The study of diseases in horses encompasses a wide range of conditions affecting equine health, including infectious diseases, metabolic disorders, and genetic abnormalities. These diseases can impact various systems within the horse, such as respiratory, gastrointestinal, and musculoskeletal systems, and can lead to significant health challenges. Research in this area focuses on understanding the pathophysiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of equine diseases. Common diseases studied include equine influenza, equine herpesvirus, and laminitis. This page provides access to peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore the etiology, clinical presentation, and management strategies of diseases in horses, contributing to the advancement of equine veterinary medicine.
Krook L, Whalen JP, Lesser GV, Berens DL.Nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism (NSH) defines a spontaneous and experimental disease in most domesticated and in some wild animals, caused by dietary calcium deficiency and/or phosphorus excess. Calcium deficiency results directly in hypocalcemia, and phosphorus excess induces hyperphosphatemia which causes hypocalcemia. Secondary hyperparathyroidism thus results and the plasma parameters return to normal and are maintained but only at the expense of progressive bone loss. The bone loss is generalized but the bones are not uniformly affected. The hierarchy of bone loss is, in decreas...
Fitzgerald WE.Four cases of snakebite in horses are presented. Diagnosis was made on clinical signs in all, plus fang punctures in 2 cases. Tiger snake antivenene was used in the treatment of 2 patients and these recovered rapidly. Of the 2 in which antivenene was not used, 1 severely affected horse died. The clinical signs which were observed were those of progressive general paralysis and were entirely referable to the neurotoxic component of the venom.
Moroz LA, Comerford TA, Guttman RD.Serum sickness followed the administration of anti-lymphocyte globulin to a patient with multiple sclerosis. In addition to other characteristic features of this syndrome, there was hypocomplementemia and transient renal dysfunction similar to that observed in the 'one-shot' experimental model of serum sickness. Cryoglobulinemia was transiently demonstrable at the height of the inflammatory response. Analysis of the purified cryoprecipitate revealed the presence of human IgG and IgA, and, in addition, equine IgG. This demonstration of a well-defined exagenous antigen in the cryoprecipitate pro...
Hiepe T, Nickel S, Siebeke F.The eggs of Strongyloides westeri were found in the faeces of the foals from the 16th day of their life, with a peak in their numbers between the 30th and 40th day of life. Egg release ceased in all foals irrespective of their date of birth in the months July-August. Parallel examinations of the mares were negative. Recommendations for the control of strongyloidosis in foals are given.
Ellis PM.An accurate modified auscultatory technique for the indirect measurement of arterial pressure in the horse is described. Limitations of the method were sensitivity to external motion in nervous, conscious horses, and the failure to detect Korotkoff sounds in shocked, anaesthetized surgical cases. The apparatus required for the method is expensive and is probably impractical for routine monitoring during anaesthesia.
Beech J.Tracheobronchial aspirates were obtained from 27 normal horses and from 57 horses with respiratory disease. Aspirates from normal horses contained mainly ciliated columnar epithelial cells, mononuclear cells, a few neutrophils and mucus. Aspirates from horses with acute suppurative bronchopneumonias or chronic bronchiolitis had predominantly neutrophils and usually large amounts of mucus; in severe suppurative inflammatory diseases, many of the cells were degenerated, and there were coils of fibrinous material resembling Curschmann's spirals. Eosinophils were rarely found, even from horses wit...
Boorman J, Mellor PS, Penn M, Jennings M.Seven-day-old embryonated hen eggs were infected with African Horse Sickness virus by the yolk sac and intravenous routes. Virus reached a high titre in the blood of infected embryos. Culicoides variipennis midges which took a blood meal from infected eggs became infected with virus, and after 7 days at 26 degrees - 27 degrees C transmitted African Horse Sickness virus to uninfected eggs. C. variipennis may therefore be considered a biological vector of African Horse Sickness virus in the laboratory.
Chua MM, Morgan DO, Karush F.The immune response to a bacterial vaccine of Streptococcus faecalis (strain N) was characterized in all of the seven horses studied by the sustained production of about 90% IgM anti-lactose antibody over a period of 44 weeks with maximum values of the total antibody ranging from 4 mg/ml of serum to 12 mg/ml of serum. With respect to the binding of a lactose-containing ligand the association constants of the antibodies purified from sera obtained between 5 and 44 weeks fell in the range of 1 times 10-5 M-1 to 2 times 10-5 M-1. Not only was there no significant indication of maturation of a-fin...
