PRURIGO. I employ this term (having no other so appropriate) to signify those hot and itchy sensations of the skin which it is evident horses must experience, and occasionally in a very annoying degree, who are eternally rubbing their heads or necks, manes, roots of their tails, hind quarters, &c. against any place in the stable affording them the opportunity, and thus rendering those parts bare, or, at least, in such a ruffled and worn condition, from continual friction, as clearly enough to indicate what has been going on. This is the simplest form of surfeit, and requires nothing, in general, beyond some modification in the stable regimen: bran-mashes in lieu of corn; green-meat, if it be in season; and additional work or sweating exercise. The itchiness itself may be very much relieved by using a lotion composed of half an ounce of sulphuric acid and a quart of water: with this, the parts rubbed are to be frequently wetted. Should this local treatment not succeed, draw four quarts of blood from the animal, and exhibit a brisk purge.

ERUPTIONS are those little lumps or pustules horses in high condition occasionally have break out upon their skin; constituting but a more advanced or determined form of surfeit. In general, their appearance is sudden and unexpected; and very often they disappear as suddenly. Sometimes they rise in almost every part of the body: more commonly they are partial. I have known the eruption vanish and re-appear from day to day, for several days together. A case of this description was treated by my father: the lumps were as large as marbles, but disappeared in the course of a few hours after their eruption; breaking out afresh on the third or fourth day following, and doing so for several successive days. The variable magnitudes of these lumps-some being small and hard, like little knots in the skin; others comparatively large and flattened and spreading-together with the differences observable in their appearance and disappearance; their origin and mode of termination; and other concomitant circumstances, lead us to believe they cannot all proceed from or indicate the same species of disorder. Hurtrel d'Arboval distinguishes two varieties of them—partial and general.

"In the first, the lumps are few, diffused and isolated, and in nowise affect the ordinary state of health or spirits of the animal; though at times occasioning itching. They commonly last fifteen days or three weeks; sometimes much longer. They disappear by resolution, without leaving any marks of their existence; and even in so short a time, that the disorder may truly be called ephemeral. However, they do not always vanish in this way: now and then they become converted into abscesses, which burst and discharge a serous fluid, and afterwards become crusted over."

"In the second variety, the lumps arise all at once, and upon almost every part of the surface. They are irregular and unequal: some being small, some large. All of them are flattened, coalescent, and disposed in groups, without order of any kind, presenting often little vesicles from which issues a glutinous fluid, matting the hair, and forming incrustations. Added to this, the animal's health is disturbed. He is evidently unwell-dispirited, and more or less feverish. His appetite is impaired, his skin warmer than usual; the conjunctive and pituitary membranes flushed; respiration accelerated; pulse full and hard. Eruption attended with itching and fever may turn out serious, by occasioning some metastasis of a grievous nature, as frequently happens in young horses who have, during the previous winter, suffered from hard work and poor living. The most common metastasis is that occurring in the mucous membrane of the air-passages; and it is one likely to ensue when the eruption disappears as suddenly as it came."

Commenting on these observations, I should say, that disordered health is by no means necessarily connected with the general eruption; on the contrary, that it frequently, if not commonly, comes and disappears without any ill consequenceswithout, in fact, any observable change whatever either in the health or condition or spirits of the animal. The same author informs us, that eruptions are apt, by unprofessional persons,

to be

CONFOUNDED WITH FARCY-BUDS; though the circumstances of the farcy-buds being subcutaneous, disposed in lines at pretty regular intervals, like so many knots in a string, and being usually found in but certain situations in the body, will at all times enable us to make a distinction so important in practice.

THE CAUSE of surfeits and eruptions I have stated to be, in a general way, plethora. Young horses, and such as are in full condition, or that have recently come from poor to good keep,

are the ordinary subjects of it; and the spring of the year is the season in which we mostly observe it. I have known horses have it annually, on the approach of warm weather. Now and then it will break out after violent exercise, from suppressed perspiration, or too copious an ingurgitation of cold water while heated. It is said also to be an occasional consequence of indigestion, or of certain unwholesome kinds of aliment.

THE TREATMENT must be such as tends to relieve plethora, and to remove any inflammatory disposition that may exist in the system at the same time the eruption itself should be as much as possible encouraged. In cases of simple evanescent eruption, nothing more is required, in general, than the substitution of a mash for a corn diet; green-meat, if it can be procured, for hay; chilled water; warm clothing and bandages; and additional walking exercise. Should the eruption evince a permanent character, or should it shew a disposition to relapse, it may become requisite to bleed and purge moderately; and these evacuations may be followed up by cooling febrifuges—antimony and nitre-mingled in powder with the animal's mashes. As Hurtrel d'Arboval truly remarks, however, when the lumps on the skin are bursting and discharging, the time for evacuating remedies seems to have gone by. We may then content ourselves with a cooling regimen, and the exhibition of alteratives; and sponge the surface with warm water: though, "should the skin require excitement," the same author recommends "frictions with camphorated spirits."

