CONDITION OF HUNTERS RESUMED 269 



use do I attribute the ruin of many hundreds of 

 English hunters. 



I was pretty effectually cured of the indiscriminate 

 use of blisters very early in hfe ; and the lesson, having 

 cost me a hundred and thirty guineas, made a rather 

 lasting impression. I roused the sleeping lion, and 

 could not pacify him again ! I now nearly confine 

 the application of blisters to bony excrescences in their 

 very incipient state, among which of course are in- 

 cluded spavins, splints, and ring-bones ; also to the 

 external surface of the body, as counteractors of 

 internal inflammation, or counter-irritants, as they 

 are called ; and here they avail but little unless very 

 speedily had recourse to. If judiciously applied in 

 strains, I do not condemn their use, as they serve to 

 unload the vessels near the affected part. 



Indiscriminate bhstering of horses' limbs, etc., must 

 be condemned, but the judicious employment of 

 bhstering agents is frequently attended with the 

 most beneficial results. Hunters and other horses 

 do after several years' hard work — more especially 

 if such animals have been worked before they have 

 arrived at maturity — begin to get very puffy about 

 the joints below the knees and hocks, or it may be 

 at the last named joints themselves. 



It is seldom, under these circumstances, that 

 marked benefit fails to follow the application of a 

 blister, properly applied. Apart from the utility of 

 vesicants for such purposes as the foregoing, the 

 swelling that a blister creates is often of service in 

 throwing an injured part into a state of repose, thus 



