=Chronic gastritis= is usually said to be provoked by rearing upon sour or soft land; but well-bred animals are very often subject to the malady. The ailment is frequently first displayed at the period when the services are esteemed most valuable, or between the fifth and sixth years, long after the mode of rearing must have ceased to operate. The symptoms are various, and hardly ever alike. The stomach may affect the nervous symptom; then, its complications become difficult to disentangle. The affection is mostly declared by an irregularity of bowels and a capriciousness of appetite. The animal starts off violently purging. The looseness stops as suddenly as it commenced. Obstinate costiveness then sets in, and each state can be traced to no obvious reason. The straw or litter may be eaten ravenously, but all the wholesome provender obstinately refused. The dung shows the condition of the appropriating functions; it crumbles upon the slightest force being imposed; it appears to consist of fibers not agglutinated together. Sometimes it is coated with mucus, and always smells abhorrently. A dry cough may be present; the visible membranes are pallid; the mouth feels cool; the breath is tainted; the eyes are sunken; the respiration is catching; the belly is pendulous; the anus is lax and prominent; the coat dry and ragged; while the body quickly becomes emaciated. [Illustration: A HORSE WITH CHRONIC GASTRITIS INDULGING ITS MORBID APPETITE.] The slightest exertion produces a thick and copious sweat. The symptom, however, which is most remarkable, when the cleanly habits natural to the animal are considered, is the peculiarity of the appetite. The rack and manger are generally neglected; but every unnatural or offensive substance, within reach of the extended jaws, is devoured with avidity. Woodwork has largely disappeared. Soil and stones have been removed from the stomachs of creatures destroyed for incurable disease. Either of the substances last named, however, are usually spared, so long as a morsel of plaster, a portion of mortar or of brick, is within reach. Animals, when in the field, will leave the grass and enter any ditch to gnaw at bricks and mortar. When confined, they will, under the morbid influence of this affection, employ themselves for hours searching for a morsel of either among the straw. The old custom of purging and bleeding for a case of this kind is positively injurious. It is better to administer bitters, alkalies, and sedatives;--the first, to amend the appetite; the second, to correct the acidity of the morbid secretion; the third, to destroy the uneasy sensation which provokes too many of the symptoms. Powdered nux vomica One scruple. Carbonate of potash One drachm. Extract of belladonna Half a drachm. Extract of gentian and powdered quassia Of each a sufficiency. Or,