Part 9

Treatment. This should be preventive by avoiding the various causes above enumerated, for if the habit is once contracted it is too often impossible to establish a permanent cure. The horse is largely a bundle of habits and the first act of disobedience has given a bias to the nerve cells of the cortex cerebri which like a planted seed tends to reproduce itself whenever an opportunity offers. With every successive act of the kind, the impression on the nerve cells becomes deeper and more indelible and the habit fixed the more firmly.

In slight recent cases in the milder dispositions the vice may be overcome by some resort which engages and engrosses the animal’s attention. Among these may be named tying a cord round the root of the ear and tying it down; giving an inhalation of ammonia or a sniff of powdered capsicum; closing the nostrils until the horse struggles to breathe; blindfolding for a few minutes; tying up one fore leg until thoroughly tired; even stroking the nose or ears until the fret is overcome. Immediately following on any one of these methods, move the horse gently to the right and left and call him confidently to get up. Some will start if gently tapped with the toe below the knee until the foot is lifted and repeating this a few times in succession, then, after a few steps, reward with an apple, sugar or piece of bread, and don’t push too far at a time but repeat the lesson often. If among the first exhibitions of the vice it may be met by occupying the time in a make-believe fixing of the harness until the animal ceases to fret, then standing by his head, tap him on the croup with a whip and call him to go on. Or he may first be moved to the right and left and then ordered to move. A rather wearisome treatment is to place in the stall with a man behind him who taps him on the rump every few minutes, preventing composure, rest, or sleep, and keeping this up without interval for twenty-four hours or even double that time if necessary. If he goes well when hitched, he is driven but if he balks, he is returned to the stall and the treatment continued.

Magner, who mentions all these methods, reserves his highest commendation for the method of tying the horse’s head round to his tail and letting him turn in a circle until he is giddy and falls over. Some stubborn cases get habituated to turning in one direction and continue obdurate until the head and tail are tied around on the other side and the rotatory motion reversed. When thoroughly dazed by this treatment, the animal is hitched up and will usually move on. If there is still an indisposition, stand by his head and tap the croup with a whip, calling on him to start. Or subject him to further rotatory treatment.

DELIRIUM.

A phenomenon in different morbid states; cerebral hyperæmia, anæmia, congestion, inflammation, intoxication, toxin poisoning. Symptoms: horse, ox, sheep, swine, dog. Treatment: adapted to primary disease present, narcotic, poison, and to degree of violence. Anæsthetics, soporifics, cerebral sedations, cold to head, eliminants, depletion or tonics and nutritious food.

Delirium or derangement of emotional or mental functions is usually the result of organic disease of the brain and especially of the cortical gray matter of the cerebrum. It is seen in hyperæmia, anæmia, faults of nutrition, intoxications and variations of temperature. The derangements of circulation may be in the meninges or in the nervous substance. The intoxications may be with mineral (lead, mercury), vegetable (opium, Indian hemp, belladonna, hyoscyamus, stramonium, strychnia), or other poisons, including the toxic products of microbes (as in pneumonia, scalma, rabies, influenza, Rinderpest, milk sickness, Texas fever, etc.).

Symptoms. These are usually an extraordinary and disorderly nervous excitement. =Horses= take expectant or ready positions of the limbs, plunge with feet in rack or manger, rear, turn, kick, bite, spring violently, neigh, and push or knock the head against the wall. =Cattle= bellow in a loud or frightened manner, attempt to kick and gore, grind the teeth and make movements of the jaws, froth at the mouth, dash themselves in any direction heedless of obstacles, push the head against the wall breaking teeth or horns, and moving heedlessly against fences, or trees, or into water or pits even to their own destruction. =Sheep= stamp the feet, butt, bleat, work the jaws, grind the teeth, leap, and move in a given direction regardless of obstacles. =Pigs= grunt, tremble, champ the jaws, run against obstacles, scratch the ground with their feet or snout and creep under the litter. They may even attempt to bite. =Dogs= are restless, whine, move in a circle, snap at straw, bars, doors, and other objects, and may show a disposition to bite. In all the domestic animals these delirious symptoms may closely resemble those of rabies. This has been particularly noticed in certain forms of poisoning. Pascault has found this in cattle that had eaten garlic and Cadeac in dogs that had eaten tansy.

The animals in such cases become morbid, dull, taciturn, they become usually hypersensitive, sometimes hyposensitive, have a change of voice, and show a readiness to resent and bite if interfered with, and even to wander away by themselves as in rabies. On the other hand they may be seized with lethargy and torpor as in dumb rabies, and with or without access of convulsions may pass away in a condition of paralysis.

Among other conditions these symptoms have been found to be associated with epilepsy, foreign bodies in the pharynx, gullet, stomach or bowels, with intestinal parasites, or with mycotic poisoning (ergotism, smut, the fungus of coniferous trees, etc.).

The lack of the extreme hyperæsthesia and excitability of rabies, and usually of the mischievous disposition to bite, the presence of foreign bodies in the mouth or gullet, and the evidence of disorder of digestion, with costiveness, tympany, and tenderness, and the history of the case may serve to differentiate. In cases of doubt the inoculation of a rabbit on the brain should demonstrate the absence of rabies by the absence of the characteristic symptoms after sixteen days.

