PLEURISY. 131 



as I have deemed it prudent to make in pneumonia. 

 Young horses^, and horses having pleurisy as the accom- 

 paniment or sequence of any epidemic or influenza, will not 

 bear abstraction of blood, for the reasons which have already 

 been urged in pneumonia. At the same time, I do not 

 think we ought to withhold the phleam in cases of pleurisy 

 occurring in horses in mature age, who are in work and con- 

 dition, and whose powers are plethoric ; though even here our 

 practice has undergone a change tending very much to 

 lower our estimate of the extent to which such abstraction 

 ought to be carried. It should not be pushed to anything 

 like the extremity it was wont in former days to be carried. 

 Medicine and counter-irritation must be more relied 

 upon. If I could abstract blood through local or topical 

 means, I am not sure I should employ general abstraction 

 at all. Surgeons have leeches at hand to apply; and we 

 might shave the sides, and put on leeches too; but from the 

 number we should require, and the cost incumbent, I fear 

 the practice would not be found maintainable. There are 

 also sufficient objections to any attempts at cupping the 

 sides. By way of substitute for these objectionable and 

 impracticable modes of drawing blood locally, D'Arboval 

 speaks, with all the confidence of one who has frequently 

 practised it, of the following method of obtaining blood from 

 the chest :---" Let the inferior parts of the sides be shorn, 

 and rubbed with hot vinegar until rubefaction be produced; 

 then let hot mustard poultices be applied upon them, and 

 kept on for two hours, or until such time as engorgement 

 shall have taken place, which is to be scarified, and thus as 

 much blood obtained as may be required. After the bleed- 

 ing, the sides are to be covered again with mustard poultices. 

 This local bloodletting may be repeated as often as is 

 deemed necessary — four or five times within the space of 

 twenty-four hours. Fomenting or steaming the sides with 

 hot water will greatly increase the emission of blood ; and 

 a hot cataplasm will be found to give much relief whenever 

 the pain is confined to any one spot.^^ How far this 

 French mode of procedure may be effectual or advisable, from 



