918 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



astringent wash, (Vet. Pharm. 5886. No. 1. or 2. ) : bandage and exercise very carefully. If swelling 

 remain after heat, pain, and lameness are past; or when lameness only remains, after ^all heat is gone, 

 proceed to blister mildly twice. In all cases of ligamentary extension when the heat has subsided, the part 

 may be considered as in a state of atony ; and bandages judiciously applied are then proper, particularly 

 during the day. 



5831. Rupture of the tendons and ligaments of the leg. It is very seldom that the tendons therhselves 

 are ruptured, but the suspensory ligaments are more often so, and the evil is called breaking down. It 

 is usually very sudden, and the fetlock is brought almost to the ground. A perfect cure is seldom ob- 

 tained ; but the inflammation should be moderated by the means already described, and the heels should 

 be raised. A laced stocking or firm bandage, when the inflammation has subsided, is necessary; and 

 firing is often prudent as a permanent bandage. 



5835. Strains of the ligaments of the fetlock and coffin joints often occur, and may always be distinguished 

 by the heat, tenderness, and swelling. Treat as already described. In all strains of the leg, attended with 

 inflammation, a goulard poultice is a convenient and useful application. The goulard water should be 

 mixed with bran, and a worsted stocking being drawn over the foot, and up the leg, it is first tied around 

 the foot; the poultice is then put in, and the stocking fastened around the leg above the injury. (5867.) 



5836. Mallenders and sellenders are scurfy, scabby eruptions, affecting the back of the knee, and ply of 

 the hock ; common only in coarse, low-bred, and in cart-horses. Wash with soft soap every day, after 

 which anoint with an unguent formed of equal parts of mercurial ointment, tar, and Turner's cerate. 



5837. Broken knees. The usual cases of broken knees are referribie to woimds in general ; and the 

 treatment of them in no wise differs therefrom, with this caution, that here it is more immediately neces- 

 sary, both for appearance and safety, that if any flap of skin hang apart, to cut it off, or the wound will 

 heal with rugosed edges. But when the joint of the knee is broken into by the violence of the injury, it 

 becomes of a very different nature, and is known first by the extreme lameness and swelling that occur ; 

 nnd next, by the escape of a slippery mucus not unlike the white of an egg. If this continue to escape, 

 violent inflammation follows, and either the horse or the joint are lost by it. Farriers are apt to attempt to 

 stop the flow of theJomfozV, as it is called, by oil of vitriol, or other escharotics, which treatment is usu- 

 ally followed by the most disastrous consequences. It is, however, necessary to stop the immediate flow, 

 by other means ; the best of which is by a fine budding-iron heated. Should the laceration be consider- 

 able, this cannot be done; but the treatment must then consist of saturnine poultices, bleeding, low 

 diet, and the other antifebrile remedies, until the swelling has subsided, when apply the astringent paste 

 recommended by Clark, made of pipe-clay and alum, every day ; but by no means introduce any escha- 

 rotics. On the subject of broken knees, a prejudice prevails, that a horse that has once broken his knees, 

 is more liable to fall again than a horse that has not before fallen down ; but unless the knees be injured 

 so as to become stiff by such an accident, the supposition is wholly erroneous. Horses fall as often by 

 treading on sharp stones when they have corns, as they do by stumbling : and as corns sometimes come 

 on rapidly by pressure, so such a horse becomes afterwards liable to trip, and this gives rise to the opinion 

 formed, that when once he has been down he will ever after be liable to it. 



5838. Splints and bone spavins. The former are usually situated on the inner side of the canon or shank 

 before ; and as they are situated, so they are more or less injurious. "When buried, as it were, within 

 the tendons or back sinews, they are very apt to lame the horse seriously ; but when situated on the plain 

 bone, unless they be very large, they seldom do much injury. If a splint be early attended to, it is sel- 

 dom difficult to remove. Blaine recommends the swelling to be rubbed night and morning for five or six 

 days, with a drachm of mercurial ointment, rubbing it well in ; after which to apply a blister, and at the 

 end of a fortnight or three weeks to apply another. In very bad cases, he recommends firing in the 

 lozenge form. 



