The illustrated horse doctor : $b being an accurate and detailed account of the various diseases to which the equine race are subjectedMayhew, Edward
Science
The illustrated horse doctor : $b being an accurate and detailed account of the various diseases to which the equine race are subjected
Mayhew, Edward
Horses -- Diseases
That the foregoing observations are correctly based, is proved by the pest
becoming less common as the public have morally improved--only, why leave
so immediate an evil to be cured by so slow a process? Years ago, an
affected horse, led through the streets, was an almost hourly occurrence.
Since that time we have improved, and such sights are no longer common.
Therefore the morality here alluded to is not of limited meaning. It
implies improvements in drainage, and all those innovations by which life
has been made more secure. He is the truest benefactor of mankind who
lessens the ills to which existence is exposed.
Glanders is the phthisis of the horse. Phthisis is, in some countries,
esteemed even more dangerously contagious than glanders and farcy are in
England admitted to be. Man, however, employs a handkerchief; the plates
off which he feeds are washed. The manger is never cleansed; and the
discharge soils the boards on which the corn reposes.
The lungs of very many horses, however, which have perished of the
pest, will exhibit numerous tubercles; these, in the human subject, are
considered conclusive evidence as to the existence of phthisis.
[Illustration: THE LUNGS OF A HORSE WHICH HAD PERISHED FROM GLANDERS.
(A portion of the left lung has been excised, to show the ravage of the
disease.)]
By some practitioners glanders is esteemed a purely local disorder. In
books, schools, and elsewhere, the running from the nose has been pointed
out as the disease itself; and the situation of the affection is said to
be the frontal sinuses--hence the dependence placed in various caustic
injections forced up the nostrils.
A very little reflection will, however, enable the reader to take a
more extended view of the malady. When glanders exists, a staring coat
generally declares the skin affected; and the customary termination of the
disorder--farcy and dropsy--proves more than the surface of the body to be
implicated. The lungs--or, at all events, the air-passages--never escape.
Loss of flesh and swelling of the glands demonstrate the absorbent system
to be involved. Absence of spirit and inability to work, toward the close
of the affection, are evidence the nervous system does not escape. The
secretions are derived from the blood; and the blood, it has been shown,
by a silly experiment, is capable of generating the malady. Their pallid
aspect, after death, convinces us the muscles were far from healthy. Of
all parts, perhaps, the abdominal contents are least diseased, though the
marked decay of appetite does not favor such an opinion. What disease,
then, can be considered a constitutional disorder, if one which involves
so many and such various structures is to be regarded as a strictly local
affection?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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