lies a singular
muscle peculiar to quadrupeds, and more extensive
and powerful in the thin-skinned and thin-haired
animals, than in those with thicker hides. It
reaches from the poll over the whole of the car-
case, and down to the arm before, and the stifle
behind. By its contraction the skin is puckered
in every direction ; and if it acts strongly and
rapidly, the horse is not only enabled to shake off
any insect or fly that may annoy him, but some-
times to displace a great part of his harness, and
to render it difficult for the most e.xpert rider to
keep his seat. This muscle also assists the skin
in bracing that part of the frame which it covers,
and, perhaps, gives additional strength to the
nmscles beneath. It is called the pauiculus car-
nosus, or fleshy panicle or covering.

Tlie skin answers the double purpose of protec-
tion and strength. Where it is necessary that
the parts should be bound and knit together, it
adheres so tightly that we can scarcely raise it.
Thus the bones of the knees and the pasterns and
the tendons of the legs, on which so much stress
is frequently thrown, are securely tied down and
kept in their places. It is in order to take addi-
tional advantage of this binding and strengthening
power that we fire the legs of overworked horses,
in whom the sinews have begun to start, and the
ligaments of the joints to swell, or be displaced.
The skin is tight along the muscles of tlie back and
loins, and down the yet more powerful muscles of
the quarters ; but in other places it is loosely
attached, that it may not interfere with the mo-
tions of the animal. About the brisket, and with-
in the arms and at the flanks, it hangs even in
folds. •

Of its strength we have abundant proof, both in :
the living and dead animal. Its fibres are inter-
laced in a most curious and intricate manner, so
as, when living, to be scarcely lacerable, and con- j
verted into leather after death. [

It is, while the animal is alive, one of the
most elastic bodies with which we are acquainted.
It not only perfectly adapts itself to the slow
growth or decrease of the body, and appears
equally to fit, whether the horse is in the plump-
est condition or reduced to a skeleton ; but, when
a portion of it is distended to an extraordinary
degree, in the most powerful action of the muscles,
it, in a moment, again contracts to its usual di-
mensions.

It is principally indebted for this elasticity to
almost innumerable minute glands which pom' out
an oil}' fluid that softens and supples it. When
the horse is in health, and eveiy organ discharges
its proper functions, a certain quantity of tliis
unctuous matter is spread over the smface of the
skin, and is contained in all the pores that pene-
trate its substiince, and the skin becomes pliable,

easily raised from the texture beneath, and pre-
senting that peculiar yielding softness and elas-
ticity which experience has proved to be the best
proofs of the condition, or, in other words, the
general health of the animal. Then, too, from
the oiliness and softness of the skin, the hair lies
in its natural and proper direction, and is smooth
and glossy. When the .system is deranged, and
especially the digestive system, and the vessels
concerned in the nourishment of the animal feebly
act, those of the skin evidently sympathize.
This oily secretion is no more thrown out ; the
skin loses its pliancy ; it seems to cling to the
animal, and we have that peculiar appearance
wliicii we call hide-bound. This, however, I'equires
attentive consideration.

We observe a horse in the summer. We find
liim with a thin smooth glossy coat, and his
extremities clean and free almost fi-om a single
rough or misplaced hair. We meet with liim again
towards the winter, when the thermometer has
fallen almost or quite to the freezing point, and
we scarcely recognise him in his thick, rough,
coarse, colourless coat, and his legs enveloped in
long shaggy hair. The health of the horse is, to
a certain degree, deranged. He is dull, languid,
easily fatigued. He will break into a sweat with
the slightest exertion, and it is almost impossible
thoroughly to diy liim. He may perhaps feed as
well as usual, although that will not generally be
the case, but he is not equal to the demands which
we are compelled to make upon him.

This process goes on for an uncertain time,
depending on the constitution of the animal, until
nature has effected a change, and then he once more
rallies : but a great alteration has taken place in
him — the hair has lost its soft and glossy char-
acter, and is become dry and staring. The skin
ceases to secrete that peculiar unctuous matter
which kept it soft and flexible, and becomes dry
and scaly ; and the exhalents on the surface, hav-
ing become relaxed, are frequently pouring out a
profuse perspiration, without any apparent ade-
quate cause for it.

So passes the approach to winter, and the
ow-ner complains sadly of the appearance of his
steed, and, according to the old custom, gives him
plenty of cordial balls, — perhaps too many of
them, — on the whole not being unserviceable at
this critical period, yet not productive of a great
deal of good. At length the animal rallies of
himself, and although not so strong and full of
spirits as he ought to be, is hardier and mmv
lively than he was, and able to struggle with the
cold of the coming winter.*

What a desideratum in the management of
the hoi-se would be a course of treatment that

• Mr. E. Gabriel. V. S.,
Aulumu. — Veterinariati, vol.. ]

I ihe Treatment of Ihe Ho
i,l,.637.

52 i.

THE HOKSE,

■would render all tliis unuecessary ? This desid-
eratum lias been found- — a free escape of perspira-
tion, a moist and softened state of the skin, an
evident inciease of health and capability of en-
during fatigue, and working on shorter supply of
food than he could before. This is said to be
performed by the clipping and singeing systems.

Mr. Thomas Turner, ^vho was almost one of
the earliest advocates of these systems, states that
during the months of October and November an
inordinate growth of hair is obsen'ed over the
whole surface of the bodj', and in many horses as
earlj' as the beginning of September, and almost
invariably prevails, more or less, in every horse
that is not thorough-bred. The debilitating effects
thereby induced are profuse perspiration on the
least possible exertion — depiression of the animal
spirits, and temporary loss of appetite. The im-
mediate removal of all the superfluous hair bj'
close clipping, instantly proves so powerful a tonic
to the animal, that he unhesitatingly affirms it to
be inferior to none at jiresent known in our
pharmacopoeia. Mr. Turner adds, — " Now, signal
as the success of clipping has been, 1 do entertain
a hope, and am of opinion that, in the majority of
instances, it may be superseded by singeing under
certain modifications."*

We may not, perhaps, be able satisfactorily to
explain the apparently magical effects of clipping
and singeing on the general constitution, and par-
ticularly the wind of the horse, or the respiratory
functions generally, but there is no doubt of their
existence. An increased tone is given to the
system generally ; and probablj', in some way
not yet sufficiently developed, the increased cur-
rent of the electric fluid may have much to do
with it.

Mr. Snewing gives an interesting account of
the effect of clipping on two horses in his estab-
lishment. He had a cob, with a fixed catarrh of
several months' standing. It did not interfere
with the animal's general health, but was a source
of considerable annoyance. At length the owner
determined to sell him ; but first he had him
clipped. After a few days his attention was drawn
to the circumstance, that either the horse's cough

* Veterinarian, vol. xiv., p. 18.

In justice, however, to an excellent sportsman, Nimrod, we
must quote another opinion, and with that the subject shall be left
to ihe consideration of our re.iders. *' On the subject of clipping, I
cannot agree with Mr. Gabriel as to the call for it, much le^s admit
its almost universal adoption. I would clip road-coach horses, and
H liunter that had been summered entirely at grass, despairing of
condition on any other terms. It is a mere substitute for good
grooming. As for its almost universal adoption, such is far i^i'om
bcini^ the case. I did not see three clipped horses last year (1840),
at Mcltdn, in the Quorn stables, not one, nor in Mr.'Foljambe's.
Singed ones I did see to a certain extent ; but a haid-rirtiug Mel-
tonian told me that he would have no more spirits of wine charged
in his groom's bonk. 'A mere substitute,' said he, ' in my stable
for the" old fa.Oiioncd elbow grease.' In my 0]iininn, ihe horse is
not yet foaled which cannot be got into perfect condition without
this outrage on nature." — The Vtlerinarian, vol. xiv., p. 38.

must have left him, or, from repeatedly heai'ing it,
he had ceased to regard it. He watched the ani-
mal, and, truly enough, he found that the cough
had entirely disappeared. He rode him through
the winter and the following summer, and there
was no return of it.

The other instance was in a mare which he had
after this one was sold. In the months of August,
September, and October, 1841, she was continually
the subject of intermittent cough. He had her
clijiped, and in a few days she ceased to cough,
and has not been heard to cough from that time.

HIDE-EOUND.

This is not so much a diminution of the cel-
lular or fatty substance between the skin and the
muscles beneath, as it is an alteration in the skin
itself. It is a hardness and unyieldingness of the
skin from the want of the oily matter on its sur-
face and in its substance. It is the difference
that is presented to the feeling by well curried
and supple leather, and that which has become,
dry and unjaelding.

The surface of the skin becoming di-y and hard
the scales of the cuticle are no longer penetrated
by the hair, but, separating themselves in every
direction, give that peculiar roughness to the coat
which accompanies want of condition. It betokens
impaired function of the vessels everywhere, and
particularly those of the stomach and bowels.
Hide-bound is not so much a disease as a symptom
of disease, and particularly of the digestive organs ;
and our remedies must be applied not so much to
the skin — although we have, in friction and in
warmth, most valuable agents in producing a
healthy conditien of the integuments — as to the
cause of the hide-bound, and the state of the con-
stitution generally. Every disease that can affect
the general system may produce this derangement
of the functions of the skin. Glanders, when
become constitutional, is strongly indicated by
the unthrifty appeai'ance of the coat. Chronic,
cough, grease, farcy, and founder, are accom-
panied by hide-bound ; and diet too sparing, and
not adequate to the work exacted, is an unfailing
source of it. If the cause is removed, the effect
will cease.

Should the cause be obscure, as it frequently is
— should the horse wear an unthrifty coat, and his
hide cling to his ribs, without any apparent disease,
we shall generally be warranted in tracing it to
sympathy with the actual, although not demon-
strable, suspension of some important secretion or
function, either of the alimentary canal, or the
respiratoiy functions. A few mashes, and a mild
dose of physic, are first indicated, and, simple as
they appear to be, they often have a very beneficial
effect. The regular action of the bowels being re-
established, that of all the organs of the frame will

THE HORSE.

525

speedily follow. If the horse cannot be spared for
physic, alteratives may be administered. There is
no better alterative ior hide-bound and an unthrifty
coat, than that which is in common use, levigated
antimony, nitre, and sulphur. The peculiar effect
of the antimony and sulphur, and electric influence
on the skin, with that of the sulphur on the bowels,
and of the nitre on the urinary organs, will be here
advantageously combined.

Should the horse not feed well, and there is no
indication of fever, a slight tonic may be added, as
gentian, or ginger ; but in the majority of cases
attended by loss of condition, and an unthrifty coat,
and hide-bound, tonics and aromatics should be
carefidly avoided.

The cause of the impaired action of the vessels
being removed, the powers of nature will generally
be. sufficient, and had better be left to themselves.
There are not any more dangerous medicines in
common use in the stable, and especially in cases
like these, than tonics and cordials. They often
arouse to fatal action a tendency to fever that would
otherwise have slept, or they produce a state of
excitement near akin to fever and apt to degenerate
into it. By the stimulus of a cordial the secretions
may be suddenly roused, and among them, this
unctuous secretion from the pores of the skin, so
necessary to apparent condition ; but the effect soon
passes over, and a repetition of the stimulus is
necessary — the habit is soon formed — the dose
must be gradually inci'eased, and in the mean time
the animal is kept in a state of dangerous excite-
ment, by which the powers of nature must be
eventually impaired.

Friction may be employed with advantage in
the removal of hide-bound. It has repeatedly been
shown that this is one of the most efficacious instru-
ments we can use to call into exercise the sus-
pended energies either of the absorbent or secret-
ing vessels. Warmth may likewise be had recourse
to — not warmth of stable, which has been shown to
be so injurious, but warmth arising from exercise,
and the salutary, although inexplicable, influence
of clipping and singeing. Before this can be fully
considered, the hau* by which the skin is covered
must be described.

The base of the bulb whence the hair proceeds
being beneath the true skin, it is easy to perceive
that the hair will grovp again, although the cuticle
may have been destroyed. A good blister, although
it may remove the cuticle, and seemingly for a while
the hair with it, leaves no lasting trace. Even
firing, lightly and skilfully performed, and not
penetrating through the skin, leaves not much
blemish ; but when, in broken knees, the true skin
is cut through, or destroyed, there will always re-
main a spot devoid of hair. The method of hasten-
ing and perfecting the re-production of the hair has
been described in p. 428.

PORES OF THE SKIN.

Besides the openings already mentioned through
which proceeds the unctuous fluid that supplies and
softens the skin, there are others more numerous,
by means of which a vast quantity of aqueous fluid
escapes, and perspiration is carried on. As in the
human being, this actually exists in a state of
health and quietness, although imperceptible ; but
when the animal is excited by exercise, or laboura
under some stages of disease, it becomes visible,
and appears in the form of drops.

This process of perspiration is not, however,
so far under the control of medicine as in the
human being.

We are not aware of any drugs that will cer-
tainly produce it. Warm clothing seems occasion-
ally to effect it, but this is more in appearance than
reality. The insensible perspiration cannot escape
through the mass of clothing, and assumes a visible
form. This, perhaps, is the case when sheep-skins
are applied over the back and loins in "locked jaw."
They produce a good effect, acting as a warm poul-
tice over the part, and so contributing to relax the
muscular spasms. There are, however, a few
medicines, as antimony and sulphur, that have an
evident and \erj considerable effect on the skin in
opening its pores and exciting its vessels to action.

Of the existence of absorbent vessels on the
skin, or those which take up some fluid or sub-
stance, and convey it into the circulation, we have
satisfactoiy proof A horse is even more easily
salivated than the human being. Salivation has
been produced by rubbing a splint with mercurial
ointment, previous to blistering ; and a veiy few
drachms rubbed on the inside of the thighs will
probably produce a greater effect than the prac-
titioner desires.

From some parts of the skin there are peculiar
secretions, as that of grease in the heel, and mal-
lenders in the knee.

MOUr.TING.

T^ce in the year the hair of the body of the
horse is changed. The short, fine coat of summer
would afford little protection against the winter,
and that of the winter would be oppressive to the
animal, if it appeared during the summer. The
hair of the mane and tail remains. The bulbous
root of the hair does not die. but the pulpy matter
seems to be removed from the root of the hair,
which, thus deprived of its nourishment, perishes
and drops off, and a new hair springs at its side
from the same bulb. The hair which is produced
in the autumn, is evidently different from that
which gi'ows in the spring ; it is coarser, thicker,
and not so glossy as the other. As moulting is a
process extending over the whole of the skin, and
requiring a ver}' considerable expenditure of vital

526

THE HORSE.

power, the health of the animal is generally affected
at these times. That energy and nervous and vital
influence, which should support the whole of the
frame, is to a great degree determined to the skin,
and the animal is languid, and unequal to much
hard work. He perspires greatly with the least
unusual exertion, and if he is pressed be3'ond his
strength becomes seriously ill.

The ti-eatment which the gi'oom in this case
adopts is most absurd and dangerous. The horse,
from the deranged distribution of vital power, is
disposed to fever, or he labours under a slight
degree of fever, sufficiently indicated by the
increased quickness of pulse, redness of nose, and
heat of mouth. The lassitude and want of ajipe-
tite which are the accompaniments of this febrile
state, are mistaken for debility ; and cordials of
various kinds, some of them exceedingly stimu-
lating, are unsparingly administered. At length,
vrith regard to the hunter, the racer, and even in
the hackney and the carriage horse, the scissors
or the lamp are introduced, and a new method
is established of guarding against this periodical
debility, setting at defiance the occasional expos-
ure to cold, and establishing a degree of health
and strength previously unknown. Friction may
be allowed, to assist the falling off of the old hair,
and to loosen the cuticle for the appearance of the
new liair, but it is somewhat more gently applied
than it used to be. The curiycomb is in a great
measure banished, and even the brush is not
applied too hard or too long. The old hair is not
forced off before the young hair is ready to take
its place.

Natui-e adapts the coat to the climate and to the
season. The Sheltie has one as long and thick
as that of a bear ; and, as the summer is short
and cold in those northern islands, the coat is
rough and shaggy during the whole of the year.
In the southern parts of our countiy the short
and light and glossy coat of summer gradually
yields to the close and heavy, and warm clothing
of winter. In the deserts of Arabia, where the
winter is rarely cold, the coat remains short
and glossy throught the year. These are wise
and kind provisions of nature, and excite our
admiration.

The colour of the hair admits of every variety,
and each colour becomes in turn fashionable.
Like that of the skin, it is influenced by, or
depends on, the mucuous mesh-work under the
cuticle. There are comparatively few perfectly
white horses now remaining. The snow-white
palfrey, with its round carcase, and barb head,
originally from Spain, or perhaps from Barbary,
and rarely exceeding the size of a Galloway, is
neai-ly extinct. Some however yet remain in the

possession of the Duke of Montrose. They are of
good constitution and pleasant in their paces.
The majority of white horses are those that have
become so. Light-grey colts begin to grow white
before they are five years old, especially if they
have not much dark mixture about the joints.

Grey horses are of different shades, from the
lightest silver to a darli iron-grey. The silver-
grey reminds the observer of the palfrey, improved
by an admixture of Arab blood. He does not
often exceed fourteen hands and a half in height,
and is round carcassed — thin-legged — with oblique
jsastenis, calculated for a light carriage, or for
a lady's riding — seldom subject to disease — but
not very fleet, or capable of hard work.

The iron-grey is usually a larger horse ; higher
in the withers, deeper and thinner in the carcase,
more angular in all his proportions, and in many
cases a little too long in the legs. Some of these
greys make good hackneys and hunters, and espe-
cially the Irish horses ; but they are principally
used for the carriage. They have more endurance
than the flatness of their chest would promise ;
but their principal defect is their feet, which are
liable to contraction, and yet that contraction not
so often accompanied by lameness as in many
other horses.

The dappled gi'ey is generally a handsomer
and a better horse. All the angular points of the
iron-grey are filled up, and with that which not
only adds to symmetiy, but to use. Whether as
a hackney, or, the larger variety, a carriage horse,
there are few better, especially since his form has
been so materially improved, and so much of his
heaviness got rid of % the free use of foreign
blood. There are not, however, so many dappled
greys as there used to be, since the bays have
been bred with so much care. The dappled
grey, if dark at first, generally retains his colour
to old age.

Some of the greys approach to a nutmeg, or
even bay colour. Many of these are handsome,
and most of them are hardy.

The roans, of every variety of colour and form,
are composed of white mixed with bay, or red, or
black. In some it seems to be a natural mixture
of the colours ; in others it appears as if one
colour was powdered or si)rinkled over another.
They are pretty horses for ladies or light carriages,
and many of them easy in their paces, but they
do not usually display much blood, nor are they
celebrated for endurance. If they should have
white fore legs, with white hoofs, they are too
often tender-footed, or become so with even a little
hai'd work.

The strawberry horse is a mixture of sorrel
vrith white ; usually handsome and pleasant, but
more celebrated for these qualities than for
strength and endurance.

THE nousK

627

The pied horse is one that has distinct spots
or jmlohes of dilYerent colours, but generally of
white with some other colour. The^- are not liked
as hackueys, on account of their peculiarity of
colour, nor in teams of horses ; but they look well
when tolerably matched in a phaeton or light
carriage. Their value must depend on their
breed. Of themselves they have no peculiar
chai'acter, except that a white leg and foot is
as suspicious in them as it is in the roan.

The dun, of the Galloway size, and with con-
siderable blood, is often attached to the curricle
or the phaeton. The larger variety is a true
farmer's or miller's horse, with no great speed
or e.xtraordinary strength, yet a good-tempered,
good-feeding, good-constitutioned, useful horse
enough. Varieties of the dun, shaded with a
darker colour, or dappled, and with some breeding,
and not standing too high, are beautiful animals,
and much sought after for light carriages.

The cream-colour, of Hanoverian e.x-lraction,
with its white iris and red pupil, is appropriated
to royal use. Attached to the state-carriage of the
monarch, he is a superb animal. His bulky, yet
perfectly-formed body, his swelling crest, and his
proud and lofty action, as if conscious of his office,
qualify him for the service that is exacted from
him, but we have little experience how far he
would suit other purposes.

Of the chesnuts there are three varieties — the
pale red or the sorrel, usually with some white,
either on the face or the legs— generally lightly
made, yet some of them bulky enough for the
heaviest loads. Their colour is generally objec-
tionable, and they are supposed to be somewhat
deficient in endurance.

The light chesuut, with less red and a little
more bay or brown, is considered a preferable
animal, especially if he has little or no white
about him ; yet even he, although pleasant to ride,
is sometimes irritable, and generally weak. We
must except one variety, the Suffolk pimch ; a
heavy horse, and adapted for slow work, but per-
fect of his kind — whom no labour can daunt, no
fatigue overcome. This is a breed now, unfor-
tunately, neai-ly extinct. The present variety,
however crossed, is not equal to the old Suffolk.

The dai'k chesnut is as different a horse from
the hackney-like chesuut as can be well imagined ;
roimd in the carcase, powerful in the quarter's, but
rather fine in the legs, possessed of great endu-
rance, and with a constitution that rarely knows
an ailment, except that the feet are small and
disposed to contraction, and the horee is occasion-
ally of a hot and unmanageable temper.

Of the bays, there are many varieties, and they
include the very best of our horses of every descrip-
tion. The bright yellow bay, although very beau
tiful, and especially if liis mane and tail are black,

is the least valuable — the lightness of his colour
seems to give him some tenderness of constitution.
The pure bay, with no white about him, and black
from the knees and hocks to the feet, is the most
desirable of all. He has generally a good consti-
tution, and good feet ; and, if his conformation is
not faulty, will turn out a valuable horse for almost
every purpose.

The bay-brown has not always so much show
and action, but, generally, more strength and en-
durance, and usefulness. He has greater substance
than the lighter bay, and more depth of leg ; and,
if he had the same degree of breeding, he would be
as handsome, and more valuable.

Wiien, however, we arrive at the browns, it is
necessary to examine the degree of breeding. This
colour is not so fashionable, and therefore these
horses have been considerably neglected. There
are many good ones, and those that are good are
valuable ; others, probably, are only a half or a
quarter bred, and therefore, comparatively coarse, yet
useful for the saddle and for harness — for slow work,
and, occasionally, for that which is more rapid.

The black brown is generally more neglected,
so far as its breed is concerned, and should be more
carefully examined. It is valuable if it retains
the goodness of constitution of the brown and bay-
brown.

Of the black, greater care has been taken. The
heavy black of Lincolnshire and the midland coun-
ties is a noble animal, and would be almost beyond
price if he could be rendered more active. The
next in size constitute the majority of our waggon-
horses, and perhaps our best ; and, on a smaller
breed, and to the improvement of which much
attention has been devoted, many of our cavalry
are mounted. A few black thorough-bred horees
and black hunters are occasionally seen, but the
improvement of horees of this colour has not been
studied, e.xcept for the purposes that have been
mentioned. Their peculiar high action, while not
objectionable for draught, and desirable for the
parade, would be unbearable in the roadster. Black
horses have been said to be more subject to vice,
disease, and blindness, than those of any other
colour. This charge is not true to its full extent ;
but there certainly are a great many worthless black
horses in every part of the country.

After all, there is an old sa3'ing, that a good
horse cannot be of a bad colour ; and that it is far
more necessary to attend to the conformation and
points of the animal than to his colour. The fore-
going observations, however, although they admit
of many exceptions, may be useful in guiding to
the judicious purchase of the horse.

Large pimples or eruptions often appear sud-
denly on the skin of the horse, and especially in

628

THE HORSE.

the spring of the year. Occasionally they disappear
as quickly as they came. Sometimes they seem to
be attended with great itching, but, at other times,
the annoyance is compai'atively little. When these
eruptions have remained a few days, the cuticle
frequently peels off, and a small scaly spot — rarely
a sore — is left. This is called a surfeit, from its
resemblance to some eruptions on the skin of the
human being when indigestible or unwholesome
food has been taken. The surfeit is, in some cases,
confined to the neck ; but it oftener spreads over
the sides, back, loins, and quarters. Tlie cause is
enveloped in some obscurity. The disease most
frequently appears when the skin is irritable during
or after the process of moulting, or when it sympa-
thises w-ith any disorder of the stomach. It has
been known to follow the eating of poisonous herbs
or mow-burnt hay, but, much oftener, it is to be
traced to exposure to cold when the skin was pre-
viously irritable and the horse heated by exercise.
It has also been attributed to the immoderate
drinking of cold water when the animal was hot.
It is obstruction of some of the pores of the skin
and swelling of the surrounding substance, either
from primary affection of the skin, or a plethoric
state of the system, or sympathy with the digestive
organs.

The state of the patient will sufficiently guide
the surgeon as to the course he should pursue. If
there is simple eruption, without any marked
inflammatory action, alteratives should be resorted
to, and particularly those recommended for hide-
bound in p. 524. They should be given on several
successive nights. The night is better than the
morning, becavise the warmth of the stable will
cause the antimony and sulphur to act more power-
fully on the skin. The horse should be warmly
clothed — half an hour's walking exercise should be
given, an additional rug being thrown over him —
such green meat as can be procured should be used
in moderate quantities, and the chill should be taken
from tlie water.

Should the eruption continue or assume a more
virulent character, bleeding and aloetic physic must
be had recourse to, but neither should be carried
to any extreme. The physic having set, the altera-
tives should again be had recourse to, and attention
should be paid to the comfort and diet of the horse.

If the eruption, after several of these alternate
appearances and disappearances, should remain,
and the cuticle and the hair begin extensively to
peel off, a worse affection is to be feared, for sur-
feit is too apt to precede, or degenerate into,
mange. This disorder, therefore, must next be
considered.

Is a pirhpled or vesicular eruption. After a while
the vesicles break, or the cuticle and the hair fall

off, and there is, as in obstinate surfeit, a bare spot
covered with scurf — some fluid oozing from the
skin beneath, and this changing to a scab, which
likewise soon peels off, and leaves a wider spot.
This process is attended by considerable itching
and tenderness, and thickening of the skin, which
soon becomes more or less folded, or puckered.
The mange generally first appears on the neck at
the root of the mane, and its existence may be sus-
pected even before the blotches appear, and when
there is only considerable itchiness of the part, by
the ease Nvith wViich the short hair at the root of
the mane is plucked out. From the neck it spreads
upward to the head, or downward to the withers
and back, and occasionally extends over the whole
carcase of the horse.

One cause of it, although an unfrequent one,
has been stated to be neglected or inveterate sur-
feit. Several instances are on record in which
poverty of condition, and general neglect of cleanli-
ness, preceded or produced the most violent mange.
A remark of Mr. Blaine is very important : —
" Among the truly healthy, so far as my experience
goes, it never arises spontaneously, but it does
readily from a spontaneous origin among the un-
healthy." The most common cause is contagion.
Amidst the whole list of diseases to which the
horse is exposed, there is not one more highly con-
tagious than mange. If it once gets into a stable,
it spreads through it, for the slightest contact seems
to be sufficient for the communication of this
noisome complaint.

If the same brush or currycomb is used on all
the horses, the propagation of mange is assured ;
and horses feeding in the same pasture with a
mangy one rarely escape, from the propensity they
have to nibble one another. Mange in cattle has
been propagated to the horse, and from the horse
to cattle. There are also some well-authenticated
instances of the same disease being communicated
from the dog to the horse, but not from the horse
to the dog.

Mange has been said to originate in want of
cleanliness in the management of the stable. The
comfort and the health of the horse demand the
strictest cleanliness. The eyes and the lungs fre-
quently suffer from the noxious fumes of the
putrifying dung and urine ; but, in defiance of
common prejudice, there is no authentic instance
of mange being the result. It may, however,
proceed from poverty. When the animal is half
starved, and the functions of digestion and the
power of the constitution are weakened, the skin
soon sympathises, and mange is occasionally pro-
duced instead of surfeit and hide-bound. Every
farmer has proof enough of this being the case.
If a horse is turned on a common where there is
scarcely sufficient herbage to satisfy his appetite,
or if he is placed in one of those straw-yards that

THE HORSE.

52'J

are under the management of mercenaiy and un-
feeling men, and are the ver}' abodes of misery,
the animal comes up a skeleton, and he comes up
mangy too. Poverty and starvation are fruitful
sources of mange, but it does not appear that filth
has much to do with it, although poverty and filth
generally go hand in hand.

The propriety of bleeding in cases of mange
depends on the condition of the patient. If
mange is the result of poverty, and the animal is
much debilitated, bleeding will increase the evil,
and will probably deprive the constitution of the
power of rallying. Physic, however, is indispen-
sable in every case. It is the first step in the
progress towards cure. A mercurial ball will be
preferable to a common aloetic one, as more cer-
tain and effectual in its operation, and the mercury
probably having some influence in mitigating the
disease. In this, however, mange in the horse
resembles itch in the human being — medicine
alone will never effect a cure. There must be
some local application. There is this additional
similarity — that which is most effectual in curing
the itch in the human being must form the basis
of every local application for the cure of mange in
the horse. Sulphur is indispensable in every un-
guent for mange. It is the sheet-anchor of the
veterinary surgeon. In an early and not very
acute state of mange, equal poitions of sulphur,
tui-pentine, and train-oil, gently but well rubbed
on the part, will be applied with advantage. Far-
riers are fond of the black sulphur, but that which
consists of earthy matter, w-ith the mere dregs of
various substances, cannot be so effectual as the
pure sublimed sulphur. A tolerably good stout
brush, or even, a cunycomb, lightly applied, should
he used, in order to remove the dandriff or scurf,
wherever there is any appearance of mange.
After that, the horse should be washed with
strong soap and water as far as the disease has
e.'itended ; and, when he has been thoroughly
dried, the ointment should be well rubbed in with
the naked hand, or with a piece of flannel. More
good will be doi\e by a little of the ointment being
well nibbed in, than by a great deal being merely
smeared over the part. The rubbing should be
daily repeated.

The sulphur seems to have a direct influence
on the disease — the turpentine has an indirect
one, by e.Kciting some irritation on the skin of a
different nature fi'om that produced by the mange,
and under the influence of which the irritation of
mange will be diminished, and the disease more
easily combated. During the application of the
ointment, and as soon as the physic has set, an
alterative ball or powder, similar to those recom-
mended for the other affections of the skin, should
be dail}' given. If after some days have passed,
no progress should appear to have been made,

half a pound of sulphur should be well mixed with
a pint of oil of tar, or, if that is not to be obtained,
a pint of Barbadoes tar, and the affected parts
rubbed as before. On every fifth or sixth day the
ointment should be washed off with warm soap
and water. The progress towards cure will thus
be ascertained, and the skin will be cleansed, and
its pores opened for the more effectual application
of the ointment.

The horse should be well supplied with nour-
ishing, but not stimulating food. As much green
meat as he will eat should be given to him, or,
what is far better, he should be turned out, if the
weather is not too cold. It may be useful to add,
tliat, after the horse has been once well dressed
with either of these liniments, the danger of con-
tagion ceases. It is necessary, however, to be
assured that every mangy place has been anointed.
It will be prudent to give two or three dressings
after the horse has been apparently cured, and to
continue the alteratives for ten days or a fortnight.

The cure being completed, the clothing of the
horse should be well soaked in water, to w'hich a
fortieth part of the saturated solution of the chlor-
ide of lime has been added ; after which it should
be washed with soap and water, and again washed
and soaked in a solution of the chloride of lime.
Every part of the harness should undergo a similar
purification. The currycomb may be scoured, but
the brush should be burned. The rack, and
manger, and partitions, and every part of the
stable which the horse could possibly have touch-
ed, should be well washed with a hair-broom — a
pint of the chloride of lime being added to three
gallons of water. All the wood-work should then
lie scoured with soap and water, after which a
second washing with the chloride of lime will
render all secure. Some fanners have piulled
down their stables, when they have been thor-
oughly infected with mange. This is being un-
necessarily cautious. The efficacy of the chloride
of lime was not then known ; but if that is care-
fully and sufficiently applied to every jiart of the
stable and its furniture, there cannot afterwards
be danger.

Every case of itchiness of the skin should be
regarded with suspicion. When a horse is seen
to- rub the root of his tail, or his h.ead. or neck,
against the manger, the parts shou d be carefully
examined. Some of the hair may have been
nibbed or torn off, but if the roots remain firmly
adherent, and there is only redness and not scurfi-
ness of the skin, it probably is not mange, but
only inflammation of the skin, from too great
fulness of blood. A little blood should be ab-
stracted— a purgative administered — and the al-
teratives given. The mange ointment cannot do
harm, and may possibly prevent this heat of the
skin from degenerating into mange, or an'est the

530

THE HORSE.

progress of mange if it has commenced. If a
scurfiness of skin should appear on any of the
points that are pressed upon by the collar or har-
ness, the veterinary surgeou will do right to guard
against danger by alterative medicine and the use
of the ointment.

These are tumours of variable size, arising
from the cuticle, and afterwards connected witli
the true skin by means of the vessels which supply
the growth of the tumours. They are found on
the eyelids, the muzzle, the ears, the belly, the
neck, the penis, and the prepuce. There are
some caustics available, but frequently they must
be removed by an operation. If the root is veiy
small, it may be snipped asunder, close to the
skin, with a pair of scissors, and touched with the
lunar caustic. If the pedicle or stem is some-
what larger, a ligature of waxed silk should be
passed firmly round it, and tightened every day.
The source of nutriment being thus removed, the
tumour will, in a short time, die and drop off. If
the warts are large, or in considerable clusters, it
■will be necessary to cast the horse, in order to cut
them off close to the skin : the root should then

be seared with a red-hot iron. Unless these pre-
cautions are used, the warts will speedily sprout
again.

Both the biped aud the quadniped are subject
to the visitation of insects, that fasten on the skin,
and are a constant nuisance from the itchiness
which they occasion. If the horse, after being
turned out for the winter, is taken np in the spring,
long and rough in his coat, and poor in condition,
and vi'ith evident hide-hound, he will almost invari-
ably be afflicted with vermin.

In our present imperfect acquaintance with
natural history, it is difficult to account for the
appearance of certain insects, and of those alone on
the integument of one animal, while others of an
altogether different character are found on its
neighbour. Each one has a tormentor peculiar to
itself.

The vermin of the horse is destroyed by an
infusion of tobacco, or a solution of corrosive
sublimate, the latter requiring the greatest
caution. The skin being once cleansed of them,
an attention to cleanliness will prevent their reap-
jsearance.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ON SOUNDNESS, AND THE PURCHASE AND SALE OF HORSES.

There are few sources of greater annoyance both
to the purchaser and the seller of the horse than
disputes with regard to the soundness of the animal.
Although, in describing the various jiarts of the
horse, we have glanced at the connection of certain
natural conformations, and some alterations of
structure, and accidents, and diseases, with the
question of soundness or unsoundness, it may not
be uninteresting to those for whom our work is
designed, if we now bring into one point of view
the substance of that which has been scattered over
many pages.

Tiiat horse is sound in whom there is no disease,
and no, alteration of structure that impairs, or is
likely to impair, his natural usefulness. The hoKe
is unsound that labours under disease, or has some
alteration of structure which does interfere, or is
likely to interfere, with his natural usefulness.*
The term " natural usefulness" must be borne in
mind. One horse may possess great speed, but is

• Since the publication of our first edition, this definition or
rule as to soundness or unsoundness has leceived very high judicial
sanction, Coales v. Stephens, 1 Moody aud Kobinson, 157;
Schokfidd T. Robb, id. 210. We shull idhere to it as our test of
soundness or unsoundness throughout this chapter, not forgetting
what is said in the following extract from a note to one of these
cases. "Ai it may now he considered as settled law, that the

soon knocked up ; another will work all day, but
cannot be got beyond a snail's space : a third with
a heavy forehand is liable to stumble, and is con-
tinually putting to hazard the neck of his rider ;
another, with an irritable constitution and a loose
washy form, loses his appetite and begins to scour
if a little extra work is exacted from him. The
term unsoundness must not not be applied to either
of these ; it would be opening far too widely a door
to disputation and endless wrangling. The buyer
can discern, or ought to know, whether the form
of the horse is that which will render him likely to
suit his purpose, and he should try him sufficiently
to ascertain his natural strength, endurance, and
manner of going. Unsoundness, we repeat, has
reference only to disease, or to that alteration
of structure which is connected with, or will
produce disease, and lessen the usefulness of the
animal.

These principles will be best illustrated by a

breach of a warranty of soundness does not entitle the purchaser to
return the horse, but only to recover the diderence of value of the
horse with or without the particular unsoundness, the question of
temporary maladies, producing no permanent deterioration of the
animal, would, generally speaking, only involve a right to damages
merely nominah"

THE HORSK.

531

brief consideration of the usually supposed appear-
ances or causes of unsoundness.

Brolceu knees certainly do not constitute un-
soundness, after the wounds are healed, unless they
interfere with the action of the joint; for the horse
may have fallen from mere accident, or through
the fault of the rider, without tlie slightest damage
more than the blemish. No person, however,
would buy a horse witli broken knees, until he had
thoroughly tried him, and satisfied himself as to
his form and action.

Capped hoclts may be produced by lying on an
imevenly paved stable, with a scant}' supply of
litter, or by kicking generally, in neither of which
cases would they constitute unsoundness, although
in the latter they would be an indication of vice ;
but, in the majority of instances, they are the con-
sequence of sprain, or of latent injury of the hock,
and accompanied by enlargement of it, and would
constitute unsoundness. A special warranty should
always be taken against capped hocks.

Contraction is a considerable deviation from the
natural form of the foot, but not necessarily con-
stituting unsoundness. It requires, however, a
most careful examination on the part of the pur-
chaser or veterinary surgeon, in order to ascertain
that there is no heat about the quarter, or ossifica-
tion of the cartilage — that the frog, although
diminished in size, is not diseased — that the horse
does not step short and go as if the foot were ten-
der, and that there is not the slightest trace of
lameness. Unless these circumstances, or some of
them, are detected, a horse must not be pronounced
to be unsound because his feet are contracted ; for
many horses with strangely contracted feet do not
suffer at all in their action. A special warranty,
however, should be required where the feet ai'e at
all contracted.

Corns manifestly constitute unsoundness. The
portion of the foot in which bad corns are situated
will not bear the ordinarj' pressure of the shoe ;
and accidental additional pressure from the growing
down of the horn, or the introduction of dirt or
gravel, will cause serious lameness. They render
it necessai-y to wear a thick and heavj' shoe, or a
bar shoe, in order to protect the weakened and
diseased part ; and they are very seldom radically
cured. There may be, however, and frequently is,
a difference of opinion as to the actual e.xistence
or character of the corn. A veterinary sm'geon
may consider it so slight and insignificant as not
apparently to injure the horse, and he pronounces
the animal to be sound ; but he should be cautious,
for there are. corns of every shade and degree, from
the slightest degree to the most serious evil.
They may be so slight and manageable as, though
ranging under the class of morbid alteration of
structure, yet not to diminish the natural usefulness
of the horse iu any degree. Slight corns will dis-

ajipear on the horse being shod with ordinary skill
and care, even without any alteration in the shoe.

Cough. — This is a disease, and consequently
unsoundness. However slight may be its degree,
and of whatever short standing it may be, although
it may sometimes scarcely seem to interfere with
the usefulness of the liorse, yet a change of stabling,
or slight exposure to wet and cold, or the least
over-exertion, may, at other times, cause it to de-
generate into many dangerous complaints. A
horse, therefore, should never be purchased with a
cough upon him, without a special warranty ; or if
— the cough not being obsei-ved — he is purchased
under a general warrant}-, that w'arranty is thereby
broken. It is not law, that a horse may be re-
turned on breach of the warranty. The seller is
not bound to take him back, unless he has con-
tracted so to do ; but he is liable in damages. Lord
EUenborough has completely decided this matter.
" I have always held," said he, " that a warranty
of soundness is broken, if the animal, at the time
of sale, had any infirmity upon him that rendered
him less fit for present service. It is not neces-
sary that the disorder should be permanent or
incurable. While he has a cough, he is unsound,
although that may either be temporary or prove
mortal."-'

RoARrNG, Wheezing, Whistling, High-blow-
ing and Grunting, being the result of alteration
of structure, or disease in some of the air-passages,
and interfering with the perfect freedom of breath-
ing, especially when the horse is put on his speed,
without doubt constitute unsoundness. There are
decisions to the contrary, which are now univers-
ally admitted to be erroneous. Broken wind is
still more decidedly unsoundness.

Crib-biting. — Although some learned judges

* In deciding on another case, the same judge said, "I have
always held it that a cough is a breach of the warranty. On that
understanding I have always acted, and think it quite clear." It
was argued on the other hand that two-thirds of the horses in Lon-
don had coughs, yet still the judge maintained that the cough was
a breach of wan'anty. "Wlien it was farther argued that the horse
had been hunted the day after the purchase, and the cough might
have been increased by this, the reply was siiigidar, but decisive.
"There is no proof that he would have got well if he had not been
hunted." This doctrine is confirmed by Parke, B., in the first ease
cited in p. 485.

In p. 254, it is very properly stated that roaring is unsoundness,
because it impairs the function of respiration. This was not always,
however, the law of the bench. Lord EUenborough, quoting*from
Sir James Mansfield, says, " It has been held by very high authority
that roaring is not necessarily unsoundness, and I entirely concur
in that opinion. If the horse emits a loud noise, which is otfensive
to the ear, merely from a bad habit which he has contracted, or
fioin any cause that does not interfere with his general health, or
muscular powers, he is still to be considered a sound horse. On
the other hand, if the roaiing proceeds from any disease or organic
infirmity, which renders him incapable of performing the usual
functions of a horse, then it does constitute unsoundness. The
plaintitfhas not done enough in showing that this horse was a
roarer. To prove a breach of the warranty he must go on to show
that the roaring was symptomatic of disease." These extracts are
taken from a singular work, not always correct, yet from which
much amusement, and instruction too, may be derived — " The -Ad-
ventures of a Gentleman in Search of a Horse, by Caveat Emptor."

532

THE HOliSE.

have asserted that crib-biting is simply a trick or
bad habit, it must be regarded as unsoundness.
This unnatural sucking in of the air must to a
certain degree injure digestion. It must dispose
to colic, and so interfere with the strengtli, and
usefulness, and health of the horse. Some crib-
biters are good goers, but the}' probably would
have possessed more endurance had they not ac-
quired this habit ; and it is a fact well established,
that as soon as a horse becomes a crib-biter, he, in
in nine cases out of ten, loses condition. He is
not to the experienced eye the horse he was before.
It may not lead on to strongly-marked disease, or
it may rarely do so to any considerable degree ;
but a horse that is morbidly deficient in condition,
must, to that extent, have his capability for extra-
ordinary work diminished, and so be brought
within our definition of unsoundness. In its very
early stage it may be a mere trick — confirmed, it
must have produced morbid deterioration. The
wear of the front teeth, and the occasional breaking
of them, make a horse old befoi'e his time, and
sometimes render it difficult or almost impossible
for him to graze, when the state of the animal or
the convenience of the owner requires that he
should be turned out.

Curb constitutes unsoundness while it lasts,
and perhaps while the swelling remains, although
the inflammation may have subsided ; for a horse
that has ouce thrown out a curb is, for a while at
least, very liable to do so again, to get lame in
the same place on the slightest extra exertion ;
or, at all events, he would there first fail on extra-
ordinary exertion. A horse, however, is not re-
turnable, although he should spring a curb five
minutes after the purchase ; for it is done in a
moment, and does not necessarily indicate any
previous unsoundness or weakness of the part.

Cutting, as rendering a horse liable to serious
injury of the legs, and indicating that he is either
weak, or has an awkwardness of gait inconsistent
with safety, produces, rather than is, unsoundness.
Many horses go lame for a considerable period
after cutting themselves severely ; and others have
dropped from the sudden agony, and endangered
themselves and their riders. As some doubt,
however, exists on this subject, and as it is a very
material objection to a horse, cutting, when evident,
should have its serious consequences provided
against by a special warranty.

Enl.\rged Glands. — The enlargement of the
glands under the jaw has not been so much con-
sidered as it ought to have been in our estimtae of
the soundness of the horse. Simple catarrh will
occasionally, and severe affeclion of the chest will
generally, be accompanied by swelling of these
glands, which does not subside for a considerable
time after the cold or fever has apparently been
cured. To slight enlargements of the glands

under the jaw much attention need not be paid ;
but if they are of considerable size, and especially
if they are tender, and the glands at the root of
the ear partake of the enlargement, and the mem-
brane of the nose is redder than it should be, we
should hesitate in pronouncing that horse to be
sound. We must consider the swelling as a
symptom of disease.

Enlarged Hock. — A horse with enlarged hock
is unsound, the structure of this comjslicated joint
being so materially affected that, although the
horse may appear for a considerable time to be
capable of ordinary work, he will occasionally fail
even in that, and a few days' hard work will
always lame him.

The Eyes. — That inflammation of the eye of
the horse which usually terminates in blindness of
one or both eyes, has the peculiar character of
receding or disappearing for a time, once or twice,
or thrice, before it fully runs its course. The
eye, after an attack of inflammation, regains so
nearly its former natural brilliancj' that a person
even well acquainted with horses will not always
recognise the traces of former disease. After a
time, however, the inflammation returns, and the
result is inevitable. A horse that has had one
attack of this complaint, is long afterwards un-
sound, however perfect the eye may seem to be,
because he carries about with him a disease that
will probably again break out, and eventually
destroy the sight. Whether, therefore, he may
be rejected or not, depends on the possibility of
proving an attack of inflammation of the eye, prior
to the purchase. Next to direct evidence of this
are appearances about the eye, of which the veter-
inary surgeon at least ought not to be ignorant.
Allusion has been made to them in p. 2^0.
They consist chiefly of a puckering of the lids
towards the inner corner of one or both eyes — a
difference in the size of the eyes, although perhaps
only a slight one, and not discovered except it be
looked for — a gloominess of the eye — a dullness
of the iris — a little dullness of the transparent
part of the eye generally — a minute, faint, dusky
spot, deep in the eye, and generally with little
radiations of white lines proceeding from it. If
these symptoms, or the majority of them, existed
at the time of purchase, the animal had assuredly
been diseased before, and was unsound. Starting
has been considered as an equivocal proof. It is
usually an indication of defective sight, but it is
occasionally a trick. Connected, however, with
the appearances just described, it is a very strong
corroborative proof.

