318 ' CAPPED HOCK. 



around them. With young or unbroken horses we must be more 

 scrupulous in our precautionary measures than we need be with 

 others ; and in the case of any particular shyness or timidity, our 

 first essay had better be restricted to a single hobble, without any 

 appendage, buckled round the thigh, leg, or pastern, as seems most 

 prudent; proceeding afterwards by the steps already pointed out, 

 until we succeed — should such be required — to the enduring of 

 the perfect fetter. Cautious and prudential management, I may 

 repeat, will rarely in the end fail of complete success. 



Medical Treatment. — It is hardly necessary to observe, 

 after what has been prefaced, that no practitioner would think 

 of entering on the medical treatment of capped hock until he had 

 become satisfied that every liability to fresh injury had been re- 

 moved; and when this is done, the success of treatment must entirely 

 depend upon the state the diseased part is left in. So long as the 

 case be recent, and consist of no more than the effusion of fluid, 

 vi^ithout any structural change of the cap, little else is required 

 further than the abstraction of the cause to, in time, insure the 

 subsidence of the enlargement. A dose of physic, fomentation, 

 evaporating or refrigerant lotion, and walking exercise, will acce- 

 lerate the reduction : withal however, do what we will, a capped 

 hock will take some time in disappearing, and this period will be 

 lengthened according to the character and magnitude of the en- 

 largement. Instead of dallying with such a case as this, however, 

 or throwing the horse out of work on account of it, the advisable 

 plan of proceeding is, as soon as the horse has gone through his 

 physicking, and that and the fomentation, &c. have carried off any 

 existing inflammation, to return the horse to his work, treating the 

 swelling during the while with perfrications night and morning 

 with some iodine and mercurial or antimonial ointment. Supposing 

 the application does but doubtful good, the hand-rubbing will, at 

 all events, tend to promote absorption of the collected fluid. 



If we make our minds up to carry matters farther than this, we 

 may proceed to blistering the cap ; and, in combination with pur- 

 gative and diuretic medicine, and topical blood-letting so far as it 

 can be practised, I do not know a more eff'ectual disperser of the 

 tumour. At the same time, it must be remarked, there are few 



