Veterinary medicine for horses encompasses the study and application of medical practices to diagnose, treat, and prevent diseases in equine species. This field involves a comprehensive understanding of equine anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology. Veterinary practitioners employ a range of diagnostic tools and therapeutic interventions to address health issues in horses, including lameness, gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory conditions, and infectious diseases. Preventative care, such as vaccination and deworming programs, is also a significant aspect of equine veterinary medicine. This page gathers peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore various aspects of veterinary medicine as it pertains to horses, including advancements in diagnostic techniques, treatment protocols, and preventive health strategies.
Keeler RF, Balls LD, Shupe JL, Crowe MW.Cows, ewes, and mares varied considerably in susceptibility to toxicoses from the oral administration of the piperidine alkaloid, coniine. Cows were most susceptible and ewes least. Only calves had teratogenic effects from maternal administration of coniine during gestation; lambs and foals were apparently resistant. Results suggest that the marked differences between cattle and sheep are probably not due to variation in gut absorption or rumen metabolism.
Enbergs H.Measuring serum or plasma levels of progesterone can be used to determine if conception has occurred in horses. If the mare's progesterone level is below 2 ng/ml 18 days after mating has occurred, conception has not taken place. This method can be used as an addunct to genital examination, and it can be used to determine if hormonal irregularities are present in mares who have not been able to conceive.
Rose RJ, Arnold KS, Church S, Paris R.Blood samples were taken from 20 horses competing in a 100 km endurance ride and plasma concentrations of sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate and protein measured. Measurements were performed on samples taken before the ride (pre-ride), at the mid point and end of the ride and after a 30 min recovery period (post-ride). Sweat samples were collected from 6 horses competing in the endurance ride and 14 horses competing in a 3-day event competition and sweat concentrations of sodium, potassium and chloride measured. There were substantial decreases in plasma electrolyte concentrations, which...
Dietz WH, Galindo P, Johnson KM.In late June 1973, a small outbreak of equine encephalitis caused by eastern equine encephalomyelitis (EEE) virus occurred in the Republic of Panama. At least 100 horses were affected by the disease and 40 died. More than 1,700 human sera were obtained from areas of virus activity but no serological evidence for infection was found. Four isolates of EEE virus were recovered, one of which was from a small pool of Culex taeniopus mosquitoes. Serologic studies of infected horses and classification by the short incubation hemagglutination-inhibition tests revealed that these isolates were South Am...
Pollitt CC, Bell K.A method of horizontal thin layer polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis at acid pH has been developed for the separation of the prealbumins in equine plasma. Using this method, it has been possible to split the S allele into two, S1 and S2, bringing the total number of prealbumin alleles in Thoroughbred horses to eight. The gene frequencies of these eight alleles in Australian Thoroughbreds are presented. All eight prealbumin types exhibit antiprotease activity and therefore, it is suggested that the name prealbumin (Pr) should be abandoned in favour of protease inhibitor (Pi) although at this st...
Bailey E.Six hundred horses were tested with lymphocytotoxic antisera derived from 550 parous mares and 58 antisera produced by alloimmunization with horse blood cells. Seven equine lymphocyte specificities were identified using correlation analysis of the test data, absorption analysis and lysostripping. These specificities are expressed on lymphocytes and platelets, but not on red blood cells (RBC). Therefore, these specificities do not appear to be products of any of the eight known blood group systems of the horse. The distribution of these specificities in 113 Thoroughbred horses and 57 Arabian ho...
Sharp AJ, Wachtel SS, Benirschke K.The presence of significantly reduced levels of H-Y antigen in the blood of an XY mare is consistent with the view that H-Y genes comprise a system of testis determinants. Loss or suppression of a critical portion of H-Y genes and subthreshold expression of H-Y antigen could account for a failure of testicular differentiation, thereby allowing a measure of ovarian development in an XY embryo.
de Backer P, Vandecasteele-Thienpont LM, Jonckheere JA, Belpaire FM, Debackere M, de Leenheer AP.Bromhexine was administered orally (2 mg./kg.) and intravenously (i. v.) (1 mg./kg.) in 3 horses. Plasma levels were measured and the pharmacokinetic behaviour and bioavailability were estimated. The half-life of elimination after i. v. administration ranged from 3.1 to 4.4 hours. The mean values of the apparent volume of distribution and the volume of distribution of the central compartment amounted to 16.2 and 3.3 1./kg., respectively. A very high plasma clearance, ranging from 49.8 to 59 ml./kg./min., was found.
