Head, neck, shoulder, back, under girths, breeching, crupper. Summer.
Moulting. Heavy coat. Thin skin. Youth. Symptoms: erect hair, papular
groups, hot, thick rigid skin, itching, abrasion, ulceration,
encrusting, pustules, white spot and hair. Treatment: laxative,
cooling diet, cleanliness, pure air, shade, rest, alkalies, locally
vaseline, astringents, dusting powder, anodynes, tar water, creolin,
etc.
This shows itself especially on the head, the sides of the neck, under
the collar, or saddle, the circingle or crupper, the breeching or
general surface. In these cases the profuse secretion of sweat, and the
friction of the harness is a marked local factor in its production. It
often shows a preference for the summer season, the period of shedding
the coat, the heavy coated animal, the animal with white, thin or
delicate skin. Youth also predisposes.
_Symptoms._ There is usually erection or roughness of the hair, and the
formation at such points of minute papules like small peas collected in
groups. The skin may feel hot, thickened, lacking in pliancy, not to be
pinched up in folds, the panniculus is contracted and manipulation shows
tenderness. Soon the papules flatten and desicate and more or less
violent itching sets in. The patient rubs or scratches himself, causing
deep red congestion of the surface or even abrasion, or ulceration.
Apart from abrasion the skin becomes covered with crusts or even scales
which agglutinate tufts of hairs and dry up and desquamate.
In other cases the eruption advances from the condition of papules to
that of vesicles and even of pustules, though finally drying up with the
same pruritus as in the papular form.
In either case the affected parts are more or less depilated, red if on
unpigmented skin, grayish and scabby or scurfy if on the darker. At
times, after recovery, the patch remains devoid of pigment and hairs
growing from it are white.
_Treatment._ It is usually desirable to clear out the prima viæ by aloes
or Glauber salts, to resort to a carefully regulated, non-heating diet,
to clean the skin of all concretions from sweat or otherwise, to give
pure air and shade and to protect the animal from active exertion,
profuse sweating and friction by harness or otherwise. In the early
stages benefit will often come from the use of alkalies, especially
sodium bicarbonate. Locally an inunction with vaseline to soften crusts,
and the subsequent removal of these with tepid water, may be followed by
some soothing or astringent application, always bearing in mind that
what is soothing to one skin is irritant to another. Dusting powders
(starch, lycopodion, magnesium carbonate, oxide of zinc, calamine,
bismuth) will often do good; soothing lotions or liniments (lead acetate
with laudanum, lime water and olive oil; sodium bicarbonate in well
boiled gruel of oatmeal or marsh mallow; zinc oxide or sulphate in water
or glycerine or as ointment in vaseline, etc, etc). In chronic stages
with much squama and pruritus tar water or ointment; a lotion of tar and
alcohol; creolin lotion; chloral lotion; or other stimulant application
may be used.