BLEEDING. 435 



constantly submitted to this treatment, and mares as long as they 

 were worked, so that in course of time it has happened to the 

 horse, as it has also to man himself, that the horrible abuse of the 

 lancet for two or three consecutive generations has completely 

 changed the type of the diseases to which they are both subject. 

 Inflammation does not now follow the same course that it used to 

 do, but is of a much milder type, and the attendant fever is in 

 clined to assume a typhoid character, if lowering measures aro 

 pushed to any great extent. An attempt has been made to account 

 for this change in human diseases by the alteration in the habits 

 of the present generation, which are certainly more temperate than 

 those of the previous one ; but in the case of the horse the reverse 

 holds good, for he is now stimulated by more corn than ever. The 

 only point, as far as I can make out, in which the horse and his 

 master have been similarly maltreated, is in the abuse of the lan- 

 cet, which undoubtedly may account for the change in the type 

 of their diseases to which I have alluded, and it is, therefore, rea- 

 sonable to refer it to this cause. But though this powerful agent 

 has been thus abused, we must not be deterred from having re- 

 course to it when severe inflammation occurs in the horse. Some- 

 times there is no time to wait for the effects of a slower remedy, 

 even if there is one which will be sufficiently powerful to control 

 the heart's action. The only sensible plan in such case is to choose 

 the lesser of the two evils, and to save life, or the integrity of the 

 organ attacked, as the case may be, by abstracting blood, always 

 remembering that this is to be avoided as long as it is safe to do 

 so, but that when it is decided on, a sufficient quantity must be 

 taken to produce a sensible effect, without which there is no at- 

 tendant good to counterbalance the evil. 



Bleeding is either performed in the jugular vein, when the 

 whole system is to be affected ; or when a part of the body only is 

 inflamed, it may be desirable to abstract blood locally, as for in- 

 stance from the toe or from the plate vein, in inflammation of the 

 foot, and in ophthalmia from the vein which lies on the face just 

 below the eye. 



The instruments used are either the lancet or the fleam, the 

 former being the safer of the two, but requiring some practice to 

 manage it properly. In bleeding frdm the jugular vein a string 

 is sometimes tied round the neck below the part to be opened, 

 which is four or five inches below the fork in the vein in the upper 

 part of he neck. The skilled operator, however, makes pressure 

 with his left hand answer the purpose of causing the vein to rise, 

 and during this state either uses the lancet with his right or the 

 fleam with the aid afforded by the blow of a short stick, called a 

 " blood stick." When the blood begins to flow, the edge of the 

 bucket which catches it is pressed against the same part, and as 