Lameness, from whatever cause arising, is
unsoundness. However temporary it may be, or
however obscure, there must be disease which
lessens the utility of the horse, and renders him
unsound for the time. So says common sense,

THE HORSE.

503

but tliere are contrailictory decisions on the case.
" A horse laboui-ing under a temporary injury or
hurt, wliich is cupahle of being speedily cured or
removed, is not, according to Cliief Justice Eyre,
au unsound horse ; and where a warranty is made
that such a liorse is sound, it is made without any
view to such an injuiy ; nor is a horse so cir-
cumstanced within the meaning of the warranty.
To vitiate the warranty, the injury the horse had
sustained, or the malady under which he laboured,
ought to be of a permanent nature, and not such
as may arise from a temporary injury or accident.''*

On the contrary. Lord Ellenljorough saVs : " I
have always held, and now hold, that a warranty
of soundness is broken, if the animal at the time
of sale has any infirmity upon him which renders
him less fit for present service. It is not neces-
sary that the disorder should be permanent or
incurable. While a horse has a cough he is un-
sound, although it may either be temporary or may
prove mortal. The horse in question having been
lame at the time of sale, when he was warranted to
be sound, his condition subsequently is no defence
to the action."! The decisions of Mr. Baron
Parke, already referred to, confirm this doctrine.

Neurotosiy. — A question has arisen how far a
horse that has undergone the operation of the divi-
sion of the nerve of the leg (see p. '298), and has
recovered from the lameness with which he was
before affected, and stands his work well, may be con-
sidered to be sound. Chief Justice Best held such
a horse to be unsound, and in our opiuion there
cannot be a doubt about the matter. The oper-
ation of neurotomy does not remove the disease
causing the lameness, but only the sensation of
pain. A horse on whom this operation has been
performed may be improved by it, may cease to be
lame, may go well for many year's ; but there is
no certainty of this, and he is unsound, within
oar definition, unless nature gave the nerve for no
useful pui-jjose.

OssiFiCATJON OF THE Latkral Cartilages Con-
stitutes unsoundness, as interfering with the na-
tural expansion of the foot, and, in horses of quick
work, almost invariably producing lameness.

Pumiced Foot. — When the union between the
horny and sensible lamin:ie, or little plates of the
foot (see p. 45S), is weakened, and the coffin-bone
is let down, and presses upon the sole, and the
sole yields to this unnatural weight, and becomes
rounded, and is brought in contact ^ith the ground,
and is bniised and injured, that horse must be un-
sound, and unsound for ever, because there are no
means by which we can raise the coffin-bone again
into its jslace.

QijiDDiNG. — If the mastication of the food
gives pain to the animal, in consequence of sore-

• 2 EspiM. Rep.j673 Garment v. Barrs
+ 4 Ciiuipbell, 231, Eitun v. Broyden.

ness of the mouth or throat, he will drop it before
it is perfectly chewed. This, as an indication of
disease, constitutes unsoundness, (juidding some-
times arises from irregulaiity in the teeth, which
wound the cheelv with their sharp edges ; or a
protruding tooth renders it impossible for the
horse to close his jaws so as to chew his food tho-
roughly. Quidding is unsoundness for the time ;
but the unsoundness will cease when the teeth are
properly filed, or the soreness or other cause of
this imperfect chewing removed.

QoiTTOR is manifestly unsoundness.

Ring-bone. — Although when the bony tumour
is small, and on one side only, there is little or
no lameness, and there are a few instances in
which a horse with ring-bone has worked for many
years without its return, yet from the action of the
foot, and the stress upon the part, the inflamma-
tion and the formation of bone may acquire a ten-
dency to spread so rapidly, that we must pro-
nounce the slightest enlargement of the pasterns,
or around the coronet, to be a cause of unsound-
ness.

Sandcrack is manifestly unsoundness. It
may, however, occur without the slightest warning,
and no horse can be rejected on account of a sand-
crack that has sprung after purchase Its usual
cause is too great brittleness of the crust of the
hoof ; but there is no infallible method of detecting
this, or the degree in which it must exist in order
to constitute unsoundness. When the horn round
the bottom of the foot has chipped off so much
that only a skilful smith can fasten the shoe with
out pricking the horse, or even when there is a
tendency in the horn to chip and break in a much
less degree than this, the horse is unsoimd, for
this brittleness of the crust is a disease of the
part, or it is such an altered structure of it as to
interfere materially with the usefulness of the
animal.

Spavin. — Bone spavin, comprehending in its
largest sense eveiy bony tumour on the hock, is
not necessarily unsoundness. If the tumour affects
in the slightest degree the action of the horse, it
is unsoundness ; even if it does not, it is seldom
safe to pronounce it otherwise than misouudness.
But it may possibly be (like splint in tlie fore-
leg) so situated as to have no tendency to affect
the action. A veterinary surgeon consulted ou
the pm-chase will not always reject a horse because
of such a tumour. His evidence on a question of
soundness will depend on the facts. The situation
and history of the tumour may be such as to en-
able him to give a decisive opinion in a horse going
sound, but not often.

Bog or Blood Spavin is unsoundness, because,
although it may not be productive of lameness at
slow work, the rapid and powerful action of the
hock in quicker motion will produce permanent

M M

534

THE HORSE.

yet perhaps not consideraLle lameness, wliich can I almost invariably accompanied by a sliglit degree
scarcely ever be with certainty removed. of tenderness of the frog itself, or of the heel a

Splint. — It depends entirely on the situation little above it, and, if neglected, leading to dimi-

of the bony tumour on the shank bone, whether it
is to be considered as unsoundness. If it is not
in the neighbourhood of any joint, so as to inter-
fere with its action, and if it does not press upon
any ligament or tendon, it may be no cause of
unsoundness, although it is often very unsightly.
In many cases it may not lessen the capability
and value of the animal. This has been treated
on at considerable length in p. 428.

Stpjnghalt. — This singular and very unpleas-
ant action of the hind leg is decidedly an unsound-
ness. It is an irregular communication of nervuus
energy to some muscle of the thigh, obseiTable when
the horse first comes from the stable, and gradually
ceasing on exercise. It has usually been accom-
panied by a more than common degree of strength
and endurance. It must, however, be traced to
some morbid alteration of structure or function ;
and it rarely or never fails to deteriorate and
gradually wear out the animal.

Thickening of the B.«k Sinews. — Sufficient
attention is not always paid to the fineness of the
legs of the horse. If the flexor tendons have

nution of the substance of the frog, and separation
of the horn from the parts beneath, and underrun-
uing, and the production of fungus and canker, and,
ultimately, a diseased state of the foot, desti-uctive
of the present, and dangerous to the future use-
fulness of the horse.

Wjndgalls. — There are few horses perfectly
free from wiudgalls, but they do not interfere
W'ith the action of the fetlock, or cause lameness,
except when they are numerous or large. They
constitute unsoundness only when they cause
lameness, or are so large and numerous as to
render it likely that they will cause it.

In the purchase of a horse the buyer usually
receives, embodied in the receipt, what is termed
a warranty. It should be thus expressed : —

** Received of A. B. forty pounds for
only five years old, sound, free from vie

gi-ey mare, warranlt^d
, and quiet to ride uiid

A receipt, including merely the word " war-
ranted," e.xtends only to soundness, — " warranted
sound" goes no farther ; the age, freedom from

been sprained, so as to produce considerable I vice, and quietness to ride and drive, should
thickening of the cellular substance in which be especially named. This warranty comprises
their sheaths are enveloped, they will long after- every cause of unsoundness that can be detected,
wards, or perhaps always, be liable to sprain, from or that lurks in the constitution at the time of
causes by which they would otherwise be scarcely sale, and to every vicious habit that the animal
affected. The continuance of any considerable has hitherto show'n. To establish a breach of the
thickness around the sheaths of the tendons in- | warranty, and to be enabled to tender a return of

dicates previous and violent sprain. This very
thickening will fetter the action of the tendons,
and, after much quick work, will occasionally
renew the inflammation and the lameness ; there-
fore, such a horse canncjt be sound. It requires,
however, a little discrimination to distinguish this
from the gumminess or roundness of leg, peculiar
to some breeds. There should be an evident
difference between the injured leg and the other.

Thoeoughpin, except it is of great size, is
rarely productive of lameness, and therefore can-
not he termed unsoundness ; but as it is the con-

the horse and recover the difference of price, the
purchaser must pi'ove that it was unsovmd or
viciously disposed at the time of sale. In case
of cough, the horse must have been heard to
cough immediately after the purchase, or as he
was led home, or as soon as he had entered the
stable of the purchaser. Coughing, even on the
following morning, will not be sufBcient : for it is
possible that he might have caught cold by change
of stabling. If he is lame, it must be proved to
arise from a cause that existed before the animal
was in the purchaser's possession. No price will

sequence of hard work, and now and then does imply a warranty, or be equivalent to one ; there
produce lameness, the hock should be most must be an express warranty. A fraud must

carefully examined, and there should be a special
warranty against it.

Thrush. — There are various cases on record
of actions on account of thrushes in horses, and
the decisions have been much at variance, or
perfectly contradictory. Thrush has not been
always considered by legal men as unsoundness.
We, however, decidedly so consider it ; as being
a disease interfering, and likely to interfere with
the usefulness of the horse. Thrush is inflamma-
tion of the lower surface of the inner or sensible
frog — and the secretion or throwing out of pus —

be proved in the seller, in order that the buyer
may be enabled to return the horse or maintain
an action for the price. The warranty should be
given at the time of sale. A warranty, or a pro-
mise to warrant the horse, given at any period
antecedent to the sale, is invalid ; for horseflesh is
a very perishable commodity, and the constitution
and usefulness of the animal may undergo a con-
siderable change in the space of a few days. A
warranty after the sale is invalid, for it is given
without any legal consideration. In order to com-
plete the purchase, there must be a ti-ansfer of the

THE HORSE.

535

auiinal, or a memoraudum of agreement, or tlie
payment of earnest money. The least sum will
suffice for earnest. No verbal promise to buy or
sell is binding without one of these. The moment
either of these is effected, the legal transfer of
projierty or delivery is made, and whatever may
happen to the iKjrse, the seller retains, or is
entitled to the money. If the purchaser exercises
any act of ownerslup, by using the animal without
leave of the vendor, or b}^ having any operation
performed, or any medicines given to him, he
makes him his own. The warranty of a servant
is considered to be binding on the master. =i=

If the horse should be afterwards discovered
to have been unsound at the time of warranty, the
buyer may tender a return of it, and, if it be not
taken back, may bring his action for the price ;
but the seller is not bound to rescind the contract,
unless he has agreed so to do.

Although there is no legal compulsion to give
immediate notice to the seller of the discovered
unsoundness, it will be better for it to be done.
The animal should then be tendered at the house
or stable of the vendor. If he refuses to receive
him, the animal may be sent to a liver}' stable and
sold ; and an action for the difference in price
may be brought. The keep, however, can be
recovered only for the time that necessarily inter-
vened between the tender and the determination
of the action. It is not legally necessary to len-
der a retmii of the horse as soon as the unsound-
ness is discovered. The animal may be kept for
a reasonable time afterwards, and even proper
medical means used to remove the unsoundness ;
but courtesy, and indeed justice, will require that
the notice should be given soon as possible.
Although it is stated, on the authority of Lord
Loughborough, that " no length of time elapsed
after the sale will alter the uature of a contract
originally false," yet it seems to have been once
thought it was necessary to the action to give
notice of the unsoundness in a reasonable time.
The cause of action is certainly complete on
breach of the warranty. It used to be supposed
that the buyer had no right to have the horse
medically treated, and that he would waive the
warranty by doing so. The question, however,
would be, has he injured or diminished the value of
the horse by this treatment ? It will generally be
prudent for him to refrain from all medical treat-
ment, because the means adopted, however skil-
fully employed, may have an unfortunate effect, or
may be misrepresented by ignorant or interested
observers.

The purchaser possibly may like the horse,
notwithstanding his discovered defect, and he may

■ The weight of authority decides that the master is hound bv
the act oC the servant. Lord Kenyon, however, had some doubt
^.. f ic subject.

retain, and bring his action for the depreciation in
value on account of the unsoundness. Few, how-
ever, will do this, because his retaining the horse
will cause a suspicion that the defect was of no
great consequence, and will give rise to much cavil
about the quantum of damages, and after all,
very slight damages will probably be obtained.
"I take it to be clear law," says Lord Eldon,
" that if a person purchases a horse that is
warranted, and it afterwards turns out that the
horse was unsound at the time of the warranty,
the buyer, may, if he pleases, keep the horse, and
bring an action on the warranty ; in which he
will have a right to recover the difference between
the value of a sound horse, and one with such
defects as existed at the time of warranty ; or he
may return the horse, and bring an action to recover
the full money paid : but in the latter case, the
seller has a right to expect that the horse shall be
returned to him in the same state he was when
sold, and not by any means diminished in value ;
for if a person keeps a warranted article for any
length of time after discovering its defects, and
when he returns it, it is in a worse state than
it would have been if returned immediately after
such discovery, I think the party can have no
defence to an action for the price of the article
on the ground of non-compliance with the war-
ranty, but must be left to his action on the
warranty to recover the difference in the value of
the article warranted, and its value when sold."t

Where there is no warranty, an action may be
brought on the ground of fraud ; but this is very
difficult to be maintained, and not often hazarded.
It will be necessary to prove that the dealer
knew the defect, and that the purchaser was im-
posed upon by his false representation, or other
fraudulent means. If the defect was evident to
every eje, the purchaser has no remedy, he should
have taken more care ; but if a warranty was
given, that extends to all unsoundness, palpable
or concealed. Although a person should igno-
rautly or carelessly buy a blind horse, warranted
sound, he may reject it ; the waiTanty is his
guard, and prevents him from so closely examin-
ing the horse as he otherwise would have done ;
but if he buys a blind horse, thinking him to be
sound, and without a warranty, he has no remedy.
Every one ought to exercise common circumspec-
tion and common sense.

A man should have a more perfect knowledge
of horses than fid Is to the lot of most, aud a per-
fect knowledge of the vendor too, who ventures to
buy a horse without a warranty.

If a person buys a horse waiTanted sound, aud
discovering no defect in him, and, relying on ths
warranty, re-sells them, and the unsoundness is
discovered by the second purchaser, and the

+ Curtis V. Har.natj, i Esp. 83.

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THE HORSE.

537

xcteristic symptoms of disease ai obscure, but

the indications of returning heab, or increas-

danger, are ofteu scarcely asceainable, coii-

eutly the sick hoi-se, as well i the human

r, needs the care of one whoraUudy and ex-

^nce have qualified for the t^isk. A list of the

~ generally employed, with a slht account of

history, adulterations, and mricinal effects,

be interesting to the horse-procietor as well

the veterinarv surgeon ; and tsK occasionally

-eful when professional .aid cann. be obtained.

requent reference wUl be mad to Professor

ons most valuable ^lauual ' Pliarmacy.

work will be found to be a treiure to every

inary surgeon. Mr. W. C. {^ooner's Ma-

Medica, in his recent compendm of White "s

nt of the horse, will occiisionall^e laid under

-bution.

c.4^ciA GcsTMi. — Many varietieof (/u/n arable
rocured from Egypt, Arabia.nd the East
i. It is an exudation from le trunk and
hes of various trees. It is L>ii)loyed in the
if a mucilage, made by dissolvg it in water,
proportion of one part of tiiejura to three
r of water. Various insoUiiI powders may
'IS suspended, or oils rtuil i\ miscible or

'ons formed. Kniul-i r,- •: .1

3sed of gum

are supposed to I"- t"i

in urinary

jns.

iDcsf Acetic r

^■I^■EGAR.

ir is a very :

lor sprains

■Tiises. Equ.'i

water and

/inegar wUl

liientation.

t of lead, fltr

:idded with

dvantage. ^

dy, vinegiir

.y oivp" ".«■

■rge doses.

isi.l

veterina-

a.l

uifucture

■IV fre-

more powerful it remains, and therefore it should
be kept in stoppered bottles. The proof of its
goodness is its weight. It is decidedly the best
liquid caustic we have. It is most miuiageable,
and its etfect can most readily be ascertained.
As soon as it touches any muscular or living part,
a chauije of colour is perceived, and the etfect of
the caustic can be fairly judged of by the degree
of change. For corus, canker, indisposition in the
sole to secrete good horn, wounds in the foot not
attended by heakliy action, and for every case
where the superficial application of a caustic is
needed, this acid is unrivalled.

AciDi;.M NiTRicuM, NiTKio Acid, Aqu.v
FORTis. — This is a valuable e.vternal application.
It is both a caustic and an antiseptic. It destroys
fungous excrescences. A pledget of tar should bo
dipped in the acid, and then firmly pressed on
the cankerous surface. Every part with which
the acid has come into contact will be deadened
and slough otf, and healthy granulations will
spring up.

AciDuu Hydrocianicum, Prdssic Acid. —
This, in a concentrated state, is truly a deadly
poison ; a few drops of it will kill a large animal.
In a diluted form, it is a powerful sedative.
In doses of six drops, largely diluted, it abates
both pulmonary and gastric initation. It may be
vvortli trying in the form of eneina in cases of
I'rianus. It may also be given by the mouth in
til'- '-aiiie disease. Nothing is more likely to

tr juillize the general e.Kcitement of the ner-

voi: system. The author of this work was the

"111) applied the hydrocyanic acid for

of allaying irritation of the skin in

Mom fails of producing the desu'ed

11 has had a similar good effect iu

iriess and mange in the horse.

SULPHUKICUM, SULI'IIURIG AciD. — •

with tar in the proportion of an

pound, it is a good application for

lanker : a smaller (juanlity mixed

1 makes a good stimulating liniment.

sul[)huric acid is added, either by

wilfully, it inflames and corrodes the

ij Ijowels. The proper antidotes in this

lagnesia, or the carbonate of soda or

soft soap. The jicid might possibly

d by this combination.

's Lard, very properly forms the

of our ointments. It is tasteless,

■ee from every stimulating quality.

^;iid of all the ingredients used

II of our unguents.

I ' iiFiED Si'iRiT. — This is neces-

iny of our tinctures and other

is sometimes given to tlio horse

state. Some horses that are

far and quickly, show evident

538

THE HORSE.

fatigue Lefore tlie.v arrive at the end of their jour-
ney. A cordial or carminative tincture, to the
extent of three or four ounces, largely diluted,
may occasionally be given, and they rally, and
cheerfully pursue their course to the end. The
groom or the stableman gives the gin or -n-hiskey
of the countiy, in preference to any other stimu-
lant. In cases of thorough fatigue the Daffy's
Eli.xir may be administered, and probably rendered
more stimulant by the addition of pepper. Mr.
Bracy Clark recommends four ounces of the tinc-
ture of allspice in cases of gripes. On the other
hand, some veterinary surgeons have preferred
simple hot water, or the infusion of several of our
medicinal herbs, as peppermint, rosemaiy, &o.
We should be loath, except on extraordinary occa-
sions, to advocate the use of any spirituous drink.

Aloes. — There are two kinds used in horse
practice, the Barbadoes and the Cape. The Soco-
trine, preferred by the human surgeon, are very
uncertain in their effect on the horse, and are
seldom to be met with pure. C)f the Barbadoes
and the Cape, the first are much to be preferred.
They are obtained principally from the island
of Barbadoes, and are the juice of the large leaves
of the aloe, boiled to a considerable thickness, and
then poured into gourds in which they gradually
harden. The true Cape are the extract of a species
of aloes chiefly cultivated at the Cape of Good
Hope. The Barbadoes aloes are black, with a
shade of brown, of an unctuous feeling, with a
stronger smell, broken with difficulty, and tlie
fracture dull. The Cape are darker coloured,
stronger smelling, very brittle, and the fracture
])erfectly glossy. Every veterinary surgeon who
uses much aloes should buy them in the mass,
and powder them at home, and then, by attending
to this account of the difference of the two. he
can scarcely be imposed upon. It is, however,
the fact, that these are mostly adulterated, by
their being melted together. Aloes purchased in
powder are too often sadly adulterated.

The Cape aloes may be powdered at all times,
and the Barbadoes in frosty weather, when
enough should be prepared, to be kept in closed
bottles, for the year's consumption. They may
a) so be powdered when they have been taken from
tlie gourd, and exposed to a gentle heat for two or
three hours before they ai'e put into the mortar.
In the proportion of fifteen ounces of the powder
mixed with one ounce of powdered ginger, and
beaten up with eight ounces of palm oil, and after-
wards divided into the jiroper doses, it will form a
purging mass more effectual, and much less likely
to gripe, than any that can be procured by melting
the drug. If the physic is given in the shape of
a ball it more readily dissolves in the stomach,
and more certainly and safely acts on the bowels
when mingled with some oily matter, like that

just recommended, than when combined with syrup
or honey, which are apt to ferment, and be them-
selves the cause of gripes. It is also worse than
useless to add any diuretic to the mass, as soap or
carbonate of soda. The action of these on one set
of organs will weaken that of the aloes on another.
A jjhysic mass should never be kept more than
two or three months, for, after that time, it rapidly
loses its pm'gative projierty.

Directions for physicking will be found at
p. 403. We will only add that, as a pi-omoter
of condition, the dose should always be mild.
A few fluid stools will be sufficient for every good
pui-pose. Violent disease will alone justify violent
purging.

The Barbadoes aloes have a greater purgative
power than the Cape, exclusive of griping less and
bemg safer. In addition to this, the action of the
bowels is kept up longer by the Barbadoes aloes
than by the Cape. If the horse is well mashed,
and carefully exercised, and will drink plenty of
warm water, the Cape may be ventured on, or at
least mixed with equal quantities of the Barbadoes ;
but if there is any neglect of preparation for physic,
or during the usual operation of the physic, the
Cape ai-e not always to be depended upon. The
combination of alkaline compounds with aloes alters
the results of the medicine. Their action is quick-
ened, but their purgative properties are imjjaired,
and they cease to operate specifically on the larger
intestines. Such is the opinion of Professor
Morton, and undoubtedly the latter would be an
advantage gained. The activity of the aloes may
be occasionally increased by a few drops of the
croton oil. Mashes are useful helps when physic
is administered.

Some persons are fond of what are called half-
doses of physio. Three or four drachms are given
on one day, and three or four on the following ;
and perhaps, if the medicine has not operated, as
in this divided state it will not always, two or three
additional drachms are given on the third day.
The consequence is, that the bowels having been
rendered irritable by the former doses, the horse
is over-purged, and inflammation and death occa-
sionally ensue. In physicking a horse, whatever
is to be done should he done at once. Whatever
quantity is intended to be given should be given
in one dose.

The system of giving small doses of aloes as
alteratives is not good. These repeated minute
doses lodging in some of the folds of the intestines,
and at length uniting, often produce more effect
than is desirable. It is never safe to ride a horse
far or fast, with even a small dose of aloes ■within
him.

Most of all objectionable is the custom of
giring small doses of aloes as a nauseant, in
inflammation of the lungs. There is so much

THE HORSE.

539

sympatliy between the contents of tlie chest and
the belly in the horse, and inflammation of one
part is so lilcely to be transferred to another, that
it is treading on very dangerous ground, when with
much iuHaiiunition of the lungs, that is given
whic-h will stimulate and may inflame the intestines.
Aloes are most commonly, because most easily,
administered in the form of ball, but in a state of
solution their effect is more speed}', effectual, and
safe.

Aloes are useful in the form of tincture. Eight
ounces of powdered aloes, and one ounce of pow-
dered myrrh, may bs put into two quarts of recti-
fied spirit, diluted witli an equal quantity of water.
The mi.xture should be daily well shaken for a
fortnight, and then suffered to stand, in order that
the undissolved portion may fall to the bottom.
This will constitute a very excellent application for
wounds, whether recent or of long standing and
indisposed to heal. It is not only a gentle stim-
ulant, but it forms a thin crust over the wound,
and shields it from the action of the air.

The principal adulteration of aloes is by means
of resin, and the alteration of colour is concealed
by the addition of charcoal or lamp-black. This
adulteration is easil}' enough detected by dissolving
the aloes in hot water. All aloes contain some
resinous matter, which the water will not dissolve
and which has very slight purgative effect. The
excess of this resin at the bottom of the solution
will mark the degree of adulteration.

Alteratives are a class of medicines the
nature and effect of which are often much mis-
understood, and liable to considerable abuse. It
is a very convenient name in order to excuse that
propensity to dose the horse with medicines, which
is the disgrace of the groom, and the bane of the
stable.

By alteratives we understand those drugs
which effect some slow change in the diseased
action of certain parts without interfering with the
food or work ; but b}' common consent the term
seems to be confined to medicines for the diseases
of the circulation, or of the digestive organs, or of
the skin. If a horse is heavy and incapable of
work from too good keep, or if he is off his food
from some temporary indigestion — or if he has
mange or grease, or cracked heels, or swelled legs,
a few alteratives are prescribed, and the complaint
is expected to be gradually and imperceptibly
removed. For all skin affections there is no bet-
ter alterative than that so often recommended in
this treatise, consisting of black antimony, nitre,
and sulphur. If there is any tendency to grease,
some resin may be applied to each ball. If the
complaint is accompanied by weakness, a little
gentian and ginger may be further added but ; we
enter our protest against the ignorant use of mer-
cury in any form, or any of the mineral acids, or

mineral tonics, or heating spices, as alteratives.
We indeed should be plea-sed if we could banish
the terra alterative from common usage. The
mode of proceeding which reason and science would
dictate is to ascertain the nature and degree of the
disease, and then tlie medicine which is calculated
to restore the healtljy action of the part, or of the
frame generally.

Alum is occasional!}' used internally in cases of
super-purgation in the form of alum-whey, two
drachms of the powder being added to a pint of hot
milk ; but there are much better astringents, al-
though this may sometimes succeed when others
fail. If alum is added to a vegetable astringent,
as oak-bark, the power of both is diminished. Its
principal use is external. A solution of two
drachms to a pint of water forms alone, or \vith
the addition of a small quantity of white vitrol, a
very useful wash for cracked heels, and for grease
generally ; and also for those forms of swelled legs
attended ^\'ith exudation of moisture through the
sldu. Some add the Goulard lotion, forgetting
the chemical decomposition that takes place ; the
result of which is, that the alumine, possessing
little astringency, is detached, and two salts, with
no astringency at all, the sulphrate of lead and
the sulphate of potash, are formed.

The Burnt Alum is inferior to the common
alum for the purposes mentioned, and we have
better stimulants, or caustics, to apply to wounds.

Ammonia is, to the annoyance of the horse,
and the injury of his ejes and his lungs, plentifully
extricated from the putrifying dung and urine of
the stable, but when combined with water in the
common form of hartshorn, it is seldom used in
veterinary practice. It has been given, and with
decided benefit, and when other things have failed,
in flatulent colic ; and is best administered in the
form of the aromatic spirit of ammonia, and ia
doses of one or two ounces, in warm water.

Chloride of Ammonia, or sal ammoniac, is
scarcely deserving of a place in our list. It is not
now used internally ; and as an astringent embro-
cation, it must yield to several that ai'e more ef-
fectual, and less likely to blemish.

Anisi Semina, Anise-seed. — This seed is here
mentioned principally as a record of old times,
when it was one of the sheet-auchora of the farrier.
It is not yet quite discarded from his shop as a
stimulant, a carminative, and a cordial.

Anodynes.- — -Of these there is but one in horse
practice : Opium is the only drug that will lull
pain. It may be given as an anodyne, but it will
also be an astringent in doses of one, two, or
three drachms.

Antimony. — There are several valuable prepa-
rations of this metal.

The Black Sesqui-Sulphuret of Antimony,
a compound of sulphur and antimony, is a good

540

THE HORSE.

alterative. It is given with more sulphur and with
nitre, in varying doses, according to the disease,
and the slow or rapid effect intended to he pro-
duced. It should never be boiight in powder,
whatever trouble there may be in levigating it, for
it is often grossly adulterated with lead, manga-
nese, forge-dust, and arsenic. The adulteration
may be detected by placing a little of the powder
on a red-hot iron plate. The pure sulphuret will
evaporate without the slightest residue — so will the
arsenic : but there will be an evident smell of garlic.
A portion of the lead and the manganese will be
left behind.

Antimonii Potassio Tartras, Emetic Tartar.
— The tartrate of potash and antimony, or a com-
bination of super-tartrate of potash and oxide of
antimony, is a veiy useful nauseant, and has con-
siderable effect on the skin. It is particularly
valuable in inflammation of the lungs, and in every
catarrhal affection. It is given in doses of from
one draclim to a drachm and a half, and combined
with nitre and digitalis. It is also beneficial in
the expulsion of worms. It should be given in
doses of two drachms, and with some mechanical
vermifuge, as tin filings, or ground glass, and
administered ou an empty stomach, and for several
successive days. Althougli it may sometimes fail
to expel the worms, it will materially improve the
condition of the horse, and produce sleekness of
the coat. To a slight degree the emetic tartar is
decomposed by the action of light, and should be
kept in a jar, or green bottle. It is sometimes
adulterated with arsenic, which is detected by the
garlic smell when it is placed on hot iron, and also
by its not giving a beautiful gold-coloured precipi-
tate when sulphuret of ammonia is added to a solu-
tion of it. It has also been externally applied in
chest affections, in combination with lard, and in
quantities of from one drachm to two drachms of
the antimony, to an ounce of the lard; but, except
in extreme cases, recoui'se should not be had to it,
on account of the extensive sloughhig which it
sometimes produces.

PnLvis ANTiMONir CoMPOsiTus, The Compound
Powder of Antimony. — Commonly known by the
name of James's Powder. It is employed as a
sudorific in fever, either alone or in combination
with mercurials. The dose is from one to two
drachms. The late Mr. Bloxam used to tnist to it
alone in the treatment of Epidemic Catarrh in the
horse. It is, however, decidedly inferior to Emetic
Tartar. It is often adulterated with chalk and
burnt bones, and other white powders, and that to
so shameful a degree, that little dependence can
be placed ou the antimonial powder usually sold by
dniggists. The muriatic or sulphuric acids will
detect most of these adulterations

Anti-spasmodics. — Of these our list is scanty,
for the horse is subject only to a few spasmodic

diseases, and there are fewer medicines which have
an anti-spasmodic effect. Opium stands first for
its general power, and that exerted particularly in
locked jaw. Oil of turpentine is almost a specific
for spasm of the bowels. Camphor, assafcetida,
and various other medicines, used on the human
subject, have a very doubtful effect on the horse, or
may be considered as almost inert.

Argentum, Silver. — One combination only of
this metal is used, and that as a manageable and
excellent caustic, viz., the L/unar Caustic. It is
far preferable to the hot u'on, or to any acid, for
the destruction of the part if a horse should have
been bitten by a rabid dog ; and it stands next to
the butyr of antimony for the removal of fungus
generally. It has not yet been administered inter-
nally to the horse.

Arsenicum, Arsenic- — This drag used to be
employed as a tonic, in order to core out old ulcers ;
but it is now seldom employed, for there are better
and safer tonics, and far better and safer caus-
tics. The method of detecting the presence of
arsenic in cases of poisoning has been described
at p. 894.

B,\i.Ls. — The usual and the most convenient
mode of administering veterinary medicines is in
the form of balls, compounded with oil, and not with
honey or synip, ou account of their longer keeping
soft and more easily dissolving in the stomach.
Balls should never weigh more than an ounce and
a half, otherwise they will be so large as not to jiass
without difiicultj' down the gullet. They should
not be more than an inch in diameter and three
inches in length. The mode of delivering balls is
not difficult to acquu'e ; but the balling-iron, while
it often wounrls and permanently injures the bars,
occasions the hurse to struggle more than he other-
wise would against the administration of the medi-
cine. The horse should be backed in the stall ; —
the tongue should be drawn gently out with the
left hand on the off side of the mouth, and there
fixed, not by continuing to pull at it, but by press-
ing the fingers against the side of the lower jaw.
The ball, being now taken between the tips of the
fingers of the right hand, is passed rapidly up the
mouth, as near to the palate as possible, until it
reaches the root of the tongue. It is then delivered
with a slight jerk, and the hand being immediately
withdrawn and the tongue liberated, the ball is
forced through the jiharynx into the oesophagus.
Its passage should be watched down the left side
of the throat ; and if the passage of it is not seen
going down, a slight tap or blow under the chin
will generally cause the horse to swallow it, or a
few gulps of water will convey it into the stomach.
Very few balls should be kept ready made, for they
may become so hard as to be incapable of passing
down the gullet, or dissolving in the stomach, and
the life of the horse may be endangered or lost.

THE HORSE.

511

This is peculiarly liable to be tlie case if the ball
is too large, or wrapped in thick paper.

Bark, Pkuuvian. — A concentrated preparation
of this is entitled the Sulphate of Qoinine. The
simple bark is now seldom used. If it has any
good effect, it is in diabetes. The quinine, how-
ever, is strongly recommended by Professor Mor-
ton, as singularly efficacious in the prostration of
strength which is often the consequence of in-
fluenza.

Basiucon is a valuable digestive ointment, com-
posed of resin, bees'-wax, and olive-oil. If it is
needed as a stimulant, a little turpentine and ver-
digris may be added.

Belladonn^e Exthactum, Extract of Deadly
Nightshade. — The inspissated juice is principally
used as a narcotic and sedative, and indicated whei'e
there is undue action of the nervous and vascular
systems, as in tetanus, carditis, and nervous affec-
tions generally. Externally, it is beneficially
applied to the eye.

Blisters are applications to the skin ■which
separate the cuticle in the form of vesicles contain-
ing a serous fluid. They excite increased action
in the vessels of the skin by means of which this
fluid is thrown out. The part or neighbouring
parts are somewhat relieved by the discharge, but
more by the inflammation and pain that are pro-
duced, and lessen that previously existing in some
contiguous part. On this principle we account
for the decided relief often obtained by blisters
in inflammation of the lungs, and their efficacy in
abating deeply-seated disease, as that of the ten-
dons, ligaments, or joints; and also the necessity
of prexdously removing, in these latter cases, the
superficial inflammation caused b}' them, in order
that one of a different kind may be excited, and to
■which the deeply-seated inflammation of the part
will be more likely to yield. The blisters used in
horse-practice are composed of caniharides or the
oil of turpentine, to which some have added a
tincture of the croton-nut.

For some important remarks on the compo-
sition, application, and management of the blister,
see p. 493.

Bole Armenian is an argillaceous earth com-
bined with iron, and is supjiosed to possess some
astringent property. The propriety of its being
administered inwardly is doubtful ; for it may re-
main in the intestinal canal, and become the
nucleus of a calculus. On account of its supposed
astriugency, it is employed externally to give con-
sistence to ointments for grease. Even the bole
Armenian has not escaped the process of adultera-
tion, and is largely mixed with inferior earths.
The fraud may be suspected, but not satisfactorily
detected, by the colour of the powder, which
should be a bright red.
Calamine. — See Ziuc.

Calomel. — See Mercury.

CAMrnoR is the produce of one of the laurus
species, a native of Japan, and too often imitated
by passing a stream of chlorine through oil of tur-
pentine. According to Professor Morton, it is a
uai'cotic. It diminishes the frequency of the pulse,
and softens its tone. When long exhibited, it
acts on the kidneys. Externally applied, it is
said to be a discutient and an anodyne for chronic
sprains, liruises, and tumours. The camphor ball
is a favourite one with the groom, and occasionally
administered by the veterinary surgeon. Mr. W.
C. Spooner uses it, mixed with opium, in cases of
locked jaw, and in doses of from one to two
drachms. In the form of camphorated oil, it pro-
motes the absorption of fluids thrown out beneath
the skin, the removal of old callus, and the sup-
pling of joints stiff from labour. Combined with
oil of turpentine it is more effective, but in this
combination it occasionally blemishes.

Canthahides are the basis of the most ap-
proved and useful veterinary blisters. The can-
tharis is a fly, the native of Italy and the south of
France. It is destroyed by sulphur, dried and
powdered, and mixed with palm oil and resin in
the proportions dhected at p. S9i. Its action is
intense, and yet superficial ; it plentifully raises
the cuticle, yet rarely injures the true skin, and
therefore seldom blemishes. The application of
other acrid substances is occasionally followed by
deeply-seated ulcerations ; but a blister composed
of the Spanish fly alone, while it does its duty,
leaves, after a few ■weeks have passed, scai'cely a
trace behind.

The art of blistering consists in cutting, or
rather shaving, the hair perfectly close ; then well
rubbing in the ointment, for at least ten minutes ;
and, afterwards, and what is of the greatest con-
sequence of all, plastermg a little more of the
ointment lightly over the part., and leaving it. As
soon as the vesicles have pei'fectly risen, which
will be in twenty or twenty-four hours, the torture
of the animal may be somewhat relieved by the
application of olive or neat's-foot oU, or any emol-
lient ointment.

When too extensive a blister has been em-
ployed, or, from the intensity of the original in-
flammation, the blister has not risen, (for no two
intense inflammations can exist in neighbouring
parts at the same time,) stranginy — great difiiculty
in passing urine, and even suppression of it, has
occurred. The careful washing ofi' of the blister,
and the administi-ation of plenty of warm water,
with opium, and bleeding if the symptoms nm
high, will generally remove this unpleasant effect.

An infusion of two ounces of the flies in a pint
of oil of turpentine, for several days, is occasionally
used as a liquid blister ; and, when sutficiently
lowered with common oil, it is called a sueating

altenitive. Ii isK'**"" "'''' more sulphur wid «iil HI-''>-»'«. aiul tJiereare fewer medicines whirli have

nitre, in vurviii>; (lii-c^. Hi-oirdin); lo llie dis*-:
Biul tlie hlow <ir miijii fl1i-<-t iiitciided to In; |
duci'd. Il sliKulJ ni'ver be Itouglit in jmiw.
whatever truulde iliere nmv I* in levi<^itin); it.
it is oflcii gmsslr iirlultt-mtod with lead, innn
nese, forjje-dust, and arsenic. The atJulterei
may be deieoied bv ]>lai-in(; a little of the fN>\\
on a n'<l-hot inm jiliite. The jmre sulphuret \
eva|x>raie without the >lij;litef.t residue — s') will
arsenic : but there will be an evident smell i.f (^ii
A portion of the lead and tlie mangHiie«e \%ill
left behind.

AnTIMOMI PoTAS.«loT.\BTnAS, EnKTlr T.Mtl

— The liirtrate nf ]xitiL^li and antini<iny. or n <
bination of super-tartnitc t«f ]H)tji.ili and oxiJ'
antimonr, i.s a very useful nausennt, and has ■
siderablo effect on the skin. It is particul
valiuible in inllaniniation of the lun^s, and in i'\
catarrhal all'tftictn. It ig (ii\en in doses nf i'
one drai-hin t>> a drarhni and a lialf, and c"v\ ■
with nitre and digitidis. It is al.so lien> t
the cxpulsiun of wonns. It should U' '.
doses of two dnirhms, and with some ni'
vennifupe. as tin fihuj^'s, or f^mund y\
administered on an mipiy stomach, and I
successive days. Al(lii>u);1i it may sonn i
to expel tlie worms, it will niateriully inij •
condition of tlie horse, and produce Bh-ekni's-
the coat. To a slijjhl df(|ree the emetic tnrtH
decomposed by tin- action of lij^ht. ami -!
kept in a jar, or j,'rcfn Ixitile. It is s.
adulteniled with arsenic, which is detects. 1 . .
f^'arlic smell when it is placed on hot iron, and :
by its not fO^'in^; a lieauiiful ^idJ-odoured pre<
tate when sulphuret of ammonia is added to a -
lion of it. It has also K-en externally applii .
chest alTcciions, in combination with larl
quantities of from one dnichm to two lii
• he antimony, to an oiinrc of the lanl, bir
in extreme cases, recourse should not be hud i.

i^ukhIic effect. (>])ium stands lirst for

; [Hiwer. and that exerted pnrticiilarlr in

.V (»il of tuqientiiic is almost a R|H-<-iiic

of ilif lK»wels. C'ani]i|ior, assaftetiila,

u" oilier medicines, used on the human

t\f n very doubtful effect on the horse, or

iiNJdered as almost inert.

N nil. SiLVKH. — One combination only of

i i-> iiM^-d, and timt as a minia^eable and

■ •nuslic. viz., the Lunar I'mittir. It is

■ ruble to the hot iron, or to any iicid, for

I riii-tion of the )Mrt if a horse should luive

' II by a rabid dog : and it stands next to

• if antimony for the removal of fungus

It has not ret been administered iuter-

ilie horse.

MciM, Aiisr.xic. — This drug used to be
i as a tonic, in onler to coiie out old ulcers ;
II .w 8<ddom employed, for there are better
I |niiii-s, and far U-tter and safer caus-
I iii iM.thod of detecting the presence of
■f [Kiisoniiig lias been described

:.'J4.
I'.Ai.iJi. — The usual and the most convenient
' ' ■ rinary me.licines is in

i with oil, and not with
. ,. - if their longer keeping

Mill and more easily dissolving in the stomach.
(<•■!'" <honld never weigh more tluin an ounce and
•il . • ;^.- 1 hey will b«> so large as not to jxisa
hy <|.i«n the gullet. They should
' iliaii an inch in diameter and three
'• li'iigth. The mode of delivering balls is
lit to acqnin* ; but the lialling-iron, while
■iiiiiU anil permanently injures the Iwrs,
lie hoise to stniggle more than lieother-
ii'-t the adniitii'lniiion of the niedi-
- should Im- barked in the stall; —
iilil 1m- drawn gently out with the
lit iiHiid oil the off side of the mouth, and there
on aci-ount of the extensive sloughing which ii ise.l. not by continuing to pull at it. but by press-
sometimes produces. 0p I lie fingers against tie side of the lower j
Pli.vis ANTiMosiiCoMlHwiTts. The CoMPofM' Chi ImII. l>eiiig now taken between the tij>s of
PownrR OK Antijiosy. — Commonly known by the iai}," is of the right hand, is passed rapidly uj

the palate as possible,
the tongue. It is then
and the hand beins
e tongue liber
alone in the treatment of Kpidemic Catarrh in the I iv ed through the jihannx ir
horse. It is, however, decidedly inferior to Emeiir I ;8 paswage should be watch
Tartar. It is often adulterated witJi chalk and j f the throat: and if the
burnt Itones. and other white powders, and that to ' »iiig down, a slight
so shameful a degree, that little dependence nni
be placed on the antirnonial powder usually sold by
dniggists. The muriatic or suljdiuric acids will i!er>- few
detect most of these adulterations av becg

Anti-spasmodics. — Of these our list is scanty. »wn
for the horse is subject oidy to a few spasmodic |

ting :
11 generally ca
w gidps of '

Mmin

THE HORSE.

541

"■tmmaiim

This is peculiarly liable to be the ase if the ball
is too large, or wrapped iu tbick pier.

Baek, Pektjvian. — A concentited preparation
of this is entitled the Sulphate oj^uixine. The
simple bai'k is now seldom used. If it has any
good effect, it is in diabetes. Tl quinine, how-
ever, is strongly recommended b\Professor Mor-
ton, as singularly efficacious in ti prostration of
strength which is often the cotEquence of in-
fluenza.

Basilicon is a valuable digestivointment, com-
posed of resin, bees-wax, and ol e-oil. If it is
needed as a stimulant, a little tuientine and ver-
digris may be added.

Belladonn^e Exteactum, ExTicT OF Deadly
Nightshade. — The inspissated jue is prmcipally
used as a narcotic and sedative, aucndicated where
there is undue action of the nervis and vascular
systems, as in tetanus, carditis, ai nervous affec-
tions generally. Externally, itis beneficially
applied to the eye.

Blisters are applications tohe skin which
separate the cuticle in the form of esicles contain-
ing a serous fluid. They excite icreased action
in the vessels of the skiu by mras of which this
fluid is thrown out. The part • neighbouring
parts are somewhat relieved by tl discharge, but
more by the inflammation and psa that are pro-
duced, and lessen that previously listing in some
contiguous part. On this pri le we account
for the decided relief ofifii "l ed by blisters
iu inflammation of the lungs, ;i: I lieir efticacy in
abating deeply-sealed disease, aahat of the ten-
dons, ligaments, or joints ; and al» the necessity
of previously removing, iu thc.^u itter cases, the
superficial inflammation caused lithem, in order
that one of a different kiud may ^^ftked, and to
which the de^aM^^ted iuflaig^^^HLthe part

used in
s or the
added a

Calomel. — See Mercuiy.

CAMrHOR is the produce of one of the laurus
species, a native of Japan, and too often imitated
by passing a stream of chlorine through oil of tur-
pentine. According to Professor Morton, it is a
narcotic. It diminishes the frequency of the pulse,
and softens its tone. When long exhibited, it
acts on the kidneys. Externally applied, it is
said to be a discutient and an anodyne for chronic
sprains, bruises, and tumours. The camphor ball
is a favourite one with the groom, and occasionally
administered by the veterinary surgeon. Mr. W.
C. Spooner uses it, mixed with opium, iu cases of
locked jaw, and in doses of from one to two
drachms. In the form of camphorated oil, it pro-
motes the absorption of fluids thrown out beneath
the skin, the removal of old callus, and tlie sup-
pling of joints stiff from labour. Combined with
oil of tui-pentine it is more effective, but in this
combination it occasionally blemishes.

Canthahides are the basis of the most ap-
proved and useful veterinary blisters. The can-
tharis is a fly, the native of Italy and the south of
France. It is destroyed by sulphur, dried and
powdered, and mixed with palm oil and resin in
the proportions directed at p. 392. Its action is
intense, and yet superficial ; it plentifully raises
the cuticle, yet rarely injures the true skin, and
therefore seldom blemishes. The application of
other acrid substances is occasionally followed by
deeply-seated ulcerations ; but a blister composed
of the Spanish fly alone, while it does its duty,
leaves, after a few weeks have passed, scarcely a
trace behind.

