Page - 1179 - in The Complete Aristotle

they grow them soon again, for as one hoof is decaying it is being replaced by another. Symptoms of the malady are a sinking in and wrinkling of the lip in the middle under the nostrils, and in the case of the male, a twitching of the right testicle. Stall-reared horses are subject to very numerous forms of disease. They are liable to disease called ‘eileus’. Under this disease the animal trails its hind- legs under its belly so far forward as almost to fall back on its haunches; if it goes without food for several days and turns rabid, it may be of service to draw blood, or to castrate the male. The animal is subject also to tetanus: the veins get rigid, as also the head and neck, and the animal walks with its legs stretched out straight. The horse suffers also from abscesses. Another painful illness afflicts them called the ‘barley-surfeit’. The are a softening of the palate and heat of the breath; the animal may recover through the strength of its own constitution, but no formal remedies are of any avail. There is also a disease called nymphia, in which the animal is said to stand still and droop its head on hearing flute-music; if during this ailment the horse be mounted, it will run off at a gallop until it is pulled. Even with this rabies in full force, it preserves a dejected spiritless appearance; some of the symptoms are a throwing back of the ears followed by a projection of them, great languor, and heavy breathing. Heart-ache also is incurable, of which the symptom is a drawing in of the flanks; and so is displacement of the bladder, which is accompanied by a retention of urine and a drawing up of the hooves and haunches. Neither is there any cure if the animal swallow the grape- beetle, which is about the size of the sphondyle or knuckle-beetle. The bite of the shrewmouse is dangerous to horses and other draught animals as well; it is followed by boils. The bite is all the more dangerous if the mouse be pregnant when she bites, for the boils then burst, but do not burst otherwise. The cicigna-called ‘chalcis’ by some, and ‘zignis’ by others-either causes death by its bite or, at all events, intense pain; it is like a small lizard, with the colour of the blind snake. In point of fact, according to experts, the horse and the sheep have pretty well as many ailments as the human species. The drug known under the name of ‘sandarace’ or realgar, is extremely injurious to a horse, and to all draught animals; it is given to the animal as a medicine in a solution of water, the liquid being filtered through a colander. The mare when pregnant apt to miscarry when disturbed by the odour of an extinguished candle; and a similar accident happens occasionally to women in their pregnancy. So much for the diseases of the horse. The so-called hippomanes grows, as has stated, on the foal, and the mare nibbles it off as she licks and cleans the foal. All the curious stories connected with the hippomanes are due to old wives and to the venders of charms. What 1179