414 CARBOLIC ACID 



strong carbolic lotion, and afterwards coating the sores with 

 collodion. Sinuses of the poll, withers, or coronet, cleansed 

 and disinfected with a five per cent, carbolic solution, and 

 provided with a dependent opening, frequently heal if 

 protected by carbolic gauze from fresh infection. 



Injuries of the uterus or vagina, resulting from parturi- 

 tion, and metritis in all animals, are treated with carbolic 

 solutions, 1 to 3 per cent., with the effect of abating irritation, 

 discharge, and straining. No treatment is so effectual in 

 metritis in ewes, the prevalence of which might be materially 

 lessened if shepherds would observe greater cleanliness, and 

 wash their hands with an antiseptic fluid before rendering 

 assistance to lambing ewes. Such precautions are specially 

 needful where post-mortem examinations have been engaged 

 in, where dead lambs, which have lain about for some days, 

 have been skinned, or where cases of metritis have been 

 handled. In foals and calves at birth, after ligaturing the 

 cord and washing the parts with corrosive sublimate solu- 

 tion, a five per cent, solution of phenol painted over the 

 navel, and repeated daily for a week, effectually prevents 

 septic infection, necrosis, and the extension of infection to 

 joints and other parts. 



Carbolic acid is seldom used as a caustic. Concentrated 

 solutions are applied to boils to cause their abortion, and are 

 sometimes injected into tuberculous, cancerous, and mela- 

 notic tumours to arrest extension. Injected into the 

 warbles on cattle or horses, it kills the parasitic larvae. 

 Painted on the skin, strong solutions cause superficial local 

 anaesthesia, sufficient for the opening of abscesses, and 

 solutions of 8 or 10 per cent, are occasionally applied as 

 topical stimulants and rubefacients for sore- throat and 

 rheumatic joints. 



MEDICINAL USES. Carbolic acid has been prescribed in 

 most diseases produced by micro-organisms. Its use for 

 this purpose, however, is very limited, for whether absorbed 

 from the alimentary tract, or injected hypodermically, it 

 produces toxic symptoms in doses much too small to render 

 the blood an antiseptic medium. The same is true of every 

 antiseptic without exception, and it is hopeless to look for 

 a drug which can be given in such quantity as to be anti- 