The art of blistering consists in cutting, or
rather shaving, the hair perfectly close ; then well
nabbing in the ointment, for at least ten minutes ;
and, afterwards, and what is of the greatest con-
sequence of all, plastering a little more of the
ointment lightly over the part, and leaving it. As
soon as the vesicles have perfectly risen, which
will be in twenty or twenty-four hours, the torture
of the animal may be somewhat relieved by the
application of olive or neat's-foot oil, or any emol-
lient ointment.

When too extensive a blister has been em-
ployed, or, from the intensity of the original in-
flammation, the blister has not risen, (for no two
intense inflammations can exist in neighbouring
parts at iJie same time,) stranginy — great difiiculty
urine, and even suppression of it, has
(The careful washing off of the blister,
rdministratiou of plenty of warm water,
m, and bleeding if the symptoms nni
1 generally remove this unpleasant effect,
infusion of two ounces of the flies in a pint
of tui-pentine, for several days, is oocnsionfllly

d as a liquid blister ; and, when sufficiently
lowered with common oil, it is called a menthig

54i

THE HORSE.

wound for this purpose : it is also a good applica-
tion for canker in the foot.

Cordials are useful or injurious according to
the judgment ■with which they are given. When
a horse comes home thoroughly e.x.hausted, and
refuses his food, a cordial may he beneficial. It
may rouse the stomach and the system generally,
and may prevent cold and fever ; but it is poison
to the animal when administered after the cold is
actually caught and fever begins to appear. More
to he reprobated is the practice of giving frequent
cordials, that by their stimulus on the stomach
(the skin sympathising so much mth that viscus)
a fine coat may be produced. The artificial
excitement of the cordial soon becomes as neces-
sary to enable the horse to do even common work,
as is the excitement of tlie dram to sustain the
animal spirits of the drunkard.

In order the recal the appetite of the horse
slowly recovering from illness, a cordial may
sometimes be allowed ; or to old horses that have
been worked hard and used to these excitements
when young ; or to draught horses, that have
exhibited slight symptoms of staggers when their
labour has been unusually protracted and their
stomachs left too long empty ; or mixed with
diuretic medicine, to fine the legs of the over-
worked and debilitated animal ; but in no other
case should they obtain a place in the stable, or be
used at the discretion of the carter or the groom.

Corrosive Sublimate. — See Mercury.

Ceeasote has very lately been introduced into
veterinary practice, and is much valued on account
of its antiseptic properties. It is obtained by the
destructive distillation of various substances, as
pyroligneous acid, tar, wood smoke, &c. Pure
creasote is colourless and transparent ; its odour
is that of smoked meat, and its taste is caustic and
burning. It coagulates the albumen of the blood,
and hence has been latel}' employed in stopping
hfemorrhages. It acts very powerfully on the
general system, and quickly destroys small ani-
mals. Professor Morton gives a very interesting
and faithful account of it. It is, according to him,
both a stimulant and a tonic. In an undiluted
state it acts as a caustic. When diluted it is a
general excitant and an antiseistic. In the form
of a lotion, a liniment, or an ointment, it lias
been useful in farcy and glanders, also in foot-rot,
canker, and thrush, — mange, caries, excessive sup-
puration, and the repression of fungous granula-
tions. As a caustic, it acts as a powerful stimu-
lant, and it is an antiseptic.

Ceoton Tiglii Semina, Croton Seeds. — The
croton-nut has not been long introduced into veter-
inary practice, although it has been used from time
immemorial by the inhabitants of India as a
powerful purgative. An oil has been extracted
from it, and used by the surgeon ; the meal is

adopted by the veterinarian. It is given in doses
from a scmple to half a drachm, and from its acrid
nature, in the form of a ball, with an ounce of lin-
seed meal. When it does operate, the efl'ect is
generally observed in six or eight hours, the stools
being profuse and wateiy, and the patient fre-
quently griped. On account of its speedy operation,
it may be given in locked jaw and staggers; and
also in dropsy of the chest or belly, from the
watery and profuse stools which it produces ; but it
is often uncertain in its operation, and its griping,
and the debility which it occasions, are serious
objections to it as common physic. When placed
on the tongue of the horse in quantities varying
from twenty to forty drops, it produces purging,
but the membrane of the mouth frequently becomes
violently inflamed. This likewise happens, but
not to so great a degree, when it is given in the
form of a drink, or in a mash.

Dejiulcents are substances that have the
power of diminishing the effect of acrimonious or
stimulating substances. The first, by some oily
or mucilaginous substance, sheaths the sensible
parts. The other dilutes the stimulus, and dimin-
ishes its power. It will rarely be difficult to
determine which effect should be produced, and
the means by which it is to be effected.

Diaphoretics are medicines that increase the
sensible and insensible perspiration of the animal.
As it regards the horse, they are neither many
nor powerful. Antimony in its various forms, and
sulphur, have some effect iu opening the pores of
the skin, and exciting its vessels to action, and
especially when assisted by warmth of stable or
clothing, and therefore is useful in those diseases
in whicli it is desirable that some portion of the
blood should be diverted from the overloaded, and
inflamed, and vital organs of the chest, to the
skin or the extremities. The only diaphoretics,
however, on which much confidence can be placed,
and especially to produce condition, are warm
clothing and good grooming.

Digestives are' applications to recent or old
wounds, as mild stimulants, in order to produce a
health}' appearance and action in them, and to
cause them more speedily to heal. A weak solu-
tion of blue vitriol is an excellent digestive ; so is
the tincture of aloes, and the tincture of myrrh.
The best digestive ointment is one composed of
three parts of calamine ointment (Turner's cerate)
and one of common turpentine.

Digitalis. — The leaves of the common fox-
glove, gathered about the flowering time, dried
carefully in a dark place, and powdered, and kept
in a close black bottle, form one of the most
valuable medicines in veterinary practice. It is a
direct and powerful sedative, diminishing the
frequency of the pulse, and the general irritability
of. the system, and acting also as a mild diuretic ;

THE HOUSE.

545

it is therefore useful in every inflammatory and

febrile complaint, and particularly in inflammation

of the chest. It is usually given in combination

with emetic tartar and nitre. The average dose is

one drachm of digitalis, one and a half of emetic

tartar, and three of nitre, repeated twice or thrice

in the day.

Digitalis seems to have an immediate effect on

the heart, lessening the number of its pulsations ;

but effecting this in a singular manner — not by

causing the heart to beat more slowly, but pro-
1 . ° . . . . , . h

clucing certani nitermissions or pauses ni its action.

When these become marked — when at every sixth
or seventh beat, the pulsations are suspended while
two or three can be slowly counted, this is pre-
cisely the effect that is intended to be produced,
and, however ill the horse may appear to be, or
however alarming this intermittent pulse may
seem to the standers-by, from that moment the
animal will frequently begin to amend. The dose
must then be diminished one-half, and, in a few
days, it may be omitted altogether : but the emetic
tartar and the nitre shoidd be continued during
some days after the practitioner has deemed it
prudent to try the effect of mild vegetable tonics.

There is no danger in the intermittent pulse
thus produced ; but there is mucli when the
digitalis fails to produce any effect on the circula-
tion. The disease is then too powerful to be
arrested by medicine. Digitalis requires watching ;
but N^he only consequence to be apprehended from
an over-dose is, that the patient may be reduced a
little too low, and his convalescence retarded for a
day or two.

In the form of infusion or tincture, digitalis is
very useful in inflammation of the eyes. It is
almost equal in its sedative influence to opium,
and it may with great advantage be alternated
with it, when opium begins to lose its power.
The infusion is made by pouring a quart of boiling
water on an ounce of the powder. When it is
become cold, a portion of the liquid may be intro-
duced into the eye. One or two drops of the
tincture may be introduced with good effect. This
may be obtained by macerating three ounces of the
digitalis in a quart of spirit.

The infusion has been sei-viceable in mange ;
but there are better applications.

Diuretics constitute a useful but much abused
class of medicines. They stimulate the kidneys
to secrete more than the usual quantity of urine,
or to separate a greater than ordinaiy proportion
of the watery parts of the blood. The deficiency
of water in the blood, thus occasioned, must be
speedily supplied or the healthy circulation cannot
be carried on, and it is generally supplied by the
absorbents taking up the watery fluid in some part
of the frame, and carrying it into the circulation.
Hence the evident use of diuretics in dropsical

affections, in swelled legs, and also in inflammation
and fever, by lessening the quantity of the circu-
lating fluid, and, consequently, that which is sent
to the inflamed parts.

All this is effected by the kidneys being
stimulated to increased action ; but if this stimulus
is too often or too violently applied, the energy of
the kidney may be impaired, or inflammation may
be produced. That inflammation may be of an
acute character, and destroy the patient ; or,
although not intense in its nature, it may by
frequent repetition assume a chronic form, and
more slowly, but as surely, do irreparable mischief.
Hence the necessity of attention to that portion of
the food which may have a diuretic power. Mow-
burnt hay and foxy oats are the unsuspected
causes of many a disease in the horse, at first
obscure, but ultimately referable to injury or
inflammation of the urinary organs. Hence, too,
the impropriety of suffering medicines of a diuretic
nature to be at the command of the ignorant
carter or groom. In swelled legs, cracks, grease,
or accumulation of fluid in any part, and in those
superficial eruptions and inflammations which are
said to be produced by humours floating in the
blood, diuretics are evidently beneficial ; but they
should be as mild as possible, and not oftener
given or continued longer than the case requires.
For some cautions as to the administration of
diuretics, the reader is referred to p. 409. The
expensive Castile soap, and camphor, so often
resorted to, are not needed, for the common
liquid turpentine is quite sufficient in all ordinaiy
cases, and nitre and digitalis may be added if
fever is suspected.

Drinks. — Many practitioners and horse-pro-
prietors have a great objection to the administra-
tion of medicines in the form of drinks. A drink
is not so portable as a ball, it is more troublesome
to give, and a portion of it is usually wasted. If
the drink contains any acid substance, it is apt to
excoriate the mouth, or to irritate the throat already
sore from disease, or the unpleasant taste of the
drug may unnecessarily nauseate the horse. There
are some medicines, however, which must be given
in the form of drink, as in colic ; and the time,
perhaps, is not distant when purgatives will be
thus administered, as more speedy, and safer in
their operation. In cases of much debility and
entire loss of appetite, all medicine should be
given in solution, for the stomach may not have
sufficient power to dissolve the paper in which the
ball is wrapped, or the substance of the ball.

An ox's bom, the larger end being cut slant-
ingly, is the usual and best instrument for adminis-
tering drinks. The noose of a halter is introduced
into the mouth, and then, by means of a stable
fork, the head is elevated by an assistant consider-
ably higher than for the delivery of a ball. Ths

511

woiiml for this pHrjxf«> : it ia
tii)ii !'

tbe 1
a li.
refii-
inii\

mill :
to til
BCtll .
to Im :

corduilo,
(tlie Hkiii
a till'
excii.
BUT)- I
as Lt tlio
animal

lu
slow I
sonii I
been

wJirii

THFlORSK.

ca-<e nlinulil
used at thi

Ci
▼eteri i
of its

.l.-fP:

burn 1 1

nil. I I

baaket. on t)

•h* tnnf^e wii
jfet hand inti

mmah. II
•>4 fhi' ton?:

hand will bear. The bene6t that might be derived
from them is much impaired bvthe absurd mrthod
in wlui'li the fomentation!) are conduc-ted. They

I • :. .. 1 ! : „' •" . ijh. and when they
i : ■ • t and uncuTered,

_ . I!.' -- ■•! . ■• i\' ! ■■■ 'U -'!■ •■' ''l- t.. llip

heal of fomentation. Tbc|«T»|iii ,1

dpiilr rhecked ; the animal suffer-

•!■ harm is done by the < "i

:iire than if the foment;. i ^ . n

.1.

iiAN stands at the head of the
:iui is a stumarhir as well as
, ...i\ II-. Ill] in chronic debility, nn.i
- . li-.-.iucnt on st'Vfre and jt-
li I- j;i-nerHlly uniteil with cltank..iuil^
ger, and, when tlie |>atii-iit will l>«-ar it.
of iron. Four dmchms <>f gentian, two of chl
mile, one of carlunate of irvin. and one of gin|
will make un excellent tonic ball. An infu&ion1
itian is one of the best applications to putrid

lOEB is as valuable as a cordial, as fjentiRn

It is the basis of the cordial ball,

usable in the tonic ball. Although

powder, the veterinar.- pmciitioner

ihaseit in its stilid fonn. If the

.and not wonn-eatt-n. tbf bliick

as the white, and cotisiderably

wdrr i=: n )u!ti-rate<l with liean-

•d. and rendered

laul I i|«icuni.

iK Hku.kii.ikf..— 1
fuid should l>e u->. .1 witli
rful nau-.o.ii!t. audi
ncy of the ]>ul?«,j
1 effect in variou
■ ■■ ■' 'miptA
I tha

nnd r.i
b..th
htute ^
genei ,'
of a I
l«en u

cankti.

punition, ail '
tiiiiiH. Ah II
liuit, nnd it I

I'llOTON I

<n>t>in mil b.i
iimry pnicti. .
iiiiiiifiiiiirial .
iH.tterful puin.ia, A
from it, und u^d by tl.

*'».

^^k

Hellef.:?-^ ■
This is used l - -
such it is
Stanley. :"
fistulous aiit^...^ -
considerable suicess.
and exit being giveu :
allowed to discharge . -
being dressed with ai:
When the pus assun —
introduces a few pen: - -
root, passing them do .^^.-
and letting them remain Ir
in the mean time, merely ker:;
parts clean. On examinatjoo . . >■ .
the healing process has commenceid.

Professor Morton adds, that
formed of the powder of either the
Hellebore, in the proportion of o;
powder to eight of lard, will be foun . tv i ..'.._':
active for the dressing of rowels and sAjs.*

Hemlock is used by some practaners. in-
stead of digitalis or hellebore, in aflV tns of the
chest, whether acute or chronic ; but n inferior
to both. The dose of the powder The dried
leaves is about a drachm.

Hydrargyrum. — This metal is I'ojd native
in many countries in the form of minulgiobules.
It also occurs in masses, and in differei varieties
of crystallization. It has the singular j:>perty of
being liquid in the natural temperatt of our
earth. It freezes, or assumes a sinp^- sjn-cies
of crystallization, at 99' below 0 of b\.. and at
660° above 0 of Fah. it boils, and raply evapo-
rates. In its metallic state it appears i liave no
action on the animal system, but it-; onpounds
are mostly powerful excitants, and s-in of them
are active caustics.

The Common Mercurial Ointment ny be used
for ruMMM^iyaQd that species of uctis which
ource, or the prf cnrsr.i-f mange.
' useful
r most
mange,
■ i'ii- ' .med to

"I'i'i:' ■ . iderable

lb.

I lilt.
I.y rub-
ion of
niil no

Tl is eniploveti with considerable ndvantago in
prepi»Ting sjiients, sjwvins, or other k^ny or callous
timiouTs. for bhstoring or firing. l^no or two
drechnis. according to tlie nnturr and size of the
^jwellinp. may l>e daily well rul>bod in ; but it
should he i»Mcl«>d. for ii soiuetimes salivates the
hnT<«> vsrr speedily. Tlie tumours more readily
" "^ " "— -' \qrion of a stroiifjer stinui-
^Bs prejinn-ii Mer-
~ I sonii

il" pos-
1 get it
uggist

: isgh%.
A- -itxm .
l>egii!^ to
tinut i (
in arre-^tinsr tl
the horse,
attempt to
the iirihii'iice of
seeni> \" linve lie

(.'urrvsi
ride of xv
double prii|'c'Mi..i
should l>e given in do>
gradually increa-sed to
is purged, or the mouth brcii
may be omitted for a few days, uu
have recommended it as a diuretic,
gerous a medicine for thin puqM>se. It i>.
extenially in solution ; in Hulmtance in quiti
a stimulant to foul ulcers ; and in the pr.i.
of five grains to an ounce of rectified spiui
stinale mange, or to destroy vermin on th.
It is, however, too uncertain and too .iimj:. .
medicine for the hontoi-r •
use.

jEthiop't Mineral, tl
cury, is not often used i
a good alteralivp f<>r "> -
of the skin, i '
drachms of '
added to ea<

Isnsii ^
table suUiia:
water. Dr
iBon mil

green ttMe .-,.„.«; w.,
tuaam t* W mammL mm<.

548

THE HOESE.

previously pounded or powdered, and the vessel
then covei'ed and placed near a fire. In five or
six hours the transparent part may be poured off,
and is ready for use. In a fevs' days, however, all
infusions become thick, and lose their virtue, from
the decomposition of the vegetable matter.

The infusion of chamomile is advantageously
used instead of water in compounding a mild tonic
drench. The infusion of catechu is useful in
astringent mixtures ; that of linseed is used in-
stead of common water in catarrh and cold ; and
the infusion of tobacco in some injections.

loDTNE. — This substance has not been long
introduced into veterinary jiractice. The first
object which it seemed to accomplish, was the re-
duction of the enlarged glands that frequently re-
main after catarrh, but it soon appeared that it
could reduce almost every species of tumour.
Much concerned in the first introduction of iodine
into veterinaiy practice, the writer of the present
■work bears willing testimony to the zeal and suc-
cess of others, in establishing the claims of this
most valuable medicine. Professor Jlorton has
devoted much time aud labour to the different
combinations of iodine, and they are described at
length in his useful " Manual of Pharmacy." He
gives the formulte of the composition of a liniment,
an ointment, and a tinctui'e of iodine, adapted to
different species and stages of disease. He next
describes the prejjaratiou of the iodide of potassium
— the combination of iodine and potash, — and then
the improvement on that under the name of the
diniodide of copper — the union of two parts of the
iodide of potassium with four of the sulphate of
copper.

The action of this compound is an admirable
tonic and a stimulant to the absorbent system, if
combined with vegetable tonics, and, occasionally,
small doses of cantharides. Professor Spooner and
Mr. Daws ajjplied this compound, and with marked
success, to the alleviation of farcy, nasal gleet, and
glanders. It is pleasing to witness these triumphs
over disease, a little while ago so unexpected, and
now so assured.

Juniper, Oil of. — This essential oil is retained
because it has some diuretic property, as well as
being a pleasant aromatic. It frequently enters
into the composition of the diuretic ball.

Lead, Plumbum. — The Carbonate of Lead
has a deleterious effect on the biped and the qua-
druped in the neighbourhood of lead works. They
are subject to violent griping pains, and to consti-
pation that can with great difficulty, or not at all,
be overcome. Something of the same kind is
occasionally observed in the cider couuties, and
the " painter's colic" is a circumstance of too fre-
quent occurrence — the occasional dreadful pains,
and the ravenous appetite extending to everything
that comes in the way of the animal. Active

purgatives followed by opium are the most effec-
tual remedies.

The Acetate of Lead, Plumbi Acetas. — Sugar
of Lead is seldom given externally to the horse,
but is used as a collyrium for inflammation of the
eyes.

The Liquor Plumbi Subacetatis, or Goulard's
Extract, or, as it used to be termed at the Veteri-
nary College, the Aqua Vegeto, is a better colly-
rium, and advantageously used in external and
superficial inflammation, and particularly the
inflammation that remains after the application of
a blister.

Lime was formerly sprinlded over cankered
feet, and greasy heels, but there are less painful
caustics, and more effectual absorbents of moisture.
Lime-water is rarely used, but the Chloride of
Lime is exceedingly valuable. Diluted with
twenty times its quantity of water, it helps to
form the poultice applied to every part from which
there is the slightest offensive discharge. The
fostid smell of fistulous withei's, poll-evil, canker,
and ill-conditioned wounds, is immediately re-
moved, and the ulcers are more disposed to heal.
When mangy horses are dismissed as cured, a
washing with the diluted chloride will remove any
infection that may lurk about them, or which they
may carry from the place in which they have been
confined. One pint of the chloride mixed with
three gallons of water, and brushed over the walls
and manger and rack of the foulest stable, will
completely remove all infection. Professor Mor-
ton, very properly, says that the common practice
of merely whitewashing the walls serves only
to cover the infectious matter, and perhaps to
preserve it for an indefinite length of time, so that
when the lime scales off, disease may be again
engendered by the exposed virus. The horse
furniture worn by a glandered or, mangy animal
will be effectually purified by the chloride. Inter-
nally administered, it seems to have little or
no power.

Liniments are oily applications of the consis-
tence of a thick fluid, and designed either to
soothe an inflamed surface, or, by gently stimula-
ting the sldn, to remove deeper-seated pain or
inflammation. As an emollient liniment, one
composed of half an ounce of extract of lead and
four ounces of olive oil will be useful. For
sprains, old swellings, or rheumatism, two ounces
of hartshorn, the same quantity of camphorated
spirit, an ounce of oil of turpentine, and half an
ounce of laudanum may be mixed together ; or an
ounce of camphor may be dissolved in four ounces
of sweet oil, to which an ounce of o.il of turpentine
may be afterwards added. A little powdered can-
tharides, or tincture of cantharides, or mustard
powder, will render either of these more powerful,
or convert it into a liquid blister.

THE HORSE.

549

Linseed. — An infusion of linseed is often
used instead of water, for tlie drink of the liorse
witli sore-tliroat or catarrh, or disease of tlie
urinary organs, or of the bowels. A pail contain-
ing it should be slung in the stable or loose box.
Thin gruel, however, is preferable ; it is as bland
and soothing, and it is more nutritious. Linseed
meal forms the best poultice for almost every
purpose.

Magnesia. — The sulphate of magnesia, or
KpsoM Salts, should be used only in promoting
the purgative effect of clysters, or, in repeated
doses of si.K or eight ounces, gently to open the
bowels at the commencement of fever. Some
doubt, however, attends the latter practice ; for
the dose must occasionally be thrice repeated
before it will act, and then, although safer than
aloes, it may produce too much irritation in the
intestinal canal, especially if the fever is the pre-
cursor of inflammation of the lungs.

Mashes constitute a very important part of
horse-provender, whether in sickness or health.
A mash given occasionally to a horse that is other-
wise fed on dry meat prevents him from becoming
dangerously costive. To the over-worked and
tired horse nothing is so refreshing as a warm
mash with his usual allowance of corn in it. The
art of getting a horse into apparent condition for
sale, or giving him a round and plump appearance,
consists principally in the frequent repetition of
mashes, and from their easiness of digestion and
the mild nutriment whicli they afford, as well as
their laxative effect, they form the principal diet
of the sick horse.

They are made by pouring boiling water on
bran, and stirring it well, and then covering it
over until it is sufficiently cool for the horse to
eat. If in the heat of summer a cold mash is
preferred, it should, nevertheless, be made with
hot water, and then suffered to remain until it is
cold. This is not always sufficiently attended to
by the groom, who is not aware that the efficacy
of the mash depends principally on the change
which is effected in the bran and the other ingre-
dients by the boiling water rendering them more
easy of digestion, as well as more aperient. If
the horse refuses the mash, a few oats may be
sprinkled over it, in order to tempt him to eat it ;
but if it is previously designed that corn should
be given in the mash, it should be scalded with
the bran, in order to soften it and render it more
digestible. Bran mashes are very useful prepara-
tives for physic, and thej' are necessaiy during the
operation of the physic. They very soon become
sour, and the manger of the horse of whose diet
they form a principal part should be daily and
carefully cleaned out.

When horses are weakly and much reduced,
malt mashes will often be vei-y palatable to them

and very nutritive : but the water that is poured
on a malt mash should he consideralily below the
boiling heat, otherwise the malt will be set, or
clogged together. If the owner was aware of the
value of a malt mash, it would be oftener given
when the horse is rapidly getting weaker from
protracted disease, or when he is beginning to
recover from a disease by which he has been much
reduced. The only exception to their use is in
cases of chest affection, in which they must not be
given too early. In grease, and in mange accom-
panied by much emaciation, malt mashes will be
peculiarly useful, especially if they constitute a
principal portion of the food.

Mustard, Sinapis. — This will be found occa-
sionally useful, if, in inflammation of the chest
or bowels, it is well rubbed on the chest or the
abdomen. The external swelling and irritation
which it excites may, to a greater or less degree,
abate the inflammation within.

Myrrh may be used in the form of tincture
or it may be united to the tincture of aloes as
a stimulating and digestive application to wounds.
Diluted with an equal quantity of water, it is
a good application for canlier in the mouth, but as
an internal medicine it seems to be inert, although
some practitioners advocate its use, combined with
opium, in cases of chronic cough.

Nitrous Ether, Spirit of, is a very useful
medicine in the advanced stages of fever, for while
it, to a certain degree, rouses the exhausted
powers of the animal, and may be denominated a
stimulant, it never brings back the dangerous
febrile action which was subsiding. It is given
in doses of three or four drachms.

Olive Oil is an emollient and demulcent.
Its laxative effect is veiy inconsiderable and
uncertain in the horse.

Opium. — However underrated by some, there
is not a more valuable drug on our list. It does
not often act as a narcotic, except in considerable
doses ; but it is a powerful antispasmodic, seda-
tive, and astringent. As an antispasmodic, it
enters into the oholic drink, and it is the sheet-
anchor of the veterinarian in the treatment of
tetanus or locked jaw. As a sedative, it relaxes
that universal spasm of the muscular system which
is the characteristic of tetanus ; and, perhaps, it
is only as a sedative that it has such admirable
effect as an astringent, for when the irritation
around the mouths of the vessels of the intestines
and kidneys is allayed by the opium, the undue
purging and profuse staling will necessaiily be
arrested.

Opium should, however, be given with caution.
It is its secondary effect that is sedative, and, if
given in cases of fever, its primaiy effect in increas-
ing the excitation of the frame may be very con-
siderable, and highly injuiious. In the eaily cud

X N

550

THE HORSE.

acute stage of fever, it would lie bad practice to
give it in tlie smallest quautity ; but wlieu the fever
has passed, or is passing, there is nothing which
BO rapidly subdues the irritability that accompanies
extreme weakness. It becomes an excellent tonic,
because it is a sedative.

If the blue or green vitriol, or cantharides, have
been pushed too far, opium, sooner than any other
drag, quiets the disorder they have occasioned. It
is given in doses of one or two drachms, in the
form of a ball. Other medicines are usually com-
bined with it, according to the circumstances of the
case.

Externally, it is useful in ophthalmia. In the
form of decoction of the poppy-head, it may consti-
tute the basis of an anodjaie poultice ; but it must
not be given in union with any alkali, with the
excejation of chalk, in over-purging ; nor with the
superacetate of lead, by which its powers are ma-
terially impaired ; nor witli sulphate of zinc, or
copper, or iron.

From its high price it is much adulterated, and
it is not always met with in a state of purity. The
best tests are its smell, its taste, its toughness and
pliancy, its fawn or brown colour, and its weight,
for it is the heaviest of all the vegetable extracts,
except gum arable ; yet its weight is often fraudu-
lently increased by stones and bits of lead dexter-
ously concealed in it. The English opium is
almost as good as the Turkish, and frequently sold
for it ; but is distinguishable by its blackness and
softness.

Palm Oil, when genuine, is the very best sub-
stance that can be used for making masses and
balls. It has a pleasant smell, and it never
becomes rancid.

Pitch is used to give adhesiveness and firm-
ness to charges and plasters. The common pitch
is quite as good as the more expensive Pm-gundy
pitch. The best plaster for sandcrack consists of
one pound of pitch and an ounce of yellow bees'-
wax melted together.

PiiYsif). — The cases which require physic, the
composition of the most effectual and safest physic-
ball, and the mode of treatment under jihysic, have
been already described.

Potash. — Two compounds of potash are used
in veterinary practice. The Nitrate of Potash
(^Nitre) is a valuable cooling medicine and a mild
diuretic, and, therefore, it should enter into the
composition of every fever-ball. Its dose is from
two to four drachms. Grooms often dissolve it in
the water. There are two objections to this : either
the horse is nauseated and will not drink so much
water as he ought : or the salt taste of the water
causes considerable thirst, and disinclination to
solid food. Nitre, while dissolving, materially
lowers the temperature of water, and furnishes a
very cold and useful lotion for sprain of the back

sinews, and other local inflammations. The lotion
should be used as soon as the salt is dissolved, for
it quickly becomes as warm as the surrounding air.
The Bitartrate of Potash {Cream of Tartar) is a
mild diuretic, and, combined with .^thiop's mine-
ral, is used as an alterative in obstinate mange or
gi'ease. The objection, however, to its use in such
an animal as the horse, is the little power which it
seems to exercise.

Poultices. — Few horsemen are aware of the
value of these simple applications in abating inflam-
mation, relieving pain, cleansing wounds, and dis-
posing them to heal. They are applications of the
best kind contmued much longer than a simple
fomentation can be. In all inflammations of the
foot they are very beneficial, by softening the horn
hardened by the heat of the foot and contracted
and pressing on the internal and highly sensible
paits. The moisture and warmth are the useful
qualities of the poultice ; and that poultice is the
best for general purposes in which moisture and
warmth are longest retained. Perspiration is most
abundantly promoted in the part, the pores are
opened, swellings are relieved, and discharges of a
healthy nature prociu'ed from wounds.

Linseed meal forms the best general poultice,
because it longest retains the moistm-e. Bran,
although frequently used for poultices, is objection-
able, because it so soon becomes diy. To abate con-
siderable inflammation, and esjiecially in a wounded
part, Goulard may be added, or the linseed meal
may be made into a paste with a decoction of poppy-
heads. To promote a healthy discharge from an
old or foul ulcer ; or separation of the dead from
the living parts, in the process of what is called
coring out ; or to hasten the ripening of a tumour
that must be opened ; or to cleanse it when it is
opened, — two ounces of common turpentine may
be added to a pound of linseed meal : but nothing
can be so absurd, or is so injurious, as the addition
of turpentine to a poultice that is designed to be
an emollient. The drawing poultices and stoppings
of larriers are often highly injurious, instead of
abating inflammation.

If the ulcer smells offensively, two ounces of
powdered charcoal may be added to the linseed
meal, or the poultice may be made of water, to
which a solution of the chloride of lime has been
added in the proportion of half an ounce to a pound.
As an emollient poultice for grease and cracked
heels, and especially if accompanied by much un-
pleasant smell, there is nothing preferable to a
poultice of mashed carrots with charcoal. For old
grease some slight stimulant must be added, as a
tie yeast or the grounds of table-beer.

There are two errore in the application of a
poultice, and particularly as it regards the legs. It
is often put on too tight, by means of which the
return of the blood from the foot is prevented, and

THE HORSE.

.051

the disease is increased instead of lessened ; or it
is too hot, and unnecessary j'^'ii is given, and the
inflammation aggravated.

PuwDEUs. — Some horses are very difficult to
ball or drench, and the violent struggle that would
accompany the attempt to conquer them may
heighten the fever or inflammation. To such
horses powders must be given in mashes. Emetic
tartar and digitalis may be generally used in cases
of inflammation or fever ; or emetic tartar for
worms ; or calomel or even the farina of the crotou
nut for physic : but powders are too often an e.\euse
for the laziness or awkwardness of the carter or
groom. The horse frequently refuses them, espe-
cially if his appetite has otherwise begun to fail :
the powder and the mash are wasteti, and the
animal is unnecessarily nauseated. All medicine
should be given in the form of ball or drink.

Raking. — This consists in introducing the hand
into the rectum of the horse, and drawing out any
hardened dung that may be there. It may be
necessary in costiveness or fever, if a clyster pipe
cannot be obtained; but an injection will better
effect the purpose, and with less inconvenience to
the animal. The introduction of the hand into the
rectum is, however, useful to ascertain the existence
of stone in the bladder, or the degree of distension
of the bladder in suppression of urine, for the
bladder mil be easily felt below the intestine, and,
at the same time, by the heat of the intestine, the
degree of inflammation in it or in the bladder may
be detected.

Resin. — The yellow resin is that which remains
after the distillation of oil of turpentine. It is used
e.xternally to give consistence to ointments, and to
render them slightly stimulant. Internally it is a
useful diuretic, and is given in doses of five or si.^
drachms made into a ball with soft soap. The
common liquid tm-pentine is, however, preferable.

Rowels. — The manner of rowelling has been
already described. As exciting inflammation on
the surface, and so lessening that which had pre-
viously e.xisted in a neighbouring but deeper-
seated part, they are decidedly inferior to blisters,
for they do not act so quicldy or so extensively ;
therefore they should not be used in acute inflam-
mation of the lungs or bowels, or any vital part.
When the inflammation, however, although not
intense, has long continued, rowels will be ser-
viceable by producing an irritation and discharge
that can be better kept up than by a blister.
As promoting a permanent, although not very
considerable discharge, and some inflammation,
rowels in the thighs are useful in swelled legs, and
obstinate grease. If fluid is throwni out under
the skin in any other part, the rowel acts as a
permanent drain. When sprain of the joint or
the muscles of the shoulders is suspected, a rowel
in the chest will be serviceable. The wound

caused by a rowel will readily heal, and with little
blemish, unless the useless leather of the farrier
has been inserted.

Secale cornutum, tlie Ergot of Rye. — This is
well known to be an excitant in assisting parturition
in cattle, sheep, and dogs. It has been used with
success in the mare by Mr. Richardson, of Lincoln.
It should only be applied in difficult cases, and
the dose should be two drachms, combined with
some carminative, and given every hour.

Sedatives are medicines that subdue irritation,
repress spasmodic action, or deaden pain. We will
not inquire whether they act first as stimulants •
if they do, their effect is exceedingly transient, and
is quickly followed by depression and diminished
action. Digitalis, hellebore, opium, turpentine,
are medicines of this kind. Their effect in differ-
ent diseases or stages of disease, and the circum
stances which indicate the use of any one of them in
preference to the rest, are considered under their
respective titles.

Soda. — The Carbonate of Soda is a useful
antacid, and probaldy a diuretic, but it is not
much used in veterinary practice. The Chloride
of Soda is not so eflicacious for the removal of
unpleasant smells and all infection as the chloride
of lime ; but it is exceedingly useful in changing
malignant and corroding and destructive sores
into the state of simple ulcers, and in ulcers that
are not malignant it much hastens the cure.
Poll-evil and fistulous withers are much benefited
by it, and all farcy ulcers. It is used in the
proportion of one part of the solution to twenty-
four of water.

SoDii Chloeidum, Common Salt, is very
extensively employed in veterinary practice. It
forms an efficacious aperient clyster, and a solu-
tion of it has been given as an aperient drink.
Sprinkled over the hay, or in a mash, it is veiy
palatable to sick horses ; and in that languor and
disinclination to food which remain after severe
illness, few things will so soon recall the appetite
as a drink composed of six or eight ounces of salt
in solution. To horses in health it is more useful
than is generally imagined, as promoting the
digestion of the food, and, consequently condition.
Externally applied, there are few better lotions for
inflamed eyes than a solution of half a drachm of
salt in four otinces of water. In the proportion of
an ounce of salt to the same quantity of water, it
is a good embrocation for sore shouldere and backs ;
aud if it does not always dispei-se warbles and
tumoui's, it takes away much of the tenderness of
the skin.

Sod.e Sulphas. — Sulphate of Soda. — Glauber's
Salt. — This medicine is seldom used in ths treat-
ment of the horse. It appears to have some diuretic
property.

Soap is supposed to possess a diuretic quality,
K N 3

552

THE HORSE.

and tlierefore enters into the composition of some
diuretic masses. See Resin. By many prac-
titioners it is made an ingredient in the physic-
ball, but uselessly or even injuriously so ; for if
the aloes are finely powdered and mixed with palm
oil, they will dissolve readily enough in the bowels
without the aid of the soap, while the action of
the soap on the kidneys will impair the purgative
effect of the aloes.

Starch may be substituted with advantage for
gruel in obstinate cases of pm-ging, both as a
clyster, and to support the strength of the animal.
Stoppings constitute an important, but too
often neglected part of stable management. If a
horse is irregularly or seldom worked, his feet are
deprived of moisture ; they become hard and
unyielding and brittle, and disposed to com and
contraction and founder. The very dung of a
neglected and filthy stable woidd be preferable to
habitual standing on the cleanest litter without
stopping. In wounds, and braises', and corns,
moisture is even more necessaiy, in order to supple
the horn, and relieve its pressure on the tender
parts beneath. As a common stopping, nothing
is better than cow-dung with a fourth part of clay
well beaten into it, and confined with splents from
the binding or larger twigs of the broom. In
cases of wounds a little tar may be added ; but
tar, as a common stopping, is too stimulating and
diying. Pads made of thick felt have lately been
contrived, which are fitted to the sole, and,
swelling on being wetted, are sufficiently confined
by the shoe. Having been well saturated with
water, they vsill continue moist during the night.
They are veiy useful in gentlemen's stables ; but
the cow-dung and clay are sufficient for the
farmer.

Strychnia. — This drug has frequently been
employed with decided advantage in cases of
paralysis in the dog ; and lately, and with decided
advantage, it has been administered to the horse.
The dose is from one to three gi-ains, given twice
in the day.

Sulphur is the basis of the most effectual
applications for mange. It is an excellent
alterative, combined usually with antimony and
nitre, and particularly for mange, surfeit, grease,
hide-bound, or want of condition ; and it is a useful
ingredient in the cough and fever ball. When
given alone, it seems to have little effect, except as
a laxative in doses of six or eight ounces ; but
there are much better aperients. The black
sulphur consists principally of the dross after the
pure sulphur has been separated.

Tar melted with an equal quantity of grease
forms the usual stoj)ping of the fanier. It is a
■warm, or slightly stimulant and therefore useful,
dressing for bruised or wounded feet ; but its
principal virtue seems to consist in preventing the

penetration of dirt and water to the wounded part.
As a common stopping it has been considered
objectionable. From its warm and diying proper-
ties it is the usual and proper basis for thrush
ointments ; and from its adhesiveness, and slightly
stimulating power, it often forms an ingredient in
applications for mange. Some practitioners give
it, and advantageously, with the usual cough
medicine, and in doses of two or three drachms
for chronic cough. The common tar is as effectual
as the Barbadoes for every veterinary pnrpose.
The oil, or spirit (rectified oil) of tar is sometimes
used alone for the cure of mange, but it is not to
be depended upon. The spirit of tar, mixed with
double the quantity of fish oil, is, from its peculiar
penetrating property, one of the best applications
for hard and brittle feet. It should be well rubbed
with a brush, every night, both on the crust and
sole.

Tinctures. — The medicinal properties of many
substances are extracted by spirit of wine, but in
such small quantities as to be scarcely available
for internal use in veterinary practice. So much
aloes or opium must be given in order to produce
effect on the horse, that the quantity of spirit
necessary to dissolve it woidd be injurious or might
be fatal. As applications to wounds or inflamed
surfaces, the tinctures of aloes, digitalis, myrrh,
and opium, are highly useful.

Tobacco, in the hands of the skilful veterina-
rian, may be advantageously employed in cases of
extreme costiveness, or dangerous cholic ; but
should never be permitted to be used as an exter-
nal application for the cure of mange, or an internal
medicine to promote a fine coat.

Tonics are valuable medicines when judiciously
employed ; but, like cordials, thej' have been fatally
abused. Many a horse recovering from severe
disease has been destroyed by their too earl}', or
too free use. The veterinaiy surgeon occasionally
administers them injuriously, in his anxiety to
gratify the impatience of his employer. The mild
vegetable tonics, chamomile, gentian, and ginger,
and, perhaps, the carbonate of iron, may sometimes
be given with benefit, and may hasten the perfect
recovery of the patient ; but there are few prin-
ciples more truly founded on reason and experience,
than, that disease once removed, the powers of
nature are sufficient to re-establish health. Against
the more powerful mineral tonics, except for the
particular purposes that have been pointed out
under the proper heads, the horse proprietor and
the veterinarian should be on his guard.

Turpentine.- — The common liquid tui-pentine
has been described as one of the best diuretics, in
doses of half an ounce, and made into a ball with
linseed meal and powdered ginger. It is added
to the calamine or any other mild ointment in order
to render it stimulating and digestive, and, from its

THE HORSE.

5^^

adhesiveness aud slight stimulating power, it is an
ingredient in mange ointments. The oil of tur-
pentine is an excellent antispasmodic. For the
removal of cholic it stands unrivalled. Forming
a tincture with cantharides, it is the basis of the
sweating blister for old strains and swellings. As
a blister it is far inferior to the common ointment.
As a stimulant frequently applied it must be suf-
ficiently lowered, or it may blemish.

Wax. — The yellow wax is used in charges and
some plasters to render them less brittle.

Zinc. — The impure carbonate of zinc, under
the name of Calamine Powder, is used in the pre-
paration of a valuable healing ointment, called
Turner's Cerate. Five parts of lard and one of
resin are melted together, and when these begin
to get cool, two parts of the calamine, reduced to
an impalpable powder, are stirred in. If the
wound is not healthy, a small quantity of common
turpentine may be added. This salve justly de-

serves the name which it has gained, " The
Healing Ointment." Tlie calamine is sometimeg
sprinkled with advantage on cracked heels and
superficial sores.

The sulphate of zinc. White Vitriol, in the pro-
portion of three grains to an ounce of water, is an
excellent application in ophthalmia, when the in-
flammatory stage is passing over ; and quittor is
most successfully treated by a saturated solution of
white vitriol being injected into the sinuses. A
solution of white vitriol of less strength forms a
wash for grease that is occasionally useful, when
the alum or blue vitriol does not appear to succeed.

ZiNGiBERis Radix. — Ginger Root. — Tiiis is an
admirable stimulant and carminative. It is useful
in loss of appetite and flatulent cholic, while it
rouses the intestinal canal to its proper action. The
cordial mass resorted to by the best surgeons con-
sists of equal parts of ginger and gentian beaten
into a mass with treacle.

ON DRAUGHT.

The investigation of the subject of draught by
animal power, to which this treatise is devoted,
. ^ aud which will form an appropriate supplement to

■ ' an account of the Horse, — has frequently occupied

the attention of theoretical and practical men ; so
much so, that our object wOl be to collect what has
been said and done, and, by arranging it methodi-
cally, to show in what manner the information may
be applied and rendered useful, rather than to at-
tempt to produce anything absolutely new upon
the subject. Notwithstanding, however, all that
has been written, if we open any of the authors who
have treated the subject, in the hope of obtaining
direct practical information, we shall be much dis-
appointed.

It might have been expected that the particular
result of every method known aud in use for the
conveyance of a load from one spot to another, by
animal power, whether by sledges, by wheel-
carriages, or by water, as in canals, being so con-
stantlj' and necessarily a matter of practical ex-
periment, would have been accurately known and
recorded ; — but the contrary is too much the case.

The theoretical investigations have been made
with too little reference to what really takes place
in practice; and the practical portion of the subject
has not generally been treated in that useful and
comprehensive manner which it deserves and de-
mands.

In fact, there is hardly a question in practical
mechanics on which, though much has been written,
opinions are apparently less fixed ; or on which
the information we do possess is in a less defined
and available state.

One great object of research has been the
average force of traction or power of the horse.

If we consult the most approved authors and
experimentalists, Desaguilliers, Smeaton, &c., we
find this power variously stated as equal to 80 lbs.,
100 lbs., 150 lbs., and even 200 lbs. : we are there-
fore left almost as ignorant as before ; but the
knowledge of this average power is fortunately of
little importance in practice. It is the knowledge
of the best application, and of the effect, of that
power which alone is useful ; and these are governed
by circumstances so varying and dissimilar, such as
the form and state of the road, the stnicture of the
carriage, the size and friction of the wheels, &c.,
&c., that scarcely any two cases of draught would,
as regards the effect of the power of the horse, pre-
sent the same results.

The difl'erence of opinion here manifest is still
greater when existing on a purely practical ques-
tion.

In the inquiries instituted by a committee of
the House of Commons in 1806 and 1808, on the
subject of roads and carriages, two well-infonned
practical men, Mr. Ptussell of Exeter, and Mr.
Deacon of Islington, the most extensive can-iers in
England, were examined upon an important ques-
tion, viz., the advantage or disadvantage of a par
ticular form of wheel. It was stated by one that,
having given the wheels in question a twelve
months' trial, he found that they tended to injure
the road and increase the draught in the propor-
tion of four to five ; while it was stated by the
other, who had also made the experiment on a
large scale, that he fomid they materially assisted

554

THE HOKSE.

in keeping the roads in repair, and Jiminislied the
draught in the proportion of five to four.

Amidst such conflicting and contradictory opin-
ions it would appear difficult to come to any useful
conclusion, and we might naturally be disposed to
adopt a very common practice, that of taking an
average result.

A little consideration, however, will show that
ihese apparent discrepancies and contradictions
arise, in great meastu'e, from attempting to gene-
ralise and apply to practice the results of experi-
ments made in, and therefore applicable only to,
particulai' cases.

■ The results of experiments tlius made at various
times and places, and without that identity of con-
dition and circumstance so necessary when standard
rules are to be deduced from them, have, neverthe-
less been used for that purpose ; and this circum-
stance, combined with the variety of distinct points
to be considered before we can estimate accurately
what even constitutes draught, will peAaps account
for the disagreement among the practical and scien-
tific authorities alluded to.

We must therefore examine severally aU these
points ; and then, by considering their relative
bearing upon each other, we may hope to reconcile
the ditferent opinions advanced, without which we
cannot collect from them any information which
"will lead us to a practical and beneficial result.

We shall proceed to divide the subject under
separate and distinct heads, and under each head
to examine the methods or means now in use, or
which have been proposed, and endeavour to estimate
their comparative advantages by availing ourselves
of what is already written and known upon each.

It will be necessary first, however, to explain
and define clearly some terms which will occur
frequently in the course of this paper, and especially
the word " draught," which is itself the title of the
treatise.

This word is used in such a very general and
vague sense, that it would be difficult, if not im-
possible, to give an explanation which should apply
equally to all its different meanings.

In the expression " draught by animal power,"
it would seem to mean the action itself of drawing ;
while, on the other hand, it is frequently used to
signify the amount of power employed, as well as
the degree of resistance — as when we say the
draught of a horse, or the draught of a carriage.
" Draught power" is also an expression used. We
shall, however, confine our use of the word to the
two meanings — draught, the action of dragging;
and drauyht, the amount of resistance to the power
employed to drag any given weight.

