Spraui or Clap in the Back'Sinew. 3& 



hours walking exercise daily. — But the usual practice of Farriers and 

 Grooms^ of blistering the part immediately after the sprain has been 

 inflicted, cannot be too much reprobated. — One is astonished, indeed^ 

 that any proprietor of Horses who is gifted with common sense, 

 should ever permit the adoption of such a preposterous mode of 

 treatment. The only reason which I have ever heard given, to jus- 

 tify the practice, was the following, namely, that inasmuch as it ge- 

 nerally becomes necessary, to blister a Horse before he get rid of the 

 effects of a Clap in the sinew, so the sooner the blister is applied, the 

 better. 



The fallaciousness or rather absurdity, of such reasoning, it is not 

 worth while, to combat. The fact is, that the practice of blistering, . 

 during, the time that the inflammation is high and active, the pain 

 acute, and whilst the Horse's whole systen^sympathizes strongly with 

 the affected part, has been the means, not only of aggravating be- 

 yond all.belief, the sufferings of the animal, but of converting slight 

 injuries into incurable lamenesses ; and thus many, valuable Horses 

 have in consequence of this practice, been utterly lost to the com 

 munity. 



For the effect of a blister under the above circumstances, is to 

 encrease most vehemently, the inflammation and swelling of tke skin- 

 of the part injured, which latter condition, continuing to remain, is 

 supposed to be the consequence of the violence of the original 

 injury.; and therefore the blister is repeated again aud again, until 

 from the long continued inflammation which is kept up in it, its pri- 

 mitive structure is destroyed, and its thickness extremely encreased. 

 But the mischief ends not here, for the absorbents lose their 

 energy so completely, that they can be but imperfectly roused inta 



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