Strangles: Answers to Common Questions
Corinne Sweeney, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM
March 31, 2009
Strangles is a highly contagious disease that causes horses to have swollen and painful lymph nodes that block their airway and can cause difficult breathing. The name was coined because these enlarged nodes sometimes (but rarely) suffocate affected horses.
The first reported case of strangles in a horse was made in Europe in 1251 by Jordanus Ruffus. Convinced of its contagious nature,