" Force of traction," is another expression re-
quiring explanation ; but here we must enter into
more detail, and give a practical illustration of oui-
meaning.

A force is most conveniently measured by the
weiglit which it would be capable of raising ; but it
is not therefore necessarily applied vertically, in
which direction weight or gravity acts.

If a weight of 100 lbs. be stispended to a rope,
it is clearly exerting upon this rope a force of
100 lbs. ; but if the rope be passed over a pulley void
of friction, and continued horizontally, or in any
other direction, and then attached to some fixed
point, the weight still acts upon all parts of this
rope, and consequently upon the point to which it
is fixed, with a force equal to 100 lbs. : and so in-
versely, if a horse be pulling at a rope with a force
which, if the rope were passed over a pulley,
would raise 100 lbs., the force of traction of the
horse is in this case 100 lbs. Spring steel-yards
being now commonly in use, we may be permitted
to refer to them as affording another clear exem-
plification of our meaning. In pulling at a steel-
yard of this description, if the same force be ex-
erted, whether horizontally or vertically, the index
will, of course, sho\x the same amount ; and, con-
sequently, if the strength of the horse be measured
by attaching the traces to one of these steel-yards,
the number of pounds indicated on the dial will be
the exact measure of the strain the horse exerts,
and the amount of strain is called his " force of
traction."

Having fixed as nearly as possible the meaning
of these terms, which will frequently occur in the
course of our progi-ess, we shall proceed to the divi-
sion of the subject.

It is evident that there are three distinct agents
and points of consideration in the operation of
draught, which are quite independent of each other.
They are — fii-st, the moving power and the mode
of applying it; secondly, the vehicle for conveying
the weight to be moved ; thirdly, the canal, road,
or railway, or what may be generally termed the
channel of conveyance.

All these individually influence the amount of
draught, and require separate consideration ; but
the mode of combining these dilierent agents has
also a material elTect upon the result, — conse-
quently, they must be considered in relation to
each other ; and to obtain the maximum useful
effect, with the greatest economy, in the employ-
ment of any given power, it is evidently necessary
that these different agents should not only each be
the best adapted to its pui-pose, and perfect to the
greatest possible degree, but also that they should
all be combined to the greatest advantage.

We shall proceed, then, to examine the differ-
ent agents now employed, the modes of applying
them, and the proportionate effects jiroduced.

Aud, first, with regard to the species of moving
power ; — this may be of two lands, animal aud
mechanical.

By " animal power" we mean the direct applica-

THE HORSE.

555

tion of the streiigtli of any animal to dragging or
pulling, as in the simple case of a horse dragging
a cart. By " mechanical," the application of any
power through the intervention of machinery : the
som'ce of power in this latter case may still, how-
ever, be animal power, or a purely mechanical
agent, as a steam-engine.

The latter is the only species of mechanical
power which it has been attempted, with any pro-
spect of success, to apply practically to locomotion ;
and therefore that alone we propose to compare
•with the animal power.

Now, although these two powers, viz., simple
animal power and the steam-engine, may in most
instances be applied so as to produce the same
effect, and may therefore, to a superficial observer,
appear similar ; yet there do e.xist such essential
differences in the mode of action, or the means by
which the effect is produced, that there are many
cases in which the one may be used, wherein the
other may be totally inapplicable.

In this treatise, draught by animal power is the
principal object of consideration ; but as great efforts
have been made for many years, and are still now
pereeveriugly made, to supersede animal power
entirely by mechanical — to dismiss our old servant
the horse, and supply his place by the steam-engine
— it may be as well, in justice to the former, to say
a few words in his defence, and to take a brief
view of the distinguishing featm-es of the two
agents.

To enter into all their respective merits, and
to -neigh their comparative advantages in all cir-
cumstances, would involve us in many questions
foreign to that under our immediate consideration,
and would embrace subjects which may supply
matter well worthy of our future attention. It is
sufficient for our present purpose to show that there
still e.-cist great objections to the universal applica-
tion of machinery to draught, — objections which do
not equally apidy to the use of animal power ; that
there are man}' advantages in the latter, which
are not yet obtained by the former ; and that
animal power continues, for all the ordinary pur-
poses of traffic upon common roads, to be the
most simple in its application, and certain in its
effect.

We shall confine ourselves particularly to the
consideration of that pai't of the question which
relates to the slow transport of heavy goods, as
being the most important branch of the subject,
especially for agiicultural purposes. Economy is,
of course, the grand desideratum in the considera-
tion of this question ; consequently, the comparative
expense of the two powers, supposing them for the
moment equally convenient and applicable, will
first demand our attention.

A difficulty arises here, however, from the
want of a certain measure of compai-ison. The

power of a one-horse engine is by no means
exactly the same thing as that of a horse. As we
have before stated, the mode of applying them
being different, the variations in the results are
different, and consequently the effects do not bear
a constant proportion to each other, in different
circumstances : we must therefore be careful not
to Ml into the mistake which we have ourselves
pointed out as a very common source of error, viz.,
the drawing general conclusions from data ob-
tained in a particular case. We shall take the
power of the horse, and tliat of the steam-engine
as ascertained practically on railways, whore the
effect of each is less influenced by accidental cir-
cumstances, and consequently can be better ascer-
tauied than on a road. We shall confine our
calculations of expense to this particular case, and
then endeavour to discover how far the same
results are to be expected, or what modifications
are likely to take place, and what alterations are
to be made in the results under different circum-
stances. As regards the first, viz., the compara-
tive cost of animal and mechanicjil power on a
railway, we cannot do better than quote the words
of the late Mr. Tredgold upon this subject, and
we accordingly extract the following passage from
his work upon Railways : —

" The relative expense of different moving
powers for railways is an interesting inquiry, and
the same materials being necessary to estimate
the absolute expense for any time or place, it
is desirable to give some particulars to aid the
researches of those who wish to make such com-
parative estimates. The annual expense of a
horse depends on —

" 1. The interest of purchase-money.

" '2. Decrease of value.

" 3. Hazard of loss.

" 4. Value of food.

" 5. Harness, shoeing, and farriery.

" 0. Rent of stabling.

" 7. Expense of attendance.

" According to the average duration of a horse
in a state fit for labour, of the description required
on a railway, the first three items may be esti-
mated at one-fourth of the purchase-money ; the
food, harness, shoeing, etc., included in the 4th,
5th, and Oth, will most likely not exceed £10
per annum, nor yet be much short of that amount ;
and supposing one man to attend to two boraes,
this would add £15 l'2s. if the man's wages were
•2s. per day ; and, at this rate, the labour of a
hoi-se, of the value of £30, would cost £60 12s.
per year ; or, since there are 319 working days in
the year, the daily expense would be os. lOlrf.,
or 186 fjirthings. But the power of a horse is
about 125 lbs. when travelling at the rate of
three miles per hour, and the day's work eighteen
miles.

556

THE HORSE.

" The annual expense of a Ligli-presstire Icco
mothe enrrine, or sieam carriage, consists of —

" 1. The interet>t of the first cost.

" 2. Decrease of valne.

" 3. Hazard of accidents.

" 4. Value of coals and ivater.

" 5. Eenewals and repairs.

" 6. Expense of attendance.

*' It is difficult to procure these particulars
from the experience of those who employ engines ;
ve -will therefore annex, by way of example, such
sums as we think likely to cover the expense.
The first cost of the engine and its carriage may
he stated at £50 per horee power, and its decrease
of value and hazard will render its annual expense
about one-fifth of its first cost, or £*10 per annum
per horse power. The expense of fuel and water
per day will be not less than one bushel imd
a half of coals per horse power, and fourteen cubic
feet of water ; and, taking the coals at 6d. per
bushel, and the water and loading with fuel at 8d.,
the annual expense will be £15 12s. ; the renewals
and repairs, at 20 per cent, on the first cost, will
be £10, which is as little as can he expected
to cover them. Attendance, suppose one man
and one boy for each six-horse engine, at 6s. per
day, or Is. per day for each horse-power, or
£15 12s. per annum; therefore the total annual
expense of one horse-power would be £51 4s., or
158 farthings per day." — This power is equal to a
force of traction of lOGj lbs. for the same number
of miles per day as the liorse ; but from this gross
amount of power we must deduct that necessary to
move the engine with its supply of coals : this
will reduce it at least to 155 lbs.; consequently,
in the one case we have a force of traction of
125 lbs., at an expense of 186 farthings, and, in
the other, a force of 155 lbs. at an expense of 158
farthings ; and reducing them both to one stan-
dard quantity of work done, we find the expense
of the horse is J4i=l--i^8. and of the locomotive
engine, 1.019, or about as 147 is to 100. In this
case, therefore, there appears to he a decided
economy in the use of the steam-engine, and
accordingly its application has become very
general, and is becoming more so eveiy day.

Let us now examine what alterations are
requisite, before we can apply these calculations
to the case of draught upon common roads. Sup-
posing both species of power equally convenient
and applicable, and confining our observations
merely to the amount of power and proportionate
expense.

The force of traction of the horse, and the
yearly cost, will remain so nearly the same, that
for our present purpose we may consider them
quite unaltered. Not exactly so with the locomo-
tive engine.

All the parts of the machine must be made

much stronger and heavier, and consequently
more expensi\e, for road- work than for a raihvay,
and, therefore, the first cost will be greater — the
wear and tear will also be greater, and as the
work will be more variable, the consumption of
fuel will be increased as well as the price, which,
generally speaking, will be much less on a line of
railway, than it can possibly be elsewhere.

Still all these circumstances will not influence
the result so much as the increased effect of the
weight of the engine. On a railway, with the
carriage as now constructed, the force of traction
is not much more than ^-„ or „-^ of the weight
moved ; consequently, the power necessaiy to
move the engine itself is not veiy considerable.
On a road, however, this proportion is materially
altered ; here the average force required to move
a well-constructed carriage cannot be estimated in
practice, at less, even when the roads are in good
repair, than ^^ ; the engine, according to the con-
stniction of the best locomotive engines now in
use, will weigh, with its carriage and fuel, at least
one-half ton, or 1120 lbs. per horse power, and ^^
of 1120 is nearly 45 lbs., which we have to
deduct from the gross power of the engine, and
which leaves only 121f lbs. as the available
power. The proportional exjiense of the horse
and the steam-engine is now therefore about as
115 to 100, and this without taking into account
the causes of increased expenditui'e already
alluded to as regards the prime cost, the repairs,
and the consumption of fuel. From these calcula-
tions it would appear, that even if mechanical
power was found as convenient and applicable in
practice as horse power, still no great economy
can be expected from the employment, upon com-
mon roads, of small locomotive engines, such as
the best of those now in use, and known to the
.public, unless it is in cases where other means
may fail to produce some particular effect which
may be required ; if, for instance, a considerable
velocity is necessary, the power of a horse is
very nearly exhausted in moving his oato body, and
then there can be no doubt that a mechanical
agent, in which power may always be exchanged
for a proportional velocity, will have some advan-
tages on a very good road, which in fact approaches
veiy nearly to a railway. But in every case in
which velocity is not a principal object, as in the
one now under consideration, and where conse-
quently, little momentum is acquired, and fre-
quent though slight obstructions occur, as on an
ordinary road, an animal appeai-s to possess
decided advantages. He adapts himself admirably
to the work, increasing or diminishing his efforts
according to the variations of the draught, resting
himself, as it were, and acquiring vigour A\here
his utmost strength is not called for, and thus
becomes enabled to make exertions far beyond his

THE HORSE.

557

average strength where any impediment or obstruc-
tion is to be overcome. Indeed, he appears rather
to increase the average effect of his jmn-ers by these
alternations of exertion and comparative relaxa-
tion ; and when it is considered that the draught
will, in an ordinary road, frequently vary in the
proportion of six or eight to one, and that these
changes may succeed each other suddenly, the im-
portance of such an accommodating faculty will be
immediately appreciated.

By mechanical power, such as a steam-engine
affords, these advantages are not easily obtained.
Without great weight or rapid motion no momen-
tum can be acquired ; and unless when the car-
riage is in veiy rapid motion, a very small obstruc-
tion will check, and pei'haps totally stop the
machine. For instance, supposing the carriage
to be advancing steadily under the effect of a force
of traction of 500 lbs., and that a stone or nit sud-
denly causes a resistance, which it would require
800 or 1000 lbs. to overcome, a case by no means
rare even on tolerable roads ; if the impetus or
momentum of the mass be not sufficient to carry it
over this obstruction, the machine must stop until
some increased power be given to it.

It is also to be remembered, that what we are
accustomed, in practice, to consider as the average
power of a horse, is the average e.\cess remaining
over and above that necessary to carry his own
body ; and that in all ordinary cases he is able to
maintain and continue nearly the same exertions,
although the compai-ative draught of the carriage
be considerably increased. Thus, if the road be
slightly muddy or sandy, or newly gravelled, the
draught, as we shall see more accurately laid
down when we come to the subject of wheeled
carriages, will be double and even treble what it is
on the same road when freed from dust or dirt ;
but the average power of the horse remains nearly
the same, and, practically speaking, equal in both
circumstances; that is to say, that the power ne-
cessary to move the weight of the horse's body,
which forms no inconsiderable portion of his whole
power, is not materially increased by a state of
road which wil! even treble the draught of the
carriage ; cousequentlj', the excess, or available
portion of his power, remains unimpaired, and the
full benefit of it, as well as of any increased exer-
tions of the animal, is felt and is applied solely to
dragging the load.

Not so with a locomotive steam-engine, be-
cause, beyond the power necessary to perform the
work of dragging the load, a laj-ge additional
power must be provided to move the engine itself.
In other words, if an engine of ten-horse power be
capable of dragging a certain load, the weight of
this engine forming a portion of the load to be
moved, a corresponding portion of the power is
unprofitably absorbed in moving it, and the excess,

or remaining power, is alone available for useful
pm-poses, and can alone be compared to the animal
or horse power. Now, if the draught is aug-
mented, as we have just supposed, by any sand,
dirt, or roughness of tlie road, or any other impe-
diment, the force required to move the useless
weight (of the engine) is proportionally increased ;
it may even, as we have stated, be doubled or
trebled ; and the whole power of the engine re-
mauiing the same, the surplus or remaining por-
tion is considerably diminished, and that at the
veiy moment when, as before stated, it produces
only one-half or one-third the effect.

Moreover, if at any part of the road a power
equal to twenty horses is required, the engine, as
regards its construction, must be a 20-horse en-
gine. It is erroneous to suppose that a steam
engine, because it is a high-pressure engine, can
therefore, as occasion requires, be worked for any
length of time beyond its nominal power, by
merely raising the steam. Every part of a ma-
chine is calculated and arranged for a certain
pressure and corresponding power, and that is the
real power of it. It is optional to work at or be-
low that power, but, if below, it will be to a dis-
advantage, as the bulk and weight of the machine
will be as great as if it were always worked to its
full extent, and both have to be carried over all
those parts of the road where a far less power
would be sufficient. The velocity of the can-iage
might indeed be increased, while travelling on the
good and level jDortiou of the road ; but these
alternations in the speed and power cannot be ef-
fected without a considerable degree of complexity,
weight, and expense in the machinery; and, as
we are confiuing ourselves to the consideration of
the case where velocity is not required, and might
even bean inconvenience, the excess of jiower will
be wasted.

These objections to the use of mechanical
power, in certain cases, are pointed out, not as
being insui-mountable obstacles to the use of ma-
chinery, but as serious difficulties wliich, in prac-
tice, have not yet been overcome. In fact, there
is not at present any practical substitute for horse
power on common roads, and, as far as the public
is concerned, nothing has yet been done. We,
therefore, must consider them as objections re-
maining to be overcome ; and we are compelled to
draw the conclusion, that, at the present moment,
animtil power (always confining ourselves to the
question of the economical transport of heavy goods
upon common roads) is superior to am' mechanical
agent, and that beasts of draught, and particularly
the hm-se, although the most ancient, still remain
the most advantageous source of power.

Long experience has pointed out various modes
of applying animal power ; but it is frequently ill-
directed, owing to the want of an adequate know

a -J 6

THE 11 tt

"The annual minute of a !ii>,liprc>Mire Itm
motive engine, or bUuin carriii|;e, ioii*iia» of —
" 1. Tlie inttre>i of ibe iirsl cobt.
'• 2. Dcrrtase of valoe.
" :<. Hu/urd of accidents.
" 4. Value of coals and »aler.
'• 5. Ilentwals and repairs.
" 0. r,xj«fii>.f of attendance. |

• It is diflicult to prwure Uir«e partico1ar!>
fn.ni the experience of those who employ engiiith :
we will therefure annex, \>y way of exnmjde, fcuch
hums as we think likely to c<ver the i\] > ■
The first cost of the en(;ine and il^ ciirriit;.'
lie stated at i'.'iO per Imrse jh.wi r. and itb d- ■
of value and hawird will rendtr its annual rxi^nx
alxmt one-fifth of its first est, or i"10 per annum
per horse jiower. The expense of fuel aiid wiiit less than one hushel aii<.
a half of ctiuls per horse jHiwer. and ftmrtten cul'i.
feet of water ; and, taking the coiila at lid. pt r
hushel. and the water and loadin); with fuel at :ii'
the aniiuiil exjiense will hei'l.') Iv!*. ; ihereii-
and rejwiirs, at vJO per cent, on the fintt c«'-i
Le i:i(i, which is a.s little as can he ex|" ■ .
til cover them. Atleiidance, suppose one nmii
and one hoy for each six horse engine, at <>». pi r
dav, or 1». J)cr day for each hon»e-|>ower. oi
X'15 \'is. per annum; therefore the total aiinuiil
exj)ensc of one horseiHiwer would be i'51 •!» , or
l.')8 farthing's |>er day." — This |H)wer is isjual to n
force of traction of lOfi} Ihs. for the same nunil' to
move the cnjfine with its supjdy of cuals : this
will reduce it at least to l.'iilhs. ; consequently,
in the one case we have a force of traction «■*
I'-l'j Ihs., at an expense of 18(1 farthings, and. ii
the other, a force of l.'i.'i Ihs. at an expense of l.'i-
farthings ; and reducing them lioth to one staii
dard qiianlily of work done, we find tlie expense
of the horse is ,'rt - '•■"^'^- ft'"! of the locomotive
engine. 1. 010, or about as 147 is to IdO. In thi-
Ciise, tlierefore, there appears to be a dt^cidi'd
economy in the use of the steam-engine, and
accordingly its application has Wcome very
genenil, and is becoming more so every day.

Let us now examine what alterations are
requisite, before we can apply these calculations
to the case of dniught upon common roads. Sup-
posing both species of power equally convenient
and applicable, and confining our olwervations
merely to the amount of power and proportionate
expense.

All the parts of the machine must be made

U(ii sirt^nger and heavier, and ccnscqnentlv

IP ' \| I UMxr, for road-Work than for a rail«-aj,

M-, the first cost will be greater — the

••nr will also be greater, and a« the

I '■ variable, the consumption of

I d as well as the price, which.

j . ...:.^. will Vh" much less on a line of

jlwiH. than It can jioabibly be elsewhere.

Still all tiirse rireutustanres will not influence

e I' ^ult BO much as (he increased elTect of the

iit.ht of the engine. I'n a railway, with the

ns now cunstructtd, th« force of traction

>i. h more than ,'-, or ,-n of the weight

eonsequcnlly, the power necessanr to

*»e the engine iihrif is not very considenible.

% K roud. however, thi» pmportion is niaterially

■ . '.I I iMMfr force n-quiied to move

'.'• iniinot kie estimated in

..: .;.-.. i \' 1; »hen the rviads are in good

iwir. tiima fxi the engine, arr<irdiiig to the con-

ti<-ti n of the best locomoti\e engines now in

• I'.'h. with ita carriage and fuel, at least

or ll'Jti lbs. |ier horse power, and ,\

II.' I-. hcnrly 45 ll>i>., which we have to

■ lui t from the gmwt power of the c ngine, and

irh K-avM only I'Jl} lbs. as t}ie available

I ver. The pro|><>rUoiial ex|>oiise of the horse
.'l the steani-riigine in now therefiire aliout a.*
IS to KHI, and this without taking into account

I I •aii'iea of incinised exjKuditure alromiy
.Midid to OS regards the prime cost, the rejiuirs,
lit the e<imumption of fuel. From these calcula-
I lib 11 would appear, that even if mechanical
pifer wus found as convenient and applicable in
police aa horse jHiwer. still no gnat eomomy

' 't-ied from the employment, u{K)n com-

■ f small locomotive engines, such as
liiose now in use, and known to the

I lit . iinle«8 it is in ca-ses where otlicr means

II • fail to produce some particular effect which
II be required ; if, for instance, a considerable^
^' citv is necessiirv', the jiower of a hoise^
N ■ nearly exhausted in moving his own bodji
till there can be no doubt that n m^
If It. in which jKiwer may always hi
I'* pro)>ortional velocity, will Imve^
I i'8 I'll a very goo<l mad, which in
V. linearly to a railway. Hut/'
wl h velocity is not a priiicijii
on now under consideratioc
i|ii tly. little momentum,
qii I though slight obslr
oil lary road, an anij
di led advantages,
to e work, increa

ace ding to the

hiijelf, as itj^^^^^ jihert

hi-^tmost

; beines i

%a^

THE HORSE.

557

"•-^ J**i, (ji-^rrt^e Strength where any impedimeiitr obsti-uc-

- * , ^^" tiou is to be overcome. Indeed, he ajijai-s rather

* ' ^ to increase the arcniffe effect of Ins powe by these

ahernations of exertion and companive relaxa-
tion ; and when it is considered that td draught
will, in an ordinary road, frequently M-y in the
proportion of six or eight to one, andhat these
' changes may succeed each other suddeiv, the im-
portance of such an accommodating facity will be
immediately appreciated.

By mechanical power, such as a stim-engiue
affords, these advantages are not easib obtained.
Without great weight or rapid motion d momen-
tum can be acquired ; and unless wht the car-
„ riage is in very rapid motion, a very ^ml obstnic-

■•fci^^' tion will check, and perhaps ti>t;i,'.\ stop the

^1 4 T^_ machine. For instauce, supposiiii; 1 carriage

to be advancing steadily under the it' ^ of a force
of traction of 500 lbs., and that a -tr ■ nit sud-
denly causes a resistance, which it \ I require
800 or 1000 lbs. to overcome, a cum mo means
rare even on tolerable roads; if tli petus or
momentum of the mass be not suliici i > carry it
over this obsti'uction, the machiiu- m tup until
some increased power be given lu it.

It is also to be remembered, th;. t we ai'e
accustomed, in practice, to consider a i ■ average
'* ' •* **. power of a horse, is the average e.xcci-iamaining

*" "■•■<•• over and above that necessary to caiT his own

' "^ *■ body ; and that in all ordinary ca-; ^ ' . s able to

■••••i***' maintain and continue nearly the -ai v:ertions,

■"■■'•i Fm^i although the comparative draught ul i carriage

^« tfmim be considerably increased. Thus, if lIi j;oad b

■■•■I slightly muddy or sandyjOr newly gij

draught, as we shall jH^^Hpiore
down when we comQ
carnages, will be i

or remaining power, is alone available for useful
pm-poses, and can alone be compared to the animal
or horse power. Now, if the draught is aug-
mented, as we have just supposed, by any sand,
dirt, or roughness of the road, or any other impe-
diment, the force required to move the useless
weight (of the engine) is proportionally increased ;
it may even, as we have stated, be doubled or
trebled ; and the whole power of the engine re-
maining the same, the surplus or remaining por-
tion is considerably diminislied, and that at the
very moment when, as before stated, it produces
only one-half or one-third the effect.

Moreover, if at any part of the road a power
equal to twenty horses is required, the engine, as
regards its construction, must be a 20-horse en-
gine. It is eiToneous to suppose that a steam
engine, because it is a high-pressure engine, can
therefore, as occasion requires, be worked for any
lengtli of time beyond its nominal power, by
merely raising the steam. Every part of a ma-
chine is calculated and arranged for a certain
pressure and corresponding power, and that is the
real power of it. It is optional to work at or be-
low that power, but, if below, it will be to a dis-
advantage, as the bulk and weight of the machine
will be as great as if it were always worked to its
full extent, and both have to be carried over all
those parts of the road where a far less power
would be sufficient. The velocity of the carriage
might indeed be increased, while travelling on the
good and level portion of tlie road ; but these
alternations in the speed and power cannot be ef-
fected without a considerable degree of complexity,
weight, and expense in the machinery; and, as
we are confining ourselves to the consideration of
the case where velocity is not required, and might
even be an inconvenience, the excess of power will
be wasted.

These objections to tlie use of mechanical
power, in certain cases, are pointed out, not as
being insurmountable obstacles to the use of ma-
chinery, but as serious difficulties wliieh, in prac-
tice, have not yet been overcome, lu fact, there
is not at present any practical substitute for horse
power on common roads, and, as far as the public
is concerned, nothing has yet been done. We,
therefore, must consider them as objections re-
maining to be overcome ; and we are compelled to
draw the conclusion, that, at the present moment,
animal power (always confining ourselves to the
qiicstinn of the pconomical transport of heavy goods
upon common roo^^is superior to any mechanical
agent, and i? ^fc of draught, and particularly
<ii ! ^Rie most ancient, still remain

;^us source of power.
;nce has pointed out various modes
mal power; but it is frequaitly ill-
ing to the want of an adequate know

660

THE HORSE.

one leg, is overcome by the united exertion of
two. AVe shall point out, hereafter, the necessity
of attending to this in the application of this
power to draught.

In trotting, the action is of course quicker, and
a less resistance will, as might be expected, cause
the horse to move his legs at two intervals instead
of at four equal inten'als of time : indeed, a horse
accustomed to go in harness generally acquires the
habit of that action. There is this striking differ-
ence between trotting and walldng : in walking,
■we have seen that the interval between the move-
ment of the legs on the same side was less than
the other interval of time : in trotting, on the
contrary, the legs situated diagonally, or at oppo-
site corners, move almost simultaneously. Owing
to the velocity and the momentum which the body
acquires in consequence of that velocity, in trotting
fast, the successive impulses ai-e less distinctly per-
ceptible, and the movement more continued and
uniform than in a slow trot, or in walking.

In galloping, the movement is totally dif-
ferent: the fore-legs are throw-n forward nearly
simultaneously, and the hind-legs brought up
quickly, and nearly together ; it is, in fact, a suc-
cession of leaps, by far the greatest interval of
time elapsing while the legs ai'e extended after the
leap is taken : this is the position, therefore, which
catches the eye, and which must be represented in
a drawing to produce the effect of a horse in a
gallop, although it is the moment when the animal
is making no exertion.

The canter is to the gallop very much what tlie
walk is to the trot, though probably a more arti-
ficial pace. The exertion is much less, the spring
less distant, and the feet come to the ground in
more regular succession : it is a p.ice of ease,
quite inconsistent with any exertion of draught.

The consequence of these peculiar movements
in the limbs of the animal is, that a succession of
impulses is conveyed to the body ; and when the
movement is slow, and the body of the horse does
not acquire any considerable impetus or momen-
tum, the resistance should be such as to receive
each of these impulses, and leave the horse un-
restrained in the intervals.

It must, therefore, be a rigid resistance, void
of elasticity.

It must not, however, be a constant, unre-
mitted resistance.

For it is a well-known fact, that, however
powerful may be the muscles of a limb, they must
not be kept constantly on the stretch. Thus we
feel even more fatigue by standing than by walk-
ing, because one particular set of muscles is then
kept constantly exerted. It is evident, there-
fore, .that the resistance or draught must not be
perfectly constant, but should afford frequent op-
portunities of relaxing the efforts. Neither must

it be a yielding resistance, as in that case the
animal could not make any great exertion ; for if
he applied too much power, he would be liable to
fall forward ; and should he at any time fall short
of the necessary exertion, he would be drawn back
by the strain, and it would require a considerable
effort to restore the motion.

If a horse be made to drag a rope passing over
a pulley and descending into a well with a certain
weight, say of 200 lbs. attached to it, it is obvious
that he could not make an effort greater than
200 lbs. without instantly considerably increasing
his velocity, which would be a waste of power ;
nor must he for an instant relaxJiis efforts, or fall
below that mark, for he would then be unable even
to resist the pull, and would be overcome by the
weight. Such an extreme case as this, of course,
is not likely to occur often in practice, but the
disadvantage of the principle is obvious.

An arrangement of this sort is, indeed, some-
times niade use of, for raising tlie earth from ex-
cavations, or the materials of a building ; but the
exertion is continued only for a few seconds, or for
a distance of not more than ten or twenty yards ;
if prolonged, the inconvenience would be seriously
felt, as it is, to a certain degree, in towing canal
boats ; the length and curve of the rope give an
elasticity to the strain, and the necessity of keep-
ing the rope out of the water, or from dragging
along the towing-path, compels the animal to keep
up a constant, unremitted pull, and that, too, in
an oblique direction, so as to throw him into an
unfavouralile position. We accordingly find that,
in these circumstances, the average work of a
lior.se is equivalent only to about four-fifths of that
given by Smeaton, Desaguilliers, and others, who
e.stimated the power of the horse from the worlv
done in a horse-mill, where the resistance is in-
elastic, and all circumstances favourable, with the
exception of the circular path.

The disadvantage of this kind of resistance is
well known to carmen, though of course without
consideration of the reason. A horse is said to
pull better when he is close to his work, that is
to say, when he is attached at once to the body to
be moved, because every exertion he makes is
then communicated at once to the mass ; but llio
leader of a team, unless he keeps the traces con-
stantly on the stretch, may frequently waste a
powerful effort without producing much effect upon
the carriage.

Another inconvenience resulting from harness-
ing horses in a team, or one before the other,
is, that the leader, by tightening the traces, is
continually relieving the strain from the Ijody
horse, and reciprocally the body horse from the
leader; so that these horses labour under all the
disadvantages of a long, elastic, and constantly
yielding connexion with the load, which is not

THE HOUSE.

501

only fatiguing to them, but, in cases where the re
sistance is variable, prevents the full and united
effect of their exertions being properly communi-
cated to the carnage. For, if a slight obstacle,
as a rut or stone in a road, checks the progress of
the vehicle, the shaft-horse can immediately throw
his whole weight into the collar, and the united
effect of his strength and impetus is conveyed un-
impaired to the vehicle, and forces it over the ob-
stacle ! but if any elasticity is inteiiiosed between
the power and the resistance, as in the case of the
traces of the leader of a team, the whole, or the
greater part of the effect of impetus is lost, and
that force which, if concentrated in one effort,
would effect the object, being lengthened into a
continued and comparatively feeble pull, is
insufficient.

If we wish to destroy the impetus of a body
moving with violence, we receive it with a yield-
ing resistance ; the action of catching a cricket-
ball exemplifies this perfectly ; and therefore,
if the full effect of momentum is wanted, all elas-
ticity in the direction of the movement shoidd be
avoided.

We have entered rather fully into the consider-
ation of this particular point, because the principle
is uot only applicable to the mode of communicat-
ing the immediate action of the moving power, but
will be found also of considerable importance when
we arrive at the subject of wheel-carriages.

A consideration of these various points brings
us to this conclusion, that the draught ought neither
to be constantly uniform nor without remission, nor
yet yieldiug or elastic ; sudden shocks or violent
changes in the velocity must also evidently be
disadvantageous, as tending to distress and injure
the animal.

Having determined upon the necessaiy quality
of the resistance, we will proceed to examine into
the quantity or the degree of resistance or draught,
and the speed best adapted to the exertion of the
animal. The useful effect of a horse, or the work
done, must evidently depend upon three things,
viz. the rate at which he is made to travel, tke
power of traction he can exert, axii the number of
hours he can continue to u-ork daily at that speed ;
and where there is no fixed condition which de-
termines any one of these, such as a particular load
to be rnoved, or a ceilain velocity which it is desir-
able to attain, or a limited time to perform the
work in, then the object must be to search for those
proportions of the three by which, at the end of the
day, the greatest quantity of work shall have been
produced.

With resjiect to the first two, viz., the speed
and power exerted, it will be obvious, that where a
horse travels unloaded, the greatest distance he can
go in any given time for several days in succession
witliout injurious fatigue, is the limit of his velocity ;

on the other hand, the load may be so great, that
he can scarcely put it in motion — this is the limit
of his power : in both cases, the useful effect is no-
thing. But between these limits of velocity and
power, there is a pro'portion which affords the
maximum quantity of effect, and which, therefore,
must be the most advantageous for the application
of horse power.

It has been asserted by theorists, and the theory
appears to be supported by experience, that the
velocity corresponding to this maximum, or that at
which a horse working continually a certain number
of hours per day will do the most work, is equal to
half the extreme or limit of velocity of the same
horse working the same immber of hom"s unloaded ;
and that the force of traction corresponding to this
speed, is equal to half the limit of his power. For
instance, if six hours be the length of a day's work
decided upon, and if a horse working that time can
go six miles per hour unloaded, and therefore pro-
ducing no useful effect, and supposing the limit of
power of the same horse be equal to '250 lbs., it is
found that he will do the most work in the same
number of hours when drawing a load at the rate
of half sLx, or three miles per hour ; and half of
250, or 125 lbs. will be the strain corresponding to
this speed. Our next step, then, must be to find
these limits: now, the limit of velocity depends
upon the length of time during wliich the speed is
kept up ; we subjoin therefore a Table deduced
from experiments, and which represents the pro-
portion of the duration of laliour and maximum
velocity of the average of horses accustomed to
their respective velocities.

Hours.
Duration of labour 1 2 3 4567810
Maximum velocity \

unloaded in miles, [ UJ 10| SJ "3 6| 6 5i 5| 4|

per hour. J

This within the range here given may be con-
sidered as very nearly the law of decrease of speed
by increased duratioii of labour ; and at the first
glance we see the great advantage of reducing the
speed and prolonging the exertion. There are,
however, many causes to limit the duration of a
day's work of a horse. Tredgokl, in his work on
Railways, before quoted, says : "The time assigned
for the day's work of a horse is usually eight hours ;
but it is certain, from experience, that some ad-
vantage is gained by shortening the hours of labour ;
and we have observed, that a horse is least injured
by his labour, where his day's work is performed
in about six hours ; where the same quantity of
labour is performed in less than six hours, the
over-exertion in time shows itself in stiffened
joints, while the wearying effects of long-con-
tinued •action become appai'ent, if the duration
of the day's work be prolonged much beyond eight
hours. Indeed, under the management of a

one lej;. in oveirome \>r llic united •
two. Wo hIwII |«'int "ul. hercmfter. Ui. :,
of att.ii.lirii,' to thU in tiie applicktioa ol
power I'l limuglit.

In trotting, the nrtion i*of <yiir
n li's* renittanco will, ait might U
ih«' lionte to move hit K-k"* "t tw..
(if at four cinuil intorMilt of time
m-i'iutouied to go in hnnicui gencr .
hahit of that action Then' is thi» uln^
ence Wtwecn trotting and walking n
we have w-*!! tliat the intcrral b> i ^
niont of the h-gs on the Mnif ^:
tlie oilier intor^al of iim>' '" 'll

ointrarj-. the le;>« situal>d ai 'I'l'^

site Ci>nier». move almott ^ ■ ' '

to the vel<M-itr and the monu-uiui..
o<'<]uirc!i in consojiienw oftliat »■ '.
fa<»t. the ftuiveii'.ivi' ini|iiiUr4 an- 1. •%- .
replililf, and thr ni.>\«-Mn-iil m.ii. . . I

unifonn than in a »low trot, or in wall....^' J

In galloping, llie uioveiiient ia IoIaUt .il

ferent : the fon'-legn ar»» thrown forwnri t ^

Kimiiltaii(Mni«lr, and the liiud lvf(« li
t|uirkly, and ni-arlj together ; it i». in '
cession of l<>a|w. Iiv f ■' •' ■• ■•'■ ••• -•
time i'la|x>ing »liili> t:
K-ap is taken : this ii> t _

t-atfhe« the eve, and wh.< It uitu>i U- (t-pr<-^ iiW^i
a drawing to prixlure iho rtTe»'t of a hors*-
gitllop. althoii^'li il is the moment when (ho nn
is making no firrtion.

The eaiiter is ti» the gulli)p very mu-di wh.i^ ■ I
w-alk is to tlte tiul, lliongli pr^dmhU • mon :>
licittl ixice. The exi-rtion to niut-h \itn. th-- "• --t
lesM distant, and iho feet ronie to llir
more regular suivfs.sion : it i» a |><'
qnite imsmsisiont with anv •■• "• •■ •

The ronM'>|iieniv of tlr
in the limln of the animal i
impulses is conveyed to the Uaiv , aiKJ
movement is slow, and the Uxiy of ih<< '
not at'i|uire nn^
limi, tlu' rt^i-'

t-ach of thfM- r , . . ...

n>»lrained in the internals.

It must, thcrulure, be • rigid re»i»tan<x. i

of i'l:l>ti<-ity.

It must not, however, l>e a coiutant.
mitti'il n>si.stancc.

I'or it is a well known fart. that. bowo<
powerful may lie the muM-les of a limb, they niu
not U> kept constantly on the stretch. Thus v
feel evon more fittigiie by standing than \>r •«!
ing. Ixvause one purticiilar M-t of : '
kept Colistiiiilly CXrrtill. It i»

fon\ that the resistance or drau-..:

[>erf(Vtly a>nstant, lut should atlord Irvi^uent <>

lH>nunities of nhuing the elTorU. Neither ma

a yielding
>1 <-ould Hot
■ I i'«> muq
^ II I ; and
■ s-^jirv r]
-:r nil. niid

hia ««l

nor mu-i ...
U>t n tliai mark,
t ■ 1st the pullj

;<.ioi^-v ui

\n ananii

catAiuniK or tlte I

an oUi-i

that

dL<4
ricld

onlv fatiguing to Aem.te-aoB^r-
si^tauce is variable, pre^»"»»
effect of their exertions ten? «*=' •■»-

cated to the carnage.

For.

Mlte»

as a rut or stone in a roai •:-

the vehicle, the shaft-horse oniB^«^^

his whole weight into the coltar, niti ^

effect of his strength and unpettBi'"-'- •

impaired to the vehicle, and fom:^

stack : but if any elusticitr is inu-

the power and the resistance, ts

traces of tlie leader of a team.

greater part of the effect of imi.

that force which, if concentnitrf in w» <

would effect the objat, being leoplx** -.»*••*

continued and compawtweW fc^

insulficient.

If we wish to destroj the nfcta tf i i; s*w.
moving with violence, we recertt il wA « *4 haM
inc resistance ; the action of otdnf t n i*- pm
bdl exemplifies this perfectlj ; uA litw*. ^
if the full effect of momentum is nate^ tlW m
ticitv in the direction of the mornDatt tlw W m1
avoided. mmkm

We have entered rather fulh iata ikt '••W 4 y|
ation of this particular point, becnM ^ |c-ij!« JW.
is not onlv applicable to the vaoit ot cianiav dii
ing the immediate action of the ma^iaffm. W tka* ia
will be found also of considerable impanaMv^a if« 4tt
we arrive at the subject of wheel<«niifu. itfi

A consideration of these varkm fmmrjsft W
us to this conclusion, that the draagfat ii«^,ii\ir fOTk.s >« -m
to be onstantlj uniform nor witbcwt mialL, Mr i«Wt; 4 fc
yet yielding or elastic : sudden dMcfa ^hlnt
changes in the velocity must also enk'j W
disadvantageous, as tending to dibUUi i ■ iijwi
the animal.

Having determined upon the aeee(«<.n ^iti
of the resistance, we will proceed to n^ - =t.
the quantity or the Jf -?rrt of resistuK>
and the speed best ada(>ted u< the o*.
animal. The useful effect of a bone,
done, must evidently depend upoa t
viz. the rate at which be k nmAr t:> _. „
power of traction ke cam arrt, and (b
hours he can continue to work di**^ •! ^
and where there is no fixed eondn>"'
termines any one of these, aodi a* t p
to be moved, or a certain rdodtr »i,j
able to attain, or a limited
work in, then the object
proportions of the tbrt]
day, the greatest o
prodiir- V

and J
hors'

go 11

5C4

THE HOKSE.

animal emplo_yecl, and liis relative capabilities of
lifting and imlling, or the proportion existing
bet\Yeeu the weight of his body and his muscular
strength. To render this more clear to our o\mi
feelings, we will take the case of a man. We
have already seen that au able-bodied man is moi-e
adapted for lifting than pulling ; consequently, in
his case it would be advantageous to throw a
certain portion of the weight upon him, by making
him pull upwards, as in Jig. 7, or, what we are

Fig. 8.

more accustomed to see, and which amounts to the
same thing, applying his strength to a wheelbar-
row, fig. 8, and we have frequently seen an ordi-
naiy man wheel 800 lbs in this manner.

If, however, we take a person unaccustomed to
hard work, and consequently not so strong in the
legs, although he may be unable even to lift the
wheel-barrow which the other moved with ease,
still he may, by pushing hoiizoutally, put in motion
a considerable load ; and lastly, in the case of an
invalid who can barely cany his own weight, if he
lean on the back of a garden-chair, he will not only
walk himself, but push on the chair ; or a child who
is yet too weak to stand, can, if part of his weight
be supported in a go-cart, not only move himself,
but also the frame which supports him. These are
veiy familiar and homely comparisons, but they are
cases exactly similar to the three positions of the
traces, and the argument will equally apply to
horses as to men. It is true, we rarely use for
draught a horse that cannot stand ; but the case is
veiy possible that a large heavy horse, otherwise
not strong, or one which it was not desirable to
fatigue, might pull better and longer, if part of the
weight was borne upon the carriage, or if, in other
words, the traces inclined upwards. And we know
by experience, that in the case of stage-coaches,
where, o^ving to the speed, the weight of the horse's
body is already generally a burden to him, it is dis-
advantageous to increase that weight by inclining
the traces much downwards ; on the contrary, where
we wish to obtain the utmost effect of a powerful
horse, or of a horse that is muscular, but without
much weight forward, it is highly advantageous to
augment the effect of his gravity by inclining the
traces downwards even as much as 15", or about 1
upon 3 ; the strain upon the traces will be then

considerably increased, and the effect augmented,
provided always that he is able to exert the neces-
sary strength in his legs. As far, therefore, as the
mere force of traction is concerned, there is no par-
ticular angle which will always produce the greatest
effect — but it must depend upon the particular
capability of the horse ; and this in its turn varies,
and is affected by circumstances ; for the same horse
that upon a level road requires no addition to his
weight, might be materially assisted by a slight
addition when ascending a hill, if not continued too
long ; and most horses would be benefited con-
siderably by the opposite arrangement in a descent,
that is, by a portion of their weight being borne
up ; they should at least have no additional load
thrown on them while descending a hill.

There is also a time, when inclining the traces
downwards is almost indispensable : it is when
dragging a four-wheeled waggon over a rough broken
road. If the front wheel, which is generally small,
meets with an obstacle by falling into a hole, or
stopping against a stone, it requires no profound
reasoning to show, that a force pulling upwards in
the direction AB, fig. 9, will raise the whole wheel
Pjg^ g_ over the obstacle with much

greater facility than if applied
horizontally, as A C : this is
the only circumstance, un-
comiected with the horse, that
ought to govern the direction
of the traces, and the degree
of the inclination here must,
of course, still be proportioned
to the power of the horse. We see therefore that,
in proportion as the horse is stronger, or that we
are disposed to make him exert a greater effort, the
traces should be inclined downwards from the col-
lar ; with a good average horse, perhaps one-sixth
or one-seventh of the distance from the collar to
the extremity ; with a horse of inferior capabilities,
arising from weakness in the limbs, and not want
of weight, or with au ordinary horse when travelling
above six miles an hour, the traces should be nearer
the horizontal line, except when the circumstance
of a rough road, before alluded to, requires some
modification of this. To be able to apply these
i-ules generally in practice, it would be necessaiy
to have some means of altering tlie traces while on
the road ; as we have stated that they should be
differently arranged according as the road is level
or rough, or ascending or descending, this would
not be difficult to contrive, and has, indeed, been
suggested by some writers upon this subject ; but
it is probable that, except in stage-waggons, where
the same carriage goes along a great extent, and
consequent variety of road, it will be sufficient to
adjust the traces according to the average state of
the roads in the neiglibourhood ; and we cannot
greatly en; if we bear in mind that inclining the

THE HOUSE.

505

traces dowuwiirds from the collar to the carriages,
amounts to the same thing as throwing part of the
weight of the load on to the shafts, a thing fre-
quently done in two-wheeled carts, and a manoeuvre
wliich all good carmen know how to put in practice.
The impossibility of inclining the traces of the
leaders, owing to their distance from the carriage,
is an additional reason to those given before, why
they (the leaders) cannot, when required, e.xert such

an effort as the shaft horse or wheeler ; and on
rough cross-i'oads, is a great argument in favour of
harnessing horses abreast.

Yet what can be more contrary to the niles
here laid down than the injudicious mode frequently
adopted in harnessing horses '.' IIow constantly
do we see the efforts of horses paralyzed by misap-
plication of their respective qualities ! In the an-
nexed sketch {fig. 10), for instance, which repre-

sents a very common sj^ecimen of this, the light,
muscular, little horse, which is capable of consider-
able exertion, is nearly lifted from the ground, and
prevented from making any exertion, by the traces
leading upwards ; while the feeble old horse,
scarcely capable of carrying his own body, is nearly
dragged to the ground, and compelled to employ his
whole strength in carrying himself, and even part
of the weight of the leader ; so that the strength of
the one willing and able to work is not employed,
and the other is so overloaded as to be useless.

The mode of attaching the traces does not admit
of much variety. The shoulders have always been
made use of for this purpose.

Homer, who is supposed to have lived about
900 years B.C., describes very minutely, in the
twenty-fourth book of the Iliad, the mode of har-
nessing horses at the time of the siege of Troy,
nearly 3000 years ago ; but if we suppose that his

description was taken from the harness in use in

his own time, it is still referring to a period about

twenty-seven centuries back.

