CRITICAL ABSCESS AND THE DEEt-SEATED. POIX-E\TL 115 



Should circumstances require a more extended application, or that the patient 

 yestlessness might rub off the bandage, let a more extended bandage be em- 

 ployed. For such a one, and as to further particulars, the reader may consult 

 page 79, where a bandage for sore throat is depicted. 



By those means the swelling will come to a head, and give signs of being 

 about to burst, but which 1 have reason to believe seldom happens sponta- 

 neously by reason of the thickness of the skin. Apply the knife, or bistoury, 

 as directed much at large in the case of poll-evil ; give a mild laxative the same 

 day, and lower his diet. When it so happens that the opening has been made 

 too soon, before it has accumulated sufficiently, the orifice may be ke[)t open 

 by means of a seton passing through it to the lowest or most de|)ending side, 

 arid the running continued for several days, until it assume a healthy a[)pear- 

 ance and the swelhng subsides. This plan must be always adopted with the 

 slow or sordid tumour, which will not come forward, though heated with the 

 onion poultice, and even with a blister : then let the seton be applied, chang- 

 ing it daily and soaking the tape in the irritating mixture, as in case of poll- 

 evil, page 119. That other critical abscess, called strangles, comes under a 

 distinct head, farther down. 



Deep-seated abscess, under the fascia of the muscles of the belly, is scarcely 

 ever curable, being seldom discovered to the eye uj)til too late to render assist- 

 ance in bringing it to the surface by means of strong drawing poultices, as in 

 case of obstinate poll -evil. On passing the hand over the part, the animal 

 may be observed to flinch from the touch ; but this cyraptom is seldom at- 

 tended to, and it makes its way inwards, bursts in the ravity of the abdomen, 

 and kills the patient. 



POLL-EVIL. 



Causes. — Next to a diseased habit of body, as just al)ove noticed, which 

 predisposes a certain description of horses to contract turajurs in various parts 

 of the body, the poll-evil is frequently occasioned by a blow, or gall, of a very 

 trivial nature, if it do not come on without this kind of excitement. The 

 action of the head is very great with some horses, arising probably from an 

 itching in the upper part of the cervical ligament, where it is attached to the 

 vertebrae of the neck ; and this causing irritation, we need not hesitate long 

 in accounting for the inflammation that affects the muscle which interposes 

 between it and the poll-bone, in a cavity that is greater with some breeds of 

 horses than others. This variance in conformation is exemplified in the 

 whole length portrait of a skeleton which is prefixed to chapter i. wherein the 

 cavity that should form the seat of this disease is scarcely perceptible; whilst 

 the small figure, inserted at section 16 of that chapter, to illustrate the uses of 

 the cervical ligament, has this cavity of the usual extent. Of course, this 

 latter would be still more predisposed to contract poll-evil than the former, 

 which was a peculiarly formed horse in another respect also ; and it is more 

 than probable, that, if the two were to fall into an equally bad habit of body, 

 whilst the latter might acquire poll evil thereby, the constitution of the former 

 might throw off any offensive matters that might accrue by some other means.* 

 The reader will do well to turn back to the section referred to (p. 20), as well 

 as to the skeleton [at A 5J. 



The wheelers, in a set uf horses^ v^ill frequently throw back the head m 



* These might appear iii shape of grease and farcy ; but it has been generally obsei 7ed tnai 

 a flisposition to farcy abates, if it do not subside entirely, upon the appearance of poH-evil. 

 Again, horses that are most liable to contidct the grease, are precisely of the same dispositioo 

 US ilicKe which are afflicted with tumours, Sir., viz. of indolent habit, heavy in the hand, and 

 bJow of blood, flesb^' and dull; 



