Special report on diseases of the horse / by Drs. Pearson [and others].

Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Special report on diseases of the horse / by Drs. Pearson [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    528/690 (page 450)
    substance of both, dark and unchanged. The eruption usually appears on the back, loins, croup, chest, and head. It tends to spontaneous recovery in a month or two, leaving for a time a dappled coat from the spots of short, light-colored hair of the new growth. The most effective way of reaching the parasite in the hair follicles is to extract the hairs individually, but in the horse the mere shaving of the affected part is usually enough. It may then be painted with tincture of iodine twice a day for two weeks. Germs about the stable may be covered up or destroyed by a whitewash of freshly burned quicklime, the harness, brushes, etc., ma}^ be washed with caustic soda, and then smeared with a solution of corrosive sublimate one-half dram and water 1 pint. The clothing may be boiled and dried. Parasite: Achorion schonleini. Malady: Foams, or Honeycomb ringworm.—Megnin and Go}^au, who describe this in the horse, say that it loses its characteristic honeycomb or cup-shaped appearance, and forms onty a series of closely aggregated, dry, yellowish crusts the size of hemp seed on the trunk, shoulders, flanks, or thighs. They are accompanied by severe itching, especially at night. The cryptogam, formed of spherical cells with a few filaments only, grows in the hair follicles and on the cuticle, and thus a crust often forms around the root of a hair. Like the other cryptogams, their color, as seen under the microscope, is unaffected by acetic acid, alcohol, ether, or oil of turpentine, while the cells are turned bluish by iodine. For treatment, remove the hair and apply tincture of iodine or corrosive sublimate lotion, as advised under the last para- graph. Parasite: Microsporon furfur. Malady: Parasitic pityriasis.— This attacks the horse’s head where the harness presses, and leads to dropping of the hair, leaving bald patches covered with a branlike scurf, without any eruption, heat, tenderness, swelling, or rigidity of the skin. A lotion of carbolic acid 1 dram, and water 2J ounces, is usually applied to effect a cure. ANIMAL PARASITES OF THE SKIN. Acariasis, or mange.—This affection is due to the irritation of the skin, caused by the presence of a nearly microscopic acarus, or mite. The disease varies, however, according to the species of acarus which infests the skin, so that we must treat of several different kinds of acariasis. Parasite: Sarcoptes scabiei equi. Malady: Sarcoptic acariasis.— This is the special Sarcoptes of the horse, but under favorable conditions it can be transmitted to ass and mule, and even to man, and may live indefinitely on the human skin. The mite is nearly microscopical, but may be detected with a magnifying lens among moving scurf taken from the infected skin. Like all Sarcoptes, it burrows little galleries