356 GREASE. 



There "svill be a great danger, it is said, in suddenly stopping this dis- 

 charge. Inflammation of a more important part, it is apprehended, may 

 rapidly succeed to the injudicious attempt. Tlie local application should 

 be directed to the abatement of the inflammation. The poultices just 

 referred to should be dihgently used night and day, and especially the 

 carrot-poultice ; and when the heat, and tenderness, and stiffness of motion 

 have diminished, astringent lotions may be applied — either the alum 

 lotion or a strong decoction of oak-bark, changed, or used alternately, but 

 not m.ixed. The cracks should likewise be dressed with the ointment 

 above mentioned ; and, the moment the horse can bear it, a flannel bandage 

 should be put on, reaching from the coronet to three or four inches abo^'e 

 the swelling. 



The medicine should be confined to mild diuretics, or, if the horse is 

 gross, and the inflammation mns high, a dose of physic may be given. 

 If the horse is strong, and full of flesh, physic should always precede 

 and sometimes supersede the diuretics. In cases of much debility, diu- 

 retics, with aromatics or tonics, will be pi'eferable. 



The feeding should likewise vary with the case, but with these rales, 

 wliich. admit of no exception, that green meat should be given, and 

 more especially carrots, when they are not too expensive, and mashes, 

 if the horse will eat them, and never the full allowance of corn. 



Walking exercise should be resorted to as soon as the horse is able 

 to bear it, and this by degrees may be increased, but in no stage of 

 the disease neglected. 



From bad stable management at first, and neglect during the disease, 

 a yet worse kind of grease occasionally appears. The ulceration extends 

 over the skin of the heel and the fetlock, and fungoid growths spring from 

 the surface of both, highly sensitive, bleeding at the slightest touch, and 

 interspersed -with scabs. By degrees, portions of the fungoid growths be- 

 gin to be covered with a horny substance protruding in the form of knobs, 

 and collected together in bunches. These are knoAvn by the name of 

 grapes, and consist of an altered state of the papillated surface of the der- 

 mis. A foetid and very peculiar exudation proceeds from nearly the whole 

 of the unnatural substance. The horse evidently suffers much as he is 

 gradually worn down by the discharge. The assistance of a veterinary 

 surgeon is here indispensable. 



There has been some dispute as to the propriety of cutting the hair from 

 the heels. Professor Stewart has the following observations : — ' During 

 two very wet winters, I have had opportunity of observing the results 

 of trimming and no trimming, among upwards of 500 horses. More than 

 300 of these have been employed in coaching and posting, or work of a 

 similar kind, and about 150 are cart-horses. Grease, and other skin 

 diseases of the heels have been of most frequent occurrence where the 

 horses are both trimmed and washed ; they have been common where the 

 horses were trimmed but not washed, and there have been very few cases 

 where washing or trimming were forbidden or neglected.' Custom has 

 very properly retained the hair on our farm-horses. N^ature "svould not 

 have given it had it not been useful. It giiards the heel from being in- 

 jured by the inequalities of the ploughed field ; it prevents the dirt, in 

 which the heels are constantly enveloped, from reaching and caking on, 

 and irritating the skin ; it hinders the usual moisture which is mixed with 

 the clay and mould from reaching the skin, and it preserves an equal 

 temjDerature in the parts. If the hair is suffered to remain on the heels 

 of the farm-horses, there is greater necessity for brushing and hand- 

 rubbing the heels, and never washing them. 



Fashion and utility have removed the hair from the heels of our hack- 



