386 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



containing and suffering to ooze slowly from them a mucous 

 fluid to lubricate the parts. From undue pressure, and that 

 most frequently caused by violent action and straining of the 

 tendons, or, often, from some predisposition about the horse, 

 these little sacs are injured. They take on inflammation, 

 and sometimes become large and indurated. There are few 

 horses perfectly free from them. When they first appear, 

 and until the inflammation subsides, they may be accompa- 

 nied by some degree of lameness ; but otherwise, except 

 when they attain a great size, they do not interfere with the 

 action of the animal, or cause any considerable unsoundness. 

 The farriers used to suppose that they contained wind hence 

 their name, wind-galls ; and hence the practice of opening 

 them, by which dreadful inflammation was often produced, 

 and many a valuable horse destroyed. A slight wind-gall 

 will scarcely be subjected to treatment ; but if these tumors 

 are numerous and large, and seem to impede the motion of 

 the limb, they may be attacked first by bandage. The roller 

 should be of flannel, and soft pads should be placed on each 

 of the enlargements, and bound down tightly upon them. 

 The bandage should also be wetted with warm water two or 

 three times a day for half an hour each time. The wind- 

 gall will often diminish or disappear by this treatment, but 

 will too frequently return when the horse is again hardly 

 worked. A blister is more effectual, but too often temporary 

 remedy. Wind-galls will return with the renewal of work. 

 Firing is still more certain, if the tumors are sufficiently large 

 and annoying to justify our having recource to measures so 

 severe; for it will not only effect the immediate absorption 

 of the fluid, and the reduction of the swelling, but, by con- 

 t^icting the skin, will act as a permanent bandage, and tlici r- 

 fi> << prevent the re-appearance of the tumor. The iodine 

 and mercurial ointments have occasionally been used with 

 advantage in the proportion of three parts of the former to 

 two of the latter- 



TIIK FETLOCK. The fetlock-joint is a very complicated 

 one, and from tlic shvss which is laid on if, and its being tlir 

 principal seat of motion below the knee, it is particularly 

 subject to injury. There are not many cases of sprain of 

 the back-sinew that are not accompanied by inflammation of 

 the ligaments of this joint ; and numerous supposed cases of 

 sprain higher up are simple affections of the fetlock. It 

 requires a great deal of care, and some experience, to distin- 

 guish the one from the other. The heat about the part, and 



