72 SYMPTOMS OF INFLAMMATION. 



It is well known that the buffy or sthenic appearance of the 

 blood depends greatly upon the manner in which the blood is 

 drawn. If this is done in a full stream, these characters are ever 

 present in the healthy horse ; but if the stream be slow, and if 

 the blood runs down the side of the vessel, there will be little 

 or no buffy appearance. The form of the vessel into which 

 the blood is received, and its temperature, will also affect the 

 process of its coagulation. Therefore, as already mentioned, the 

 mere appearance of the blood is not a guide to the repetition 

 of the bleeding. As a rule to be safely followed, one good 

 bleeding from a strong and previously healthy patient is suffi- 

 cient in nearly all cases. 



Epizootic influences are opposed to blood-letting, and in 

 epizootics of all kinds, even if the temperature indicates high 

 fever, above 104° F., we should not hastily have recourse to the 

 fleam, but should remember that the disease depends on a mor- 

 bid poison, has a course to run, and is not amenable to the mere 

 abstraction of blood. " When the inflammatory fever has been 

 insidious, so that the first stage has passed over unchecked, or 

 modified by previously existing constitutional disease, or com- 

 plicated with organic local disease ; or when they denote debility, 

 exhaustion, or the so-called typhoid state, they generally prove 

 improper cases for blood-letting, even when seen within the 

 first few days." — (Aitken.) 



The next important class of antiphlogistic agents in the 

 treatment of many inflammations consists of purgatives, more 

 especially the aloetic in the horse, saline in the ox and sheep, 

 and of jalap or castor oil in the dog. (1.) They act by remov- 

 ing from and freeing the intestinal canal of accumulated food 

 and fffices, or other irritating and acrid matters. (2.) They sub- 

 due the inflammatory tendency by causing a discharge of a large 

 quantity of serous fluid charged witli albumen. They direct 

 large quantities of blood to the intestinal mucous membrane, 

 and they determine to the same surfaces a large amount of 

 nervous influence, and thus act on the principle of derivation. 

 They diminish efl'usion, and check the force of the heart's 

 action. Aloes, in virtue of its nauseating properties, is most 

 valuable. 



The use of purgatives is indicated in inflammatory fever 

 arising from all external injuries, unless they be of such gravity 