5839. Bone spavin is an exostosis of the hock bones, the treatment of which in no wise differs from that of 

 si>lint; except that as a spavin in general is more injurious than a splint, so it is more necessary to com- 

 mence the treatment early, and to continue it energetically. It also unfortunately happens, that from the 

 complexity of structure on the hock, spavin is not so easily removed as splint, and more usually requires 

 the application of firing. 



5840. Bing bone is of the same nature, being an exostosis or bony circle formed around the coronet, the 

 treatment of which is the same with splint and spavin. 



5841. Blood spavin, bog spavin, and thoi-oughpin, are all of them originally of the nature of windgalls, 

 and are nothing more than enlargements of the bursal capsules described in the anatomy, as surrounding 

 tendons, ligaments, and bones, to furnish them with a lubricating medium. By over-exertion or hard 

 work these bursal bags become extended, and their contents increased, and distended into puffy swellings 

 in the hock, called, when on the ply, bog spavin. The pressure of this sometimes occasions a varicose state 

 of the superficial vein, which passes directly over it on the inner side of the hock, and which enlargement 

 then receives the name of Woorf5;3cri;m. When the bursal enlargement extends through the hock, it is 

 called thoroughpin. When it is situated below, in the bursje of the flexor tendons, near the fetlock joint, 

 it receives the name of windgall. 



.5842. The treatment of all these cases must be similar in principle, and consists in lessening the dis- 

 tended sac ; not as was formerly practised to the destruction of the horse often, by letting out the con- 

 tents of these windgalls ; but by strengthening the sides of the tumors by stimulants or by pressure. The 

 more active stimulants are the liquid blister {Vet. Pj^aim-. 5893.), milder ones are found in the astringent 

 wash. ( Vet. Pharm, 5886. No. 1.) Bandages assist greatly, when well applied to the part, and in desperate 

 cases firing has been resorted to, which is nothing more than a more violent stimulant, and a more i>erma- 

 nent bandage. 



5843. Capulet is a bursal enlargement of the point of the hock, and is to be treated by friction, astringents, 

 and bandage. 



5844. Curb is an inflammation of the ligaments at the back of the hock, and is usually removed by 

 astringents^ {Vet. Pharm. 5886.) When it does not give way to these, the sweating liquid blister 

 may be applied. {Vet: Pharm. 5894.) ? 



5845. Cracks and grease may be considered as modifications of one and the same affection, and are com- 

 monly brought on by some neglect in all horses; but when they occur in any but the thick. heeled low- 

 bred animals, they are invariably so. Over-feeding or under-feeding, but much more frequently the former, 

 will bring it on. A very frequent cause of it is the practice of washing the legs of horses, and suffering 

 them to dry of themselves. In every case, without exception, washing the legs should be avoided, unless 

 they be rubbed perfectly dry afterwards. When horses have long hairs about their lieels, and are washed 

 and then left wet, the evil must be doubled ; as the evaporation going on, cools and chills the heels, and 

 thus produces a species of chilblain : and we well know how difficult these are to heal when broken. 

 Cracks in the heels very often occur in horses removed too suddenly into full keep from previous straw or 

 grass, or from these to a hot stable ; which, by the heat and moisture of the litter, occasions a determin- 

 ation of blood and humors to the legs, and they break out into cracks or scabs, from which issue a bloody 

 ichor, or a more thick matter. Between the sores the hair stares and gets pen-feathered, and the horse 

 finds difficulty and pain in moving. 



5846. The treatment must depend on the state in which the animal is at the present If there be reason 

 to suspect the horse to be full and foul, bleed, lower his food, soil him in the stable; or mash and give a 

 mild dose of physic. But when some mismanagement is the sole cause, remove that, and if the case be a 

 severe one, by means of an old stocking drawn over the foot, bury the whole heel in a poultice, made 

 of scraped carrots or turnips ; which will subdue the irritation, and bring the parts into a state to bear the 

 application of the astringent paste ( Vet. Pharm. 5888. No, 2.), or if more convenient, of the astringent wash 



