Horse Eye Diseases
You can scarcely overestimate the value of sound eyes in your horse. A blind horse is always dangerous in the saddle or in single harness. The health of your horse's eyes is an important component to overall horse health.
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Diseases of the Eyelids
Eye diseases of the horse can affect the eyelid as well as the eyeball and other areas of a horse's eyes. Diseases of the eyelids can be broken down into three main types.
Congenital Diseases
- Abnormally small opening between the eyelids
- Division of the eyelid
- Closure of the eyelids by adhesion
Nervous Diseases
- Spasms of the eyelids
- Drooping eyelids
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Parasites in the Eye
There are several types of parasites that can affect the eye of a horse and cause temporary to permanent damage depending upon how they are treated. |
Inflammations of the Eyelids
All severe inflammations of the eyes affect the eyelids and include sties, boils, tumors and warts:
- Cancer: Encephaloid cancer attacks the haw of the horse's eye, which leads to retraction of the eye into its socket. The tumors lead to such irregular enlargement and distortion of the haw that the condition is not to be confused with the simple projection of a healthy horse eye when the lids are pushed apart with the finger and the thumb.
- Conjunctivitis: In inflammation of the outer parts of the eyeball, the exposed vascular and sensitive mucous membrane (conjunctiva) that cover the ball, the eyelids, the haw and the lacrimal apparatus is usually the most deeply involved, yet adjacent parts are more or less implicated, and when disease is concentrated on these contiguous parts it constitutes a phase of external opththalmia which demands a special notice.
- Internal Ophthalmia: Another inflammation of all parts of the eye, though very intense, and generally caused by severe blows to the horse's eye or the penetration of a foreign body causing this disease of the eye. Because of the nature of the cause of this eye disease, the symptoms are dependent upon the circumstances that cause the disorder.
- Recurrent Ophthalmia: This is an inflammatory affection of the interior of the eye, intimately related to certain soils, climates and systems. This eye disease has a strong tendency of recurrence, which usually ends in blindness. Its causes may be fundamentally attributed to soil. Heredity makes a horse more or less likely to get this eye disease when in contact with the outside circumstances that may trigger it.
The symptoms vary according to the severity of the attack. In some cases there is marked fever, and in some slighter cases it may be almost altogether wanting, but there is always a lack of vigor and energy.
- Watering Eye: The escape of tears on the side of the cheek is a symptom of external inflammation of the horse's eye. It may also occur from any eye disease of the lacrimal apparatus that interferes with the normal progress of the tears to the nose.
Resources
Michener, CH. B, V.S. (2007). Diseases of the Digestive Organs. Retrieved March 8, 2008, from the Project Gutenberg Web site: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23403/23403-h/23403-h.htm#Page_49.