A simple strap, formed
of several thicknesses
of leather, so as to bs
very stifP; and fitted
well to the neck and
shoulders, served as a
collar, as seen at AA
{figs. 11, 12). A
second strap, B B,
passed round the bodv,
and was attached to
the shoidder-strap at
the withers. At this
point was fixed the

yoke, CC, which was fixed to the pole.

A pair of horses were thus yoked together

566

THE HORSE.

witliout traces or breechings, as oxen are seen
at the present time in many parts of the country.
This was a simple arrangement, but by no
means a bad one ; and it would appear that they
performed all the manoeuvres of cavalry with cha-
riot and horses thus harnessed. The pair yoked
to the pole were called yoked horses : abreast of
these was frequently placed what was called an
outer horse, with a simple shoulder-strap or col-
lar, FF, and a single trace, GG, passing inside,
aain Jig. 13. Sometimes there were two of those

horses, one on each side, each furnished with his
strap or collar and trace. These straps, if well
fitted, were not bad ; but as they must have
pressed in some degree upon the throat, they
could not be equal to the collar of the yoked
horses, still less to the collar at present used.

In more modern times these shoulder-straps
gave place to the breast-strap. A horse can no
doubt exert a considerable strain against such a
strap, but in action it must impede the movement
of the shoulder.

Fig 13

Tn some parts of South America the trace is
fixed to the pummel of the saddle, which in its
turn is well secured to the horse by saddle-girths,
breast-straps, and breechings ; and we are in-
formed that horses in this manner drag very con-
siderable loads. It resembles completely the har-
ness of the ancients, with the addition of the
breechings. It is, of course, a mere temporary
arrangement, convenient only as requiring no pre-
paration. The trace is, in fact, the lasso of the
rider, which is always fastened to the saddle ;
and ^^hen he has entangled it round the horns
of a bull, or attached it to anything he may have
occasion to transport, he takes one or two turns of
the thong round the pummel of the saddle, and the
horse will at full gallop drag the load after him.
Here the load being generally upon the ground,
the trace must incline considerably downwards ;
and this, added to the weight of the rider, will
perhaps account in some degree for the extraordi-
nary effects of a young powerful horse goaded to
the utmost, and continuing the exertion only for a
short time.

A gentleman who travelled some time in this
part of America, and frequently witnessed the
practical effects of this arrangement, has suggested
the propriety of introducing it into the Artillery,

by means of which a number of horses might in
an instant be attached to a gun, to extricate it
from any heavy or broken ground in which it
might be entangled. Certainly, the length of
these traces would enable these additional horses
to secure a good footing ; and any number of
horses might thus be made to lend their assis-
tance in time of need. We do not pretend, how-
ever, to judge of the practical utility of this mea-
sure, but merely record the suggestion of another.

The collar now generally used is an improve-
ment upon the ancient shoulder-strap described by
Homer; and it is probably the best possible mode
of attaching the traces to the horses. If the con-
nection is made at the proper place on the collar,
the latter bears flat and evenly upon the muscles
which cover the collar-bone, and the shoulders
of the horse are left almost as free in their action
as if the collar were not there. About A {jips.
14 15) is the point of the shoulder where the
trace should come ; and a little inclination down-
wards, which can easily be effected in the case of
the shaft-horse by the shafts, and in the others by
the belly-band, will, if necessary, prevent the
collar rising up and inconveniencing the throat of
the horse.

Retlfcting upon the various circumstances

THE tlOItSK.

riOj

vrliicli we have shnwn to occur in the applica-
tion of animal power, and the various conclusions
we have drawn while considering the hest and
most advantageous application of this power — and
we must be excused the frequent repetition of the
terms, for the sake of the clearness gained by it —
it would appear that the resistance should be
as much as possible rigid and iuelastic, so as to
receive immediate^, anil unimpaired, the direct

Fig. 14.

efTects of the slightly in'egular evertions of the
animal ; that this resistance should not be siu-h as
to yield directly to a sudden impulse ; that it
should be so far uniform as to he free from violent
changes or sudden shocks, l)Ut not so constant as
to allow of no remission, nor of those alternations
of exertion and comparative relaxation which we
have stated to be advantageous to the perfe<;t
development of animal power.

Fig. IS.

That, as regards the degree of resistance, where
velocity is not required, a force of traction of from
100 lbs. to 1"25 lbs., or even I.tO lbs.,* according
to the strength of the horse, continued for eight
hours a day, at about two and a half to three miles
per hour, is the best proportion of quantity and
duration of labour ; that where six or eight miles
per hour is required, the duration of the day's
work should be shortened to five or six hours, and
the draught reduced to 80 lbs. or 100 lbs. At still
higher velocities the draught must not exceed 50
lbs. or 60 lbs., and the time of working two or
three hours. But this speed can only be attained
liy the sacrifice of the horse; and consequently
the question will rather be what the horee is cap-
able of doing, than what can be done with economy ;
and it becomes a matter of calculation, depending
altogether upon the first cost of the horse, and the
profits arising from his employment.

With respect to the mode of harnessing the

* Tlie load which will produce this amount of draujrht will be
deterinin.'(l wlien we consider the subject of the roaU.-, on the
quality of whieh it will be .«^een tliat tlii^ mainly depends.

horse, it is hardly necessary to say that gi-eat care
should be taken in fitting the collar, and in attach-
ing the traces to the proper point. As to the di-
rection of the traces, it must, as we have shown,
entirely depend upon the circumstances of the case.
Where the draught is heavy and slow, if the road
be good, the traces should be nearly horizontal,
unless the journey be short, or the traffic be only
in one direction, and the cait return empty, or un-
less any other reason render it desirable to compe
the horse to exert himself more than he would na-
turally do ; the traces should then be inclined
downward towards the carriage, with an inclination
perhaps of one upon four or five, provided always
that the horse is capable of continuing the exer-
tion which, by the additional load thrown upon his
shoulders, he is thus called upon to make. If, in
the same case of low speed, the road be veiy
heavy, or broken and rough, the proportion of
draught upon each horse must be lessened by di-
minishing the load, but the traces shoidd be at-
tached still lower to the carriage, at a slope of
one upon three or four, bv which much greater
o o Q

568

THE HOUSE.

power is given to the animal to drag the load over
any obstruction.

At all high velocities, the traces should gene-
rally be horizontal. The cases of rough roads or
powerful horses may slightly affect this arrange-
ment, as at low velocities, but not in so great a
degree.

We will now proceed to e.tamiue the mode in
which these conditions are practically to be ful-
filled, and the result of the application of the
principles which we have laid down, by considering
the subject of the vehicles for conveijiiuj the iceijht
to be moved.

Those in present use are boats, as canal-boats,
sledges, and wheeled carriages, which last of course
include every species of carriage, whether waggon
or cart, heavy or light.

Canal-boats and canals, we suspect, are gra-
dually going out of use, and will, excepting in
some peculiar cases, or unless some great improve-
ment talves place, in time be superseded entirely
by railways ; but still it must be many years be-
fore this can be effected : and in the mean time,
the produce of the most e.xtensive manufiictories in
the world, and the supply of immense masses of
people, will be transported over these beautifully
smooth, level, and noiseless roads ; and, even if
there beds were dry, and become the course of
railways (an event which may perhaps befall some
of them), we must, out of respect for the extraor-
dary benefits we have derived from their assistance,
and the almost incredible effect they have pro-
duced upon the commerce and riches of the coun-
try, have devoted a few lines to that part of their
consideration which bears upon our subject, viz.,
the draught of canal-boats.

The great advantage in the transport of goods
by water conveyance, is the smallness of the power
required. A body floating in water is left so very
free in its movements, that motion may be gra-
dually communicated to it by any power however
small, at least the limit is very far removed ; but,
although a very slow movement may thus easily be
obtained, the slightest increase of speed causes a
very great increase of resistance.

The resistance to a body moving in a fluid,
arises principally from the striking of the particles
of the fluid against the front of the moving body,
so that if the speed of the vessel be increased, not
only does it encounter a proportionably greater
number of particles, but also it is struck by each
with a force proportionate to the velocity, and
consequently the resistance is found to increase as
the square of the velocity ; thus, if the speed of
the vessel be trebled, the number of particles, or
the quantity of water which it meets in its progress
for a certain space of time, is trebled, and the
resistance of each particle being also three times
&i great, owing to the bo.its striking it with tieble

the velocity, the united effect is nine times as
great ; therefore, if in the first instance it requii-ed
one pound to draw the vessel, it would now require
nine, but nine times the weight or resistance,
moved at three times the velocity, will require
twenty-seven times the qiiantitij of power in action ;
consequently, we see that the resistance increases
as the square of the velocity, and the power
required to be e.xerted for a given time increases
as the cube of that velocity.

This law of the increase of resistance is modi-
fied however by other causes, which have been
observed and deeply investigated within the last
few years, and which produce such an effect, that
with boats of a peculiar form, a diminution of
resistance actually occurs at a certain increased
velocity, and very high rates of speed, such as even
ten or twelve miles per hour, have been attained.
There are also some small som'ces of resistance,
such as the friction of the water, which do not
increase in the ratio above named, but at moderate
velocities the rule applies, and as yet no means
have been discovered, by which, with the present
dimensions of canals and their locks, larger quan-
tities and weights can be conveyed at any but very
low rates of speed. The draught of an ordinary
canal-boat, at the velocity of 2^ miles per hour, is
about 5J5 of its weight, that is to say, a canal-boat,
with its load weighing 33 tons, or 73,920 lbs., is
moved at the rate mentioned, by a force equivalent
to 80 lbs., being ^ part of the load. This is found
by Mr. Bevau to be the result upon the Grand
Junction Canal, and a force of traction of 80 lbs. is
here found to be equivalent to a horse power. The
average power of an ordinaiy horse is certainly
rather more ; and in the commencement of this
paper, we mentioned this as an instance of a small
effect being produced, most probably owing to the
peculiar application of the power. We believe it
to be the case, and think it likely, that if the
disadvantages before alluded to, arising from the
mode of applying the power, could be removed, the
effect might be raised 1 00 lbs., or 1 20 lbs. of traction,
and consequently the load moved would then be 40
or 50 tons; this is an increase well worthy of
consideration.

We now come to the consideration of the means
of transport employed on land. These are sledges,
rollers, and wheel carriages. The order in which
they are here mentioned, is probably that in which
they were invented or first employed. A sledge is
certainly the rudest and most jnimitive form of
vehicle ; the wheeled carriage, and even the placing
the load itself upon rollers, is the effect of a much
more advanced state of the mechanical arts, and is
probably of much later date than the sledge.

When man first felt the necessity or the desire
of transporting any article from one spot to another,
he doubtless endeavoured to lift or cairy it : if it

Tin-; lior.SE.

501)

proved too heavy for him to (a.ry. he would
naturally endeavour to drag it. Here frequent
experiments would soon show hiur how much less
labour was re(piii'ed to drag a body with a smooth
surface in contact with the ground, than wheu the
contrary was the case ; and if the body to be moved
did not itself present a smooth surface on any of
its sides, but was, on the contrary, rough anrl
angular in all directions, he would naturally be
led to interpose between it and the ground some
plane surface which should prevent the angles and
projections of the body from entering the ground
and impeding the progress ; and we may presume
that sledges were thus very early brought into use.
When attempting to transport still heavier masses,
the accidental presence of round stones, or of a
piece of timber, may have shown the advantage of
interposing rolling bodies, and thus ma}' rollers
have been invented and first brought into use.

Tliese steps appear natural and likely to have
led to these results ; they are at any rate sufficient
to account for the first introduction of these two
means of facilitating transport, but no steps of this
kind appear capable of leading to the beautiful yet
simple contrivance of a wheel.

A I'oller is by no means an imperfect wheel, as
it may at first appear to be ; they have nothing in
common but their rotatory or revolving action, but
the effect of this motion is totally different in the
two. In a roller, friction is avoided altogether by
it; in a wheel this friction e.xists as completely as
in a sledge, but the sliding surfaces being at the
centre of the wheel, instead of on the ground, are
always the same, and being under control, may be
kept in that state which shall cause as little friction
as possible ; moreover, the friction is at a point
where we have the means of overcoming it, by
acting with the power of a considerable lever, as
we shall hereafter show.

There is, indeed, a kind of roller which partakes
somewhat of the character of the wheel, but with-
out possessing the advantages of it.

This species of roller might have been an
intermediate step between the two, and we shall
therefore describe it, when we have dismissed the
subject of sledges and rollers.

In England sledges are at the present time
very little in use. In some commercial towns the
facility with which bulky and heavy articles can be
placed upon them, without being raised to the
height of a cart, has caused them still to be
employed, but even in these cases, they are in
general used only upon the pavement where the
friction is not considerable, and for short distances,
in which case the saving of labour, in loading and
unloading, more than compensates for the increase
of power absorbed by the draught. Low-wheeled
trucks, however, in these cases possess, the same
advantage, and have gradually been substituted for

them, where this advantage was indi.speusalile :
for agricultural purjioses they are almost become
obsolete, and for all purposes of traffic between
distant poirits they are quite abandoned.

It is only in the north of England and in some
parts of Cornwall, that they are sometimes used
in farms, but wherever good roads exist, and
mechanical arts keep pace with the imjirovements
of the age, they have given place to wheel carriages.
An e.xamination into their nature and action will
immediately account for this.

A sledge is merely a frame, generally of wood,
upon which the load is placed, and resting at once
upon the ground, the friction between the under
surface of the sledge and the ground bears a con-
siderable proportion to the load ; but if the ground
be very uneven and full of holes, the sledge, by
extending over a great surface, avoids the holes,
and slides only upon the eminences, which being
naturally the stones or the hard portions of the
ground, cause less friction ; on such a road, a
wheel would be continually sinking into those
holes, and thus oppose considerable resistance,
and would also expose the load to frequent danger
of upsetting.

It would appear, therefore, that over broken
ground, or even upon a very bad uneven road, a
sledge may sometimes be more advantageous than
wheels, and its extreme simplicit}' of construction
renders it very economical as regards first cost ;
but the ground must indeed he very bad, or the
country be very poor and little cultivated, where
the formation of roads would not amply repay
themselves by allowing the use of wheels ; for the
power required to draw a loaded sledge will be at
least four or five times greater tlian that required
for an equally loaded cart upon a tolerably good
road.

The draught of a sledge, even upon the pave-
ment, is about one-fifth of the load, so that to draw
a ton weight requires a force of traction of about
four hundred weight ; upon roads the friction will
be much greater: it is difficult to state its amount,
as it must depend so much upon the nature of the
ground, but with the load before mentioned, viz.,
one ton, the force of traction will probably vary
from five to seven hundred weight : over a strong
rocky surface the resistance of a sledge will be
much the same as on pavement. Its use, there-
fore, must be confined to very particular cases,
where the absence of roads, or the want of means,
prevents the adoption of more improved veliicles ;
and these cases are fortunately too rare in England
to render it worth our while to bestow much time
upon its description.

Sledges are generally formed of two longitudi-
nal pieces of timber, four or five feet apait, with
their lower edges shod with iron ; and transver^e
planks, bolted to these, form the floor, and they

570

THE HORSE.

are thus easily constmcted. The traces should be
more inclined than with wheeled carriages, hecause
the friction heaiiug a greater proportion to the
load, it is more advantageous to throw a portion of
that load uj)on the horse, and being used upon
uneven ground it is more important to be able to
lift the front of the sledge over obstacles.

Although iu this country the use of sledges is
very limited, iu many parts of the world they cou-
btitute the best, and, indeed, the only means of
conveyance. Upon ice the friction is so trifling
that they oppose less resistance even than wheels,
for the reasons before stated, of their covering a
larger surface, and thei-eby sliding over those
asperities which would impede the progress of a
wheel ; u])ou snow the advantage is still more
decided : where a wheel would sink a considerable
depth and become almost immoveable, a sledge
will glide upon the thin frozen crust without leav-
ing a trace, and with an ease truly wonderful. In
all cold climates they are consequently in general
nse ; and the depth of winter is there the season
for the transport of merchandize.

The EsquimaiL\ with their dogs, the Lap-
landers with their rein-deer, and the Russians with
horses, use the sledge to a preac extent iu the
winter, over the frozen rivers or the hard snow.

In the warm climates, on the contrary, not
only are they nowalmost unknown, but the records
which refer to periods so far removed as 3,000
years make no mention of such conveyances.

Rollers come ue.xt under consideration ; they
certainly afford the means of transporting a heavy
weight with less power than any other means with
which we are acquainted ; their motion is not
necessarily attended with any friction. A cylinder,
or a sphere, can roll upon a plane without any
rubliing of the surfaces whatever, and consequently
without friction ; and, in the same manner, a
plane will roll upon this roller without friction :
in practice, this is more or less the case, accord-
ing to the perfection of workmanship in the forma-
tion of the rollers, and, if C3'lindrical, the care
with which they are placed at right angles to the
direction at which they are to move. There is
only one source of resistance which is inseparable
from the use of rollers, viz., the unevenness of the
surfaces, or the yielding of the material, which
amounts to nearly the same thing.

A circle resting upon a straight line can only
touch it in a single point, and the contact of a
cylinder with a plane is merely a line : conse-
quently, if the material of the roller, and the
surface on which it rolled, were perfectly hard and
inelastic, such would be then- contact, whatever
weight might be placed upon the roller.

But in practice no such material can be ob-
tained, and rollers, on the contrary, are generally
made of wood, aud when loaded, they must

yield until the surface AB, fig- 10, is propor-
tionate to the pressure. Still, if the substance
were perfectly elastic ; that is to say, if it would
return to its original form with the same force and

Fuj. 16. Fig. 17.

/ \

velocity which were required to distort it, this
alteration would not cause any resistance ; the
elasticity at E would tend to raise the back of the
roller with a force DE, fig. 17, equal to, and
exactly similar, but opposite to CB, and would
consequently balance it.

Although perfect elasticity is unattainable, yet
most hard substances possess this quality to some
extent ; consequently, when the load is not suffi-
cient to crush the materials, the resistance is not
much increased by even a considerable yielding —
jirovided this yielding, as we before said, arises
from elasticity. Thus if a bladder be filled with
air and used as a roller, the resistance will not be
greater than if a perfect and hard cyUnder were
employed, although the bladder may be nearly
flattened under -the weight ; — but the permanent
compression of the roller, and the crushing of
dust or other extraneous substances lying iu the
way, are the great impediments to its movements ;
these constitute a resistance in the direction BC,
which is not counterbalanced by any force arisiug
from elasticity on the opposite side. The effect of
this resistance is dependent upon the diameter of
the roller, diminishing when the latter is increased,
though not in so rapid a proportion.

If to a circle a horizontal force P be applied
at G, fig. 18 ; if an
obstacle be placed
at E, the force P
will tend to push the
roller over the obsta-
cle, and will act with
a lever equal to GF,
and for all small ob-
stacles G F may be
considered equal to
GD the diameter.
The weight upon the
roller pressing it down, acts with a lever equal
to EF ; but EF is equal ^/ G F, x ^/ F D ;
therefore E r, which is equal to FD, remaining
constant, and the diameter being increased, EP
increases only as the square root of diameter, and
consequently, the force necessary to advance the

Fig. 18.

THE HORSE.

571

Fig. 19.

roller is inversely aa the square root of the dia-
meter ; that is to say, if a roller be irioreaseJ four
times iu diameter, the resistance arisinir from the
causes now under consideration will be reduced

to -, : or ^, and if increased nine times in dia

meter, the i-esistauce will be only equal to — — ^or \.

This being the only source of resistance to the
action of a roller, it will easily be conceived that,
iu practice, by laying a plank or any other plane
surface upon the ground, and preparing iu like
manner the lower surface of the body to be moved,
and interposing rollers between the two, a very
great weight may be moved with comparatively
small power ; but, on the other hand, there is a
serious practical inconvenience attending the use
of the roller, which prevents its adoption e.xcept
iu very particular cases.

A weight moved upon rollers proceeds at twice
the rate of the roller; for if C, /t;?- 19- be the
centre of the roller D, the
point of contact with the
ground, and E that with
the weight to be moved,
and AV the weight, if this
weight be put in motion,
the point D is for an in-
stant stationary, since it is
iu close contact with the
ground. The diameter
E C D moves, therefore,
round the point D as a
centre, and, consequently, E being as twice as far
from D as C is, describes E c twice as great a dis-
tance as C c ; fresh points are now brought to the
summit aud iu contact with the ground, and again
the latter is stationary, while the former moves
twice the distance which the point C does. The
summit, therefore, or that point which is in imme-
diate contact with the weight, always moves with
twice the velocity of the centre of the roller ; but
the velocity of the centre is, of course, that of the
roller, and the velocity of the point E, which is in
contact wth, and is moved by, the weight, is the
same as that of the weight moved ; therefore, as
the weight is forced forward, it moves at twice the
rate of the roller, it will gain upon the rollers, and
others must be continually supplied in front — an
inconvenience much felt in practice.

This confines the use of the roller to cases
where the distance is very short, or where the
weight conveyed is exceedingly great, and reduction
iu the resistance of more importance than the
inconvenience alluded to.

The most remarkable instance of the applica-
tion of rollers is the transport of the rock which
now serves as the pedestal of the equestrian statue
of Peter Uie Great at St. Petersburgh.

This rock, a single block of granite, was dis-
covered in the centre of a bog, four miles from
the waterside; it weighed, after being cut into a

Fig. 20.

convenient shape, 1217 tons. Notwithstanding
its enormous weight it was raised and tm-ned upon
its side, aud placed upon a frame. A road was
made across the bog, and a timber railway laid
down ; the wliole was then left till the depth of
vrinter, when the boggy ground was frozen, and
the operations then commenced. The railway
consisted of two lines of timber a a a a, (figs. 20,
21, 22,) furnished with hard metal grooves ; similar

Fig. 21.

and corresponding metal grooves were fixed to the
under side of the sledge, aud between these grooves
were placed the rollers, which were spheres of
hard brass, about six inches diameter. The im-
possibility of confining cylindrical rollers to a
perfectly parallel direction, and without which the
friction would have been considerable, rendered
the adoption of spherical rollers or balls rimniug
in a groove a matter of necessity, as otherwise the
small surface upon which they can bear, and the
consequent danger of crushing, or at least llatteu-
ing that surface, is a serious objection to spheres :
once placed upon the rollers, it was drawn by;
means of capstans. The resistance docs uot appear

572

THE HOKSE.

1^ tig- C2.

to have been great, considering the enormous -weight,
since sLxty men at the capstans with treble pur-
chase blocks moved it with ease.

The transport of this enormous rock under
such disadvantageous circumstances of country,
over a distance of four miles, and its subsequent
passage of thirteen miles by water in a vast cassoon
or vessel constnicted for the purpose, was a work
sui-passing anything attempted by the ancients,
and, indeed, in modern times the only thing
which can be compared to it is the dragging a
ship of the line up a slip ; the weight is in this
case nearly the same as that of the rock, but the
distance traversed is short, and the difficulties to
be overcome much less. A plane of inclined timber
is prepared and well greased; a frame of wood,
technically called a cradle, is fixed under the vessel,
it is floated on to the inclined plane and drawn up
by the united efforts of a number of well-manned
capstans, with poweiful tackle : in this case no
rollers are used : it is a sledge, the surface being
well covered with grease to lessen the friction.

Fig. 23.

We have stated that there was a particular
construction of roller which might be considered,
as regards its form merely, an intermediate step

Fig. 24.

between the roller and the wheel. It consists of
a roller with the diameter of the extremities

increased as in fig, 23 ; the only advantage of this
roller is that the body rests upon the small part
of the roller, see fig. 24, and when put in motion,
will not gain so rapidly on the, rollers; or in other
words, the roller will move with more than half
the velocity of the body. A mere inspection of
fig. 25, is sufficient to show that the velocity of

Fig. 26.

the centre, C, will be to that of the body resting
on the point B, as C D to B D, so that if the ends
of the rollers are twice the size of the intermediate
part, C D will be equal to two-thirds of B D, and
the roller will move at two-thirds of the rate of
the body ; a less number of rollers are therefore
required, and the resistance is somewhat diminished
by having larger rollers in contact with the
ground.

In using a roller of this sort, the idea may have
struck the workman, or it may liave occurred
accidentally, to confine the spindle of the roller,
and compel it to move with the body ; and thus a
clumsy pair of wheels, fixed to a spindle, would
have resulted from his experiment. Such a sup-
position is quite gratuitous, as we have no record
of any such contrivance having existed before
wheels were made ; indeed it is inferior both to
the roller and the wheel : the only argument in
favour of such a theory is, that rollers of this sort
have been employed in comparatively modem
times.

At Rome, in 1.588, an obelisk, ninety feet high,
of a single block of stone, weighing upwards of
160 tons, and which had originally been brought

TIIK HOIISE.

from Egypt, -was removed from one square, in
which it stood, to another near the Vatican, and
there again erected in the spot where it now is.

In dragging this through the streets of Rome,
it was fixed in a strong frame of wood, wliich rested
upon a smaller frame, which were furnished each
with a pair of rollers, or spindles, of the form
above referred to ; they were turned by capstan
bars : indeed they cannot be better described than
by stating that they resembled exactly the naves
of a pair of cart-wheels (all the spokes being re-
moved), and fixed to a wooden axle. If a heavy
waggon lay npon a pair of these, we can conceive
that by putting bars into the mortices of the naves,
we could force them round, and thus advance the
waggon ; but the resistance would evidently be great-
er than if either rollers or wheels were employed.

All the difficulties incidental to the use of the
roller appear to be surmounted, and all objections
met, by the contrivance of the wheel.

The wheel being attached to the load, or to the
carriage which contains it, moves with it, is part
of the machine, and consequently as we require
only the number of wheels immediately necessary
for the support of the load, we can afford to con-
struct them of those dimensions and materials
best suited to the purpose. By increasing their
diametei', we are enabled to surmomit impediments
with much greater facility, as we have shown in
the case of the roller ; and although there is a
resistance arising from friction at the axle, which
does not exist in the roller, yet this may be so
reduced by increasing the diameter of the wheel,

as to form an incnnsiderable part of the whole
resistance, or draught of the carnage.

Of the first introduction of the wheel we have
no record whatever. The principle appears to us
so simple as to have been necessarily the result of
pure invention, almost of inspiration ; while, at
the same time, it is so exceedingly effective and
perfect, as hardly to admit of improvement.

The great antiquity of wheeled carriages or
chariots precludes all hopes of discovering their
origin. About fifteen hundred years before the
Christian era they appear to have been in com-
mon use amongst the Egyptians in their warfare.
Pharaoh dispatched six hundred chosen chariots
in pursuit of the Israelites, while the rest of the
army followed with all the chariots of Egypt: here,
therefore, they were in general use, and serving
as the cavali-y of the present day. Moreover, the
oldest records, which enter into anj- detail of their
construction, described them as in a very forwai'd
and perfect state.

At the siege of Troy, nearly three thousand
years ago, they formed, according to Homer, the
cavalry of the Greeks and Trojans ; and every
officer or hero of good blood possessed, at least, a
pair of horses and a charioteer.

These chariots being built to iim over broken
ground, where no roads existed, were made low
and broad, and they were by no means badly
contrived for the pui-pose for which they were in
tended ; the wheels were constnicted with a nave
and spokes, felloes and tires ; and the pole a,
appears to have been fixed on the axletree, b, iu

the manner shown injig. 26. The body of the
chariot was placed upon this frame. The team
generally consisted, as we have before stated, of a
pair of horses, attached to the pole ; six and even a
greater number of horses were, however, frequently
harnessed abreast, but in that case a second pole
was generally affixed to the axletree, so as to have
a pair of horses attached to each pole, and the
axletrees themselves wei-e always made nearly as
long as the whole width occupied by the horses.

They appear to have had light chariots for more
domestic piurposes, and four-wheeled carriages for
conveyance of heavy goods ; and certainly King
Priam, when he went to the Grecian camp to ran-
som the body of his son Hector, travelled with
some degree of comfort and luxuiy : he rode him-

self in a " beautiful uew-biult travelling carriage,"
drawn by favourite horses, while the treasures, in-
tended as a ransom, were conveyed in a four-
wheeled waggon drawn by mules. All these
details, as well as the mode of harnessing the
horses, which operation, it must be confessed, was
performed by Priam himself and his sons, are
fully described in the twenty-fourth book of the
Iliad.

That Homer was well acquainted with the con-
struction of the spoked wheel rmming freely upon
the axletree, and, perhaps, even with the mode of
hanging the body of the cairiage upon straps for
springs, in the same manner as the public coaches
are to this day in many parts of France, and, till
lately, even in the neighbourhood of Paris, is

Tlir. *|!-E.

r-f rr

-"--^s*

iir* '

Urn**'

4-¥^

■M* «Uf tmm al iIm nfifni «ttb (/•
Hm* UKk» wmJ it «iik

TW xnmtfan ti dm -i naiiM ratk ub

I of (koWM ■iU

pvrpoMr ■»«
1 hf lb* .

(iiB«^ lb* •■»:<

•lyf W Um !«• Bf • >

■ . •!• of Uiis

all ]vn

li liiriliMii,

. 1 111 .■:i,.r

■ ■■ Ih.iii iaif

--14. A lutrv tiis|Mt:lioD uf

1.1 lOiow tliat the velocity of

/.
V-.*.

ii pmafii mU •¥!! *timiJ; a fnac of «n.)
ImUmII; cmlM • craiW. b tMa nU«r iW «*^l
k » <lwii4 •■ hi iW wHiiMii nliH md drawn up ,
kf iW ■Miad ifc»u af • Mamr •! ««ll-inatii>r<4 ^,
(■MBMi. «ub fwWy torU*: km Uu*
tattM* w* wnl it » • llfl#^ iW Mrf*
•.il <»..««4 •ttli gMM* !• IsMaa tW frv

fr^

^ *t-

I tk* foIW umI tbr «br«l. It r<
• nOar villi ihr dtamrtrr if tK<> r\'

f^-it nf tbr l«My n^'Tnif

- ^ , ,.i.. ..u.l

..f ilip rate oJ

- «n' therefore

xiinr what diminished

;ii contart with the

..f ihio dort. the id«* TWIT have

. r It ii,r.v h«Te occiiire"!

of the mller.

iy : and thns a

;.i a spindle, would

iiiciit. Surh a sup-

- • V-!Tf no re<'ord

- . i before

. ■ ■. , r Vioth to

• ;.rrl: the «nly Brjjiiroent in

rv i». that rollers of this sort

. 1 in (v.mjianuivelv modem

. ^,.. 1^,1, A ninety feel high.
• (.' iipivanls I'f
. Urn hrouplit

THE HORSE.

573

from Egypt, -vras removed from onesquare, iu
which it stood, to another near the \tican, and
there again erected iu the spot where now is.

Iu dragging this through the stree of Rome,
it was fixed in a strong frame of wood, Tiich rested
upon a smaller frame, which were fur.shed each
\rith a pair of rollers, or spindles, c the form
above referred to ; they were turned ly capstan
bars : indeed they cannot be better dea-ibed than
by stating that they resembled exactl the naves
of a pair of cart-wlieels (all the spokt being re-
moved), and fixed to n. wooden axle, f a heavy
waggon lay upou a pair of these, we ci conceive
that by putting bars into the mortices oithe naves,
we could force them round, and thus Ivance the
waggon : but the resistance would evideny be great-
er than if either rollei-s or wheels weremployed.

AH the difficulties incidental to t'<fise of the
roller appear to be surmounted. ;uid 1 objections
met. by the contrivance of the whet 1

The wheel being attached to the .: , or to the
carriage which contains it, moves w ht, is part
of the machine, and consequently - e require
only the number of wheels imniedia; 1 necessary
for the support of the load, we can :\d to coji-
struet them of those dimensions : i materials
best suited to the purpose. I'y in • ing their
diameter, we are enabled to suruii uni i edinients
with much greater facility, as we li • shown in
the case of the roller; and althiUL lere is a
resistance arising from friction at th le, which
does not exist in the roller, yet tl: lay be so
reduced by iucrea,sing the diann tcr le wheel,

as to form an incnnsidei-able part of the whole
resistance, or draught of the carriage.

Of the first introduction of the wheel we have
no record whatever. The principle appears to us
so simple as to have been necessarily the result of
pure invention, almost of inspiration ; while, at
the same time, it is so exceedingly eff'ective and
perfect, as hardly to admit of improvement.

The great antiquity of wheeled carriages or
chariots precludes all hopes of discovering their
origin. About fifteen hundred years before the
Christian era they appear to have been in com-
mon use amongst the Egyptians in their warfare.
Phai-aoh dispatched six hundred chosen chariots
in pursuit of the Israelites, while the rest of the
army followed with all the chariots of Eg}-pt: here,
therefore, they were in general use, and serving
as the cavahy of the present day. Moreover, the
oldest records, which enter into any detail of their
cotistruction, described them as in a very forwaixl
and perfect state.

These chariots being built to run over broken
ground, where no roads existed, were made low
and broad, and they were by no means badly
contrived for the purpose for which they were in
tended ; the wheels were constructed with a nave
and spokes, felloes and tires ; and the pole «.,
appears to have been fixed on the axletree, b, in

the manner shown in^^i;. 26. The
chariot was placed upou this frame
generally consisted, as we have be
pair of horses, attached to tbanole ;
greater number of horses '
harnessed abreast, but
was generally affixed toj
a pair of horses atiao
a.xletrees themselves
long as the whole wij

They appear to 1

aestic purpose
evance of

oy^ of the
he team

s ted, of a
iix d even a
I , L^quently
;i - )nd pole
.-J to hav(
pol( and
matleiearl"

self in a " beautiful new-built travelling carriage,"
drawn by favourite horses, while the treasures, in-
tended as a ransom, were conveyed in a four-
wheeled waggon drawn by mules. All these
well as the mode of harnessing the
I'ch operation, it must be confessed, was
by Priam himself and his sons, are
bed in the twenty-fourth book of the

omer was well acquainted with the con-

of the spoked wheel running freely upon

xee, and, perhaps, even with the mode of

the body of the carriaj,'e upon straps for

in the same manj^ 'he puVilic coaches

this day in maq^^B France, and, till

jod of Paris, is

-^Kl-

m: ■^Bir-am^- azis zi^

:3aa — aB«T»-- Turrr

:se

s^S

a::^^

mwirs. laaaet

-SH^JalF

^Ti_ 1 -aaaf -mfrm tm:^

ie- -?T'~ffiiaBe-T iBr

Tmn 'A -ear i le- *<r

.M. Its' ixiui. xno:

■j£ 1. t .- . scmn.

■auu.-

•^rtfnti*^n-

()racri|itiiin iif lloiiil. Fnrrr n( Trirlion required U> inoTo Ibe I

Cmrrifir, iiiil<:|>«iiilriil of (he Frictiuu 1 thr .Klin

Tumjiikf-nioil— hnr.l. rlry. about . . . . 1« 11«.

nillo flinr ' 2«|

Killo TH'w' (rrnnllixl I.mj

I/>oM', Minilv rnoil MM)

So thill ill llip last cano, one hy no nii-aim of rare
occiirrcnr*' in inaiiy iiartsof thr country, the portion
of (lmii){ht iinini'diatfly causfil hy the stale of the
rowl wiiM ten times as ffrciit as on a j^ooil tuni]iik)'-
rond, and alHuit lifteeii times iis prpal as thiit whii'li
arose from frirtion at thciixlcs. It woiiht he hojie-
less toatti'iii|it to remedy this hy iiicreiLsiiij; the si/.e
of the wheel : the e\|MTinienl was made with wheels
of the ordinur)' size. To doiihle their diameter
would evidently l>e attended, in pniclice, with in-
HumioiintaMe dilVu-iiltie*-, and yet. even if this
were elTeeled. it would harely re<lui"e the toliil
amount of the dmii^ht hy oiie-fnurth; hut the
form of the wheel may materiiilly iiilluence ihe
Htate r>f the road: we shall, tln-refor»'. jirooeed to
consider the various funiis employed

Some years iijjo, when the prineipal turnpike
riMuls of the kint^iloni wfre at many jmrts, at par-
tjeular seasons of the yetir. in little l>etler eondi-
lion than that on which the last ex|><-ninent was
tried, various attem]<is were nioile to reduce tlie
resistance, by usin^' narrow wheels. These attempts,
and the laws whii-h it was found necessary to enact
to pnnent thi" entire destnictimi of the nmils. letl.
at last, to curious results, having gnulually cause<l
the intnuluctinn of tlio worst-formeil wheel whii-h
oouKl pmhahly lie invented, eitlier as rejjanls
increasing the draught or tl>e destruction oi the
n>a<)s.

To understand these oltt'retions clearly, we
must describe the princi|>Ml features of tbe wheel
HOW in use.

The geiiemi eonstniction of it prt»sents a
Rtnking instance of stnnigth arising from the
judicious union of suhstjuices of very dtlTer^nt
ipialilics — wis>d and iron.

A strong circular frame of wood, composed of
different segments, calUsl fello«>s, is Umnd together
by a hiHip, or several luwps of inin, called tires,
which thus, at the same time that it gives grt»at
stiiMiglh, protivts the outer surface fr>>m wear.

The nave, a circuliir Mi*-k ot"«<>od, is sustained
in the cenlr<< of this frame hy the sj<okes, which,
instead of U<ing in the plane of the felloes, form a
e»>«e: this is called the di-liiiij- of the wher-l
The ol<|<vt of It IS to gixe siilYu.-^s. to rvsjst Utertl
shivks. as when the wluvl slips sideways, into a
ml or hole .\ r<'fcr«'«v'^« to a i\>m)><ir!itive view
of the wheel, with and witl^HH dishing, will n^^r»'
elearly evplsiu our meaning. /V<i. ■J"^, is a w^
with the s|s>kcs all m one plane ; .«"_<». ^H>, « wi-
with a is>nsidcr«l>le dc^nv v>f dishing.

Ueiv II t» evident lh.it a small pnvssure i« the
Have u\ ,<»'j», vJJ*. w\>uld ha\v> « te«dei»x\v to jH»»h >i

tlin |h. and would meet with lut little resistntire.
In ». •■i'-K .11 the contrary, this force would be
opi xi lit •.lice by the direction of the spokes,

Fif. 98,

Ftp. 59.

wtiii
ll.itl
Til.

line
its 1
van
ri/

- fonn nil arch, or dome, thut cannot be

ltd without bursting the felli>es or tires.

«hiiiL'. tlierefore, gives the wheel a very great

■ • •' less and strength, which it would

'■-.sess.

lice of this conical form, the neces-
>ke(pin>> the lower spokes which support the
weight a-s vertical as possi-
ble, has required that the
w hide wheel should l>e placed
oblitpie, and the a.\le bent
downwards, as in Jig. 30 :
^ ^ this, as we shall hereafter
AX. » show, is attended with very
I \w serious evils. As a wheel
1 1 ' M is intended to roll upon the
|l I ^v ground, without friction, it

^^ is natural to supjwse that

the outer surface of the tires
l^e cylindiicil, as it is the only form which
of the whed rolUng freely in a straight
9ut it is nweithfltM the form of this surface,
•dth. and the degree of dishing which have
«i> 11. : h fmm the causes before mentioned.
^ -I ' ' "f the m«ds. and to the consideration
•1 rvtum.

- much Def;Iected and out of
. .--.ly have, at a certain depth, j
lore this will be a coat of i
->:• or less deep,
tnd the fre«)aeneT of
to which it mar be i

^ l^-A..

TIIK IIDKKK.

077

■were as narrow as possible, consistent vith the
necessary strength.

It was soon perceived that the entiwlestruc-
tion of the roads wuuld be the consequeie of this
system, which luul its origin in the bad ste of the
i-oads. A certain width of tire proportiDnie to the
load was therefore required by biw, Tl endea-
voiur to evade this law was the cause of fe absurd
form of wheel we are about to descril and to
Condemn.

In apparent obedience to the law, tliejlloes of
the wheels wore inudof an ex-
cessive breadth : bu o retain
the advaniajjes (if il narrow
wheel, the ni uli lie 1 i I e !Ls made
to project so far lie)nd the
others (see jii/. :i I i, mt it in
fact constituted thr veol, tlie
othere bein;,' inUb I lerely to
give a nominal, an. I )t a real
width. The enuiiius loads
which it w;vs found dvanta-
geous to place on these wheels niiib]. dt neces-

Ftg. 81.

sarj- to give them a considerable de
to re.sist lateral shocks, and, boides.
were by this means enabled to '/we :
of floor to the carriage, still keiiliij,'
the common tracks or ruts, so that th
mately assumed the form represent li1
If such a machine had been cm
the e.vpress purjjose of grinding tin-
the road to powder, or of serving a
drag to the waggon, it might, indce
judicious, but as a wheel it was uun
this is the form of wheel upon whi^
dictory opinions referred to in tin-
this treatise were given before ■ i
the House of Commons. A cai

dlishing,
. 1 carriers
ni width
hiele in
Iclsulti-

1 ted fur
a rials of
I heck or
il e been
■< s. Yet
;1 coiitra-
- page of
ttce of
'-!■ was

the friction, then, when it is conslnnlly rompidliMl
to go on in n straight lino'.' yel cuougli liiis been
written and said ii|iiin this sulijccl lo ennvince, wo
should imagine, the ino-,t prcjiKhccil of ihi^ nhsur-
dity of the system.

We shall repeat the ])rincipal arguiiionts which
were made use of at the time of llio iiKpiiry uum-
tioned.

Mr. Cummins took great pains, by cnnHtruct-
ing models, to show that conical wheels were not
ada]ited fur rolling in a straight liiK;, by making a
small conical wheel run over longitudinal bars, ad

Fig. S3.

in Jiff. 33. It was seen that if the middle part of
the tire rolled upon the centre bar without moving
it, the bar A was pushed backwards while the bar
C was pushed forwards ; clearly showing if, instead
of sliding bars, the wheel had moved upon a road,
how much it must liiive ground the road, and what
a small portion of the tire was tmly rolling.

That such must have been the ease is, indeed,
easily proved without a model. We will take
only three dilTerent parts of the wheel and consider
them as independent hoojis of different diameter ;
if these hoops are compelled to go the same num-
ber of revolutions, the large one will eWdenily
gain upon the second, while the third will be left
far behind. Now, if, instead of being independ-
ent of each other, they be fi.\ed to the same axle,
and compelled to revolve together, the large one
not being able to advance faster than the others,
must tear up the ground. The smaller one, on
the contrary, being dnigged forward faster than it
would naturally mil, must drag up the ground ;
and this is what must take place, and does, with
al wheel, luid that to a veiy

any but
consid

tanee, a conical wheel, of an

of four feet si.\ inches ; that is

centre advances about fourteen

ution of the wheel. If the iinier

lies larger in diameter than the

circumference of it will be about

greater ; therefore, at each revolu-

580

T.IE HORSE.

place within a few years. In the place of those
moving mountains which were formerly dragged
slowly along upon immensely heavy and broad, but
low. wheels, we now see, particularly on the roads
leading northw'ard from London, a great number
of light, well-built waggons, with much larger
wheels, especially the front wheels, which, instead
of being small enough to turn under the floor of the
waggon, are about four feet six inches in diameter.
As those waggons are used principally on the road,
and are never required to turn in a small compass,
but a very small action is allowed to the fore axle,
and the floor and body of the waggon is continued
from end to end of nearly the same width.

A waggon with part of the floor and body cut
away, so as to form a sort of recess for the front
wheels to turn into, allovrs of considerable move-
ment ; and by this arrangement there is nothing
to prevent the front wheel being made of large
diameter, as in the case just described. Our
present object, however, is not to enter into a
detailed description of how we shouldbuild awaggon,
but simply to recommend the use of large front
wheels, as tending much to diminisli the draught.
An intelligent wheelwright will always know how
to construct a waggon so as to admit of this.

The consideration of the Subject of wheels
naturally includes that of the comparative advan-
tages of two-wheeled and four-wheeled carriages.
Upon this point opinions difl'er as much as upon
any ; and we fear that we are not likely to do
more than to arrange the different opinions given
by others, without advancing any of our own. If
we succeed, however, in doing this clearly we shall
have done much, because we may thus enable each
individual to sepai'ate those arguments which
apply particularly to his own case ; and combining
these opinions with his own judgment, he will be
more likel_y to arrive at a just conclusion, than if
he were altogether unaided by the experience of
others.

The advocates of light two-wheeled carts assert
that a horse working alone is capable of perform-
ing more work than when forming one of a team ;
and that in consequence of this increased effect,
there is a saving of expense nearly in the jiropor-
tion of three to two, or one-third.

The advocates for waggons assert, on the conti'a-
ry, that it requires that each horse in a single-horse
cart should be of a superior quality, and therefore
more expensive than those of a team, where the
average power only is considered ; that the wear
and tear, first cost, and e.xpense of attendance of
several small carts, is greater than that of a
waggon carrying the same load, and that in conse-
quence there is an economy obtained by the latter.

T^umbers of facts and the results of long expe-
rience are adduced on either side, all of which
convey much useful information ; and the substance

of the whole appears to be, that with light single-
horse two-wheeled carts, good horses are able
to draw greater loads, and do more work in pro-
portion than a waggon team ; that these carts are
easier loaded and unloaded, do less injury to the
roads, and that they do not require more hoi'ses in
action than are sufficient for the work to be per-
formed.

On the other hand, it is found that the horses
must be stronger and better fed ; that being en-
tirely dejiendent on their own exertions, and doing
more work, they are more fatigued and sooner
knocked up ; that on rough roads they are liable
to be shaken and injured by the sudden move- •
ments and shocks of the cart, all of which are
conveyed by the shafts directly to the horse ; that
in asceiiding or descending hills, the whole weight
being above the axletree, it destroys the balance,
and is thrown too much upon the horse in the for-
mer case, or tends to raise him from the ground
in the latter, which, even if any alteration of the
balance be found advantageous, is exactly the con-
trary of what would be necessary.

