WITH
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ALSO ON
COWS AND CALVES,
WITH
STALLION AND MARE,
WHEN DISEASED BY
Gonorrhea (clap) or Pox.
ALSO
Diarrhea and Costiveness in Colts.
BY
CONRAD MITCHELL.
Volksfreund Print
Middleburg. PA.
1869
Entered according to an Act of Congress,
in the year 1869, by
CONRAD MITCHELL,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court
of the United States for the Western
District of Pennsylvania.
Of all the beasts of the field, whichwe are told, the Lord formed out of theearth, and brought them unto Adam tosee what he would call them, none hasmore engaged the attention of the historianand the philosopher—none has figuredmore in poetry, in war and in love,than the horse.
None of the writing, to which we couldpoint the reader, contains more frequentmention, or more glowing descriptions ofthe power and beauty of the horse, thanthe great Book of Books.
The Bible teaches us, that from whateverland this animal may have beenoriginally brought into Egypt, that countryhad already become a great horsemarket, even before horses were known[4]in Arabia, the country with which we areapt to associate all that is most interestingof this noble beast. Geological researches,however, have discovered fossilremains of the horse in almost ever partof the world—from the tropical plains ofIndia, to the frozen regions of Siberia—fromthe northern extremities of the newworld, to the southern point of America.But among the Hebrews, horses were rareprevious to the days of Solomon, who hadhorses brought out of Egypt, after hismarriage with the daughter of Pharaoh,and so rapidly did he multiply them bypurchase and by breeding, that thosekept for his own use required, as it iswritten, “four thousand stables, and fortythousand stalls.” Hence, when honoredby a visit from the beautiful queen ofSheba, bringing with her, camels bearingspices, and very much gold and preciousstones, it was doubtless in the contemplationof his magnificent stud of horses andchariots, kept for the amusement of hiswives and concubines, as well as for hisother vast displays of power and magnificence,that her majesty exclaimed, in[5]the fulness of her admiration: “Howbeit,I believed not the words, until I cameand mine eyes had seen it, and beholdthe half was not told unto me.”
Veterinary science has also made greatprogress from that time down to the present,and in particular, in the last halfcentury, the structure of the horse—injuriesand diseases to which he is subject,and the treatment of these, have beeninvestigated, in this country and abroad,with much diligence and success, both incolleges and in societies devoted to thecultivation of veterinary knowledge, andby practitioners, whose education and experiencerender their observations worthyof great respect; but notwithstanding allthis, there has always been, to the presenttime, one point overlooked, which is ofgreater importance, than any one thathas ever been investigated. I refer hereto a complete treatis