SPRAIN OF THE FLEXOR TENDONS. 355 



better, the bandage — which, to prove effectual, must be put on 

 secundum artem — may be applied with more and more tightness ; 

 pressure through such means being vastly conducive, not only to 

 the bracing and strengthening of the parts, but to the promotion 

 of absorption of any remaining deposits in the sprained tissues. In 

 fact, continued repose — which maybe gradually converted, first, 

 into exercise in a loose box, and, subsequently, into walking jexer- 

 cise — with the unremitting application of the bandage, will be 

 the best means we can adopt towards preparing the limb to once 

 again sustain the animal's work. 



The Treatment for a severe Sprain will, in its primary 

 stage, differ more in degree than in kind from what I have been 

 prescribing. In a violent case, the sooner after the accident the 

 thick or high-heeled shoe can be put on the better : delay here is 

 dangerous; since in a short time the leg may become so swollen 

 and painful as to render handling or flexion of it too distressing 

 to be borne, while the shoe is taken off to be replaced by another ; 

 a circumstance which will not fail to turn out a source of regret 

 in the course of the treatment. 



The fomentation will here require to be still more perseveringly 

 laboured at. The dose of physic will require to be still stronger. 

 And there will be no question about blood-letting ; and blood in 

 this case had better, indeed must, be taken from the plat vein, the 

 leg being too tender to endure the foot being lifted and handled. 

 And a larger quantity of blood should be abstracted — such a 

 quantity, indeed, as may be said, on the first occasion at least, to 

 have some effect on the system. These several remedies must 

 be repeated, time after time, and perseveringly persisted in, 

 according to the progress of the case, and other circumstances 

 which the judicious practitioner will not fail to note : the object 

 being to subdue inflammatory action, and with that to allay suffer- 

 ing ; which latter, on occasions, for a time at least, becomes our 

 leading consideration. We must not expect to accomplish this in 

 a hurry. Great and extensive mischief has been inflicted; ten- 

 dons, ligaments, thecae, bursse, joints perhaps, are involved in it ; 

 to the repairing of all which Nature must necessarily be allowed 

 full and suflicient time. And even when all has been done that 



