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

In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 39
their appetites were craving, because the matter,
mingled with their food, made it altogether dis-
agreeable, so that they lost flesh exceedingly. This loss
of flesh proved a benefit to them rather than a detri-
ment, and as soon as the running abated they ate
voraciously, and soon recovered their flesh. This dis-
temper, though in noways mortal, yet was so very
catching that when any horses were seized with
it, I observed that those which stood on each
side of it were generally infected as soon as it
began to run at the nose. In the same manner the
small -pox communicates the infection when it is upon
the turn. While this lasted, above 100 troop horses
under my care were seized with it. I always caused the
sick horses to be removed from the healthy, as soon as
they were taken ill, and put by themselves as in a
hospital. In one troop of Horse Grenadiers, we filled a
stable of thirty-six standings in three days, an infirmary
of five standings, and another of eighteen, in three or
four days more. Nevertheless all of them recovered in
a short time. In 1743 the influenza prevailed as an
epidemic in England, and a few doubtful words quoted
both by Fleming and by Dr. Thompson seem to indicate
an epizootic influenza among horses. In 1750 an
epizootic passed through Great Britain and Denmark
which resembled in all its features that of the epizootic
in 1873. Kutty says, " About the middle or end of
December the most epidemic and universally spreading
disease among horses that any one living remembered
made its appearance in Dublin, which seems to have
been nearly analogous to the influenza and catarrhal