The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

36 The Management and Treatment of the Horse,
to another drinking, and when they come home they
leave their horses wet and dirty while they are drinking
there little sense away at a public-house bar. There is
another cause of the horse catching cold and coughing,
and this is to be seen every day at Newmarket—that
place where they think they cannot be taught anything,
and that to them everything is but a tale already told.
The great cause of cold-catching is not, as most people
suppose, by going out of a warm stable into the cold, but
by coming direct from the cold into the hot air of the
stable, and causing a too sudden relaxing of the pores
of the skin, making the skin too sensitive, when the
least draught causes a check and chill, and the animal
soon commences to cough. As I have before stated,
after washing the horse in the stall or box he has to
sleep in, the damp of the floor rises and penetrates
the skin, which produces influenza (by depriving it
of animal electricity), the worst complaint the horse
is subject to, a short history of which will not be out
of place here.
Influenza is no new complaint ; it was well known
to our forefathers. There is very little doubt but it was
known to the Romans, and was called the plague. We
have authentic accounts of influenza from Solleysel, a
celebrated veterinary surgeon of the German army, in
the year lG-i8. It began by fever, great prostration, tears
running from the eyes, and an abundant mucous dis-
charge of a greenish colour from the nostrils. The horses
experienced loss of appetite and the ears were cold, and
few of those attacked recovered. The treatment adopted
was with a view to neutralise the malignity of the poison