A DICTIONARY. 



251 



dered, is used for the same purpose as the 

 last article. 



Lobe. — A portion of the lungs and liver 

 is thus named. 



Lockjaw. — This disease is too well 

 known to require a particular description. 

 It is evidently a disease of the spinal sys- 

 tem, — other parts becoming sympatheti- 

 cally affected, — and often arises from a 

 wound of a tendon, or nerve : it occasion- 

 ally follows nicking, or docking. Mr. You- 

 att tells us, " This is one of the most fatal 

 diseases to which the horse is subject." 

 For the information of our readers, we wiU 

 detaU the treatment recommended by the 

 above author. We presume that every man 

 of common sense will come to the conclu- 

 sion that the disease could not be otherwise 

 than fatal under such unwarrantable bar- 

 barity. We have no personal disrespect for 

 Mr. Youatt. It is the system of treatment 

 recommended by him that we war against ; 

 a system that has kiUed more than it ever 

 cured. Mr. Youatt observes : " The rational 

 method of cure would seem to be, first to 

 remove the local cause ; but this will seldom 

 avail much. The irritation has become 

 general, and the spasmodic action constitu- 

 tional. The habit is formed and will con- 

 tinue. It will, however, be prudent to en- 

 deavor to discover the local cause. If it be 

 a wound in the foot, let it be touched with 

 the hot iron, or caustic, and kept open with 

 digestive ointment. If it follows nicking, 

 let the incision be made deeper, and stimu- 

 lated by digestive ointment ; and, if it arise 

 from docking, let the operation be repeated 

 higher.* In treating the constitutional 



* "First, to remove the local cause; but this will sel- 

 dom avail much." Then why torture the poor brute? 

 We need not trouble ourselves about the particular nerve 

 affected to enable us to relieve a sympathetic disease, 

 when we have a medicine — lobelia and milkweed, orLidian 

 hemp — that will relax every nerve in the animal. " If it 

 be a wound in the foot, let it be touched with the hot iron." 

 This is a means better calculated to injure than relieve. 

 "We should apply, at once, the means that are known to 

 act on the whole nervous structure. " If it follows nick- 

 ing, let the incision be made deeper ; and if it arise from 

 docking, let the operation be repeated higher." What 

 beautiful philosophy this is! — make one disease to cure 

 another. Is it strange that " this is one of the most fatal 



disease, efforts must be made to tranquillize 

 the system ; and the most powerful agent is 

 bleeding. [Yes, most powerful to kill.] 

 Twenty pounds of blood may be taken away 

 with manifest advantage. There is not a 

 more powerful means of allaying general 

 hritation ; the next thing is to resort to phy- 

 sic. Here again that physic is best which 

 is speediest in its operation ; the Croton nut 

 has no rival in this respect; the first dose 

 should be half a drachm, and the medicine 

 repeated every six hours, in doses of ten 

 grains, until it operates.* The bowels, in 

 all these nervous affections, are very torpid. 



" Then, as it is a diseased action of the 

 nerves, proceeding from the spinal marrow, 

 the whole of the spine should be blistered 

 three or four inches wide. (See Canthar- 

 iDEs.) Having bled largely, and physiced, 

 and blistered, we seek for other means to 

 lull the irritation ; and we have one at hand, 

 small in buht and potent in energy, — 

 opium ! f Give at once a quarter of an 

 ounce, and an additional drachm every six 

 hours." 



The best method we know of, in the 

 treatment of lockjaw, is, first, to apply a 

 poultice to the foot (if it has been wounded), 

 consisting of about six ounces of lobelia, 

 four ounces of slippery elm, two ounces 



diseases 1 " Is it not a wonder that any live 1 Must not 

 their escape be attributed to the conservative power of the 

 system, in spite of the violence done 1 AVhen Mr. Youatt 

 recommends cutting the tail a little higher, to cure a dis- 

 ease that was produced by the same operation, — viz., 

 docking, — he puts the author in mind of the man who 

 filed the edge of his razor to sharpen it. 



* In the first part of this paragraph, Sir. Youatt ob- 

 serves, "the most powerful agent to tranquillize the sys- 

 tem is bleeding." So say the butchers when they bleed 

 the ox, and conduct the process till no blood remains. 



t This is a narcotic, vegetable poison, and, although large 

 quantities have been occasionally given to the horse vnth- 

 out apparent injury, experience teaches us that poisons 

 in general — notwithstanding the various modes of their 

 action, and the difference in then* symptoms — all agree in 

 the abstraction of vitality from the system. Dr. Eberle 

 says, " Opiates never fail to operate perniciously on the 

 whole organization." Dr. Gallup says : " The practice of 

 using opiates to mitigate pain is greatly to be deprecated. 

 It is probable that opium and its preparations have done 

 seven times the injury that they have rendered benefit on 

 the great scale of the civilized world. Opium is the most 

 destructive of all narcotics." 



