ORIGINAL ARTICLES
THE PROBLEM OF EQUINE STRANGLES IN INDIA
By F. C. MINETT, Imperial Veterinary Research Institute, Mukteswar.
(Received for publication on 10 December 1943)
(With Plates I and II and three text-figures)
THE object of this article is to place on record
and to discuss figures relating to the incidence
and mortality from strangles which have been
collected over a number of years from Army
Remount Depots and Stud Farms in India by
the Army Veterinary Department and by the
Imperial Veterinary Research Institute. The
opportunity will also be taken to set out the pro-
cedures that have been commonly adopted at
depots and farms in maintaining remount stock.
The term 'strangles', as used in this article
and as sometimes used in a clinical sense, is a
comprehensive one and may be taken to include
not only cases with the typical sub-maxillary
abscess, associated or not with suppurations in
other parts of the body, but also cases of acute
nasal catarrh or laryngitis in young horses,
especially where there has been contact with
typical abscess cases. Certainly in practice, the
definition of 'strangles' is an elastic one and will
no doubt vary according to the fancy of different
veterinary officers, but from our present point
of view clinical niceties matter little. What we
are now concerned with is a more or less acute
affection involving the upper respiratory tract of
young horses or mules frequently accompanied by
suppuration of the sub-maxillary lymph glands
or other glands about the throat, occasionally
followed by pyaemic lesions in other regions of the
body, occasionally fatal and always to be regarded
as infectious. From recent researches, there
can no longer be reasonable doubt that this
disease complex is caused by hæmolytic strep-
tococci, belonging to Lancefield's serological
group C, though not necessarily of the same serolo-
gical type [Bazeley, 1942].
BREEDING OF HORSES AND MULES FOR ARMY
PURPOSES AND THE PROCEDURE ORDINARILY
ADOPTED AT ARMY REMOUNT DEPOTS AND
STUD FARMS
The Director, Army Remount Department,
has been good enough to provide the following
information. " Between 1927 and 1939 the
number of 'branded' mares under control of the
Remount Department in India averaged 12;698
a each year. The main breeding operations were
carried out in the Civil Districts of Lyallpur,
Sheikhupura, Jhang, Shahpur, Montgomery and
Multan. 'Unbound ' horse-breeding (now abol-
ished) was also undertaken during the same
period in Rawalpindi, Attock, Gujarat and Hazara
districts. Young stock are purchased by officers
of the Department from September to March
each year and are sent to the Army Remount
Depots at Mona and Sargodha in the north-west
Punjab. During this purchasing season the
officer tours his area three or four times. The
procedure in the case of these 'area-bred' animals
is that all young stock are sent by road, a distance
up to say ten miles, to collecting centres for ins-
pection by the Remount Officer. Animals stay in
the collecting centres for periods not exceeding 24
hours, and, if purchased, they are then trucked in
lots of eight or ten and sent by rail to the depots,
the journey taking anything up to 24 hours. The
normal age of purchase is 12-18 months, but
in the case of well-developed or backward stock
these general limits may be varied at discretion.
Also, mules may be bought when only six
months old. With horse stock the average purchase
age has been fixed at 12-18 months, since
experience has shown that animals less than 12
months old develop more severe strangles than
older ones."
Remount Depots
To give a preliminary idea of the magnitude of
the strangles problem, it may be said that Mona
and Sargodha depots each cover some 10,000 acres
of land and that at any one time each of them
may have to accommodate up to 2,000 horses
and as many mules. The land is flat and canal-
irrigated and grows such fodder as lucerne
shaftal, berseem, jowar, oats, barley, gram. Th
general principles of management at both depots
are the same. The young stock on arrival are
grouped in 'dry' reception paddocks (i.e.
without natural grazing) in a part of the depot
set aside as a 'segregation area', in which the
strangles hospitals are situated. In this area
they remain until the close of the 'strangles
season' in May, when they are moved into the
depot proper, the reception paddocks then re-
maining free of stock until the next purchasing
season. In the depot proper the animals remain
until they are issued to military units at four years
of age (mules) or five years (horses). Feeding
throughout is liberal, consisting of green fodder
grazing, oat hay, jowar, barley and other con-
centrates.
1