Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Botts

BOTTS, in zoology, a species of short worms produced and nourished in the intestines of a horse.

As the flies, from whose eggs the botts are produced, do not frequent the neighbourhood of large towns, horses are not liable to this disease, if they be kept in the stable during summer and autumn.

In summer the females of these flies enter the anus of the horse, where they deposit their eggs, which are soon hatched by the heat, and the worms penetrate into the intestines, sometimes as far as the stomach.

Botts are yery large maggots, composed of circular rings with prickly feet, by which they adhere to the part where they breed, and derive their nourishment. When they reach the stomach, they fasten themselves in its muscular coat, and suck the blood like leeches, each worm ulcerating the part where it fixes, till it resembles a honey-comb. These worms are not unfrequently the cause of convulsions.

Botts that are generated in the stomach of the horse are extremely dangerous, and seldom discoverable till they have acquired some strength, when they throw him into great agonies.

The symptoms of the other kinds, which are more troublesome than dangerous, are the following: The horse becomes lean, and looks jaded; his hair stands out roughly; he often strikes his hind feet against his belly; he is sometimes griped, but generally lies down quietly on his belly for a short time, and then gets up and eats his food. But the surest sign is, when he voids the botts in his dung.

For the cure of botts in the stomach, calomel should first be given in large quantities, and repeated at intervals. Æthiops mineral may be given afterwards.

The botts, that many horses are troubled with in the beginning of summer, are always seen on the straight gut, and are often thrown out with the dung and a yellowish matter. They are not dangerous in that part, though they render the horse restless. The season when they affect the animal is commonly in the months of May and June, after which they are rarely seen, as they do not continue with the horse above a fortnight or three weeks. Botts in the straight gut may be cured by giving the horse a spoonful of savin, cut small, once or twice a day, in oats or bran moistened, to which may be added three or four cloves of garlic. The following aloetic purge should also be given at intervals: Fine socotrine aloes, ten drams; fresh jalap, one dram; aristolochia, or birthwort and myrrh powdered, of each two drams; oil of savin and amber, of each one dram; syrup of buckthorn, enough to form the whole into a ball.