234 THE VETERiNARY SCIENCE 



year, feed nutritious food — boiled oats or chop stuff with 

 plenty of boiled flaxseed in it to keep the bowels loose, little 

 medicine being necessary. Give the following powder: 



Nitrate of Potash or Saltpetre Va pound. 



Sulphur 34 pound. 



Mix thoroughly and give a teaspoonful three times a day 

 on the tongue with a spoon. Rub the throat and lumps well 

 with white liniment three times a day. Apply a hot poultice 

 of half linseed meal and half bran to the throat every night. 

 This will draw the abscess or swelling to a head and cause it 

 to break, which is better than lancing. In cold weather it is 

 best to apply a mustard plaster to the swelling instead of a 

 poultice, because after the poultice is taken off the animal is 

 liable to catch cold. Never, in any case, burn sulphur under 

 the nose, because such treatment may result in inflammation 

 of the lungs. If the lump in the throat becomes so large that 

 life is threatened by choking, it is then necessary to perform 

 the operation of tracheotomy. 



6. The Operation of Tracheotomy. 



Tracheotomy is a term derived from trachea (the wind- 

 pipe) and is applied to the operation of making an opening in 

 the windpipe in such a position as to overcome some obstruc- 

 tion of the air passage. 



Place a twitch on the horse's nose. While an assistant 

 holds the head high up, make an incision in the following 

 manner. About nine inches down the neck from the larynx 

 (Adam's apple) on the underside is a point at which the 

 windpipe is all but bare, being covered only by the skin. 

 Make an opening in the skin, lengthwise, about three inches 

 long; then cut across three rings of the windpipe and insert a 

 regular tracheotomy tube to keep the incision open. This 

 enables the horse to breathe freely through this opening 

 instead of through the nostrils or the mouth until such time 

 as the abscess breaks or the swelling subsides sufficiently to 

 allow breathing in the natural way. When this occurs and 

 it is possible to again break naturally, remove the tube, draw 

 the skin back again to its proper position with a few stitches, 

 and treat as an ordinary cut by bathing two or three times a 

 day and applying after each bath the white lotion. The cut 

 usually heals favorably in a short time and it may be added 

 that it is well during the presence of the tube to remove it 

 once a day to clean it. 