Fontaine M, Fontaine M.In the first part of this paper the conditions for a specific titration of antibodies against the neuraminidase (N) of each of the two horse virus subtypes are defined. The antigens used are: the H72Neq 1 recombining agent to measure the anti Neq1 antibodies and the A/Duck/Ukraine/63 strain for the anti Neq2 antibodies. The immunity response to neuraminidase appears after the natural disease; this response is studied in two foci, one due to a virus belonging to the A equi I subtype (Loire 73 strain), the other to a virus of the A equi 2 subtype (SHN 73 strain). The kinetics of apparition of an...
Milgrom F, Loza U, Kano K.Double diffusion tests in gel were employed for studies of reactions between infectious mononucleosis sera and extracts of bovine, sheep and equine erythrocyte stromata. The extracts were obtained by ultrasonication of stromata prepared from trypsin-digested erythrocytes. The reaction with bovine stroma extract was composed, in many instances, of two lines. A single line was observed in reactions with sheep and equine stroma extracts. This line merged into a reaction of partial or complete identy with one of the lines formed with bovine stroma extract. Evidence was obtained that some infectioo...
Oeding P, Hájek V, Marsálek E.Out of 70 S. aurew strains isolated from the anterior nares of horses, 48 (69 per cent)
belonged to the E biotype. Approximately one third of these isolates were typed with factor
sera, the 6 (35 per cent) that were typable showing 5 different patterns. All strains but one
were non-typable with the basic sets of phages for typing human and bovine staphylococci
even at RTD x 100. Without any exception the equine staphylococci of the E biotype
contained polysaccharide Aa. Sixteen biochemically different strains belonged to the biotype A, B or C. A number of different serological patterns an...
Hinrichs K, Gentile DG, Hurtgen JP, Richardson DW.A testicular prosthesis was removed from the scrotum of a 3-year-old Quarter Horse stallion. The prosthesis had been placed in the left side of the scrotum 10 months earlier, after an unsuccessful attempt to reposition the retained left testis. Because of a persistent draining fistula on the scrotum, first noted 5 months after placement of the prosthesis, surgery was performed to remove the prosthesis. At surgery, the left testis was found in a fibrous mass surrounding the prosthesis. The left testis had descended after placement of the prosthesis, and its involvement in the fibrous tissue sur...
Miller SM, Katzwinkel RH.This case report shows that keratomas can occur in both hind feet of equine patients and should be considered as a diagnosis for long-standing, intermittent lameness localised to the hooves. A Thoroughbred racehorse presented with long-standing abscessation of the right hind hoof. Owing to the long-standing nature, the abscess draining tract was surgically explored. A focal mass was found within the solar horn. Histopathology revealed the mass to be a keratoma. A similar mass was removed from the left hind hoof a few months later after similar presenting signs. This case shows that keratomas c...
Buening GM, Perryman LE, McGuire TC.Serum concentrations of immunoglobulin M (IgM) and immunoglobulin G (IgG) can be determined in the horse with a satisfactory degree of accuracy, using commercially available reagents. Selected lots of anti-human IgM can be used in precipitation tests to detect and quantitate equine IgM. Commercially available anti-equine IgG tended to overestimate the amount of IgG in single radial immunodiffusion tests. Even with these limitations, commercial reagents can be used to differentiate immunodeficiency disorders of foals, including combined immunodeficiency and failure of passive transfer of colost...
Baird AN, Taylor JR, Watkins JP.Radiographically, osteolysis of the physis consistent with a septic physitis was observed in 3 foals. The foals were treated with surgical debridement and antimicrobials. Two of the horses were sound for use as adults; the third was euthanatized due to concurrent infectious arthritis and septicemia.
Hadlow WJ, Ward JK, Krinsky WL.Acute neurologic disease associated with intracranial migration of a first instar larva of a warble fly, Hypoderma bovis (Linnaeus), was observed in a 14-year-old Quarter Horse gelding in western Montana. The disease was characterized by incoordination of gait, circling to the left, head tilt to the right, partial paralysis of the right side of the face, and impaired vision in the right eye. Two and one-half hours after it was first noticed sick, the horse collapsed and was euthanized. Massive hemorrhage unaccompanied by necrosis or significant cellular response was present in the right side o...