34 A Short History of Ayurvedic Veterinary Literature
voice and sound he hears and looks wildly about him ; he will start and tremble,
fall down and swoon ; and rest of every sort will entirely forsake him; his
yard will hang out of the sheath, also, nor will he be able to draw it in.'
Dourine may, perhaps, be diagnosed from the following symptoms :—
' This disease . . . . makes the head of the yard to swell; ejects hot pimples
from it and causes an itch or scab . . . . if the testicles be swollen . . . . they will
be red ; hot, watery pimples having broken out upon them.'
While it would appear from the following that equine encephalo-myelitis
is no new disease in India :—
' A horse will sometimes . . . . breathe very quick without ceasing ; and
sometimes he will, on the contrary, breathe proportionately slow (Cheyne¬
Stokes respiration)... .the yard of the horse will be swoln and hang cons-
tantly out of the sheath into which he can by no means draw it. He will have
no inclination for food, be senseless, stupified and restless, for sleep will not
deign to visit him. His tail will turn crooked, he will... .be constantly yawning
His neck will sometimes be crooked; he will lay his head upon the ground ..
he will gently paw the ground with his feet... .his urine will fall by drops from
him... A skilful doctor, here, is highly necessary, who will by no means suffer a
horse, having this disease upon him, to bepiquetted among other horses, lest,
being pestilential and contagious, it should communicate itself to them.'
Descriptions of laminitis ; glanders, with pustules ' as big as walnuts ';
strangles with ' pustules or biles breaking out upon his throat and spreading
themselves all about his neck' ; horsepox ; vitamin A deficiency; lampas ;
stomatitis ' in which the tongue of a horse will turn black or green and swell
and pimples of heat will break out upon the tip of it and he will constantly roll
it about in his mouth, whence much saliva will issue and have no appetite for
food ' ; surra, in which a horse's ' eyes in general become either yellow or red,
his body hot and his breath exceeding quick ' ; enzootic haemoglobinuria, in
which ' his urine will be red or very highly coloured '; ' slack in the back'
when the horse's back will fall in such a manner that you would think his
belly rested on or swept the ground '; influenza, caused ' from suffering him
to stand in cold air without a covering ', in which he ' will sneeze very much
and water will issue from his nose, his neck and feet be swoln a little, his head
be hot and his hair stand erect' ; acute nephritis, in which the horse ' will
groan lamentably while stalling (and his) head and body will be hot'; pneu-
monia, ' when he will breathe very quick and with great difficulty, be restless
and stupified. His eyes will be red, his body hot and he will sweat pro-
digiously and, as he will breathe, his hypochondria will in consequence
be flatulent and empty, but which, when he draws his breath again, will be
filled and puffed out' ; kumri, in which ' the forehalf part of the horse will be
sound, while the other from his loins to his hind feet will be dry and stiff and
he will in consequence, be unable to move, will become stupid and senseless
. . . . and yawn perpetually ' ; tetanus, when the horse is said to have a ' locked
jaw and a constant issue of saliva from the mouth ' ; and several helmintho¬
logical diseases are all more or less recognizable, though the symptomatology
is not always entirely accurately set forth. Diseases of the eye are frequently
mentioned throughout Hindu literature and particularly endemic ophthalmia,
conjunctivitis, ulcers of the cornea, staphiloma, and cataract.