=HEAVES.=--The term “heaves” is used to describe that disease of the horse which otherwise is known as “broken wind,” or technically as “emphysema of the lungs.” This ailment, which is incurable when thoroughly established and to which a tendency is inherited by the offspring of an affected sire or dam, is characterized by the following symptoms: Double, bellows-like action of the abdominal muscles in breathing; short, suppressed cough, usually accompanied by passage of gas from the rectum; gluttonous appetite; harsh, staring coat of hair; pot belly; weakness; lack of endurance, sweating, panting, or staggering during work; dilated nostrils; frequent passage of gas and soft, foul-smelling feces when starting from stable.
The disease begins with indigestion, affecting in time the pneumo-gastric nerve of the stomach and then the branch nerves running to the lungs. At first the air tubules and vesicles of the lungs become dilated (aneurism); later they may break down into large air spaces and the surrounding lung tissues become involved (interlobular emphysema). Air then is easily inhaled, but is exhaled with difficulty and the effort causes cough and expulsion of gas (flatus).
The distress may be relieved by treatment, but perfect recovery is impossible when the lungs have become badly affected. Treat by substituting wet oat straw for hay in winter and grass for hay in summer. Allow double the usual rest period after a meal. Work when stomach is not distended with food. Do not feed hay at noon. Use lime water to wet all food. Once or twice a week give raw linseed oil in a bran mash to open bowels. Give half an ounce of Fowler’s solution of arsenic night and morning. Do not breed from affected horses.
=HEAT EXHAUSTION AND SUNSTROKE.=--The horse that is stricken with heat exhaustion or which falls from heat, apoplexy or “sunstroke,” is sick or out of sorts at the time of attack; otherwise he would withstand heat and work. The middle horse of a three-horse team suffers most and is apt to succumb to the ill-effects of the combined radiation of heat from his mates and direct rays of the sun. Attacks are most apt to happen on the third or fourth day of a spell of intensely hot weather characterized by mugginess, electrical storms and moisture-saturated air. At such times the horse that has indigestion, a heavy, unhealthy coat of hair, a skin or kidney trouble or any affection of the brain or heart is the one that must be most carefully watched and worked.