54 Accidents and Ivjuries. 



spirits. Avert inflammation by cooling diet of mashes and green 

 food, and keep bowels open, if necessary, by purgatives. 



INCISED W0UND8, such as are caused by slash of s«ord or 

 knife or any shaip edge, must be treated differently. If muscu- 

 lar fibre be dee[)ly cut, let the wound remain open for six hours 

 to allow escape of blood, merely covering with a loose light cloth 

 to keep off flies. If blood comes out in bright red "blobs," how- 

 ever, it shows that an artery is severed, and the ends of it must 

 be at once tied up with silk-thread by any qualified person, or 

 touching the end of a cut artery with a red hot iron will stop the 

 bleeding. Don't foment with either hot or cold water, as it in- 

 creases the discharge and may bring on suppurative action. Next 

 wash the wound clean, shave away the hair near the edges, and 

 bring them together and keep them so by putting on strips of 

 cotton cloth co\ered with glue. If the wound be very gaping, 

 wire sutiires, which are less irritating and in every way better 

 than thread ones, may be necessarv. On an emergency the wire 

 of sodawater bottles can be used. Trickle "white lotion" (com- 

 posed of one ounce of acetate of lead, one ounce sulphate of zinc, 

 with one quart of water kept in an ordinary anchovy sauce or 

 other long-necked bottle) occasionally round the wound without 

 disturbing the sutures or removing any dried discharge over the 

 surface of the cut. Sutures can generally be removed on sixth 

 day, but if inflammation sets in or matter forms before that, they 

 must be promptly removed, the wound bathed with tepid water 

 and then dressed with phenicated camphor; or if this be not pro- 

 curable, with dilute carbolic acid, or nitrate of silver. Cooling 

 diet and purgatives as above. Bandages do harm to wounds by 

 irritating and exciting fungoid growths, and any waterproof 

 cover over a wet dressing is equally bad. Slight superficial 

 wounds would heal of themselves in healthy horses, but in India 

 the danger is that flies deposit dirt in them, so dress with pheni- 

 cated camphor. Friar's Balsam or carbolic ointment or anything 

 else that will keep flies away. 



CONTUSED WOUNDS, such as a whack with a club or butt 

 end of a musket may produce, require warm fomentations as for 

 BLOWS and BRUISES (which sec). 



BULLET WOUNDS are of various sorts. If the bullet ledges, 

 it must be first extracted by a medical man ; if it goes clean 

 throuQfh any soft part, treat both sides as for punctured wound ; 

 but if a bone be smashed or broken, destroy the horse at once, 

 A spent bullet after penetrating the skin will occasionally then 

 pass along the surface of the body, when it can be easily extracted 

 by slitting the skin below where it is felt to be. 