That with a waggon — the average power of
several horses is obtained — horses of inferior qua-
lity may therefore be used ; — they are not so
much fatigued, because by relieving each other
they can alternately exert themselves or relax.
Greater loads can be can-ied with less attendance
of drivers, and they are less liable to accidents ;
they are easier withdrawn from any hole, or forced
over any obstruction, because only half the load
being upon each pair of wheels, the whole force of
the team is applied successively to each half of
the load, consequently in any bad road the power
occasionally required is less, although the draught
of the carriage, properly speaking, is greater than
that of a two-wheeled cart. These various argu-
ments would appear to lead to the conclusion, that
upon good roads, and for short distances, vrith
good horses, two-wheeled single-horse caits are the
best ; but that, with inferior roads and ordinary
horses, light four-wheeled waggons, with a team of
three or four horses, are the most advantageous.

Two-wheeled carts with two horses are deci-
dedly inferior to either of these : the shaft horse
suffers all the inconveniences complained of in the
single-horse cart, and the leader does not produce,
more effect than when in a waggon team.

It is impossible to decide generally upon the
comparative merits of the different arrangements,
because the result depends entirely upon the cir-
cumstances of the case.

We may, however, endeavour to unite in some
degree the advantages claimed by both. The
draught of a cart is less than that of a waggon for
several reasons : amongst others, because the
wheels are larger and the horse produces more
effect, because his force is applied immediately to

THE HORSE.

581

tlie resistance. A light waggon willi large front
wheels would not be mucli inferior in point of
draught to the cart, and two horses abreast in
double shafts would work with equal advantage to
the single horse ; while an additional horse may
always be applied when an excessive load or the
state of the roads should require it.

All that we have said with respect to the size
and contrivance of wheels is equally applicable to
light carriages as to heavy, and we shall now pro-
ceed to consider the different modes of placing the
loads upon the wheels.

It might appear at first sight that this would
not affect the amount of the draught ; that pro-
vided a weight to be m jved were placed upon the
wheals, and the w'.ieels put in motion, that no-
thing more coidd be required. Upon a perfectly
level smooth plane, and witli a constant force of
traction, this would, indeed, be the case ; but, in
practice, the conditions are entii'ely altered. Im-
pediments are continually met with, which ob-
struct the progress of the wheels, and the draught
is constantly varied by the different inclinations of
the road : it is, therefore, necessary to study the
means by which impediments can be easiest over-
come, and by which the resistance thus caused will
affect the animal, which is the source of power, in
the least disadvantageous manner.

We have already stated that impetus is neces-
saiy to overcome an obstruction, and that elasticity
in the direction of the movement is destructive of
the full effect of impetus.

When, therefore; the wheel of a carriage comes
in contact with any impediment, it is most essen-
tial that the whole of the impetus or momentum
which the carriage has already obtained, should be
brought into full action, to force the wheel for-
ward. To effect this, no elasticity should inter-
vene between the wheel and the load, at least in
the direction of the motion, that is, longitudinally ;
otherwise, as we instanced in the case of catching
a cricket-ball, a force which would be quite irre-
sistible if opposed by a rigid resistance, is checked

with ease by a vei-y little degree of elasticity ; so
with a wheel meeting a small stone, if the load
were so placed, or hung upon the wheels, as to
allow free or elastic action longitudinally, that is,
in the direction of the movement, the wheel being
stopped against the stone, the whole load would
be gradually checked, and brought to a full stop ;
whereas, if this same load had been fixed firmly
to the wheel, its impetus would have carried the
wheel over the stone, with very little loss of
velocity.

In the first case, it would be necessary for the
horses to drag the load over the stone by main
force ; in the latter, they would only have to
make up by degrees for the loss of velocity which
the mass had sustained in passing over the stone.
The total quantity of power required will indeed
be the same in either case ; but in the one, the
horses must exert it in a single effort, while in the
other, this momentary exertion is borrowed, as it
were, from the impetus of the mass in motion,
and being spread over a greater space of time, as
far as the horses are concerned, only augments in
a small degree the average resistance. It is thus
that the fly-wheel of a steam-engine in a rolling-
mill accumulates power, sometimes for several
minutes, till it is able to roll, with apparent ease,
a large mass of metal, which, without the effect of
the fly-wheel, would stop the engine immediately ;
or, to mention a case more to the point, in the
operation of scotching a wheel, a large stone, and
even a brick, will render almost immoveable a
waggon which, when in motion, would pass over
the same stone without any sensible alteration of
speed. It is most essential, therefore, that the
effect of the momentum of the load should in
no way be reduced by any longitudinal elasticity,
arising either from the injudicious application of
springs, or weakness in the construction of the
carriage.

The action of impetus, and the effect of an
injudicious mode of hanging the load, is of coui-se
more sensible at high than at low velocities,

5R2"

THE HORSE.

and in a cairidge bnng upon springs, than in a
waggon without springs ; but although not so
sensible to the eye, it nevertheless affects the
draught materially even in the latter case. Car-
riages hung upon springs, as mfg. 37, which are
called C springs, and which admit of very consider-
able longitudinal movement in the body of the
carriage, are notoriously the most heavy to pull ;
and cabriolets, which are hung in this manner,
are expressively called, in the stable, horse-mur-
derers, and require heavy powerful horses to drag
them ; while lighter animals are able to drag
much greater weights in stanhopes and spring-
carts, which do not admit of this elasticity.

This is one of the reasons why the di'aught of a
two-W'lieeled cart is less than that of a waggon. In
a cart, the horse pulls at once on the shafts, which
are fixed immediately both to the load and to the
axletree, so that not only the impetus of the load,
but also of the horse, acts directly and without
elasticity upon the wheel. In a waggon, owing to
tlie smallness of the front wheels, there is a con-
siderable space between the fore-axle and the floor
of the waggon, which is filled up w'ith pieces of
timber, called bolsters : tliis admits of considerable
play in the parts, and except in new-built or very
strong waggons, there is never tliat firm connec-
tion between the load and the wheels which we
have stated to be necessary. Lai'ge wlieels would
bring the axletrees much nearer the floors of the
waggons, and, therefore, admit of a much stronger
and firmer mode of attachment, which would be
found to produce a very considerable effect in
diminishing the draught.

We have been very particular in confining oiu'
observations to longitudinal elasticity, or yielding
in the direction in which the power is applied, and
in which the progressive movement takes j)lace ;
hecause elasticity in any other direction, instead of
increasing the draught, tends veiy much to dimi-
nish it. Let us suppose the load placed upon
perfectly easy springs, which allow it to move
freely in every direction, except longitudinally,
when any one of the wheels comes in contact with
a stone, the elasticity of the spring will allow it to
run over the stone without sensibly raising the
load which is upon it ; and the force which is
required to pull the wheel over the stone, will be
restored again by the descent of the wheel from the
stone, which will tend to impel the mass forward,
with exactly the same force as w'as required to
draw it up to the topi of this impediment. With-
out this elasticity it would be necessary to raise
the whole load with a sudden jerk, and thus instan-
taneously impart rapid movement to the whole
mass, which would absorb much power, and which
would by no means be returned by the load falling
down from the stone. We see, therefore, that the
use of springs is to enable the wheels to rise and

fall according to the inequalities of the ground,
while the load continues one constant equable
motion. The advantages of this action ai'e veiy
clearly pointed out in a letter addressed to the
Committee on the Highways of the Kingdom, by
Mr. D. Giddy, and given in the Appendix to their
first Eeport, printed in the year 1808 ; and this
letter explains so clearly, and in such few words,
the whole theory of wheels, as well as springs, thatwe
think we cannot do better than quote it at length : —

" Taking wheels completely in the abstract,
they must be considered as answering two diffe-
rent pui-poses.

" First, They transfer the friction w'hich would
take place between a sliding body and the rough
uneven siu-face over which it slides, to the smooth,
oiled peripheries of the axis and box, assisted by
a leverage in the proportion of the diameter of the
W'heel to the axis.

" Secondly, They procure mechanical advantage
for overcoming obstacles, by introducing time pro-
portioned to the square roots of their diameters,
when the obstacles, are small as compared with
the wheels ; and tliey pass over transverse nits or
hollows, small in the same comparison, with an
absolute advantage proportioned to their diameters,
and a mechanical one proportionate to the square
roots of these diameters.

"Consequently wheels, thus considered, can-
not he too large ; in practice, however, they are
limited by weight, by expense, and by experience.

" With reference to the preservation of roads,
wheels should be made wide, and so constructed,
that the whole breadth maj' bear at once ; and
every portion in contact with the ground, should
roll on without anj^ sliding.

" It is evident, from the well-known properties
of the cycloid, that the above conditions cannot all
unite, unless the roads are perfectly hard, smooth,
and flat ; and the felloes of the wheels, with their
tire, are accurate portions of a cylinder. These
forms, therefore, of roads and wheels, would seem
to be asymptotes, towards which they should
always approximate, but which, in practice, they
are never likely to reach.

" Roads must have some degree of curvature to
throw off water, and the peripheries of wheels
should, in their transverse section, be as nearly as
possible tangents to this curve ; but since no exact
form can be assigned to roads, and they are found
to differ almost from mile to mile, it is piresumed,
that a small transverse convexity given to the peri-
pheries of wheels, otherwise cylindrical, will suffi-
ciently adapt them to all roads ; and that the pres-
sure of such wheels, greatest in the middle, and
gradually diminishing towards the sides, will be
less likely to disarrange ordinary materials, than a
pressure suddenly discontinued at the edges of
wlieels perfectly flat.

THE HOliSE.

580

" T)ie spokes of a wheel should be so arranged,
as to present themselves iu a straight liue against
the greatest force they are in common cases likely
to sustain. These must evidently be exerted in a
direction pointed towards the carriage, from lateral
percussions, and from the descent of either wheel
below the level of the other ; consequently, a cer-
tain degree of vrhat is termed dishing, must
be advantageous, by adding strength ; whilst this
form is esteemed useful for protecting the nave,
and for obviating the ill effects of expansions and
contractions.

" The line of traction is theoretically best dis-
posed, when it lies exactly parallel to the direc-
tion of motion ; and its power is diminished at
any inclination of that line, in the proportion of
the radius of the wheel to the cosine at the angle.
When obstacles frequently occur, it had better,
perhaps, receive a small inclination upward, for
the purpose of acting with most advantage when
these are to be overcome. But it is probable, that
different animals exert their strength most advan-
tageously in different directions ; and, therefore,
practice alone can determine what precise inclina-
tion of the line is best adapted to horses, and what
to oxen. These considerations are, however, only
applicable to cattle drawing immediatelv at the
carriage ; and the convenience of their drauglit, as
connected with the insertion of the line of traction,
which continued, ought to pass through the axis,
introduces another limit to the size of the wheels.

" Springs were in all likelihood first applied to
carriages with no other view than for the accom-
modation of travellers : they have since been found
to answer several important ends. They convert
all percussions into mere increase of pressure ; thus
preserving both the carriage and the materials of
the roads from the effect of blows ; and small ob-
stacles are surmounted when springs allowthe frame
and wheels freely to ascend, without sensibly
moving the body of the carriage from its place.

" If the whole weight is supposed to be concen-
trated on springs very long, extremely flexible, and
■with the frame and wheels wholly devoid of inertia,
this paradoxical conclusion will most certainly fol-
low : that such a carriage may be drawn over the
roughest road without any agitation, and by the
smallest increase if force.

" It seems probable that springs, under some
modification of form and material, may be appli-
cable with advantage to the heaviest waggon."

And there can be no doubt, that, in the words
of the writer, the application of springs would be
highly advantageous. At high velocities, as we
have before said, the effect of springs is still
greater. What we have instanced as reganls
springs, is generally well known and underetood.
All stage-coaches, and many travelling-caiTiages,
hang upon grasshopper springs, which allow of per-

pendicular without any longitudinal action. 1 1
would be much to the interests of horse-masters if
the mode of suspending post-chaises were a little
more attended to. The more elasticity, or in other
words, the more action, there is in grasshopper
springs, the more effect it will produce in dimi-
nishing the draught : with a C spring a very con-
trary effect is produced.

A carriage hung upon C springs m.ay certainly
be made the most comfoi'table to the rider, but all
the ease that can be requii'ed, and much more than
is found in the generality of post-chaises, may be
obtained by well-constructed grasshopper springs,
and with considerable advantage to the horses.

The practice of loading coaches as high as pos-
sible to make them run light, as the coachmen
have found by experience, is only a mode of assist-
ing the springs. The mass being placed at a
greater height above the wheels, at the extremity
of a long lever, is not so easily displaced laterally
by an}' motion of the wheels, which, therefore,
rise and fall on either side as they iim over the
stones, acting only on the springs, which restore
the full pressure and velocity in descencUng, from
the obstiicle which was imparted to tliem in ascend-
ing, and without producing any sudden concussions
upon the load, which swings to and fro with long
easy movements. It is possible, also, that the
weight, being thus swung from side to side, may,
upon good roads, diminish the draught, as it is in
fact generally running upon two of the wheels ;
while, in the other direction, it equally admits of
the front and hind wheels successively passing over
any impediments ; and yet, by the manner in which
it is fixed upon the springs, it does not admit of
any longitudinal elasticity.

The fact of coaches thus loaded runnuig light,
has been clearly proved by the failure of what
were called Safety Coaches, in which the only
difference consisted in placing the load veiy low.
These coaches, although completely answering
their purpose of safety, were discontinued solely,
we believe, from their being fomid destnactive of
the horses.

Experiments, nevertheless, have been made to
prove that this was only an idle prejudice of coach-
men ; but universally received opinions, even if
leachng to erroneous conclusions, generally ha\e
some good foundation; and coachmen, althou'i-'i
they may not have been so much so at the tiLue
these experiments were published (in 1817), p:e
certainly now rather an intelligent class of men.
We should, therefore, prefer risldng a theory, if a
theory were necessary, in support of their prejn.
dices rather than in opposition to them. The ex-
periments alluded to were not, in om- opinion,
made under the circumstances which occur in prac-
tice. Small models (the wheels being seven iuelics
in diameter) were drawn along a table across which

584

THE HORSE.

were placed small strips of wood, to represent the
obstructions met with in a road ; but these strips
of wood came in contact ^ith each pair of wheels
at the same time, and never caused any lateral mo-
tion They produced, therefore, a totally different
effect from that which takes place in a road, where
the action rarely affects more than one wheel at a
time ; consequently, in tlie model, the wheels, in
passing over an obstruction, threw the whole weight
backwards in a direction exactly opposite to the
movement required; while, in practice, the carriage
is generally thrown sideways, which does not affect
its forward motion.

The conclusions drawn from these experiments
are, therefore, as might be e.\.pected, at variance
with practical results, and directly contrary to the
opinions of those whose daily e.xperience ought to
enable them to judge correctly.

The effects, also, of velocity and momentum
must be difficult to imitate in models.

The advantage of placing the load high will
not, however, equally apply at low velocities, still
less when springs are not used ; it may frequently,
indeed, in the latter case, produce quite a contrary
effect.

In a rough road, the increased force with which
the load would be thrown from side to side might
prove very inconvenient, and even dangerous, and
would certainly be liable to increase the resistance
when the front wheels meet with any obstniction :
but this, it must be paiticularly remembered, is
onlytrae in the case of low velocities and carriages
without springs.

We have now considered in succession the
various parts of the vehicle for conveying the
weight, and shown in what manner they affect the
draught, and how they should be constnicted so as
to diminish as much as possible the amount of this
draught. We have endeavoured to point out the
advantages and necessity of attending to the con-
stmction and size of the wheel. Thus it should be as
nearly cylindrical and vertical as possible, and of
as large a diameter as can conveniently be admitted.
Silly, That there sliould be a firm, unyielding con-
nection in the direction of the movement between the
power employed, the weight moved, and the wheels ;
v.i other words, that the force should always act
directly and without elasticity both upon the load
and upon the wheels ; and that tlie impetus or
momentum of the load, when in movement, should
always act in the same manner, without elasticity,
in propelling the wheels ; — and lastly, that it is
highly advantageous to interpose as much elasticity
. as possible, by meRus of springs in a vertical direc-
tion between the wheels and the body, so that the
ormer may rise ai:d fall over stones or irregularities
in the road without communicating any sudden
shocks to the load : and we believe that the proper
.application of sprir:gs in all cases, e\eti with the

heaviest loads, would be foimd productive of gi'eat
good effect.

Attention to these points will tend to diminish
considerably the amount of draught. As far as
regards friction at the axles, and the resistance in
passing over obstacles in the road, it vrill assist the
favourable application of the force of traction when
obtained from animal power ; but that which we
have shown to be the most considerable source of
resistance is imfortunately least affected by any of
those arrangements. We allude to the resistance
arising from the yielding or crushing of the material
of the road : we have seen that on a good tm-npike-
road the draught was increased in the proportion
of thirty to forty, or about one-third, by the road
being slightly dirty ; and that, on a heavy, sandy
road, the draught was increased to '.205, or neai'ly
seven times. Springs will not affect this ; and
even increasing the diameter of the wheel will be
of vei-y slight assistance ; nothing but removing
at once the prime soiu'ce of this evil, improring
the roads, can remedy this. We are thus naturally
led to the third division of our subject, viz., the
road or channel of conveyance. In considering
this as a branch of the subject of draught by animal
power, we shall merely point out what are the
principal desiderata in the formation of a good road,
and what are the evils principally to be avoided.
To enter into all the details of their construction,
dependent as it is on the different materials to he
found in the neighbourhood, their comparative
cost, the quality of the ground over which the road
is made, and many other points, would be to enter
upon a much more extensive field than is at all
required for the proper consideration of the subject
of draught by animal power. The requisites for a
good road are all that we shall indicate.

Channel of conveyance, in a general point of
view, would include canals, roads, and railways.
Of the first, however, we shall say little ; their
constniction does not materiall}' affect the amount
of draught, and we have already examined the
made of applying the power, and the quantity of
effect produced : we shall proceed therefore at once
to the question of roads.

The inquiry into the best form and construction
of wheel carriages has taught us, what we might
indeed have foreseen, that perftction in a road
would be a plain, level, hard surface : to have
learned this only would not have advanced us much,
as such perfection is unattainable ; but we have
learned also the comparative advantages of these
different qualities of hardness, smoothness, and
level. We have come to the conclusion, that
slight alterations of level which shall vary the
exertion required of the animal, without at any
time causing excessive fatigue, are rather advantage-
ous for the full development of his power than
otherwise : that the incouvenien e of rouiihness is

TilE HOUSE.

585

obviated by the use of springs , and that even when
the ordinaiy carts and waggons without springs
are used, still the resistance arising from mere
uuevenness of surface, when not excessive, is not
nearl_y so preat as that which is caused by the
yielding of the substance of the road. Hardness,
therefore, and consequently the absence of dust and
dirt, which is easily cnished or displaced, is the
great desideratum in roads.

To satisfy this condition, however, smoothness
is to a certiim degree requisite, as the prominent
parts would be always subject to abrasion and
destruction : for the same reason, even if for no
other, rats and evei-ything which can tend to form
them must be avoided.

A road should, in its transverse section, be
nearly flat. A great curvature or barrel, as it is
termed, is useless ; for the only object can be to
drain the water from it: but if there are ruts, or
hollow places, no practicable curvatm-e will effect
this : and if the road is hard and smooth, a very
slight inclination is sufficient. Indeed, an excess
of curvatm-e is not only useless with the present
construction of caniages, but facilitates the des-
truction of the road ; for there are few wheels
perfectly cylindrical : yet these, when running on
a barrelled or curved road, can bear only upon one
edge, as in fig. 38. The conical wheels still in
use, although much inclined at the axle, are never

Fig. 38. Fig. 39.

^'6///'/'/'/'//" '/"'I '" '*'''

sufficiently so to bring the lower surface of the
wheel even, horizontal, and therefore are constantly
nnming upon the edge, as in fig. 39, until they
have formed a rut coinciding with their own shape.
In a barrelled or curved road, the mischief done
will, of course, be great in proportion to this curva-
ture. This form is, therefore, mischievous as well
as useless. Six inches' rise in the centre of a road
of twenty feet wide, is more than sufficient to en-
sure drainage, if drainage is not effectually pre-
vented by ruts or hollow places, and less than this
will suffice where the road is good, and is kept in
proper order.

The hardness of the surface, the most impor-
tant feature, will of course principally depend
upon the materials used, and the fomiation of the
road, and still more upon the state of repair in
which it is kept. It is easy to fonn a good road

when the foundation is already laid by the exist-
ance of an old one ; levelling the surface, — apply-
ing a covering of eight or ten inches in thickness
of broken stones, — having as few round or
smooth surfaces as possible, the hardest that can
be obtained, — and above all things securing good
drainage, both from the surface and from the
bottom, is all that is required : but constant repair
and unremitting attention are necessary to keep a
road thus formed in good condition.

These repairs and attention do not consist in
laying on at certain intervals of time large quan-
tities of materials, but in constantly removing the
sand which is fonned, and which, in wet weather,
holds the water, and prevents drainage ; in filling
up as quickly as possible, with fresh materials, any
ruts or hollows ; and particularly in keeping clear
all the drains, and even in scraping small drains
from ruts, or such parts of the road as may con
tain the water, and which it may not be possible
immediately to fill up.

By attention to these points, those who are in
terested in the preser\'ation of the roads, and the
expenses attending it, will find that economy will
ultimately be the result ; and those who are in-
terested in diminishing the labour and expense of
draught, we shall only refer again to the table
(page 576) of the resistances of a waggon upon
different roads, from which they will see, that a
horse upon a clean road well do one-thu-d more
than ujion one slightly muddy ; more than four
times as much as upon new-laid gravel ; and nearly
seven times as much as upon a heavy sandy road.
No alignments that we can put forward can at
all strengthen the effect that such facts must pro-
duce ; and we shall, therefore, quit the subject of
roads, and conclude our observations on draught by
a few words explanatoiy of the object of rail-roads
and their effects as regards diminishing draught.

The great desideratum in the formation of a
good road is the facilitating the rolling of the
wheels. We have shown that, for this purpose, a
hard, smooth surface is necessary ; and, as this is
only required for the wheels, two longitudinal
tracks, of such surface, of proper width, are suffi-
cient for the mere passage of the carriage. If,
therefore, there is a considerable traffic between
two points along a line of road, without much in-
terruption from crossing, all the qualities of a good
road may be obtained in a very superior degree, by
having two parallel rails, or tracks of wood or iron,
raised a little above the general level of the ground.
This is a rail-road. It evidently affords the means
of attaining any degree of perfection in those
essentials for a good road — hardness and smooth-
ness of surface for the wheels to roll upon. It
requires, however, that the carriages should be all
nearly alike, as regards the width and fonn of the
wheels ; and experience has proved that such a

586

THE HORSE.

road is not generally worth constnictiiig, unless
the traffic is sufficient to allow of carriages being
built expressly for that or similar roads. This
being the case, the form and dimensions of the
rails, and the general construction of the carnages,
are uncontrolled by any other consideration than
that of diminishing draught.

A considerable improvement upon this point
may, therefore, be expected in the railway
over the common road. A railway, as now con-
stmcted, consists simply of two parallel bars of
iron, having a flat upper surface of about two and
a half inches wide. With the exception of this
surface, the forms adopted for the bars are various,
depending principally on the mode selected for
supporting them, some resting on and secured to
blocks of stone, placed at intervals of about three
feet — others secured in like manner to " sleepers,"
or beams of wood which are placed transversely,
resting on the ground ; while according to a third
system the bars are secured along their whole length
to longitudinal timbers. The wheels at the present
time, generally made of wrought iron, and from
three to fom- feet in diameter, are made slightly
conical with a flange about one inch deep on the
inner side. This slight flange, and the cone of the

wheel, which is also verj' slight, are found sufficient
to keep the wheels from running off the rails, even
at the highest velocities. This brief desciiption
is sufficient to give a general idea of the construc-
tion of railways, which is all that is necessai-y for our
present purpose. It will be easily conceived thaP
hard, cast-iron wheels, running upon smooth edges
of iron in this manner, can meet with but little
resistance except that arising from friction at the
axle. Accordingly we find, upon a well-constructed
railway in good order, that the resistance at mode-
rate velocities does not exceed, in any sensible
degree, that which must arise from this cause. It
has been found that a force of traction of 1 lb. will
put in motion a weight of 200, 300, and even, in
some cases, 350 lbs. : so that a horse, exerting an
effort of only 1 2.5 lbs., would di'ag on a level 12 or
14 tons. This is ten or twelve times the average
effect of his work upon a good common road, and,
as it arises entirely from the hardness and smooth-
ness of the surface, we cannot conclude our obser-
vations by a more striking and unanswerable
argument than this, in proof of the immense
advantages and saving of expense which would
result from greater attention to the state of the
roads.

[conclusion of the hoese.J

INDEX TO THE OX.

Abdm \sum, tlie, description of, Hi.

Abortion, causes of, 167; is a habit, 168; symptoms and

treatment of, 168.
Absorbent vessels of the skin, inflammation of the, 157;

cases, causes, and symptoms of, 157.
Adulteration of milk, 90.
Agriculture in England, 55.
Albumen, what, 107.
Alcohol an addition, in the form of gin or brandy, to

cordial draughts, 182
Alderney, breed of cattle of, 48; description of the, 86.
Alderney cow little esteemed, 5G.
Alemtejo, herds of cattle of the, 18.
Alimentary canal, mechanical obstructions of the, 151.
Alimentary substance, elementary constituents of, 106 ;

proximate principles of, 106.
Alloy stock of catlle, 82 ; how founded, 83.
Aloes, seldom used as a purgative in the treatment of horned

cattle, 178 ; tincture of. an excellent dressing, 183.
Aloetic purgative useful in colic, 179.
Alteratives and specific medicines, 179.
Alum, a powerful astringent, 182 ; whey, 182.
Amciurosis, 158.

American bison, description of the. 10, 11.
Ammonia, liquid, useful in hoove, 181 ; subcarbonate of, a

stimulant, 181.
Ancient Britons, tame cattle of the, 16.
Anglesea, a breeding district, 71 ; breed of cattle in, 71.
Angoumois, breed of cattle of, 46.
Angus, breed of cattle of, 78 ; ox of, 55.

Animal food, given to cattle in some countries, 37 ; sub-
stances, elementary constituents of, 106.
Antelope bubalus, or wild ox of the Arabs, 12.

Antimony, chloride of, a useful caustic, 183.

Antispasmodics, 180.

Aperients for cattle, 178.

Apis, worship of in Egypt, 20.

Apoplexy, causes of, 131.

Applications, external, 132.

Argyleshiie, kyloes of, 7-i.

Arrian on the ancient Indians, 21.

Arrivals at the London markets of country killed meat, 100.

Artificial grasses, important to the cattle- keeper, 115.

As'l gayal, or seloi, what, 5.

Astringents, 182.

Auge, Pays d', breed of cattle of, 47.

Aunis, breed of oxen of, 47.

Aurochs, or zubr, fine levied by the Russian government
for killing the, 8 ; ferocity of the, 8 ; swif.uess of the, 8 ;
specimen of the, in British Museum, 9 j colour of
the, 9.

Austrian States, cattle of, 50.

Australia, destitute of the indigenous species of ox, 2.

Auvergne, cattle of, 46.

Average dead weight of cattle, 88.

Ayrshire breed of cattle, 74 ; cows, management of, 85.

Azara on the cattle pastures of Paraguay, 24.

Backei.et, or war-oxen, 39.

Baer, M. de, his opinion respecting the identity of the

Caucasian and Lithuanian bisons, 10.
Bailey, Mr., return of the sale of part of Mr. C. CoUings's

stock, given by, 83.
Bakewell, Mr., breed of cattle of, 41.

Ballymahoe; fair of, cattle sold at the, 59.
Bal-Siva, treatment of bulls devoted to, 22
Basse Bretagne, breed of cattle of, 47.
Beasiings, or firstmilk, essential to the calf, 173.
Beechey, Capt., skulls brought to England by, described, 16.
Beef considered inferior to mutton in m »st countries of

Europe, 30 ; the roast of Old England, 54.
Beet tribe, useful as fjod for cattle, 114.
Bell, his description of the yak or bubul of Tartary, 7 ; of

the urus or uhr o-k, 8.
Bells hung round the necks of cattle in Switzerland, 35.
Benzoin, compound tincture of, an excellent dressing, 183 .
Berri, cattle of, 46.
Berry, Rev. H., injunctions laid down by, for breeding

cattle, 42.
Bird, Mr., on the cross-breed of the zebu and gayal, 21.
Bison Americanus, 3 ; European, description of the, 8 ;
odour of the, 8 ; flesh of, used as food, 10; hunting of
the, by the American Indians, 10; ferocity of the, 11.
Blacknnor, breed of cattle in vale of, 64.
Black-water, 152.
Blain, or gloss anthrax, causes and symptoms of, 137;

treatment of, 138 ; is contagious, 138.
Blisters, 183.

Bloxedge, a celebrated bull, 58.
Bloomfield, his description of a Suffolk cheese, 81.
Bceufs de nature and de haul cru, descriptions of, 46.
Bogra el weish, Arabian wild ox, 12.
Bolingbroke, a celebrated bull, 83.
Booth's distillery, mode of fattening oxen in, 96.
Bornou, description of zebu of, 19.

Bos, the genus, 2 ; subdivided by naturalists, 2 ; leading
characters of, 2 ; brachyceros, heads of, in the British
Museum, 12; CaiFer, or Cape buffalo, 12; longifrons,
description of the skull of, 14 ; Pegasus, a species of
buffalo, 12; primigenius, 14; Sooticus, wild oxen of
England, 13.
Bovine race, fossil skulls of, in the British Museum, 14.
Bourbon, breed of cattle in, 46.

Brahmin bull used as a beast of draught and burden, 22.
Brain, inflammation of the, symptoms of, 130; treatment

of, 131.
Breeding, principle to be guided by in, 41, 42.
Breeds of cattle most valued for milking, 43.
Brindled Beauty, a valuable cow, 59.
Brown, Mr., his account of horn-cores, 14; on the symptoms

of inflammation of the liver, 128.
Bruce on the zebu of Abyssinia, 20.
Bruises of cattle, treatment of the, 163.
Byron, Lord, his description of a bull-fight, 53.
Buchanan, Dr., his description of the cry of the gayal, 4.
Buffalo, the semi-domesticated, 6 ; wild different opinions re-
specting, 6 ; superiority of, for agricultural purposes, 22.
Bull, various names for, 57.
Bull, Galloway, 78.
Bull-fights of Rome, 17.
Bullocks, sacred to Siva, 23.

Burchell, Mr., his description of the sadd!e-ox, 25.
Burckhardt on the Arab's mode of making butter, 28.
Burgogne, breed of cattle of, 47.

Butter, little known by the Greeks and Romans, 28 ; used
in the East from the earliest ages, 28 ; fouduess for, of
the Arabs, 29.
Butyrum, a kind of butter mentioned by Pliny, 28.

INDEX TO THE OX.

Cabbage, cultivation of the, as food for cattle, 112.

C^cum, the, description of, 145.

Caesar, his description of tlie urus, 9.

Caledonian joint stock diiny, 94.

Calamine ointment, useful in supeviicial wounds, 183.

Calf, twin female, not necessarily barren, 40 ; experiment

to prove the contrary, 41.
Calomel, useful in dysentery, 179.
Calves, inst;inces of three and four at a birth, 41 ; mode

of fattening in Forfarshire, 79 ; diseases and treatment of,

173.
Camarque, Pays de, breed of cattle of, 48.
Campagiia of Rome, bulls of the, 17.
Canley, breed of cattle, 58.

Cantley, Captain, remains of a species of ox found by, 16.
Cape buffalo, description of the, 12.
Capture of bulls in the Alemtejo, 51.
Carawax seeds, useful as a cordial, 181.
Carnarvonshire, breed of cattle in, 71.
Carob-trec, pods of, a nutricious food for cattle, 112.
Carriclc, breed of cattle of, 74.
Carrot, Ihe, a valuable food for cattle, 115.
Carved delineations of the zebu, 20,
Castor oil, an excellent purgative, 179.
Cataract of the eye, 158.
Catarrh, or hoose, nature, symptoms and treatment of, 121 ;

is epidemic, 122.
Catechu, an effectual astringent, 182.

Cateshy, on mixing the breed of bisons with tame cattle, 3.
Cattle, tame, of the ancient Britons, l(i; wild, of Chillnig-

hain Paik, probably descended from, IG ; vast herds of,

in Spain and Portugal, 51; of Great Britain, division

into sections of the, 56 ; progressive changes in the

breeds of, 86 ; general rules for the treatment of, 88.
Cattle-fairs of England, 105.
Caucasian mountains, bison of the, 10.
Caustics, 183.

Chalets, or public dairies of Switzerland, 49.
Charges, or plasters, 184.
Charolais, cattle of, 46.
Chatelherault Park, wild ox of, 13 ; cattle of, description

of, 55.
Cheese, made from the milk of sheep and goats, 28.
Cheshire, renowned as a dairy county, 60.
Chillingham Park, wild white ex of, 13 ; description of

wild cattle of, 13; instance of their tenacity of lite, 18.
Chloride of lime, a disinfectant, 181.
Cholet, breed of cattle of, 47.
Chorea, unknown in honied cattle, 142.
Chowries, of India, made of the tail of the yak, 7.
Christmas, supply of beef at, 99.
Chyle, the composition of, 109.

Clapperton his description of the zebu of Bornou, 19.
Cleanliness, indispensable in a dairy, 94.
Clouted, or Devonshire, cream, 64.
Close breeding, 43.
Clover, important as an article of foi)d for cattle, 116;

various species of, 116.
Clue, or fardel bound, 150.
Colic, or fret, 133.
CoUings, Mr, C, Teeswater breed brought to perfection by,

82.
CoUings, Mr. Robert, prices realised by sale of stock of, 83.
Colon, the, description of, 145.
Columbo-root, a tonic, ISl.
Columella, his description of the labouring ox, 26 ; of the

cow, 27.
Comparative excellencies of the Galloway and Angus breeds

of cattle, 78.
Concreiionsin the stomach, causes of, 154; treatment of, 155.
Connaught, breed of cattle of, 72.
Constitutional temperament ofthe o.x, preliminary remarks

relative to, 118.

Consumption, causes and symptoms of 125.

Contour, or beauty of form, desirable in cattle, 41.

Copper-mines, vicinity of, injurious to cattle, 157.

Cornwall, breed of cattle of, 62.

Corrosive sublimate, solution of, a dangerous application,
161.

Cotentin, breed of cattle of, 47.

Cottager, general rules for the, in the management of cows,
88.

Countess, a valuable cow, 83.

Cow, description of the skeleton ofthe, 30; of Savoy, 48
of Lower Saxony, 50; of Westphalia, 50 ; Zetland, 51
various names lor the, 57 ; Cheshire, 60 ; Devonshire,
64 ; Sussex, 68 ; Kerry, 72 ; Kyloe, 74 ; Ayrshire, 74, 75
Galloway, 78 ; Suflblk, SO ; Yorkshire, short-horned, 84
Alderney, 86.

Cow-pox, 172; different opinions respecting the origin of
the, 173 ; genuine and spurious, 173 ; treatment of the,
173.

Craven Park, wild ox of, 13 ; cattle of, 55.

Croton oil, a powerful purgative, 179.

Cud, chewing the, 2 ; loss of, cause and treatment of, 150.

Cuvier, his opinion respecting the urus, 9.

Culley, Mr., hisdescription of the wild oxen of Chillingham,
13; on the impossibility of uniting good milkers with
good feeders, 44 ; on the shnrt-horned lireed of cattle, 51 ;
on the comparative merits of lung and short-horned
catile, 61 ; on the yearly produce of a Suffolk cow, 80;
on the Holderness breed of c.ttle, 81.

Cunningham, Allan, on the departure of a Highland herd of
cattle to the south, 102.

D, a celebrated bull, 58.

Dairies, in Switzerland and Holland, 94 ; plans of, 95.

Darwin, Mr., orr the exportation of the hides of the ox, 23 ; on

the use of the lasso, 23 ; on the bulls of the Falkland

Islands, 24.
Denbighshire, dairy much attended to in, 71.
Denmark, race of cattle of, 50.

Denliarrr, .Major, on the bullock used for the saddle, 25.
Dentition of the ox, 31.
Derbyshiie cattle, original character of, 60.
Desmarest, M , on the breeds of cattle in France, 48.
Devonshire catiU', 55 ; bull, description of, 63.
Diarrhcea. causes, symptoms, and treatment of, 136.
Diet, mi-xture or alternation of, essential to cattle, 99.
Digestion, process of, 109.
Digestive organs of the ox, description of, 143.
Digitalis, u^eiul in reducing the action of the heart, ISO.
Dillon, Mr., his description ol the Malabar buffalo, 6.
Diseases of cattle, 118.
Dishley, or new Leicester long-horns, 41 ; deterioration of

the, 50.
Disinfectants, 183.

Diuretic medicines, 180; serviceable, 180.
Domestic zebu brcLd, origin of the, 21.
Dorsetshire cheese, 64.
Douglas, Mr. David, death of, 25.
Drenches, cordial astringent, 182.
Dressings, 183.
Drop, see milk-fever.
Drovers of England and Scotlimd, and droves of cattle, 101,

103.
Dumfries, cattle-market of, 78.
Dunlop cheese, 75.
Duodenum, the, description of, 145.
Durham ox, the, 82 ; weight of the, 85.
Dutch cattle, or Lincolns, 85 ; dun variety of, introduced

by Sir C. Buck, 85.
Dysentery, nature ol, 135 ; symptoms and treatment of, 136.

Edinburgh, management of dairies in the neighbourhood
of, 76.

INDEX TO THE OX.

Egypt, existence of the zehu race in, 19.

Enteritis, 132; causes and symptoms of, 132 ; treatment
of, 133.

Epilepsy, 141 ; causes, symptoms, and treatment of, 142.

Epsom salts, a purgative, 178.

Ergot of rye, useful in parturition, 180.

Exeter, mixed lireeds of cattle in the vicinity of, 61'.

Eye, diseases of the, 158.

Eyelids, diseases of the, 158 ; causes and treatment of dis-
eases of the, 158.

Eyes, inflammation of the, treatment of, 158.

Falkirk tryst, description of, from Glasgow Chronicle, 105.

Favourite, a noted bull, 83.

Ferocity of the bison, 11.

Fever, simple, causes and symptoms of, 119 ; inflammntory,
symptoms and treatment of, 120 j typhus, symptoms and
treatment of, 121 ; milk, or puerperal, 169.

Fever-mixture, a good, for cattle, 180.

Fibrin, what, 107.

Flatulent colic, causes, symptoms, and treatment of, 133.

Fleming, Dr., his description of a skull, 14.

Flight, Mr., the present proprietor of Laycock's Dairy, 90.

Flintshire, a dairy county, 71 ; breed of cattle in, 71.

Fluid manure, wasted by English dairy farmers, 96.

Fcetal calf, unnatural positions of the, 166; mode of ex-
tracting the, when dead, from the mother, 166.

Foetus, alteration in the position of ihe, 165 ; unnatural
positions of the, 166.
"oljambe, a celebrated bull, 82.

Fomentations, 184.

Food, fattening of cattle dependent on the quality of the, 106.

Forfarshire, mode of fattening calves in, 79.

Fossil skulls, 10 ; relics, 14.

Foul in the foot, causes and treatment of, 159.

Fowler, Mr., breed of long-horned cattle of, 58.

France, breeds of cattle of, 46.

Franche Comte, cattle of, 48.

Free-martins, description of, 40.

Freyburg, breed of catt'e of, 48.

Kriar's-balsam, a dressing, 183.

Friesland, cattle of, SO.

Gadfly, the, of the ox, extract from the Pictorial Museum

of Animated Nature, descriptive of the, 162.
Gaijal, the, 3.

Gayal, description of the, 3.
Galloway, breed of c.ittle of, 77.
Galloway ox, 55.

Garget, nature, causes, and treatment of, 171.
Garrick, a valuable bull, 58.
Gascon breed of cattle, description of the, 46.
Gelatin, what, 107.
Gelle, M., on inflammation of the mucous membrane of the

stomach, 135.
Gentian, a tonic, 181.
George, a celebrated calf, 83.
Gestation, period of, in the cow, 40 ; natural period of,

164; precautions to be taken during, 165.
Ghee, or liquid butter of India, 29 ; mode of preparation

of, 29.
Ginger, a cordial, 181.
Glamorganshire, breed of cattle of, 69.
Glauber's salts, an excellent purgative, 178.
Gloucestershire, a dairy county, %5 ; breed of cattle of, QQ.
Gluten, description of, 107.
Goulard lotion, highly useful, 184.
Gour, the, 3.
Graham, Professor, on the comparative excellence of malt

and barley as food for cattle. 111.
firay, Mr., his descriplion of the Bos Brachyceros, 12.
Gr.'::t liritain, horned cattle of, 54; superiority of the

caulo of, 56.

Grinders, or molar teetli, 33.

Groningen, cattle of, 50.

Gruy^res, breed of cattle of, 48.

Guano, analysis of, 113; fertilizing power of, lit; intro-
duction of, for manure, 11-3.

Gullet, obstruction of the, 145 ; symptoms and treatment
of, 146.

Gum, existing in all vegetables, 107.

Gutteridge, Mr., on the success of neurotomy, 164.

Gyall, the, 3; fine specimen of the, in the Zoological Gar-
dens, 3 ; cross-breed of, with the common Indian bull, 4.

Harris, Mr., his description of the gyall, 3.

Haw, inflammation of the, 159 ; treatment of, 159.

Hayes, Mr , on a case of inflammation of the brain, 132.

Hearing, sense of, acute in the ox, 35.

Heart, inflammation of, 126 ; causes, symptoms, and treat-
ment of, 126.

Hebrides, cattle of the, 73.

Hellebore, white, a sedative, 180 ; useful in pneumonia, 124

Hemlock, long-leaved water, deleterious to tlie ox, 35.

Hepatitis, symptoms and treatment of, 127 ; cases of, 128.

Herefordshire, breed of cattle of, 65; essentially a breeding
county, Q5.

Herefordshire cattle, 55.

Herodotus, his description of the bull Apis, 22 ; on the
Piconian wild oxen, 10.

Hindus, veneration for the gayal, 4.

Holland, breed of cattle of, 50.

Holstein, breed of cattle of, 50.

Honiton, dairies in the vale of, 64.

Hoove, 143; cause, symptoms, and treatment of, 147;
chloride of lime useful in, 147 ; singular case of, 148.

Horns, of the aurochs, prodigious size of, 9; of the zebu,
disease in, 20 ; tendency to the development of the, in
cattle, 20; an indication of age in the ox proved to be
fallacious, 34.

Hubback, a celebrated bull, 82.

Hungarian breed of white cattle, 17.

Hnngary, cattle of, 49.

Husard, M., on mixing yew-cuttings with other food, 36.

Husbandry, oxen less available than the horse in, 45.

Icf.land, cattle of, 50-

Ileum, the, description of, 145.

Importations of cattle from abroad, 99, 100.

Insisor-teeth, 31.

Inflammation, of the larynx, 122; of the lungs, 123; of the
heart, 126; of tlie liver, 127; of the brain, 130; of the
spleen, 130; of the peritoneum, 132; of the mucous
membrane of the stomach, 135 ; of the kidneys, 137 ; of
the tongue, 137; of the eyes, 158; of the haw, 159; of
the substance of the udder, 171.

Injections, aperient, 178; sedative, 178.

Instruments with which the farmer should be provided,
184.

Intelligence of the ox, 39; anecdotes illustrative of, 39.

Intestinal canal, description of the, 144.

Introsusceptio, what, 134; strange remedy for, 134.

Iodide of potassium, a convenient preparation, 179.

Iodine, most valuable in its uses, both internal and ex-
ternal, 179.

Ireland, breeds of cattle of, 59 ; trade of in butter and
cattle, 72.

Isis, venerated under the form of a cow, 22.

Italy, breed of cattle of, 49 ; buffaloes of, 7.

Jaundice, causes of, 128 ; treatment of, 129.

Jejunum, description of the, 145.

Jenner, Dr., discovery of cow-pox by, 172.

Jersey, breed of cattle of, 48.

Johnson, on the droves of cattle of Russia, 49.

Jungly Gdu, the, 3.

INDEX TO THE OX.

Jura Mountains, breed of cattle of the, 48.
Jutland, short-horned race of cattle traced from, 50.

Kerry breed of cattle, 72.

Kidneys, inflannmation of the, 137 ; causes, symptoms, and

treatment of, 137.
Kino, an astringent, 182.
Klein, Mr. Jacob, his description of the fossil skull of a

bison, 15.
Kolben, instances of the intelligtnce of the backeley or

war oxen given by, 39.
Kotzebue, Otho Von, on the exportation of European

cattle, 25.
Kyloes, orblack cattle of Scotland, 73; description of the, 73.

La Charente, the Marais of, breed of oxen of, 47.

Lady, a celebrated cow, 83.

La Marche, cattle of, 46.

Lanarkshire, celebrated for the rearing of calves, 76; mode
of fattening calves in, 76.

Lancashire breed of cattle, 55, 57.

Lard, an ingredient in ointments and plasters, 183, 184.

Larynx, inflammation of the, 122 ; symptoms and treatment
of, 122.

Lasso, dexterity in throwing the, 23.

Laura, a celebrated cow, 83.

Laudanum, an antispasmodic, 181.

Laycock's Dairy, description of, 90, 92.

Lead mines, vicinity of, injurious to cattle, 156.

Lead, white, the basis of a cooling ointment, 183.

La Vaillant, on the courage of ihe backeley, or war oxen, 40.

Lice, mode of destroying in cattle, 161.

Lime, carbonate of, a most useful antacid, 182.

Limosin, cattle of, 46.

Lincolnshire ox, the, 85.

Lines, descriptive of the cow, 44.

Linnajus on the loss of cattle from eating the long-leaved
water-hemlock, 35.

Linseed oil little inferior to castor oil, 179.

Lithuania, horns of aurochs of, 10.

Lithuanian aurochs, origin of the, 15.

Liver, inflammation of the, 127.

Live-stock, increase of importation of, into England, 101.

