280 SAFE PRACTICE. 



if we make a mistake in such disfciiictions, or cannot even name 

 the disease at all. For this, and for nearly all the diseases of the 

 internal organs, the best thing to do is to draw the blood to the 

 surface of the bjdy, to get tlie skin at full work, to soothe the 

 irritated nerves, and co draw off any offending secretions l)y a 

 comfortable warm pack, or large body bandage. 



683. — Hydropathy is not so easily practised on the horse as 

 on the human subject. His form is not a convenient one to 

 envelope in a roll, but ihe greatest difSculty is presented by the 

 immovable coat of hair on the skin, which will always call for the 

 exercise of more contrivance than need be exhibited by those who 

 practise on a skin, the covering of which can be instantaneously 

 removed or changed. The uncertain quantity of that covering 

 in different animals, and in the same animal at different seasons 

 of the year, or in different climates, makes it impossib'e to 

 prescribe for unseen patients. 



It may be laid down as a universal rule that you are never 

 far wrong if you have made your patient comfortable, and that 

 any lengthened departure from physical comfort, caused by your 

 treatment is a proof that you have not taken the right course. 



684. — When Friesnitz first discovered the wonderful puvrcr 

 of water, as a curative agent, ho unfortunately concluded that 

 cold was a great factor in the business, and his usefulness, though 

 great, was very much curtailed by that error. It was left to 

 those good philanthropists, Mr. and Mrs. Sraedley, to demonstrate 

 on more than twenty-five thousand .pati&nts that warmth is in iiiiie 

 cases out of ten, far more usefully associated with water. The 

 popular and jjrofessional idea that warm baths, or warm packs, 

 are weakening, is utterly at variance with the truth. They soothe 

 by removing irritation, and superficial observers have mistaken 

 that for weakening. 



G85. — Of course a horse with colic must not be tied up, or 

 kept in a narrow stall. He should be placed in a warm, roomy, 

 loose box or shed, and well littered with straw up to liis knees. 

 In all cases of internal inflammation, or pain, your fii.st care 

 should be to get the legs and surface of the body waim, ;<lways 

 remembering that they cannot be warmed with bad air, or with 

 air deficient of oxygen (09 to ll-f.). 



