ickened that breathing becomes difficult and snuffling. It may be
attended with constipation or diarrhea or by colicky pains. The eruption
is sudden, the whole skin being sometimes covered in a few hours, and it
may disappear with equal rapidity or persist for six or eight days.

_Treatment._--This consists in clearing out the bowels by 5 drams
Barbados aloes, or 1 pound Glauber's salt, and follow the operation of
these by daily doses of one-half ounce powdered gentian and 1 ounce
Glauber's salt. A weak solution of alum may be applied to the swellings.

PITYRIASIS, OR SCALY SKIN DISEASE.

This affection is characterized by an excessive production and
detachment of dry scales from the surface of the skin (dandruff). It is
usually dependent on some fault in digestion and an imperfect secretion
from the sebaceous glands and is most common in old horses with spare
habit of body. Williams attributes it to feed rich in saccharine matter
(carrots, turnips) and to the excretion of oxalic acid by the skin. He
has found it in horses irregularly worked and well fed and advises the
administration of pitch for a length of time and the avoidance of
saccharine feed. Otherwise the horse may take a laxative followed by
dram doses of carbonate of potash, and the affected parts may be bathed
with soft, tepid water and smeared with an ointment made with vaseline
and sulphur. In obstinate cases sulphur may be given daily in the feed.

PRURITUS, OR NERVOUS IRRITATION OF THE SKIN.

This is seen in horses fed to excess on grain and hay, kept in close
stables, and worked irregularly. Though most common in summer, it is
often severe in hot, close stables in winter. Pimples, vesicles, and
abrasions may result, but as the itching is quite as severe on other
parts of the skin, these may be the result of scratching merely. It is
especially common and inveterate about the roots of the mane and tail.

_Treatment_ consists in a purgative (Glauber's salt, 1 pound),
restricted, laxative diet, and a wash of water slightly soured with oil
of vitriol and rendered sweet by carbolic acid. If obstinate, give daily
1 ounce of sulphur and 20 grains nux vomica. If the acid lotion fails, 2
drams carbonate of potash and 2 grains of cyanid of potassium in a quart
of water will sometimes benefit. If from pinworms in the rectum, the
itching of the tail may be remedied by an occasional injection of a
quart of water in which chips of quassia wood have been steep