Special Report on Diseases of the HorseUnited States. Bureau of Animal Industry
Science
Special Report on Diseases of the Horse
United States. Bureau of Animal Industry
Horses -- Diseases
As a result of external ophthalmia, opaque specks, clouds, or haziness
are too often left on the cornea and require for their removal that they
be daily touched with a soft feather dipped in a solution of 3 grains
nitrate of silver in 1 ounce distilled water. This should be applied
until all inflammation has subsided, and until its contact is
comparatively painless. It is rarely successful with an old, thick scar
following an ulcer, nor with an opacity having red blood vessels running
across it.
ULCERS OF THE CORNEA.
These may be treated with nitrate of silver lotion of twice the strength
used for opacities. Powdered gentian, one-half ounce, and sulphate of
iron, one-fourth ounce, daily, may improve the general health and
increase the reparatory power.
INTERNAL OPHTHALMIA (IRITIS, CHOROIDITIS, AND RETINITIS).
Although inflammations of the iris, choroid, and retina--the inner,
vascular, and nervous coats of the eye--occur to a certain extent
independently of each other, yet one usually supervenes upon the other,
and, as the symptoms are thus made to coincide, it will be best for our
present purposes to treat the three as one disease.
_Causes._--The causes of internal ophthalmia are largely those of the
external form only, acting with greater intensity or on a more
susceptible eye. Severe blows, bruises, punctures, etc., of the eye, the
penetration of foreign bodies into the eye (thorns, splinters of iron,
etc.), sudden transition from a dark stall to bright sunshine, to the
glare of snow or water, constant glare from a sunny window, abuse of the
overdraw checkrein, vivid lightning flashes, drafts of cold, damp air;
above all, when the animal is perspiring, exposure in cold rain or
snowstorms, swimming cold rivers; also certain general diseases like
rheumatism, arthritis, influenza, and disorders of the digestive
organs, may become complicated by this affection. From the close
relation between the brain and eye--alike in the blood vessels and
nerves--disorders of the first lead to affection of the second, and the
same remark applies to the persistent irritation to which the jaws are
subjected in the course of dentition. So potent is the last agency that
we dread a recurrence of ophthalmia so long as dentition is incomplete,
and hope for immunity if the animal completes its dentition without any
permanent structural change in the eye.
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