Locked-jaw, cause, symptoms, and treatment of^ 142.

London markets, arrival at, of country-killed meat, 100.

Long-horned cattle, decline of, in various counties of Eng-
land, 61.

Loo, or low (see Foul in the foot), 159.

Lord, Mr., on the treatment of pneuironia, 124.

Lothians, various breeds of cattle in, 76.

Lotions, 184.

Lucern, a valuable article of food for cattle, 115 ; manage-
ment of, 115.

Lunar caustic, useful in removing warts, 183.

Lungs, inflammation of the, 123 ; symptoms of, 123.

Lyme Hall park, wild cattle in, 61.

Lyon, Captain, his description of bovine animals, 12.

Mackfnzie, Sir G., on Iceland cattle, 50.

Macrae, Mr., his statement respecting the gayal, 4.

Maine, breed of cattle of, 47.

Major, a celebrated bull, 83.

Malabar, description of the buffalo of, 6.

Malt, an .irticle of food for caitle, 110.

Manilla buffalo, description of ttie, 6.

Man, Isle of, cattle in, 71.

Mange, treatment of, 161 ; ointment for, 161.

Mangold-wurzel, culture of, 114; analysis of, 117.

Mantell, Dr., description of a pair of horns in the collection
of J 5.

Manyplus, description of the, 144; retention of food in
the, 150; causes of obscure, 150; coies of, 150; symp-
toms at d treatment of, 151.

Marsden, Mr , on tame buSaloes, 6.

Martial on the hubalus, 9.

Medicine, mode of administering to caitle, 144.

Medicines employed in the treatment of cattle, 177; with

which the farmer should be provided, 184.
Mercury, sulphate of, useful in cutaneous diseases, 179.
Merionethshire, breed of cattle in, 71.
Mesenteric glands, enlargement of the, symptoms and

treatment of, 155.
Mesentery, description of the, 145.
Metropolitan Dairy, 94.

Middle-horned stock of cattle, 62; description of the, 62.
Millbank, Mr., enormous weight of an ox bred by, 82 ; of a

cow bred by, 82.
Milk, fever, 169 ; different opinions as to the cause of,

169; symptoms of, 169; treatment of, 170, 171; sub-
stitutes lor, for calves, 177.
Milking cattle, anticipated degeneracy of, 86.
Miscarriage, see Arboition.

Mixture of the zebu and European race of cattle, 20.
Mode of judging of the weight of cattle, 87.
Molar teeth, 33.

Montgomeryshire, two varieties of cattle in, 71.
Moor-ill, see Wood-evil.
Mucous membrane of the stomach, iriflammation of the,

135 ; causes and symptoms of, 135.
Mucus, what, 107.
Mundy, Mr., breed of cattle of, 59.
Murrain, account of the, in England in the eighteenth

century, 122; symptoms of, 122; absurd remedies for,

122.
Museum of Paris, fossil skulls in the, 16.
Musk ox. description of the, 11 ; hunting of the, 11.
Myrrh, tincture of, a useful dressing, 183.

Nantes, cattle of, 47.

Navel-ill, causes and treatment of, 175.

Neurotomy, advantages of, and mode of performing, 164.

Niebelungen Lied, verses from the, 14.

Nitrate of potass, a good cooling lotion, 180, 184.

Nitre, or nitrate of potass, a uselul febrifuge medicine, 180.

Nitrous ether, spirit of, 180.

Nivernois, cattle of, 47.

Nomadic herdsmen oi Russia, 49.

Norfolk, breed of cattle of, 79.

North America, bison of, 3.

North Devon, cattle of, 62.

Northumberland, Earl of, extract from the household book

of, in the time of Henry VIII., 54.
Nostrums, the farmer and cattle-keeper to beware of, 184.
Noxious plants, accessible to grazing cattle, 35, 36.
Nux vomica, recommended in cases of palsy, 141.

OJsoPHAGUS, description of the, 143.

Oilcake, composition of, 112.

Oily or fatty matters, 108.

Ointments, 183.

Oleaginous purgative, an, 179.

Olive oil, an excellent purgative, 179.

Ophthalmia, causes and treatment of, 158; periodical treat-
ment of, 158. '

Opium, an antispasmodic, 180.

Orkney Islands, breed of cattle of, 74.

Osiris, venerated under the form of a bull, 22.

Ovibus Moschatus, the, or musk ox, 11.

Owen, Profei^sor, his opinion respecting the origin of the
Lithuanian aurochs, 16; notice of a skull found at
Heme Bay, 14.

Ox, of the ruminating order of quadrupeds, 1 ; wild, dif-
ferent names for the, 7 ; Egyptian adoration of the, 21 ;
universality of, 23 ; of Aunis, 47 ; of Fontenay, 47 ; of La
Charente, 47 ; of the Marais to the north of Luyon, 47 ;
of Poitou, 47; Devonshire, 63; Sussex, 67; Pembroke,
69; Galloway, 77.

Oxen, used for the plough, 27 ; for treading out corn, 27;

INDEX TO THE OX.

various breeds of, 46 ; names much used for the plough

in Devonshire, 64.
Oxen-drivers of Africa, cruelties practised by the, 20.
Oxmantown, Lord, cattle bred by, 59.

Pack-oxen of South Africa, 25.
Paget, Mr., breed of cattle of, 59.
Palsy, causes and symptoms of, 140 ; ignorance as to the

cause of, 141 ; absurd remedies resorted to for, 141 ;

treatment of, 141.
Pantas, see Wood-evil.
Parkinson, Mr., on the produce of a Suffolk cow, 81 ; on

the mode of treating foul-in-the-foot, 160.
Parmesan, cheese of the, 49.
Parsnips, a useful food for cattle, 117.
Parturition, 164; cases of, in which assistance is needful,

166; management of the cow during, 165; precursor

signs of, 165 ; use of ergot of rye in, 165.
Pembroke ox, description of the, 69.
Penny CyclopEedia, directions forjudging of the weight of

cattle given in, 87 ; extract from, on herdsuien and

drovers, 101.
Percival, Mr., on the different breeds of oxen at the Cape

and in South Africa, 26.
Perkins, Mr., cattle market erected by, 104.
Phrenitis, 130; symptoms and treatment of, 131.
Phthisis, or consumption, nature of, 125; is hereditary^

126; use of iodine in, 126.
Pitch," forms a good plaster, 184.
Plants, which are cordials and stimulants, 37; list of, eaten

by the goat, 37 ; by the hog, 37.
Plasters, 184.
Playfair, Profes-or Lyon, on the superiority of barley to

malt as food for cattle, 111.
Pleuritis, causes, symptoms, and treatment of, 125.
Pliny, on wild o.xen, 9 ; his directions for making buty-

rum, 28.
Pneumonia, symptoms of, 123 ; treatment of, 124.
Poeonian bonassos, mentioned by Aristotle, 9.
Poison, symptoms of, 37 ; different kinds of, 156 ; effect

of, 156 ; treatment of cattle affected by, 157.
Poitou, breed of oxen of, 47.
Polled stock of cattle, the, 77.
Poppv-heads, useful as a fomentation, 184,
Port Essington, wild animals in the forests adjacent to, 25.
Portugal, herds of cattle of, 18.
Potass, carbonate of, 182.
Pottie, Mr., on foot-root in the ox, 160.
Poultices, 183.

Preserved meat, arrival of in London from Russia, 101.
Princep, Mr., valuable breed of cattle of, 59.
Prize oxen, 56.

Probang, improvements in the, 146.
Prout, Dr., on the general composition of the chyle, 109 ;

on chlorine, 110.
Pulse, the, of the o.x, 119.
Purgative, an active, 179.

Purg;itives which may readily be made up, 179.
Puerperal fever, see Milk fever.

Queen of the Scots, a celebrated heifer, 78.

Rabies, see Phreniti.s.

Radnorshire, breed of cattle of, 70.

Rape-cake, used as manure, 112.

Rask, Professor, on the ancient peopling of India, 21.

Read, Mr., description of prohang invented by, 146.

Rectum, description of the, 145.

Red-water, nature, causes, and symptoms of, 152; Mr.

Ynuati's description of, 152 ; treatment of, 153.
Religious establishments, munificence of, 54.
Reproduction, 40.
Resin, forms a useful plaster, 184.
Restinji-grounds for cattle in the outskirts of London, 104.

Reticulum, description of the, 144.

Rheumatism, acute, symptoms of, 139 ; treatment of, 140 ;

chronic, treatment of, 140.
Rhodes, .Messrs., dairy of, 93.

Richardson, Dr., on the uses of the skin of the bison, 10.
Rogers, Captain, on the localities and habits of thegour, 5.
Romans, aimed at breeding oxen for labour, 27.
Rudge, Mr., on the profit of a Gloucestershire dairy, 67.
Rumen, descri|)tion of the, 144; distension of the, with

food, 149; treatment of, 149; case of, related by Mr.

Steel, 149.
Ruminantia, or ruminating animals, 1; characteristics of, 1.
Rumination, description of, 2.
Russia, cattle of, 49.
Russian government, penalty to, for killing European

bison, 8.

Saccharine principle, abundant in many vegetables, 107.
Sainfoin, a valuable food for cattle, 116; management of,

116.
Saintonge, breed of cattle of, 46.
Salesmen employed in the sale of cattle, 101.
Salt, importance of, in the animal economy, 109 ; essential

to the health of cattle, 92 ; common, an excellent purga-
tive and vermifuge, 178.
Salted provisions imported into the United Kingdom, 100.
Scarlet obnoxious to the bull, 35.
Scotland, breeds of cattle of, 73.
Scott, Sir W., his lines on the Argyleshire wild bull, 74 ; on

Highland herdsmen, 102.
Scottish Highlands, cattle of, 55.
Scriptural allusions to butter, 29.
Sedative and febrifuge medieines, ISO.
Seloi, or as'l gayal, description of the, 5.
Setons, 182.

Shakspere, a celebrated bull, 58.

Shaw, his description of butter-making in Barbary, 29.
Shetland Islands, breed of cattle of, 74.
Shial, the, 3.
Short-horned breed of cattle, the, 81 ; improvements in the

breed of, 83.
Shropshire, changes in cattle in, 61.
Sight, sense of, of the ox, 35.
Silver, nitrate of, a caustic, 183.
Simonds, Mr., probang armed with forceps invented by,

146; on the symptoms of milk fever in cattle, 169.
Skeleton of the cow, description of the, 30.
Skin, diseases of the, 161 ; causes and symptoms of, 161.
Skulls of aurochs, 10 ; names under which various fossil

skulls of oxen and bisons are described, 10.
Slinking, see Abortion.

Smell, sense of, acute in the aurochs, 9 ; in the ox, 35.
Smith, Colonel, his description of a species of zebu, 21.
Smithfield market, cruelties of, notorious, 34 ; reasons for

and against the abolition of, 104.
Soda, carbonate of, 182.
Soiling, or stall-feeding of cattle, 90.
Solinus, his mention of bisons, 9.
Somersetshire, cheeses of, 66 ; dairy farms of, 65.
South America, beids of cattle of, 3; descended from the

domestic oxen of the Spaniards, 3.
Spain, herds of cattle of, 18.

Spasmodic colic, symptoms and treatment of, 134.
Spleen, inflammation of the, 130; causes and symptoms

of, 130.
Spooner, Mr., on the cesophagean canal, 143.
Staffordshire, original breed of cattle of, 61.
Stall-feeding of cattle advocated, 97 ; objections to, 97.
Starch, properties of, 108 ; convertible into sugar, lOS.
Steer, or labouring o.x, used for the purposes of draught, 4I-.
Stimulants, 183 ; and cordials, 181.
Strains of cattle, treatment of the, 163.
Suflblk cow, description of, 80 ; duns, SO.

INDEX TO THE OX.

Sugar, pre-eminently nutritious, 106.

Sulphate of iron a tonic, 181.

Sulphur, 17S.

Sulphuric ether, a powerful stimulant, 181.

Sultan, a valuable bull, 58.

Sussex, cattle of, 67 ; not a dairy county, 67.

Swiss breeds of cattle, 48.

Sykes, Lieut. -Col., on tlie extensive breeding of o.xen in

India, 22.
Symmetry of the bull, 43 ; of the cow, 43 ; of the ox, 43.

Tankerville, Lord, his description of Chillingham-park
wild cattle, 18.

Tar, an excellent covering for broken horns, 184.

Tares, an important article of food for cattle, 117.

Tartar emetic, a most valuable medicine, 180 ; ointment
of, a powerful irritant to the skin, 180.

Tartars, the, use of the tail of the yak as a standard in
battle, 7.

Taste, sense of, in the ox, 35.

Taunton, cattle of the vale of, 65.

Tavernier, on the price and food of oxen used in travel-
ling, 22.

Teats, treatment of sore, 172.

Teeswater, or Holderness breed of cattle, SI.

Tetanus, cause, symptoms, and treatment of, 142 ; gene-
rally fatal, 142.

Thevenot on the use of the o.\en of India for travelling, 22.

Thibet, ox of, 7.

Thorns, mode of extracting from the foot, 159.

Thrush, symptoms and treatment of, 139.

Tobacco-water a dangerous remedv, 161.

Tongue of the ox, description and functions of, 38.

Tonics, 181.

Tornea, mortality among cattle in, 36.

Touraine, cattle of, 46.

Traill, Dr., his description of the gnur, 5.

Triptolemus, conquest of the Indians by, 21.

Trysts, or fairs, of Scotland, 105.

Turner, Mr., his description of the tame breed of buffaloes,
7.

Turnill, Captain, breed of cattle founded by, 86.

Turnip, importance of the, as food for cattle, 113: propor-
tions of the ingredients of, analysed, 113; most advan-
tageous mode of consuming, 114.

Turpentine, spirit of. efficacy in bronchitis, 123 ; a useful
medicine for calves. 175 ; a diuretic, an anti-spasmodic,
and a vermifuge, 180.

Twopenny, a celebrated bull, 58.

Udder, inflammation of the substance of the, see Garget.
Unguent, a useful, in mange, 183.
Urus, or uhr-ox, descriptoin of, 8, 9.
Uterus, rupture of, during parturition, 167.
Utrecht, catlle of, 50.

Varro, his description of the ox, 26

Veal of the Loudon markets, 61.
Vegetable kingdom, elementary constituents of, 106.
Ventilation indispensable in a dairy, 94.
Verandah, useful round a dairy, 94.
Verdigris, a caustic, 183.

Vetches, an important article of food for cattle, 117.
Virgil, his description of a heifer, 26 ; of the threshing-
floor, 27.
Vitriol, blue, a caustic, 183.
Von Spix on the uses of the tame cattle of Brazil, 24.

Waden, description of the, 12.

Wagons drawn by oxen in South Africa, 26.

Wales, cattle of, 55 ; middle-horned cattle of, 69.

Wallachia, cattle of, 49.

Warbles, 161; mode of destroying, 163.

Warts, on the eyelids, 158 ; mode of removing, 158.

Washington, a valuable bull, 58.

Water, good clear, essential to cattle, 118.

Wax, useful as an inaredient in plaster, 184.

Weaning of calves, 176.

Weissenborn, Dr., on the strength and haunts of the

aurochs, 8.
White buffalo, description of the, 12 ; cattle always much

esteemed, 17; oxen of Poland, 17.
White, Mr., on turning out cattle in winter, 51-; on the

disorder termed minderhig, 156.
Wild cattle of Europe and Western Asia, different opinions

respecting the origin of, 20.
Willoughby, Sir C, introduction of short-horned cattle

by, 61.
Wine used in the treatment of cattle, 182.
Wood-evil, causes, symptoms, and treatment of, 151.
Woods, Mr., his description of the horns of a skull, 14.
Wool of the musk ox, uses of, 12.
Worship of the ox first taught by Triptolemus, 21.
Wounds of cattle, 163 ; various kinds of, 163 ; treatment

of, 163.

Yak, tame breed, description of the, 7 ; wild, description
of the, 7; little known respecting the habits of, 7.

Yellows, or jaundice, 128.

Yew, shoots of, injurious to cattle, 36.

Yorkshire cattle, description of, 57.

Youatt, Mr., on the food of the labouring ox, 44 ; on its
activity, 45; on the polled cattle of Angus, 76; on the
adulteration of milk, 90 ; his calculation as to the num-
ber of head of cattle fattened in and about London, 97 ;
his estimate of cattle yearly brought to the London
markets, 99; on rabies in the ox, 131; on red-water,
152; on neurotomy, 164.

Yvart, M., on the plants in France injurious to cattle, 36.

Zebu race, peculiarities of the, 19 ; localities of the, 19;

antiquity of, in India, 20; veneration for, 20.
Zinc, sulphate of, a useful lotion for the eye, 184.

INDEX TO THE HOUSE.

Abyssinian horse, account of the, 199.

Acetabulum, description of the, 438.

Acetic acid, its properties, 537.

Acini, description of, 397.

Action of the hackney described, 248 ; high, not indispen-
sable in the hackney, 248.

Adeps, priperties of .537.

.ffithiop's mineral, an alterative, 547.

jfithusa cynapium, poisonous, 393.

Age, natural, of the horse, 330; of the horse as indicated
by the teeth, 325 ; other indications of, 330.

Air, a supply of pure, necessary for the health of the horse,
510.

Alcohol, its medicinal properties, 537.

Alfred, his attention to the improvement of the horse, 225.

Aloes, BarbaHocs, far preferable to Cape, 538 i descrip-
tion of the different kinds of, 538; principal adulterations
of, 539 : tincture of, its composition and use, 539.

Alteratives, the best, 539 ; nature and effect of, 539.

Alum, the use of, in restraining purging, 539; solution of.
a good wash for grease, 539 ; burnt, a stimulant and
caustic for wounds, 539.

American horse, description of the, 215.

Ammonia, given in flatulent colic, 539 ; vapour of, plenti-
fully extricated from dung and urine, most injurious to
the eyes and lungs, 539.

Anchylosis of bones, what, 348.

Anderson, Dr., his account of the galloway, 259.

Animal poisons, an account of, 393.

Animal power compared with that of the steam-engine,
554; its advantnges over mechanical, except where
velocity is required, 557.

Animals, zoological division of, 262.

Anise-seed, its properties, 539.

Anodyne, opium the only one to be depended on, 539.

Antea spinatus nutscle, description of the, 421.

Antimonial powder, a good febrifuge, 540.

Antimiiny, black sulphuret of, method of detecting its
adulterations, 539 ; tised as an alterative, 540 ; tartarized,
used as a nauseant, diaphoretic, and worm medicine, 540.

Antispasmodics, nature of, 540.

Apoplexy, nature and treatment of, 285.

Aqueous fluid, an, why placed in the Uibyrinlh of the ear,
274 ; humour of the eye, description of the, 280.

Arab breed, the, introduced by James I., 231.

Arabia, not the original country of the horse, 201 ; few
good horses there even in the seventh century, 201.

Arabian horse, history of the, 201 ; Bishop Heber's descrip-
tion of, 205 ; comparison between, and the barb, 203 ;
general firm of, 202 ; qualities of, 202 ; scanty nourish-
ment of, 206 ; treatment of, 205 ; varieties of, 202.

Arabs, attachment of, to their horses, 205 ; value their
mares more than their horses, 206.

Arched form of the skull, advantage of, 270.

Arm, description of the, 423; action of, explained on the
principle of the lever, 419, 423 ; extensor muscles of the,
424; flexor muscles of the, 424; full and swelling,
advantage of, 425 ; should be muscular and long, 425 ;
fracture of the, 478.

Arsenic, medical use of, 540 ; treatment under poison by,
394.

Arteries, description of the, 339; of the arm, 423; of the
face, 309; neck, 339 ; shoulder, 417.

Ascaiis, account of the, 405.

Ascot course, length of the, 239.
Astragalus, account of the, 442.
Athelstan, his attention to the improvement of the horse,

225.
Atlas, anatomy of the, 336.
Attechi, the, an Arabian breed, 202.
Auscultation, the Importance of, 365.
Australian horse, description of the, 209.
Axle, friction of the, dependent on the material employed,

584.

Back, general description of the, 347 ; proper form of the,
347; long and short, comparative advantages of, 348;
anatomy of the, 347 ; muscles of the, 349.

Backing, of the colt, 502; a bad habit of the horse, usual
origin of it, 502.

Back sinews, sprain of the, 430; thickening of the, consti-
tuting unsouudness, 534.

Balls, the manner of giving, 540; the manner of making,
540.

Barb, description of the, 199, 201, 237 ; comparison between,
and the Arabian, 203.

Barbs or paps, treatment of, 333.

Bark, Peruvian, the properties ot it. 541.

Barley considered as food for the hor-se, 517.

Barnacles, use of the, as a mode of restraint, 492.

Bar-shoe, description and use of, 489.

Barrel, proper shape of the, in the hunter, 244.

Bars, description and office of the, 452 ; proper paring o
for shoeing, 453 ; folly of cutting them away, 453 ; re-
moval of, a cause of contraction, 453 ; corns, 453.

Basilicon ointment, 541.

Bay horses, description of, 527; Malton, account of him,
235.

Beans, good for hardly worked horses, and that have a ten-
dency to purge, 518, 520 ; should always be crushed, 185.

Bearing-rein, the use and abuse of, 321.

Beet, the nutritive matter in, 520.

Belladonna, extract of, 541.

Berners, Juliana, authoress of the first book on hunting, 246

Bible, history of the horse in the, 187.

Biceps femorls, account of the, 440.

Bile, account of the, 397, 398,

Birman horse, account of the, 209.

Bishoping the teelh, description of, 329.

Biting, a bad habit, and how usually acquired, 502.

Bit, the, often too sharp, 322; the ancient, 193; sometimes
got into the mouth, 503.

Bitting of the colt, 415.

Black horses, description and character of, 257, 527.

Bladder, description of the, 409; inflammation of, symptoms
and treatment, 410; neck of, 410 ; stone in the, 410.

Bleeding, best place for general, 362, 493 ; directions for,
339, 362; from veins rather than arteries, 339; com-
parison between the fleam and lancet, 362; at the toe
described, 363 ; finger should be on the pulse during,
493 ; importance of, in inflammation, 493.

Blindness, usual method of discovering, 280; discovered
by the pupil not dilating or contracting, 280 ; of one eye,
280.

Blistering all roujid at once, barbarity and danger of, 491,
541 ; after firing, absurdity and cruelly of, 495.

Blisters, best composition of, 494 ; the difl'erent kinds and
uses of, 493 ; best mode of applying, 494 j caution witli

INDEX TO THE HORSE.

regard to their application, 494' ; the principle of their
action, 541 ; use of, in inflammation, 494; comparison
between them and rowels and setons, 497.
Blood, changes in during respiration, 354 ; change in after
bleeding, 363; coagulation of, 363 ; horses, very subject
to contraction, 461.
Blood-spavin, nature and treatment of, 362.
Bloody urine, 409.

Bog-spavin, nature and treatment of, 362, 444.
Bole, Armenian, medical use of, 541.
Bone spavin, nature and treatment of, 414.
Bots in the stomach, natural history of, 391 ; not usually

injurious, 392.
Bournou horse, description of the, 200.
Bowels, inflammation of the, 401.

Brain, description of the, 265, 271 ; its cortical and cineri-
tious composition, 271; the office of each, 271, 272:
compression of the, 284; pressure on the, 284; inflam-
mation of the, 287.
Bran, as food for the horse, 518.

Breaking in, cruel Arabian method of, 205 ; the South
American method of, 213; should commence in the
second winter, 414 ; description of its various stages, 414 ;
necessity of gentleness and patience in, 414; of tlie
farmer's horse, 414; of the hunter or hackney, 415.
Breast, muscles of the, 350.
Breathing, the mechanism of, 354.

Breeding, 251; as applied to the farmer's horse, 251;
qualities of the mare of as much importance as those of
the horse, 251, 411 ; the peculiarity of form and consti-
tution inherited, 411 ; in-and-in, observations on, 412.
Brewers' horses, account of them, 257 ; portrait of one, 258 ;

account of their breed, 258.
Bridle, the ancient, 193.
Broken down, what, 430.

Broken knees, treatment of, 531 ; method of judging of the
danger of, 531 ; when healed not unsoundness, but the
form and action of the horse should be carefully examined,
531.
Broken wind, nature and treatment of, 383 ; influenced
much, and often caused by the manner of feeding, 383 ;
how distinguished from thick wind, 384.
Bronchial tubes, description of the, 343.
Bronchitis, nature and treatment of, 376.
Bronchocele, account of, 369.
Bronchotomy, the operation of, 342.

Brood mare, description of the, 411 ; should not be too old,
412 ; treatment of, after covering, 413 ; after foaling, 413.
Brown horses, description of, 527.
Bryony, dangerous, 394.
Buccinator muscle, descriptinn of the, 310.
Bucephalus, account of, 192.
Burleigh, Lord, his opinion of hunting, 245,
Busbequius, his interesting account of the Turkish horse,
212.

Cabbage, the nutritive matter in, 520.

Caecum, description of the, 396.

Calamine powder, account of, 553.

Calculi in the intestines, 403.

Calkins, advantages and disadvantages of, 485 ; should be

placed on both heels, 485.
Calmuck horse, description of the, 220.
Camphor, the n)edical use of, 541.
Canadian horse, description of the, 215.
Canals, advantages and disadvantages of, 568 ; smallness

of power requisite for the transmission of goods by

them, 568.
Canal-boat, calculation of the draught of, 568 ; the ease of

draught of, might be increased by a different mode of

applying the power, 568.
Canker of the foot, nature and treatment of, 471.
Cannon, or shank-bone, description of the, 427.

Canter, action of the horse during, 560.

Cantharides, form the best blister, 393, 541 ; given for the

cure of glanders, 393, 542.
Cape of Good Hope, the horses of, 201.
Capillary vessels, the, 359.
Capivi, balsam of, 543.

Capped hock, nature and treatment of, 436 ; description of,
436, 447 ; although not always unsoundness, there should
be a special warranty against it, 531.
Capsicum berries, their stimulating effect, 542.
Carbon of the blood got rid of in respiration, 377.
Carbonate of iron, a mild tonic, 546.
Carraways, a good aromatic, 542.
Carriage-horses produced by crossing the Suffolk with a

hunter, 257.
Carriages, two and four-wheeled, comparison between, 582 ;
light, should have no longitudinal elasticity in the hang-
ing or springs, 582; disadvantage of C springs iu, 582 ;
hung on straps or springs in the time of Homer, 565.
Carrots, excellent effects of, in disease, 520 ; the nutritive

matter in, 520.
Carts, two-wheeled, computation of the friction of, 580;
can perform proportionally more work than wagons,
580 ; easier loaded, and do not so much injure the
roads, 580 ; require better horses and more attendants,
580 ; the horse sooner knocked up and injured by the
shocks of the shafts, 580 ; on good roads, and for short
distances, superior to wagons, 580 ; with two horses,
disadvantage of, 580 ; have less draught than wagons,
reason why, 580.
Cartilages of tlie foot, description and action of the, 456 ;
ossification of the, 472, 533 ; a cause of unsoundness,
489.
Caruncula lacrymalis, the, 303.
Cascarilla bark, a tonic and aromatic, 542.
Castley, Mr., on restiveness in the horse, 499.
Castor-oil, not a purgative for the horse, 542.
Castration, method of, 410 ; proper period for, 410 ; tlie

operation by torsion, 410.
Cataract in the eye, nature of, 281 ; cannot be operated on
in the horse, 281 ; method of examination for, 281 ; the
occasional appearance and disappearance of, 305.
Catarrh, description and treatment of, 364; distinguished
from glanders, 314; distinguished from inflammation of
the lungs, 364 ; epidemic, 369.
Catarrhal fever, nature and treatment of, 369.
Catechu, a good astrmgent, method of giving, and adultera-
tions of, 542.
Catheter, description of one, 410.
Caustic, an account of the best. 542.
Cavalry horse, description of the, 202 ; anecdotes of

the, 202.
Caw), description of the, 598.
Cerebellum, description of the, 271.
Cerebrum, description of the, 271.
Chalk, its medicinal use in the horse, 542.
Chaff, attention should be paid to the goodness of the in-
gredients, 515 ; best composition of, 515 ; when given to
the hard-worked horse much time is saved for repose,
516; quantiiy of, necessary for difl^erent kinds of horses,
516.
Chamomile, a mild tonic, 542.
Channel of the jaws, what, 325.

Charcoal, useful in a poultice, and as an antiseptic, 542.
Charges, composition and use of, 5 1-2.

Chariots, the first account of the use of, 190; in Solomon's
time, 190; the Grecian, 194; description of that of
Priam, 573 ; that of Juno described, 574 ; on the freize
of the Parthenon, description of, 574; used by the
Egyptians 1,500 years before the Christian aera, 573 ; at
the siege of Troy, 573 ; description of the ancient, 573 ;
of the ancients, could not move with much velocity, 574.
Chest, anatomy of the, 344 ; proper form of the, 345, 346 ;

INDEX TO THE HOUSE.

the importance of depth of, 345 ; narrow and rounded,
comparison between, 345; the broad chest, 346; founder,
description of, 351.
Chestnut horses, varieties of, 527.
Chillaby, friendship between liim and a cat, 237.

Chinese horse, description of tlie, 209.

Chinlced in the chine, wliat, 348.

Cliloride of lime, an excellent disinfectant, 54S ; of soda,
useful in unhealtliy ulcers, 551.

Chorea, 296.

Choroid coat of the eye, description and use of the, 279.

Chyle, tlie formation of, 396.

Ciliary processes of the eye, description of the, 280,

Cineritiousmatter ofthe brain, natureand function ofthe, 271.

Circassian horse, description of the, 207.

Cleveland Bay, description of the, 253.

Clicking, cause and remedy of, 506.

Clipping:, recommendation of, 524.

Clips, \vlien necessary, 486.

Clover, considered as an article of food, 519.

Clysters, the composition and great us»tulness of, 513 ;
directions as to the administration of, 513.

Clydesdale horse, description of the, 257.

Coaches, calculation of the power of horses in drawing ac-
cording to their speed, 562; loaded high, run lighter,
especially in rapid travelling, 583 ; safety, heavy draught
of, 583.

Coaeh-horse, description of the, 253 ; best breed of, 253.

Coat, fine, persons much too solicitous to procure it, 513.

Cocktail-horse, mode of docking, 498.

Coffin-bone, description of the, 454; the lamelliE, or leaves
of, 455; fracture of, 4S2.

Coffin-joint, sprain of, 435.

Cold, common, description and treatment of, 364.

Colic, flatulent, account of, 400 ; spasmodic, description
and treatment of, 399.

Collar, tlie best method of attaching the traces to the horse,
367 ; proper adaptation of, to the shoulder, 563.

Colocynth, is poisonous, 393.

Colon, description of the, 397.

Colonel, account of his performances, 241.

Colour, remarks on, 526.

Colt, early treatment of the, 413.

Complexus major, description of the, 339 ; minor, de-
scription of the, 339.

Concave-seated shoe, the, described and recommended, 486.

Conestoga horses, description of the, 216.

Conical wheels, compared wiih flat ones, 577 ; extreme
absurdity of, 577 ; strange degree of friction and drag-
ging with them, 577 ; afford great resistance and destroy
the road, 577 ; are in fact travelling grindstones, 578.

Conium maculatum, poisonous, 393.

Conjunctiva, description of the, 278; appearance of, how
far a test of inflinmiation, 278.

Consumption, account of, 385.

Contraction of the foot, nature of, 459, 531 ; the pecu-
liarity of the lameness produced by, 461 ; how far con-
nected with the n.ivicular disease, 463 ; is not the
necessary consequence of shoeing, 459 ; produced hy
neglect of paring, 460; wearing the shoes too long,
460; want of natural moisture, 460; the removal of the
bars, 461 ; not so much produced by litter as imagined,
460; the cause rather than the consequence of thrush,
461; best mode of treating, 462; rarely permanently
cured, 462 ; does not necessarily imply unsoundness,
531 ; althougli not necessarily unsoundness, should have
a special warranty against it, 531 ; blood liors2s very
subject to, 461.

Convexity of the eye, the proper, not sufficiently attended
to, 278.

Copaiba, account of the resin, 543.

Copper, the combinations of, used in veterinary practice, 543.

Corded veins, what, 318.

Cordials, the use and abuse of, in the horfe, 544.

Cornea, description of the, 278 ; mode of examining the,
278; its prominence or flatness, 278; should be per-
fectly tr.msparent, 278.

Corns, the nature and treatment of, 469; produced by
cutting away the bars, 469 ; not paring out the foot be-
tween the crust and bars, 469 ; pressure, 469 ; very diffi-
cult to cure, 469 ; constitute unsoundness, 531.

Coronary ligament, description of the, 452 ; the crust prin-
cipally i)rodnced from, 452; ring, description of the, 452.

Coronet, description of the, 452.

Corrosive sublimate, treatment under poison by, 394; a
good tonic for farcy, 394, 547.

Corsican horse, account of the, 218.

Cortical substance of the brain, description of, 272.

Cossack horse, description of the, 220 ; beaten in a race by
English blood-horses, 220.

Cough, the nature and treatment of, 381 ; constitutes un-
soundness, 531 ; the occasional difficulty with regard to
this, 534.

Cow-hocks, description of, 447.

Cradle, a safe restraint upon the horse when blistered, 494.

Cramp, the nature and treatment of, 294.

Cream-coloured horses, account of, 527; peculiarity in
their eyes, 279.

Cream of tartar, a mild diuretic, 550.

Creosote, its use in veterinary practice, 544.

Crib-biting, description of, 505; causes and cure, 506;
injurious to the horse, 506 ; constitutes unsonndnesF,
506, 531.

Cricket-ball, the action of cateliing a, 561.

Cricoid cartilage of the windpipe, the, 341.

Cromwell, Oliver, his stud of race-horses, 232.

Cropping of the ear, absurdity of, 273.

Croton, the farina of, used as physic, 544.

Crusaders, the improvement of the horse neglected by them,
227.

Crust of the foot, description of the, 451 ; composition of
the, 451 ; consisting within of numerous horny plates,
452 ; proper degree of it, slanting, 451 ; proper thickness
of the, 451 ; brittleness of, remedy for, 435 ; the cause of
sandcrack, 464.

Crystalline lens, description of the, 281.

Cuboid bones, description of the, 442.

Cuneiform bones, description of the, 270, 442.

Curbs, nature and treatment of, 443 ; hereditary, 252; con-
stitute unsoundness, 532.

Cuticle, description of the 522.

Cutis, or true skin, account of the, 522.

Cutting, cause and cure of, 431, 506; constitutes unsound-
ness, 532; away the foot, unfouuded prejudice against, 460.

Dandriff, thenatrre of, 522.

Darley Arabian, account of the, 234.

Dartmoor ponies, description and anecdote of, 230.

Deacon, Mr., his opinion on the forms of wheels, 553, 579.

Denhain, Major, interesting account of the loss of his horse,
205.

Depressor labii inferioris muscle, description of the, 310.

Desert horses, account of the, 200.

Diabetes, the nature and treatment of, 409.

Diameter of wheels, the effect of increasing the, 582.

Diaphoretics, their nature and efilrcts, 544.

Diaphragm, description of the, 351 ; rupture of, 353; its
connection with respiration, 353.

Digestion, the process of it described, 389.

Digestives, their nature and use, 344.

Digitalis, highly recommended in colds and all inflamma-
tory complaints, 544.

Dilator magnus lateralis muscle, description of the, 310 j
naiis latetalis muscle, description of the, 310.

Dishing of wheels described, and effiict of, 576 ; both in-
ward and outward effect of, 579.

INDEX TO THE HORSE.

Distressed horse, treatment of the, 246.

IHuretic medicines, the use and abuse of, 5i-5.

Docking, method of performing, 497-

Dogs, danger of encouraging them about the stable, 291.

Doncaster course, tlie lengtli of, 2.39.

Dongola horse, description of the, 19S.

Draught, theory of, 553 ; has not been sufficiently explained,
553, 559; implies the moving power, the vehicle, and the
road, 553 ; the moving power particularly considered,
554; considered in respect of the resistance, 557 ; calcu-
lation of, according to velocity and time, 557 ; much
influenced by the direction of the traces, 563 ; the line
of, should be parallel to the direction of motion, 563 ; in
cattle, sliould pass through the a.\le of the wheels, 564;
in bad roads may have a slight inclination upward, 567 ;
resistance of, should be as much as possible firm and in-
elastic, 567 ; how increased by the state of the road, 585 ;
of boats, difficulty of, increasing rapidly with the velocity,
568; calculation of the power of, 568; of the sledge,
569 ; of the roller, 569 : horse, the heavy, 256 ; horses,
the inferior ones about the metropolis, wretched state of,
259.

Dray-horse, proper form of the, 258 ; the largest bred in
Lincolnshire, 258; usually too large and heavy, 258.

Drinks, how to administer, 545 ; comparison between them
and balls, 5^-5.

Dropsy of the chest, 387 i of the heart, 357.

Drum of the ear, description and use of the, 274.

Dun horse, account of the, 527.

Duodenum, description of the, 296.

Diseases of the, 296.

Dura mater, desciiption of the, 271.

Dutch horse, description of the, 224.

Ear, description of the external parts, 273 ; internal parts,
274; bones of the, description and use of, 274 ; labyrinth
of the, 274 ; indicative of the temper, 273; clipping and
singeing, cruelty of, 273 ; treatment of wounds or bruises
of, 306; cruel operations on the, 306.

East Indian horse, description of the, 207.

Eclipse, the pedigree and history of, 236 ; account of his
proportions, 237.

Edward 11 introduced Lombardy horses into England, 227.

Edward III., the breed of horses much improved by, 227 ;
introduced Spanish horses, 227 ; had running horses, 228.

Egypt, account of the horses of, 188, 198.

Elasticity of the ligament of the neck, 270.

Elaterium, poisonous, 393.

Elbow, the proper form and inclination of, 423 ; capped,
423; fracture of, 479 ; punctured, 423.

Elizabeth, Queen, the number and value of horses much
diminished when she reigned, 230 ; a staunch huntress,
245.

Emetic tartar, used as a nauseant, diaphoretic, and worm-
medicine, 540 .

Enamel of the teeth, account of the, 325.

English horse, history of the, 224 ; first crossed by the
Romans, 224; improved by Athelstan, 225; William
the Conqueror, 226 ; John, 227.

Ensiform cartilage, the, 345.

Entanglement of the intestines, description of, 404. .

Enteritis, account of, 401.

Epidemic catarrh, nature and treatment of, 369 ; malignant,
nature and treatment of, 374.

Epiglottis, description of the, 341.

Epilepsy, nature and treatment of, 296.

Epsom salts, used as a purgative, 549.

Epsom course, the length of, 239.

Ergot of rye, the action of, 551.

Ethmoid bone, description of the, 270.

Ethiopian horse, account of the, 198.

Euphorbium, the abominable use of it, 393.

Ewe-neck, unsightliness and inconvenience of, 338.

Exchanges of horses stand on the same ground as sales, 536.

Exercise, directions for, 514; the necessity of regular, 514;
want of, producing grease, 448 ; more injury done by the
want of it than by the hardest work, 514.

Exmoor pony, description of the, 260.

Expansion shoe, description and use of the, 489.

Expense of horse, calculation of the annual, 555.

Extensor pedis muscle, descriptin of the, 441.

Eye, description of the, 274 ; fracture of the orbit of [the,
284 ; healthy appearance of the, 276 ; diseases of the,
302 ; inflammation of, common, 303 ; ditto, specific, 303 ;
ditto, causes, 304 ; ditto, medical treatment of, 303, 305 ;
ditto, untractable nature of, 304 ; ditto, consequences of,
304, 305 ; ditto, marks of recent, 532 ; ditto, constitutes
unsoundness, 532 ; ditto, hereditary, 304 ; method and
importance of examining it, 278, 281; indicative of the
temper, 274 ; the pit above, indicative of the age, 265 ;
muscles of the, 282.

Eyebrows, substitute for, 275.

Eyelashes, description of, 275 ; folly of singeing them, 275.

Eyelid, description of, 275.

Eyelids, diseases of the, 302.

Exostosis on the orbit of the eye, 284.

Face, description of the, 307 ; cut of the muscles, nerves,
and blood-vessels of, 309.

Falling-in of the foot, what, 458.

False quarter, nature and treatment of, 465.

Farcy, a disease of the absorbents of the skin, 318 ; con-
nected with glanders, 318; both generated and infectious,
320 ; symptoms of, 319 ; treatment of, 320 ; buds, what,
320; tile ert'ect of cantharides in, 320 ; diniodide of cop-
per, 320.

Farmer's horse, description of the, 251 ; fit for riding as
well as draught, 251 ; the general management of, 251 ;
no blemished or unsound mare to be used for breeding,
252.

Feeding, high, connected with grease, 450; regular periods
of, necessity of attending to, 520 ; manner of, has much
influence in broken wind, 384.

Feeling, of the mouth, constant, indispensable in the good
rider, 248.

Feet, good, importance of, in the hunter, 245 ; the general
management of, 521 ; attention to, and stopping at night,
recommended, 521.

Felt soles, description and use of, 489.

Femur, fracture of the, 479.

Fetlock, description of the, 434.

Fever, idiopathic or pure, 361 ; symptoms of, 361 ; symp-
tomatic, 361.

Fibula, description of the, 441.

Finland horse, description of the, 222.

Firing, the principle on which resorted to, 494 ; mode ol
applying, 495 ; should not penetrate the skin, 495 ; ab-
surdity and cruelty of blistering after, 495 ; horse should
not be used for some months alter, 496.

Fistula lacrymalis, 276.

Fits, symptoms, causes, and treatment of, 296.

Flanders horse, description of the, 259 ; our heavy draught
horses advantageously crossed with, 259.

Fleam and lancet, compari>;on between them, 362.

Flemish horse, account of the, 224.

Fleur-de- Lis, account of her performances, 242.

Flexor of the arm, description of the, 424 ; metatarsi muscle,
description of the, 442 ; pedis perforalus, the perforated
muscle, description of the, 424, 441 ; pedis perforans,
the perforating muscle, description of the, 425, 429, 441.

Flying Childers, an account of him, 234.

Foal, early treatment of, 413; early handling of, impor-
tant, 413; importance of liberal feeding of, 414; time
for weaning of, 414.

Fomentations, theory and use of, 546.

Food of the horse, observations on, 515 ; a list of the usual
articles of, 516; should be apportioned to the work, 516.

v_-- —

INDEX TO THE HORSE.

Foot, description of the, 45X ; the original defence of, 194;;
diseases of the, 456 ; canlcer, 471 ; corns, 469; contrac-
tion, 459 ; false quarter, 465 ; founder, acute, 456 ;
chronic laminitis, 45S; inflammation, 456; navicular
joint disease, 462; overreach, 465; prick, 467; pumiced,
458; quittor, 466; sandcrack, 364 ; thrush, 470 ; tread,
465; weakness, 472 ; wounds. 467.

Forceps, arterial, tlie use of, 363.

Forehead, 265.

Fore-legs, description of, 417 ; diseases of them, 428; pro-
per position of them. 436.

Forge-water occasionally used, 546.

Forrester, an example of the emulation of the horse, 240.

Founder, acute, symptoms, causes, and treatment of, 456;
chronic, nature and treatment of, 458.

Fo.'cglove, strongly recommended in colds, and all fevers,
544.

Fracture of the skull, treatment of, 283 ; general observa-
tions on fractures, 473 ; of the skul], 474 ; orbit of the
eye, 475; nasal bones, 475; superior maxillary, crupper
jaw-hone, 475; inferior ditto, 476; .■spine, 476; ribs,
477; pelvis, 477; tail, 478; limbs, 478 ; shoulder, 478 ;
arm, 478 ; elbow, 478 ; femur, 479; patella, 479; tibia,
479; hock, 480; leg, 480; sessamoid bones, 480;
pastern, 481 ; lower pastern, 481 ; coffin-bone, 482 ;
navicular hone, 483.

French horse, description of the, 217.

Friction, comparison of, in the wheel and roller, 469 ; on
the axle, dependent on the materi.il employed, 575 ; is
not materially increased by the velocity, 575 ; reduced as
the diameter of the axle is diminished, 575 ; inversely as
the diameter of the wheel, 575.

Frog, horny, description of the, 453 ; sensible, description
of the, 453, 455; dilto, action and use of the, 454;
pressure, question of the, 454; proper paring of, for
shoeing, 454 ; diseases of the, 454.

Frontal-bones, description of the, 265; sinuses, description
of the, 267 ; perforated to detect glanders, 267.

Furze, considered as an article of food, 515.

G\LL, account of the, 398; bladder, the horse has none,

398.
Galloping, the action of the horse during, 560.

Galloway, description of the, 259 ; anecdotes and perfor-
mances of the, 259.

Gall-stones, 407.

Gaucho, the South American, description of, ^\3 \ his
method of taking and breaking the wild horse, 213 ; his
boots, curious manufacture of, 214.

Gentian, the best tonic for the horse, 5i6.

Gibbing, a bad habit, cause of, and means of lessening, 502.

Gigs, formation of, 333.

Ginger, an excellent aromatic and tonic, 546, 553.

Glanders, nature of, 312 ; symptoms, 267,312,317; slow
progress of, 313, 315 ; appearances of the nose in, 267,
313, 314 ; detected by injecting the frontal sinuses, 267;
how distinguished from catarrh, 314; ditto, from
strangles, 314; connected with farcy, 314, 315; treat-
ment of, 318; causes, 315; both generated and conta-
gious, 315, 317 ; oftenest produced by improper stable
management, 315, 316; mode of communication, 316,
317; prevention of, 318; account of its speedy appear-
ance, 315.

Glands, enlarged, it depends on many circumstances whether
they constitute unsoundness, 532.

Glass-eye, nature and treatment of, 306.

Glauber's salt, its effect, 551.

Glutaji muscles, description of the, 439.

Godolphin Arabian, an account of the, 237.

Goulard's extract, 548.

Gracilis muscle, description of the, 439, 441.

Grains, occasionally used for horses of slow work, 517.

Grapes on the heels, treatment of, 449.

Grasses, neglect of the farmer as to the proper mixture of,
518.

