306 MERCIFUL EIDERS. 



collars can continue to fifc, and the utmost daily care will be 

 necessary to avoid adding to the poor creature's suffering by 

 making it carry or draw you on a raw place. In such journeys 

 examine your horse's back very caret'ally, two or three times a 

 day, and take care that in saving one place you do not make a 

 worse. Slacken your girths when resting, but do not remove 

 the saddle until the horse's back is cool, and see that both his 

 back, and the saddle are very clean before you put the saddle on. 

 Washing with water or with brine does good, but do not rely 

 upon stimulating oils, or any messes of that sort, as they always 

 do harm. 



764. — On such journeys keep your feet well home in the 

 stirrnp irons, so that you can bear most of your weight on them, 

 and none on your hips. Walk quarter of a mile every half hour 

 and down every steep hill. You will find all these precautions 

 and indulgences repaid before the end of a long journey, whilst 

 attempting to ride on the raw of a suffering creature's back is as 

 improvident and impolitic as it is inhuman. 



POLL EVIL AND FISTULA OF THE WITHERS 



765. —Are caused by bruises and by neglected aggravated 

 injuries to the poll or the withers. Poll evil is most commonly 

 produced by blows, or repeated bruises, on the top of the head, 

 just behind the ears. Fistula, is usually the outcome of long 

 deep-seated aggravated saddle galls, where the pressure has been 

 long continued regardless of all suffering. The disease is of the 

 same character in each case, only differing in the locality. It is a 

 most painful and intractable disease to deal with. The boil-like 

 tenderness is so great and evident, the treatment so painful, and 

 the recovery so slow and uncertain. The matter formed is of a 

 most corrosive and irritating character, and is so situated that it 

 cannot get away. Hence a constant tendency to eat its way 

 downwards, through muscular fibres, and even to corrode the 

 bones beneath. 



766. — No treatment will be successful here thac does not 

 provide a free and sufficiently large opening to let off the 

 corroding matter from the lowest part of the wound, however 



