182 BOAKr» OK AiiKICLLTLRK. 



blister is at oiut culUni lor, to l»' rnblHul into the hair. A good one 

 for this purpose is maMe of Spanish Hies and lard made into a salvo, 

 to which may be added red precipitate of mercury, wliich is an ex- 

 ceediniilv active a^ent. That bein^; applied produces a tremendous 

 intlainmation on the skin, the result of which is to hasten the bony 

 union, but that is a little slow. If the owner is impatient and want* 

 his horse sooner, "'tiring" may be resorted to at once, and in fact, is 

 the most etlicient mode of surgical treatment. 



When we attempt to treat a spavin or ring-bone we want to do it 

 nicelv so we will not leave a blemish ; and there need not be anv 

 sear left from firing and blistering, if it is properly done. 



On the splint-bone we get a disease just like that of ring-bone, 

 from au injury with the opposite foot, or any accident. It is more 

 frecjuently seen on the inside of the leg. We there get a little bony 

 process by which the splint-bone is grown onto the cannon-bone. 

 That is known as a ""npUnt." The horse is lame as long as this is 

 growing on, but he ceases to limp when it becomes anchylosed to the 

 cannon-bone. This process can be hastened, in the majority of 

 cases, and it will be completed within a month. We fire and blister 

 this in precisely the same way as in the case of a ring-bone or a 

 spavin There is one indication by which you may feel sure that 

 your horse has a '-splint." When a horse is thus troubled you 

 can test it in a wav that will be verv satisfactorv to yourself. If von 

 find no indication of disease elsewhere in the leg, and if you don't 

 feel sure that it is here, drive the horse ; and if no limp on a walk 

 or a canter, but does limp on an ordinar}^ trot, and the slower he 

 trots the more he limps, you may be sure that is a splint. Rub your 

 hand down over the leg and if there is a sjtlint of any considerable 

 size you will feel it like a button under the skin ; but sometimes they 

 are so small that they do not show. Colts in the pasture have been 

 lame for weeks with a splint and recoveied and nobody suspected 

 any such trouble. In fact we find horses that were never known to 

 be lame, with splints grown on perfectly solid. And one thing I 

 wish to call your attention to in connection with this — and I shall be 

 disputed right here unless Maine is different from other portions of 

 the country — that while it is commonly believed that splints are 

 always on the forward leg, they are in fact quite as common on the 

 hind leg. Horsemen generally dispute me sharply on this point. 

 While lecturing in Vermont, once, a horse doctor said that I had 

 made a great mistake in saying that horses had splints on the hind 

 leg. I replied that T had several specimens to illustrate the trouble 