TETTER OR RINGWORM.

From the silence of English veterinary authors in general on this subject, one would feel inclined to believe that among the horses of our own country there could be no such disease: that a malady of the kind does occasionally present itself, however, I happen just now to have living evidence of in the case of a horse in my own possession. But as this horse did not come into my hands until the disorder had passed its acute or active form; and as such other cases as I may antecedently have had, have

TETTER OR RINGWORM.

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occurred at a time when I was unconscious of the existence of any such distinct species of disease, I must acknowledge myself at this moment unprepared to draw up an account grounded on my own personal observation: I shall, therefore, have recourse to that authority which I consider the best on the subject-Hurtrel d'Arboval.

Tetter or ringworm-in French, dartres-is a specific cutaneous inflammation, ordinarily of a chronic character, occasionally intermittent, and almost always obstinate; distinguished by certain signs or appearances from other affections of the skin, but, in particular, by the circumstances of its occupying circumscribed patches of that texture, and by those places being separated by marked boundaries from the healthy parts around. Whether it be contagious or not, remains still an unsettled question: probaby in some forms it is so; in others, not: the majority of evidence seems in favour of the latter opinion. It is a disorder to which all domestic animals are subject: but it occurs oftener among horses, sheep, and dogs, than among neat cattle and goats. In all animals, parts, and stages, we believe it to be essentially the same disease; though, from the slightest blush upon the skin to the deepest ulceration, and the modifications it undergoes in different species of animals—in the magnitude of the pimples, the aspect of the morbid skin and incrustations, the existence of ulceration, the shades of redness, the intensity of itching, and in the parts affected-we may observe differences sufficient to lay the foundation for several varieties of the disorder :-the furfuraceous the squamous; the humid; the crustaceous; the ulcerous.

THE FIRST OR FURFURACEOUS VARIETY, the least important of all, never runs on to ulceration. It begins by a numerous assemblage of pimples, so small as often to be to the eye imperceptible, with a slight itching, followed by the loss of the hair. The cuticle peels off in little white scurfy flakes, resembling particles of meal or bran; and if it be washed off, exposes the cutis underneath, reddened. The diseased places exhibit a circular figure, and have prominent borders, manifesting but little exudation, unless at the very beginning. They commonly occupy such parts of the skin as envelop bones; the prominences about the head, the forehead, the point of the elbow, the sides, the haunches, &c. This variety is more frequent than any of the others, and occasionally exists in combination with mange. However, it gives no cause for uneasiness: it does not appear to affect the general health. Animals that have it seem to enjoy even a better appetite, and evince a more than ordinary desire for copulation: circumstances explicable on the score of the sympathetic stimulation received by the digestive and genital membranes. Next to the horse, the dog is most

subject to this species of the disorder: it appears in him about the ears, eyes, point of the elbow, and hips.

THE SECOND VARIETY affects dogs in particular. In this, the pimples ulcerate and spread; occasion itching, and cause an ichorous, serous, viscous sort of matter, which mats the hair to such a degree, that one would imagine water farcy was present. The cuticle separates and falls off in large scales, either moist or dry and hard, crops of which succeed each other.

THE THIRD VARIETY consists in a multitude of pimples, flattened, and so unusually small, as to be hardly discoverable: these burst, and discharge an ichorous matter that concretes and forms incrustations upon the skin, of a greyish or yellowish cast, and thereby much augment the substance of the diseased places. Ulceration frequently ensues in consequence of puriform matter collecting underneath the incrustations. This variety is of tedious duration.

THE FOURTH OR ULCEROUS VARIETY has been observed in dogs. Although we have little or nothing to apprehend from tetter, it often turns out a very intractable disorder when we come to essay to cure it; and especially when it has become inveterate through negligence or long standing. It is ascribed to a variety of causes, constitutional as well as local. is very apt to make its appearance, in the spring and autumnal seasons, among horses that have suffered from exposure and bad keep; and will attack many at the same time.

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It

TREATMENT.-Unacquainted as we are with the specific organic lesion to which tetter owes its existence, we have nothing to offer, secundum artem, by way of treatment. All our remedies," as they are called, are empirical; and few of them deserve that name. It is but rarely they succeed. We must attend to the general health and condition of the animal, and take care that his diseased skin is well washed with soap and water, as often as required; without which the dressings cannot take proper effect. Should the bare places exhibit inflammatory action, we must foment, and (if practicable) poultice them; and bleed and purge the animal. Sulphur ointment, empyreumatic oils, corrosive sublimate in weak aqueous solution, &c. may be tried. The ulcerous tetter is the worst to treat. Should not lime-water, or any of the escharotics or stimulants succeed, we must have recourse to the actual cautery. At the Alfort Veterinary School, good effects have been derived from the use of the liquor plumbi in combination with nitric acid.