One hour after oral administration, a mean peak plasma level of about 14 ng....
Ek N, Braend M.Comparisons of Pr protein amounts in horse sera have been performed using .’s (1965) immunodiffusion technique. Relative values against a chosen standard of 100 % were determined for a total of 435 horses. There was considerable variation between horses, the highest Pr value being 125 and the lowest 50 % of the standard. In animals of the same Pr phenotype the mean Pr values were significantly higher (P < 0.001) in foals than in mares. In Norwegian Trotter horses the Pr value of Pr NN animals was significantly higher than that of Pr SS phenotypes, whereas the mean Pr values of Pr SS was sig...
Doyle DG.During an electron and light microscopic study of the equine intestinal epithelium, it was observed that some secretory granules of the undifferentiated crypt epithelium were incorporated into the nucleus during mitosis. A study was made of the chemical nature of the granules, using standard histochemical techniques: PAS-Alcian blue, Deamination-PAS, and Ninhydrin-Schiff reactions. The granules contained a neutral protein-polysaccharide complex with many terminal amino groups, possibly an antibody (IgA). The intranuclear granules underwent coalescence and degeneration during differentiation. T...
Braend M.During the routine parentage control of Norwegian Trotter horses with 10 000 parent offspring combinations two irregular transmissions of Pr alleles were found. The allele products were provisionally named D1 and D2. They appeared in two stallions which were typed as D1I and D2N respectively. The first stallion transmitted PrD1 to seven out of 10 offspring and the second stallion PrD2 to two of four offspring. Photographs of seven new Pr phenotypes are presented.
Doreau M, Dussap G.Female milk production was related to offspring water turnover, estimated by a tracer method (fig. 1). After deuterium oxide was injected into the blood of the offspring, we measured the decrease of its concentration in time. Milk intake was calculated by equations taking into account the weight gain of the offspring. The reliability of this method was checked in 28 bottle-fed lambs with known milk intake; the correlation between the actual intakes and our estimates was 0.98 with an error means of 5.6 p. 100. The error on the mean of 28 lambs was 0.5 p. 100 (table 1). The milk production of 6 ...
Sorenson PR, Robinson NE.Quasi-static pressure-volume curves and single-breath nitrogen washouts were performed simultaneously on eight anesthetized horses (average body wt = 485 kg) in left lateral, right lateral, prone, and supine postures (sequence randomized). The shift from prone to lateral or supine posture decreased expiratory reserve volume (ERV), vital capacity (VC), residual volume (RV), functional residual capacity (FRC), and total lung capacity (TLC); RV and FRC expressed as %TLC were unchanged, suggesting that in the lateral and supine postures a significant portion of the lung volume was not recruited by...
Mantovani A, Filippini I, Bergomi S.The present article completes the information already given in previous papers (Mantovani et al., 1976; Bellani et al., 1977; Mantovani, 1978) and is connected with the research on the infection of horses by Pampiglione et al. (1978). In September 1975 an epidemic of Trichinellosis involving at least 89 people was reported at Bagnolo in Piano (Reggio Emilia). This present article describes the epidemiological investigations. In the introductory part, the Trichinellosis outbreaks are summarized which were reported in Italy during this century along with research on domestic and wild animals. Th...
Lumsden JH, Rowe R, Mullen K.Reference hematology and biochemistry intervals are presented for a number of variables of clinical interest determined for blood samples obtained from 60 thoroughbred mares, 12 thoroughbred foals and 50 standardbred horses in training. The observations for each variable were examined for outliers and Gaussian distribution. Parametric analysis was used where the observations were Gaussian initially or after any of four transformations, otherwise nonparametric analysis was required for estimation of the 2.5 and 97.5 percentiles. Description of the sample collection procedures, laboratory method...
Huhtinen M, Peippo J, Bredbacka P.Embryo biopsy has been used to detect inherited disorders and to improve the phenotype by analyzing of linkages between marker loci and the desired characteristics. Unfortunately, early procedures required the removal of a large portion (one-half) of the embryo for analysis, and the transfer of bisected equine embryos has not been particularly successful. Recent discovery of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has made possible the detection of specific DNA sequences from only a few cells. We investigated whether the removal of a small biopsy would allow for successful PCR and normal embryonic...