Treatment. As delirium in animals is a deranged innervation from congestion, narcotic drugs, ptomaines, etc., it must be looked on as in most cases a mere phenomenon, pointing to a definite disease, or to a particular intoxication, and treatment must be directed toward the removal of the primary cause. Thus the remedial measures must be directed in the different cases to the encephalitis, meningitis, digestive disorders, contagious disease, or drug to which the affection may be traced. The patient must be put in a strong enclosure or securely tied so that he can do no harm: it will often be desirable to secure shade or cool air, or to apply cold water or ice to the head, and to quiet the nervous excitement by inhalations of chloroform, or ether, rectal injections of chloral, or bromides, or full doses of hyoscine, sulphonal, trional or tetronal. These may be pushed to the extent of inducing anæsthesia, sleep or quiet, as the case may be, and meanwhile other measures should be taken to eliminate the poisons, correct the congestion, or remove the source of irritation. Anæmic cases may demand iron and bitters, with an aliment rich and easily assimilated, while plethoric cases may require purgation, diuresis or even bloodletting. All noise and any cause of excitement must be carefully guarded against.

VICIOUSNESS. AGGRESSIVE VICE.

Subject maliciously using its natural weapons. Horse kicks, bites, crowds against wall, rears, bucks, plunges, treads upon. Cattle use horns or forehead, or kick. Dog bites. Cats scratch and bite. Ticklishness different. Developed or inherited. Revenge. Desperation in pain. Sexual. A psychosis. Responsibility of owner, in selling, toward employe, in exposing in a public place. Treatment: remove source of suffering, treat kindly, secure confidence, castrate, place under absolute constraint, throw a la Rarey, Comanche bridle, tie head to tail and circle, etc.

This word is employed to cover only those forms of vice in which the animal shows a malignant disposition to attack or injure man or beast. Each animal uses its natural weapons according to the occasion.

The =horse= strikes with his fore feet, kicks with his hind, bites, crowds his rider’s leg against a wall, or his attendant’s body against the side of the stall, rears, bucks, plunges, or treads his victim under his feet.

The =ruminants=, large and small, use their horns, and cattle their feet as well. In the absence of horns they still use the forehead, but much less effectively and usually only with the purpose of defence.

The =dog= attacks with his teeth and the cat with her claws by preference, and uses the teeth as a secondary weapon.

=Swine= use their tusks to rip or disembowel their adversary or victim.

A very ticklish horse cannot bear to be touched on the flank or hind parts, without throwing the ear backward, glancing back, showing the white of the eye, and lifting the foot. But if this is mere excess of sensitiveness and begets no disposition to kick it is not viciousness.

The vicious horse will in such cases bite or kick repeatedly and with well directed purpose. He will moreover show the movements of ears and eyes and attack his victim in the absence of any such excuse, the simple approach being a sufficient occasion. He will bite and strike with the fore feet at the same time, or he may strike out with one hind foot or with both at once. He may attack indiscriminately all who approach him, or reserve his ill-will for particular individuals, and then he often acts under a feeling of revenge for ill-usage from this individual or some one he conceives him to represent.

In some cases viciousness is inherited and certain families have a bad reputation in this respect. It may be either a survival of the ancestral disposition of the wild horse, or it may be a trait developed by ill-usage of a team of more immediate ancestors.

In other cases the habit is acquired by the individual himself, and in such cases it may be due to brutal treatment at the hands of man; to a continuous punishment of a high-spirited horse leading to resentment and retaliation; to acute pain in boils, abrasions or other sores in the root of the mane, or the shoulder, or the back, where pressed on by the collar or saddle; or to the generative excitement of mares in heat. In many such cases the vice lasts only during the persistence of the cause, in others it becomes permanent. The stallion is much more disposed to aggressive vice than the gelding.

Whether we may consider the vice a disease or not, it becomes a habit engrained in the nature, the nerve centres tending to reproduce their habitual acts indefinitely, so that we may look on the condition as a psychosis which is too often incurable.

=Responsibility of the owner.= Dangerous aggressive vice is too self-evident to the buyer to constitute a good cause for annulling a sale, but it has this legal bearing, that the owner who keeps an animal known to be vicious, renders himself responsible for whatever injury to man or beast he may perpetrate. Thus the vicious stallion, bull or dog in a public place which damages person or property, renders his owner liable to the extent of such damages. This, of course, must be largely qualified by the attendant circumstances. The man employed to take care of a horse, knows his habits as fully as the owner, takes his chances and should exercise due precautions to avoid danger. The person who enters a stall carelessly without speaking to the horse, seeing that he stands over, or otherwise responds to his call, is himself to blame if he gets kicked. The attendant who does things to a dangerous or questionable horse for mere bravado cannot blame the owner if he gets himself injured. If a person teases a horse so as to tempt him to retaliate, not only is he responsible for his own consequent injuries, but largely also for the habits of the horse and for such injuries as others may subsequently sustain from him.

A dog or a bull shown in a public place, and which breaks loose and injures spectators or others, manifestly renders his master responsible for all such damage.

Treatment of aggressive vice. In mild dispositions in which the vice is roused by temporary suffering, it may often be cured by removal of the cause of such suffering. Indeed, without the healing of sores under the collar or saddle the vice cannot be arrested. Considerate and gentle treatment, too, will go far to restore confidence and to gradually do away with the aggressive disposition.

In wicked stallions castration will usually restore to a good measure of docility. The exceptional cases appear to be those that are hereditarily and constitutionally vicious, or in which the habit has been thoroughly developed and firmly fixed by long practice.

Mares, too, which become vicious and dangerous at each recurrence of œstrum, can usually be completely cured by the removal of the ovaries especially if this is done early in the disease.