Grasshopper springs, description of, 583 ; would be ad-
vantageously adopted in post-chaises, 583.

Grease, nature and treatment of, 448 ; cause of, 448 ; gene-
rally a mere local complaint, 449.

Greece, early domestication of the horse in, 192; the horse
introduced there from Egypt, 192.

Grey horses, account of the different shades of, 526.

Grinders, construction of the, 326.

Grinding, of the food, accomplished by the mechanism
of the joint of the lower jaw, 324; swallowing without,
505.

Grogginess, account of, 43 1'.

Grooming, as important as exercise to the horse, 513 ;
opens the pores of the skin, and gives a fine coat, 513 ;
directions for, 514.

Grunter, the description of, 385; is unsound, 531.

Gullet, description of the, 390 ; foreign bodies in, 391.

Gum-arabic, for what purpose used, 537.

Gutta serena, nature and treatment of, 306.

Habits, vicious or dangerous, 499.

Hackney, description of the, 248 ; its proper action, 248 ;
anecdotes of the, 249 ; coaches, account of, 254.

HiEmaturia, 409.

Hair, account of the, 522 ; question of cutting it from the
heels, 450.

Hamilton, Duke of, the Clydesdale horses owe their origin
to him, 257.

Harnessing, the best modes as regards draught, 567 ;
method of, in the time of Homer, 565.

Haunch, description of the, 437 ; wide, advantage of, 437 ;
injuries of the, 437 ; joint, singular strength of it, 437 ;
also of the thigh bones, advantage of the oblique direc-
tion of, 437.

Haw, curious mechanism of the, 276 ; diseases of, 302 ;
absurdity and cruelty of destroying it, 277.

Hay, considered as food, 515, 516; mowburnt, injurious,
519 ; old preferable to new, 519.

Head, anatomy of the, 265 ; the numerous bones compos-
ing it, the reason of this, 265 ; importance of the proper
setting on of, 337 ; beautiful provision for its support, 269.

Head, Captain, his account of the South American horse,
213.

Healing ointment, account of the, 553.

Hearing of the horse, the, very acute, 273.

Heavy black horses, account of, 257.

Heart, description of the, 356 ; its action described, 356 ;
inflammation of the, 240 ; dropsy of the, 240.

Heber, Bishop, his account of the Arabian, 204.

Heels, question of cutting the hair from them, 450 ; low,
disadvantage of, 473 ; proper paring of, for shoeing, 484 ;
washing, of the, producing grease, 450.

Hellebore, white, used in inflammation of the lungs and
fevers, 546 ; black, its use, 547.

Hemlock, given in inflammation of the chest, 547.

Henry VIII., tj'rannical regulations concerning horses, by
him, 229 ; the breed of the horse not materially im-
proved by him, 229.

Hepatic duet, the, 398.

Hernia, the nature and treatment of, 405.

Hide-bound, the nature and treatment of, 524.

High-blower, a description of the, 367, 385; is imsound,
531.

Highland pony, description of the, 261.

Hind legs, description of the, 437.

Hind wheels should follow the precise track of the fore
ones, 579.

Hip-joint, the great strength of the, 438.

Hips, ragged, what, 437.

Hissar, the East India Company's sale of horses at, 208.

Hobbles, description of the best, 492.

INDEX TO THE HORSE,

Ho"k, the advnntnge of its numerous separnte bones and
ligani'^ntp, 442 ; capped, 436, 449 ; cow, 4tJ) ; descrip-
tion of the, 442 ; enlargement of the, nature of, and how
aifecting soundness, 443, 532 ; inflammation of the
small bones of, a frequent cause of lameness, 443 ; the
principal seat of lameness behind, 443 ; lameness of it,
without apparent cause, 366 ; fracture of, 4S0.

Hog's-lard, properties of, 537.

Holstein horses, account of the, 223.

Homer, his account of the method of harnessing horses,
565.

Hoof, description ot the, 451.

Horizontal direction of the traces when proper, 567.

Horn of the crust, secreted principally by ihe coronary
ligament, 452 ; once separated from the sensible part
within, will never again unite with it, 458.

Hornet, sting of the, 593.

Horse, the first allusion to him, 187 ; not known in
Canaan at an early period, 187 ; description of, in early
times, 196, 197; not the native of Arabia, 201;
Arabian, 201; Armenian, 190 ; American, 215 ; .Austrian,
219 ; English, 224 ; Barb, 199 ; Birman, 209 ; Bournou,
200 ; Cappadocian, 191 ; first used in ihe cavalry
service, 188 ; chariot races formed part of the Olympic
games, 195 ; calculation of the annual expense of, 555 ;
Chinese, 209 ; Circassian, 207 ; uncert;aii whether he
was first trained to draught or mounted, 190 ; coach,
proper form, qualities, breed of, 253 ; the different
colours of the different breeds, 526 ; Corsican, 218 ;
Cossack, 210; Dongola, 198; Dutch, 224; when first
domesticated in Egypt and Canaan, 187; not domes-
ticated until after many other animals, 187 ; not found
in Egypt in the very early periods, 187 ; East Indian,
207 ; the flesh of, eaten, 211 ; English, history of, 224;
farmer's, 254 ; Finland, 222 ; Flemish, 224 ; fossil
remains found in every part of the world, 187 ; French,
217; general management of, 510; among the Greeks,
189 ; heavy black, 257 : early employed in huul-
ing the ostrich, 188; heavy draught, 256; tyrannical
regulations respecting, by Henry VIII., 229 ; grey, the,
of Sir Edward Autrobus, 245 ; hiring, early regulations
of, 225, 227 ; Hungarian, 220 ; Iceland, 222 ; Irish,
261; Italian, 218; sublime description of, by Job, 188;
much improved by John, 227 ; Lombardy, when first in-
troduced into England, 227 ; market, first account of,
226; Mecklenburg, 223; Nubian, 198; Parthian, 191;
Portuguese, 217 ; Prussian, 224 ; Russia, 220 ; Norwegian,
223; Persian, 191, 206; the early price of, 190; Eng-
lish, not used for the plough in early times, 226 ; jiovver,
calculation of, 567; price of, in Solomon's time, 190;
prices of, at different periods, 225, 231 ; ridden, the first
account of, 188; sagacity of, 250; can see almost in
darkness, 279; Sardinian, 218 ; .South American, 212;
ditto, instinct and sagacity of, 213: management of, in
South America, 213; Spanish, 216; Swedi'Sh, 222;
Tartarian, 210: Thessalian, 193; Toorkoman, 211;
Turkish, 212; wild, 210, 212; English improved under
"William the Conqueror, 226 ; zoological descrijition of,
262; immense number of, in the armies of some ancient
eastern monarchs, 190 ; numerous in Britain at_ the
invasion of the Romans, 224.

Howell the Good, his laws respecting the horse, 225.

Humerus, description of the, 422.

Hungarian horse, description of the, 220.

Hunter, the, general account of, 243 ; proper degree of
blood in, 243; form of, 244; spirit of, 245; anecdotes
of, 246, 247 ; management of, 245 ; symptoms of
dangerous distress in, 246 ; management of the, when
distressed, 246 ; the summering of, 247 ; shoe, descrip-
tion of the, 488.

Hydrocyanic acid, poisoning by it, 393; its occasional good
service, 537.

Hydrothorax, .symptoms and treatment of, 3S7.

Iceland horse, description of the, 222.

Ileum, description of the, 396.

Inflammation, nature of, 359; treatment of, 359; hot or
cold applications to, guide in the choice of, 360 ; impor-
tance of bleeding in, 359, 493; when proper to physic in,
360 ; of the bowels, 401 ; ditto, distinction between it
and colic, 399 ; brain, 287 ; eye, 308 ; foot, 456 ; kidnevs,
408; larynx, 365; lungs, 37(3; stomach, 391; trachea,
366 ; veins, 339.

Influenza, nature and treatment of, 369.

Infusions, manner of making them, 547.

Insanity, 301.

Intercostal muscles, description of the, 345.

Intestines, description of tlie, 395.

Introsusception of the intestines, treatment of, 404.

Invertebrated animals, what, 262.

Iodine, usefulness of, in reducing enlarged glands, 548.

Iranee horse, description of the, 208.

Iris, description of the, 280.

Irish horse, description of the, 261.

Iron, the carbonate of, a mild and useful tonic, 546 ;
sulphate of, a stronger tonic, 546 ; ditto, recommended
for the cure of glanders, 546.

Italian horse, description of the, 218.

Itchiness of the skin should always be regarded with suspi-
cion, 529.

James I. established the first jegulations for racing, 231 ;

introduction of the Arabian blood by him, 231.
James's powder, 540.

Jaundice, symptoms and treatment of, 407.
Jaw, the lower, admirable mechanism of, 323, 324 ; upper,

description of, 323.
Jejunum, description of the, 396.
John, the breed of horses improved by, 227.
Jointed shoe, the description and use of, 489.
Jugular vein, anatomy of the, 309, 339.
Jumper, the horse-breaker, anecdotes of his power over

animals, 499.
Juniper, oil of, use of, 548.
Juno, her chariot described, 574.

Kadischi, an Arabian breed of horses, 202.

Kicking, a bad and inveterate habit, 503.

Kidneys, desciiption of the, 407; inflammation of, symptoms

and treatment of, 408.
King Pippin, anecdotes of him as illustrating the invete-

rateness of vicious habits, 500.
Knee, an anatomical description of the, 425; tied in below,

429; broken, treatment of, 426, 531.
Kochlani, an Arabian breed of horses, 202.
Knowledge of the horse, how acquired, 264.

Labyrinth of the ear, description and use of the, 274.
Lachrymal duct, description of the, 276 ; gland, description

and use of the, 276.
Lamella or lamina, horny, account of the, 453, 455;

fleshy, account of the, 455 ; weight of the horse supported

by the, 455.
Lameness, shoulder, method of ascertaining, 417; from

whatever cause, unsoundness, 532.
Lampas, nature and treatment of, 323; cruelty of burning

the bars for, 323.
LaminiE of the foot, see Lamel'ae.
Lancet and fleam, comparison between them, 362.
Lapland horse, account of the, 222.
Laryngitis, chronic and acute, 365, 366.
Larynx, description of the, 341 ; inflammation of the, 365.
Lasso, description of the, 213.
Laudanum, the use of, in veterinary practice, 549.
Lead, the compounds of, used in veterinary practice, 548 ;

extract of, 548 , sugar of, use of, 548 ; white, use of, 548.
Leather soles, description and use of, 489.

INT)EX TO THE HORSE.

Le^, cut of the, 299 ; description of the, 427 ; fracture of
the, 482.

Legs, fore, the situation of, 417; hind, anatomicnl descrip-
tion of the, 437 ; of the hackney, should not he lifted too
nigh, 248 ; swelled, 447.

Levator humeri muscle, description of the, 338, 421.

Lever, muscular action explained on the principle of it, 419.

Ligament of the neck, description and elasticity of the, 269.

Light, the degree of, in the stable, 512.

Lightness in hand of essential consequence in a hunter, 243.

Limbs, fracture of the, 478.

Lime, the cliloride of, exceedingly useful for had smelling
wounds, &c., 548 ; the chloride of, valuable in cleansing
stables from infection, 548.

Lincolnshire, the largest heavy black horses bred in, 258.

Linaments, the composition and use of, 548.

Linseed, an infusion of, used in catarrh, 518, 549 ; meal
forms the best jioultice, 549, 550.

Lips, anatomy and uses of the, 321; lips, the hands of
horse, 321.

Litter, the, cannot be too frequently removed, 512 ; proper
substances for, 512; contraction not so much produced
by it as some imagine, 460.

Liver, tlie anatomy and use of it, 397; diseases of the, 406.

Liverpool, account of the course at, 239.

Locked jaw, symptoms, cause, and treatment of, 291.

Loins, description of the, 348.

Lombardy horse, the, when introduced into England, 227.

Longissimus dorsi muscle, description of the, 349.

Lucern, considered as an article of food, 519.

Lumhricus teres, the, 405.

Lunar caustic, a very excellent application, 540.

Lungs, description of the, 356 ; symptoms of inflam-
mation of the, 377 : causes of, 377 ; how distingiiished
from catarrh and distemper, 364. 370 ; treatment of,
378, 380 ; importance of early bleeding in, 380 ; blisters
preferable to rowels or setons in, 380 ; consequences of,
381, 382, 385.

Madness, the symptoms and treatment of, 289.

Magnesia, tlie sulphate of, 549.

Mahratta horse, account of the, 208.

Mealinders, the situation of, 436 ; the nature and treatment

of, 447.
Mammalia, the, an important class of animals, 262.
Manchester, account of the course at, 239.
Mane, description and use of the, 188, 339.
Mange, description and treatment of, 528 ; causes of, 528 ;

ointment, recipes for, 529; highly infectious, 528;

method of purifying the stable after, 529.
Manger feeding, the advantage of, 515.
Mare, put to the horse too early, 412, 413 ; deterioration

in, 412; her proper form, 412 ; breeding in and in, 412 ;

time of being at heat, 413; time of going with foal, 413;

best time for covering, 413; management of, when with

foal, 413; management of, after foaling, 413; more

concerned than the horse in breeding, 251 ; preferable to

gelding for the farmer, 251 ; selection of, for breeding,

252.
Mark of the teeth, what, 325.
Markham's Arabian, an account of, 231.
Marsk, the sire of many of the New-foresters, 260.
Mashes, importance of their use, 549 ; best method of

making them, 549.
Masseter muscle, description of the, 309, 324.
Maxillary bones, anatomy of the, 322 ; fractures of, 475,

476.
Meadow grasses, the quantity of nutritive matter in, 520.
Mechanical power, objections to the use of, 557.
Mecklenburg iiorses, account of, 223
Medicines, a list of the most useful, 536. '
Medullary substance of the brain, its nature and f'lnction,

266, 271.

Megrims, cause, 284 ; symptoms, 285 ; treatment, 285 ;

apt to return, 285.
Melt, description of the, 398.
Memory of the horse, instances of, 249.|
Mercurial ointment, the use of, in veterinary practice, 547.
Mercury, its use in epidemic catarrh, 374.
Merlin, the sire of many of the Welsh ponies, 260.
Mesentery, description of the, 396.
Metacarpals, description of the, 427.
Midriff, description of the, 351.
Moisture, want of, a cause of contraction, 4G0.
Mojinniss horse, description of the, 208.
Moon blindness, the nature of, 303.
Moulting, the process of, 525 ; the horse usually languid at

the time of, 526 ; no stimulant or spices should be given,

526 ; mode of treatment under, 526.
Mounting the colt, 416.
Mouth of the horse, description of the bones of, 322 ; should

be always felt lightly in riding, 218; importance of its

sensibility, 321.
Mowburnt hay, injurious, 519.
Muriatic acid, its properties, 537.
.Muscles of the back, description of the, 349; breast, ditto,

350 ; eye, ditto, 282 ; face, ditto, 309 ; neck, ditto, 337 ;

ribs, ditto, 345; shoulder-blade, 417, 420 ; lower bone of

the shoulder, 417, 422; the advantageous direction of,

more important than their bulk, 419.
Muscular action, the principle of, 423.
Mustard, the use of, 549.
Myrrh, the use of, for canker and wounds, 549.

Nasalis labii superioris muscle, description of the, 310.

Nasal bones, fracture of, 475 ; gleet, 311 ; polypus, 310.

Naves, cast-iron, to wheels, advantage of, 579 ; description
of the best construction of, 579.

Navicular bone, description of the, 455 ; the action and use
of it, 455.

Navicular joint disease, nature and treatment of the, 462 ;
how far connected with contraction, 463 ; the cure very
uncertain, 463 ; fracture of, 483.

Neapolitan horse, description of the, 218.

Neck, anatomy and muscles of the, 337 ; description of the
arteries of the, 339 : description of the veins of the, 339 ;
bones of the, 336 ; proper conformation of the, 337 ;
comparison between long and short, 337 ; loose, what,
337

Nerves, the, construction and theory of, 265; spinal, the
compound nature of, 272 ; of the face, 309.

Neurotomy, or nerve operation, object and effect of it, 298;
manner of performing it, 299 ; cases in which it should
or should not be performed, 299 ; a vestige of the per-
formance of it constitutes unsoundness, 533.

Newcastle, the Duke of, his opposition to the introduction
of the Arabian blood, 231.

New Forester, description of the, 260.

Newmarket, races established at, by Charles L, 231 ;
description of tiie different courses at, 239.

Nicking, the method of performing, 497 ; useless cruelty
often resorted to, 498.

Nimrod, his objection to clipping, 524.

Nitre, a valuable cooling medicine, and mild diuretic, 550.

Nitric acid, for what employed, 537.

Nitrous aether, spirit of, a mild stimulant and diuretic, 549.

Norman horse, description of the, 217.

Norwegian horse, description of the, 223.

Nose, description of the bones of the, 307 ; spontaneous
bleeding from, 307 ; the importance of its lining mem-
brane, 308, 364 ; the nose of the horse slit to increase
his wind, 309.

Nosebag, importance of the, 520.

Nostrils, description of the, 307; peculiar inflammation of
the membrane of the, 267 ; the membrane of, important
in ascertaining disease, 310, 364 ; importance of an

INDEX TO THE HORSE.

expanded one, 309 ; slit by some nations to increase the

wind of the horse, 309.
Nubian horse, account of the, 198.
Nutriment, the quantity of, contained in the different

articles of food, 520.

Oats, the usual food of the horse, 516, 520; should be
old, heavy, dry, and sweet, 516; kiln-dried, injurious to
the horse, 517; proper quantity of, for a horse, 517.

Oatmeal, excellent for gruel, and sometimes used as a
poultice, 517.

Occipital bone, description of the, 266.

QJnanthe fistulosa, poisonous, 393.

CEsophagus, description of the, 3S9.

O'Kelly, Colonel, anecdotes of him and Eclipse, 236.

Olfactory nerves, the importance of them, 308.

Olive oil, an emollient, 519.

Olympia, the races at, 195.

Omentum, description of the, 398.

Opacity of the eye, the nature and treatment of, 303.

Operations, description of the most important, 4-92 ; the
dreadful ones caused by cruel treatment and driving, 255.

Ophthalmia, 303.

Opium, its great value in veterinary practice, 549 ; adulte-
rations of it, 550.

Orbicularis muscle of the eye, description of it, 282.

Orbit of the eye, fracture of, 284.

Os femoris, account of, 440.

Ossification of the cartilages, cause and treatment of, 472.

Overreach, the nature and treatment of, 465, 506 ; often
" producing sandcrack or quitter, 507.

Ozena, account of, 311.

Pace, the efiect of, in straining the horse, 255.

Pachydermata, an order of animals, 263.

Pack-horse, description of the, 260.

Pack-wax, description of the, 269, 336.

Palate, description of the, 340.

Palm oil, the best substance for making up balls, 550.

Palsy, the causes and treatment of, 297.

Pancreas, description of the, 399.

Paps or barbs, 333.

Parietal bones, description of the, 268.

Paring out of the foot for shoeing, directions for, 483 ;

neglect of, a cause of contraction, 460.
Parotid gland, description of the, and its diseases, 310,332.
Parsnips, the nutritive matter in, 520.
Parthenon, description of chariots on the frieze of it, 574.
Pastern, upper, fracture of, 481 ; lower, fracture of, 481 ;

description of the, 432, 434; bones of the, 432; proper

obliquity of the, 433.
Patella, or stifle bone, description of the, 440 ; fracture of,

479.
Pawing, remedy for, 507.
Payment of the smallest sum completes the purchase of a

horse, 535.
Peas sometimes used as food, but should be crushed, 518,

620.
Pectineus muscle, the, 439.

Pectorales muscles, description of the, 350, 421.
Pelvis, fracture of the, 477.
Pericardium, description of the, 356.
PeronEBus muscle, description of the, 441.
Persian horse, description of the, 206 ; management of,

206.
Persian race, description of a, 207.
Perspiration, insensible, no medicines will certainly increase

it, 525.
Peter the Great, the immense block of marble constituting

the pedestal of his statue, how moved, 571.
Pharvnx, anatomy of the, 335.
Phrenitis, 287.
Phthisis pulmonalis, description of, 385.

Physic halls, method of compounding the best, 540; should
never be given in inflammation of the lungs, 355.

Physicking, rules for, 402.

Pia mater, description of the, 271.

Pied horse, account of the, 527.

Pigmentum nigrum, account of the, 279.

Piper, description of the, 284.

Pit of the eye, the, indicative of the age, 265.

Pitch, its use for charges and plasters, 550.

Pithing, a humane method of destroying animals, 336.

Pleura, description ot the, 354.

Pleurisy, the nature and treatment of, 355, 386.

Pneumonia, the nature and treatment of, 377.

Poisons, account of the most frequent, 393 ; tests of the
different ones, 394.

Pole-evil, the cause and treatment of, 336 ; importance of
the free escape of the matter, 336.

Pony, varieties of the, 259.

Popliteus muscle, description of the, 442.

Porter, Sir R. Ker, his account of the Persian horse, 206.

Portuguese horse, the, 217.

Post, the first establishment of it, 254.

Post-chaises, grasshopper springs would be advantageously
adopted for, 583.

Postea spinatus muscle, description of the, 421.

Potash, the compound of, 550,

Potatoes, considered as an article of food, 520.

Poultices, their various compositions, manner of acting,
and great use, 550.

Powders, comparison between them and balls, 551.

Po.ver of draught in the horse, illustrations of, 255; calcu-
lation of, 555 ; compared with that of the human being,
558 ; compared with that of a steam-engine on railways,
55G ; on common roads, 556 ; on bad roads, 557 ;
dependent on his weight and muscular force, 557 : how
diminished when towing a boat on a canal, 560; greater
whenclose to his work, 560; this depends on his strength,
and the time he can exert it, 561 ; the diminution of,
according to his speed, table of, 562.

Pressure on the brain, effect of, 284.

Priam's chariot, a description of, 573 ; he harnessed his
own horses, 573.

Prices of horses at different periods, 225, 227, 228.

Prick in the foot, treatment of, 467 ; injurious method of
removing the horn when searching for, 468.

Prussian horse, account of the, 224.

Prussic acid, treatment of poisoning by, 393.

Puffing the glims, a trick of fraudulent horse-dealers, 265.

Pulling, the action of, explained, 358.

Pulse, the natural standard of the, 358 ; varieties of the,
358; importance of attention to the, 359; the most
convenient place to feel it, 358 ; the finger on the pulse
during the bleeding, 359.

Pumiced feet, description and treatment of, 458 ; do not
admit of cure, 458 ; constitute unsoundness, 533.

Pupil of the eye, description of the, 280 j the mode of
discovering blindness in it, 280.

Purchase, to complete the, there must be a memorandum,
or payment of some sum, however small, 535.

Purging, violent, treatment of, 402.

QuARTERS-ofthe horse, description of the, 439 ; importance
of their muscularity and depth, 439 ; foot, description of,
452; inner, the crust thinner and weaker at, 452; folly
of lowering the crust, 452.

Quidding the food, cause of, 507 ; unsoundness while it
lasts, 533.

Quinine, the sulphate of, 541.

Quittor, the nature and treatment of, 466 ; the treatment
often long and difficult, exercising the patience both of
the practitioner and owner, 466 ; is unsoundness, 533.

Rabies, symptoms of, 289.

INDEX TO THE HOUSE.

Race-courses, different lengths of, 239.

Kaces, early, mere runniiij; on train-scent, 231; frequent
cruelty of, 238, 240 ; different kinds of, described, 23S ;
regular, first established at Stamford, 231 ; regulations
for, established by James I., 231 ; patronized by Charles
I., 231 ; Persian, description of, 207 i the great length
of the old courses, 238 ; consequences of the introduction
of short races, 239, 210 ; llie different lengths that are
run, 239 ; the races at Smithfield, 226.

Race-horse, his history, 233; form, 234; emulation, 340.

Racks, no openings should be allowed above them, 511.

Radius, description of the, 423.

Ragged-hipped, what, 437 ; no impediment to action, 437.

Railways, mechanical advantage of, 255, 585; they im-
mensely increase the power of the horse, 586.

Raking, the operation of, 551.

Rearing, a dangerous and inveterate habit, 504.

Recti muscles of the neck, description of, 338 ; of the
thigh, 438.

Rectum, description of the, 396, 397.

Reins, description of the proper, 321.

Resin, its use in veterinary practice, 551.

Resistance in draught, observations on, 560.

Respiration, description of the mechanism and effect of,
353.

Respiratory nerves, the, 272.

Kestiveness, a bad habit, and never cured, 499 ; anecdotes
in proof of its inveterateness, 499.

Retina, description of the, 281.

Retractor muscle of the eye, 282.

Rheumatism, 297.

Ribbed home, advantage of being, 347.

Ribs, anatomy of the, 345, 346.

Richard Coeur-de-Lion, account of his Arabian horses, 227.

Richmond, Duke of, his method of breeding good carriage
horses, 257.

Riding, directions for, 248.

Ringbone, the nature and treatment of, 435 ; constitutes
unsoundness, 532.

Roach-backed, what, 348.

Roads, how affected by different wheels, 576 ; how influen-
cing the proper breadth of the wheels, 576 ; the great
extent to which they affect the draught, 584 ; soft and
yielding, far more disadvantageous than rough ones, 584;
slight alterations in their level advantageous, 584; hard-
ness the grand desideratum in, 585; should be nearly
flat, 585 ; necessity of constant repairs and attention to
them, 585 ; calculation of tlie degree by which the
resistance is increased by bad ones, 575, 576.

Roan horses, account of, 526.

Roaring, the nature of, 366, 384; curious history of, 367;
constitutes unsoundness, 531 ; from tight reining, 368 ;
from buckling in crib-biting, 368 ; treatment of, 369.

Rollers, calculation of the draught of, 570; how probably
first invented or brought into use, 569 ; comparison of
their power with that of wheels, 573 ; mechanism and
principle of, 570 ; particular circumstances in which
their use is advantageous, 571 ; the weight moves with
double thevelocityof the rollers, and therefore fresh rollers
must be supplied in front, 571 ; the immense block of
marble at St. Petersburg, description of its being moved
on them, 571.

Rolling, danger of, and remedy for, 507.

Roman nose in the horse, what, 307.

Rome, the ancient races at, 197.

Round-bone, the, can scarcely be dislocated, 440.

Rowels, manner of inserting, and their operation, 551 ;
comparisons between them, blisters, and setons, 497.

Running away, method of restraining, 504.

Rupture, treatment of, 405 ; of the suspensory ligament,
434.

Russian horse, account of the, 220.

Rye-grass, considered as an article of food, 519.

Saddles, the ancient, 193 ; the proper construction of,
350 ; points of, 350.

Saddle-backed, what, 348 ; galls, treatment of, 350.

Saddling of the colt, 415.

Safety coaches, the heavy draught of, 583.

Sagacity of the horse, 250.

Sainfoin, usedjas an article of food, 519.

Sal ammoniac, the medical use of, 539.

Saliva, its nature and use, 333.

Salivary glands, description of the, 332.

Sallenders, nature and treatment of, 449.

Salt, use of in veterinary practice, 551 ; value of, mingled
in the food of animals, 519.

Sandal, Mr. Percival's, 490.

Sandcrack, the situation of, 436 ; the nature and treatment
of, 464 ; most dangerous when proceeding from tread,
464 ; liable to return unless the brittleness of the hoof is
remedied, 464 ; constitutes unsoundness, 533.

Sardinian horse, account of the, 218.

Sartorius muscle, description of the, 439.

Savin, dangerous, 394.

Scapula, description of the, 417.

Sclerotica, description of the, 278.

Scouring, general treatment of, 402.

Secale cornutum, the effect of, 551.

Sedatives, a list of them, and their mode of action, 551.

Serratus major muscle, description of the, 344, 417, 421.

Sessamoid bones, admirable use of, in obviating concussion,
432 ; fracture of, 480.

Setons, mode of introducing, 496 ; cases in which they are
useful, 496 ; comparison between them and rowels and
blisters, 497.

Shank-bone, the, 427.

Shetland pony, description of the, 261.

Shoe, the concave-seated, described, and recommended,
486 ; the manner in which the old one should be taken
off, 483 ; the putting on of the shoe, 484 ; it should be
fitted to the foot, and not the foot to the shoe, 484 ; des-
cription of the hinder, 486 ; the unilateral, or one-side
nailed shoe, 487; the bar-shoe, 489; the tip, 489; the
hunting, 488 ; the jointed, or expansion, 489.

Shoeing, not necessarily productive of contraction, 459 ;
preparation of the foot for, 483 ; the principles of, 483.

Short-bodied horses, when valuable, 245.

Shoulder, anatomical description of the, 417 ; slanting
direction of thf, advantageous, 418, 419; when it should
be oblique, and when upright, 420; sprain of the, 417;
lameness, method of ascertaining, 418; fracture ofthe,478.

Shoulder-blade, muscles of the, 417 ; why united to the
chest by muscle alone, 417; lower bone of the, descrip-
tion of, 422 ; muscles of the, 424.

Shying, the probable cause of, 282, 507 ; treatment of,
508 ; on coming out of the stable, description of, 509.

Side-line, description of the, 492.

Sight, the acute sense of, in the horse, 279.

Silver, the nitrate of, an excellent caustic, 540.

Singeing, recommendation of, 524.

Sinuses in the foot, necessity of following them as far as
they reach, 468.

Sitfasts, treatment of, 350.

Skeleton of the horse, description of the, 263.

Skin, anatomical description of the, 522 ; function and
uses of it, 523 ; pores of it, 525 ; when the animal is in
health is soft and elastic, 523.

Skull, anatomical description of the, 266 ; arched form of
the roof, 270 ; fracture of the, 283, 474.

Smithfield market, early account of, 226.

Sledges, calculation of the draught of, 569 ; description of
the mechanism and use of, 569 ; where more advantage-
ous than wheels, and where very disadvantageous, 569,
570 ; calculation of the power of, 569 ; their advantage
in travelling over ice and snow, 570 ; Esquimaux, an
account of the, 570.

INDEX TO THE HORSE.

Slipping the collar, remedy for, 509.

Smell, the sense and seat of, 308 ; very acute in the horse,
308.

Sneiving, Mr., his advocacy of clipping, 524.

Soap, its use in veterinary practice, 551.

Soda, chloride of, its use in ulcers, 551 ; sulphate of, 551.

Sole, the horny, description of, 453 ; descent of, 453 ;
proper form of, 453; management of, in shoeing, 453;
the sensible, 453, 455 ; felt, or leather, their use, 489.

Solomon, imported horses from Egypt, 190.

Sore-throat, symptoms and treatment of, 365.

Soundness, consists in there being no disease, or alteration
of structure that does or is likely to impair the useful-
ness of the horse, 530 ; considered with reference to the
principal causes of unsoundness, 531.

South American horse, description of it, 212 ; management
of it, 213.

Spanish horse, description of it, 216.

Spasmodic colic, nature and treatment of, 399.

Spavin, blood, the nature and treatment of, 362 ; is un-
soundness, 533 ; bog, cause, nature, and treatment of,
362, 444 ; bone, 444 ; wby not always accompanied by
lameness, 445 ; is unsoundness, 533.

Spavined horses, the kind of work they are capable of, 445.

Speed, of the horse, produces rapid diminution of power,
561 ; time of labour, the most advantageous proportion
of, 561, 562 : the sacrifice of the horse in endeavour-
ing to obtain it, 562.

Speedy-cut, account of, 429.

Sphenoid bone, description of the, 270.

Spinalis dorsi muscle, description of the, 349.

Spine, description of the, 347 : fracture of, 476.

Spleen, description of the, 398.

Splenius muscle, description of the, 337.

Splint, nature and treatment of, 428, 436 ; when constitut-
ing unsoundness, 534 ; bones, description of tlie, 428.

Sprain of the back-sinews, treatment of, 430, 436 ; some-
times requires firing, 431 ; any remaining thickening
constitutes unsoundness, 534; sprain of theshoulder,4l7.

Spring steel-yard, the force of traction illustrated by, 554.

Springs to carriages, theory of tlieir effect, 582 ; witli some
modifications might be adapted to the heaviest wagons,
583; great advantages of, in rapid travelling, 583; grass-
hopper, description of, 583 ; C, disadvantages of, 583.

Spur, the ancient, 194.

Stables, dark, an occasional cause of inflammation of the
eye, 304 ; hot and foul, a frequent one of inflammation
of the eye, 304 ; ditto, lungs, 510 ; ditto, glanders, 315,
316 ; should be large, compared with the number of
horses, 510; the minagement of, too much neglected by
the owner of the horse, 510; the ceiling of, should be
plastered, if there is a loft above, 510 ; should be so con-
trived that the urine will run off, 512 ; the stalls should
not have too much declivity, 512 ; should be sufficiently
light, yet without any glaring colour, 513.

Staggers, stomach, symptoms, cause, and treatment of,
285, 520 ; generally fatal, 285 ; producing blindness, 287 ;
sometimes epidemic, 287 ; mad, symptoms and treat-
ment, 287.

Staling, profuse, cause and treatment of, 409,

Stallion, description of the, proper for breeding, 412.

Stamford, races first established at, 231.

Starch, used in superpurgation, 552.

Stargazer, the, 338.

Steam-engine, comparison of the, with the e.xertion of
animal power on railways, 556 ; common roads, 556 ;
calculation of the expense, 555 ; small, has little advan-
tage in expense over horse power, 557.

Steeple-chase, description and censure of it, 247.

Sternum, or breast-bone, description of the, 345, 421.

Stifle, description of the, 440 ; accidents and diseases of
the, 442.

Stirrup, the ancient, 194.

Stomach, description of the, 389, 390 ; very small in the
horse, 390; inflammation of the, 391 j pump recom-
mended in apoplexy, 287.

Stone in the bladder, symptoms and treatment' of, 410 ;
kidney, 410.

Stoppings, the best composition of, and their great use, 552.

Straddlers, wheels so called, description of, 579 ; olijection
to them, 679 ; method of evading the law concerning,
579.

Strain, uniform, and constant in draught, bad consequences
of, 563.

Strangles, symptoms and treatment of, 334 ; distinguished .
from glanders, 314; the importance of blistering early
in, 334.

Strangury, produced by blistering, 494 ; treatment of, 494.

Strawberry horse, account of the, 526.

Stringhalt, nature of, 294; is decidedly unsoundness, 296,
534.

Structure of the horse, importance of a knowledge of, 264.

Strychnia, account of, 552.

Stylo-maxillaris muscle, description of the, 309.

Sublingual-gland, description of the, 333.

Submaxillary glands, description of the, 333 ; artery, de-
scription of the, 310.

Sub-scapulo hyouleus muscle, description of the, 309.

Suffolk punch, description of the, 256 ; honesty and con-
tinuance of the old breed, 256.

Sugar of lead, use of, 548.

Sullivan, the Irish whisperer, anecdotes of his power over
the horse, 500 ; the younger did not inherit the power of
his father, 501.

Sulphate of copper, use of, in veterinary practice,' 543 ;
iron, 546 : magnesia, 549 ; zinc, 553.

Sulphur, an excellent alterative and ingredient in all appli-
cations for mange, 552.

Summering of the hunter, consideration of, 247.

Surfeit, description and treatment of, 527; importance of
bleeding in, 528.

Suspensory ligament, beautiful mechanism of the, 432 ;
rupture of the, 434 ; suspensory muscle of the eye, de-
scription of the, 282.

Swallowing without grinding, 505.

Swedish horse, description of the, 222.

Swelled legs, cause and treatment of, 447 ; most frequently
connected with debility, 448.

Sweetbread, description of the, 399.

Sympathetic nerves, description of the, 273.

Tail, anatomy of the, 344 ; fracture of the, 478 ; docking,
497 ; nicking, 497.

Tar, its use in veterinary practice, 552.

Tares, a nutritive and healthy food, 519. .c3

Tartar, cream of, 550. ' ~*^

Tartarian horse, description of the, 210.

Taysee horse, description of the, 208.

Team, disadvantages of draught in, explained, 560 ; their
united power not equal to the calculal^ )n of so many
horses, 560.

Tears, the secretion and nature of the, 276 ; how conveyed
to the nose, 276 ; sometimes shed by the horse from
pain and grief, 276.

Teeth, description of the, as connected with age, 325; at
birth, 325 ; two months, 325 ; twelve months, 326 ;
eighteen months, 326 ; the front sometimes pushed out,
that the next pair may sooner appear, and the horse
appear to be older than he is, 327 ; three years, 327 ;
three and a half years, 327 ; four years, 328; four and a
half years, 328 ; five years, 328 ; six years, 328 ; seven
years, 329 ; eight years, 329 ; change of the, 327 ; enamel
of the, 325 ; irregular, inconvenience and danger of,
331 ; mark of the, 325 ; frauds practised with regard to
the, 328; diseases of the, 331.

Temper, denoted by the eye, 274 ; by the ear, 273.

INDEX TO THE HORSE.

Tempernture, sudden cliange of, injurious iu its cfTect, 510.

Temporal bones, description of the, 268.

Tendons of the leg, 428.

Tetanus, symptoms, causes, and treatment of, 291.

Thessalian'liors", account of, 193.

Thick wind, nature and treatment of, 382, 381' ; often found
in round-chested horses, 382.

Thigh and haunch bones, description of, 437 ; form of,
437 ; should be long and muscular, 437; description of
the muscles of the inside of the upper bone of, 439 ;
ditto, of the outside, 439 ; mechanical calculation of their
power, 439.

Thorough-bred horses, the quality of, has not degenerated,
234.

Thorough-pin, the nature and treatment of, 442 ; is not
unsoundness, 534.

Thrush, nature and treatment of, 470 ; the consequence
rallier than the cause of contraction, 461 ; its serious
nature and consequences not sufficiently considered, 471 ;
constitutes unsoundness, 534.

Thymus gland, the, 351.

Thyroid cartilage of the windpipe, description of the, 341.

Tibia, account of the, 441, 442 ; fracture of, 479.

Tied in below the knee, nature and disadvantage of, 429.

Tinctures, account of the best, 552.

Tips, description and use of, 489.

Tobacco, when used, 552.

Toe, bleeding at the, described, 363.

Tongue, anatomy of the, 331; diseases of, 332; bladders
along the under part of it, 332.

Tonics, an account of tlie best, 552 ; their use and danger
in veterinary practice, 552.

Toorkoman horse, description of, 211.

Torsion, the mode of castration by, 417 ; forceps, descrip-
tion of, 417.

Traces, the direction of them, very important in draught,
563 ; proper angle of the, 563 : the proper inclination of
them depending on the kind of horse and the road, 56i :
they should be inclined downward on rough roads, 564 ;
inclined downward, the same as throwing a part of the
weight on the shafts, 565 ; direction of them, rarely
attended to, 5G5 ; the manner of affixing them in South
•rica, 566.
I . — Midpipe, description of, 341; inflammation

42 ; operation of, 343.

rce of, illustrated by reference to the spring

• 54 ; the proper line of, very important in

:le, description of the, 420.
e, description of the, 426.
erent rale of, at different times, 254 ; coin-
pid and slow, 562.

and treatment of, 465 ; often producing
■•c.:,d{k 0)' quittor, 465.

;:old,'Mr.( 'lis comparison of moving power in draught,
'61.
i'rippiuir. a-* nnoying and inveterate habit, 509.
Tro^han^ \ the thigh, description of the, 438.
Troeuiearis muscle, the, 283.

Trotter, the performance of the hackney as one, 250.
Trotting, cruel exhibitions of, 250 ; action of the horse
during, 559; position of the limbs in, unfaithfully repre-
sented in the Elgin marbles and the church of St. Mark,
559.
Turbinated bones, description of the, 308.
Turkish horse, description of the, 212.
Turner, Mr. T., on clipping, 52 K
Turnips, considered as an article of food, 520.
Turpentine, the best diuretic, 545 ; a useful ingredient in

mange ointments, 553.
Tushes, description of the, 328.
Twitch, description of the, 492.

Ulcers in the mouth, treatment of, 331, 332.

Ulna, description ofth'-, 423.

Unguiculata, a tribe of animals, 262.

Unsiulata, a tribe of animals, 261.

Unilateral shoe, 487.

Unsoundness, contraction does not always cause it, 459 :
being discovered, the animal should be tendered, 534 :
ditto, but the tender or return not legally necessary, 535 ;
the horse may be returned and action brought for depre-
ciation in value, but this not advisable, 535; medical
means may be adopted to cure the horse ; they are, how-
ever, better declined, lest in an unfortunate issue of the
case they should be misrepresented, 535.

Unsteadiness whilst mounting, remedy for, 504.

Urine, albuminous, 409 ; bloody, 409.

Vastus muscle, description of the, 439.

Vatican, the obelisk in the, curious method of moving it,
573.

Vehicles of draught, comparison of the best, 581.

Veins, description of the, 362; of the arm, description, &c.,
442 ; of the face, ditto, 309 ; of the neck, ditto, 339 ; of
the shoulder, ditto, 418 ; inflammation of the, treatment
of, 339.

Velocity, calculation of, 561.

Vena portarum, the, 397.

Verdigris, an uncertain medicine, when given internally,
543; a mild caustic, 543.

Vermin, account of, 530.

Vertebra?, the dorsal and lumbar, 347.

Vertebrated animals, what, 262.

Vices of horses, account of the, 499.

Vicious to clean, a bad habit that should be conquered,
504 ; vicious to shoe, a bad habit that may also be con-
quered, 504.

Vinegar, its use in veterinary practice, 537.

Vines, Mr., bis use of the Spanish fly in glanders, 542.

Viper, account of the bite of, 393.

Vision, theory of, 279.

Vitreous humour of the eye, account of the, 281.

Vitriol, blue, use of in veterinary practice, 543.

Wagon horse, the, 256.

Wagons, inferior horses may be used in them compared
with carts, 580 ; horses drawing, not so fatigued as in
carts, 580; require fewer drivers, and are not so liable to
accidents, 580; with inferior roads and ordinary h;'iS s
preferable to carts, 580 ; with large front wheels, advan-
tasje of, 579 ; particularly with two horses abreast, 581 ;
reason why they have more draught than two-wheeled
carts, 580.

Walking, movement of the legs in, 559; different when
drawing a load, 559.

Wall-eyed horses, what, 280 ; whether they become blind,
280.

War-horse, description of the ancient, 227.

Warbles, treatment of, 350.

Warranty, the form of a, 534 ; breach of, how established,
534 ; no price will imply it, 534 ; when there is none, ihe
action must be brought on ground of fraud, 534.

Warts, method of getting rid of, 530.

Washing of the heels productive of grease, 450.

Washy horses, description and treatment of, 402.

Wasps, treatment of the sting of, 393.

Water, generally given loo sparingly, 521 ; management of
on a journey, 521; the difference in effect, between hard
and soft, 521 ; spring, principally injurious on account of
its coldness, 521 ; stomach of the horse, the, 397.

Water farcy, nature and treatment of, 320.

Water conveyance, smallness of power required in, 56S ;
resistance to, increases with the square of the veloc ty,
568 ; power to he exerted in, increases as the cube of ihe
velocity, 068.

Water-dropwort, poisonous, 393 ; hemlock, poisonous, 393;
parsley, poisonous, 393.

Wax, used in charg;es and plasters, 553.

Weakness of the foot, what, 472.

Weaving, indicating an irritable temper, and no cure for it,
510.

Weight, calcidatlon of the power of the horse to overcome,
255, 658, 560.

Wellesley Arabian, account of the, 237.

Welsh pony, description of the, 260.

Wheat, considered as food for the horse, 517, 520; incon-
venience and danger of it, 517.

Wheels, the principle on which they act explained, 574;
effect of increasing the diameter of the, 582 : no record
of tlie time of their invention, 673; spoked, known to
Homer, 573 ; little improvement of the principle of, from
the earliest times, 574 ; principle of, on a level surface,
674 ; theory of the degree of friction attending them,
674 ; friction of, on the axle dependent on the material
employed, 574 ; consideration of the various forms of,
576; dishing of, described, 576; advantages of, 576;
conical and flat, calculation between the effects of, 577,
585 ; obliquely placed, ill consequences of, 677 ; narrow
and broad, comparison between, 576 ; conical, strange
degree of friction and dragging with, 576 ; travelling
grindstones, 578 ; cylindrical, the best form, 678 ;
description of, and proper rounding of the edges, 578 ;
but influenced by the state of the road, 578 ; liind, should
follow the precise track of the fore ones, 579 ; considered
as to their effect on the road, 579 ; straddlers, description
of, and their effect, 579 ; proper breadth of, in proportion
to the load, 579 ; with cast iron naves, 579 ; size of, 579 ;
advantage of large front ones, 579 ; should have the
spokes so arranged as to present themselves against the
greatest force, 583.

Wheezer, description of the, 384 ; is unsound, 531.

Whipping, sound, cruelty of, 255.

Whisperer, the, anecdotes of his power over the horse,
500.

Whistler, description of the, 384; is unsound, 531.

White Turk, account of the, 231.

White lead, use of, 548 ; vitriol, its use in veterinary practice,
553.

Wild horse, description of the, 210, 212.

William the Conqueror, improvement effected in the English
horse by him, 226.

Wind, broken, nature and treatment of, 383 ; galls, descrip-
tion and treatment of, 431, 436 ; ditto, imsoundness when
they cause lameness, or are likely to do so, 534 ; thick,
nature and treatment of, 382.

W'indpipe, description of the, 341 ; should be prominent
and loose, 342.

Wind, sucking, nature of, and remedy for, 606.

Withers, description of the, 337, 349 ; high, advantage of,
349; fistulous, treatment of, 349.

Work of the horse should not exceed six hours per diem,
561.

Worms, different kinds, and treatment of, 405.

Wounds in the feet, treatment of, 467.

Xenophon, his account of the horse, 196.

Yellows, symptoms and treatment of the, 407.
Yew, the leaves of, poisonous, 393.

Zinc, its use in medicine, 663.

Zoological classification of the horse, 262.

Zygomatic arch, reason of the strong construction of the,

268.
Zygomaticus muscle, description of the, 310.

•i

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