Bertone AL, Toofanian F, Stashak TS.Lactase, maltase, sucrase, and alkaline phosphatase activities were determined in the intestinal mucosa from 3 locations in the small intestine and 4 locations in the large intestine 1 year after extensive large-colon resection (group 1; n = 5) and 1 year after sham operation (group 2; n = 3) in horses. Lactase, maltase, and sucrase activities were similar (P greater than 0.05) between group-1 and group-2 horses in all locations measured in the intestinal tract. Alkaline phosphatase activity in the remaining large colon of group-1 horses was significantly (P less than 0.05) greater than the ac...
Rearden TP, Sprouse RF, Garner HE.A radioimmunoassay was developed to discriminate immunoglobulin (Ig) classes specific for the J-5 mutant of Escherichia coli (serotype O:111-B4). Adult horses were periodically inoculated IM with a nonviable suspension of the J-5 mutant emulsified in Freund's incomplete adjuvant. Before and after the horses were inoculated, sera were collected sequentially and examined by radioimmunoassay. Rabbit anti-(horse) Ig and [125I]protein A served as the indicator system. Antigen-specific IgM, IgG, and IgA were observed to follow a classic immune response. The radioimmunoassay offers a valuable tool fo...
Degueurce C, Chateau H, Pasqui-Boutard V, Pourcelot P, Audigié F, Crevier-Denoix N, Jerbi H, Geiger D, Denoix JM.A method is detailed allowing the computation of three-dimensional (3D) joint angles. Each joint of the equine digit is modelled as a sequence of three single axis rotary joints. The Joint Coordinate System was used; it involves a specific sequence of cardanic angles. The decomposition of the angles was chosen so that the three elementary angles coincide with the flexion/extension, passive abduction/adduction and lateral/medial rotations. The algorithms and kinematic procedures were described for the equine front digital joints. This method was tested in vitro on four forelimbs. For each limb,...
O'Brien TJ, Pezzanite LM, Acutt EV, Vilander AC, Hassel DM, Hector RC, Hendrickson DA.Pheochromocytomas have been previously reported in horses, but successful antemortem diagnosis and surgical removal without recurrence of clinical signs have not been described. Objective: To report the clinical presentation, diagnostic evaluation, surgical technique, anaesthetic management and post-operative care of a mare diagnosed with pheochromocytoma. Methods: Clinical case report. Methods: An 18-year-old Quarter Horse mare presented for recurrent episodes of colic, profuse sweating, muscle fasciculations and agitation over a 2-month period. Clinical, clinicopathologic and ultrasonographi...
Ball BA, Wilker C, Daels PF, Burns PJ.Administration of progesterone in poly(d-,l-lactide) microspheres was used to maintain pregnancy in mares after luteolysis was induced by treatment with prostaglandin F2 alpha at day 14 of pregnancy. Mares were given vehicle only (control, n = 6) or 0.75 g (n = 7), 1.5 g (n = 8), or 2.25 g (n = 5) of microencapsulated progesterone at days 12 and 22 of pregnancy. Serum progesterone concentrations were determined daily, and pregnancy was evaluated by transrectal ultrasonography on alternate days. Significantly (P less than 0.05) more mares given 1.5 or 2.25 g of progesterone (6 of 8 and 4 of 5 m...
Rebhun WC.Most ocular and orbital injuries or acute ocular inflammation in horses result in similar signs of adnexal swelling, photophobia, blepharospasm, and lacrimation. It is hoped that detailed examination and the suggestions in this article will enable veterinarians attending horses having ocular emergencies to arrive at a correct diagnosis and appropriate therapy.
Dall'Aglio C, Mercati F, Pascucci L, Ceccarelli P.The aim of the present study was to demonstrate the presence and the distribution of leptin and its receptor in the pancreas of horses of both sexes by immunohistochemical techniques. The presence and the distribution of leptin receptor were also investigated in the initial portion of the duodenum, near the duodenal ampulla. The immunohistochemical investigation demonstrates the immunolocalization of both leptin and its receptor in the endocrine cells of pancreatic islets, which led us to hypothesize that leptin may possibly exert an autocrine/paracrine action on the endocrine pancreas. Examin...
Muir WW.Mechanisms responsible for the positive inotropic effects of dopexamine were investigated in 8 halothane-anesthetized horses. The hemodynamic effects of increasing infusions of dopexamine (5, 10, 15 micrograms/kg of body weight/min) were determined before and after sequential administration of specific antagonists. Using glycopyrrolate and chlorisondamine, and atenolol and ICI 118,551, muscarinic and nicotinic ganglionic, and beta 1, and beta 2-adrenergic receptor blockade, respectively, was induced. Dopexamine infusions induced increase in heart rate, cardiac output, systolic and mean arteria...