DISEASE OF IHE HABIT. lid 



quir** pollevil ; for they demand harsh treatment to keep them at their work 

 which frequently devolves into ill-usage, unless the drivers possess the pa 

 tience of Job, 



Hence the duty of attending to the health of such horses, as much as may 

 be consistent with the avocations of the owner; of avoiding the infliction that 

 is often the immediate cause of either species of ailment ; and, these being 

 discovered of applying the necessary remedies for their instant dispersion — 

 if the symptoms are mild, and thus promise success, a low regimen follows of 

 course. But delay too often confirms the disease ; it approaches towa? ds ma- 

 turity, and will not be repressed : then does the duty of " bringing it forward" 

 to suppuration present itself as the only means of obtaining a radical cure; and 

 1 may add, that this is always the safest, the best, and the most certain means, 

 when the disease yields not to the first efforts at dispersion. In ordinary cases 

 of saddle gall, the swelling and heat will bend before an assiduous and early 

 application of the repellent lotion; not so easily, however in case of "fistula 

 in the withers," which lies deeper and is more obstinate. Least of all will con- 

 firmed poll-evil give way before the strongest repellents ; or, if the resolution 

 be apparently effected, the least external injury, or none whatever, will sub- 

 sequently reproduce the disorder with more than its original virulence. Per- 

 haps, in no part of the farrier's art has he the opportunity of evincing his 

 judgment more, than in choosing the precise period when he will quit all at- 

 tempts at suppressing the abscess or tumour, and set about bringing it forward 

 to suppuration and a radical cure; when he will also quit the low regimen 

 which was proper in the first attempt, and adopt a more generous diet, that is 

 better adapted to the painful discharge his patient will now be compelled to 

 undergo, either by dint of medicinal applications or the knife. 



Abscess in the more fleshy parts of the body, or under the belly, are far less 

 dangerous or troublesome situations than on the parts just named ; they also 

 prove to be symptomatic of the actual state of the blood, of which they then 

 form the crisis or point of cure, and therefore the repression of such (as re- 

 commended in other cases) should not be attempted, neither should the animal 

 system be lowered, but the contrary. If, however, the tumour appears near a 

 joint or just above it, as the hock, so as to impede its action, in which case it 

 would soon assume an ulcerous appearance, by reason of the movement of 

 the muscles of the limb in going, repression should then be resorted to with 

 assiduity and skill. Artificial inflammation, excited upon the skin and cellu- 

 lar membrane, near the part, by means of blistering, or rowelling higher up, 

 has the good effect of drawing oflfthe heat and tension from the more import- 

 ant joint, nor does the animal by this application undergo so much pain as he 

 would were the tendon affected, whereby the limb would become irremediably 

 stiff and useless. 



CRITICAL ABSCESS 



Is that swelling or tumour which is occasionally thrown out on the body oi 

 hmbs from no apparent accident, but what may be traced to that derange- 

 ment of the system we call fever, and is sometimes attendant upci protracted 

 inflammation of the liver, when the disease appears on the fascia of the mus- 

 cles of the belly, on the jowl, or other glandular parts. 



The cause and the effect thus become manifest together; and when great 

 tenderness is evinced upon touching the parts in ordinary cases, nothing mora 

 is required ^han to make an opening in the lowest edge of the swelling, and 

 expressing the contents; the cure is effected by means of the common "di- 

 gestive ointment," which is prescribed under the article " Poll-evil," farther 

 down. But the proper time at whif^h the opening is to be thus made requires 



