166 



OPERATIONS. 



discovered, the part should be frequently fomented 

 with a decoction of meadow hay and foxglove {fairy- 

 cap of the Irish, and hluidy-finger of the Scotch). 



(113.) Fractures. If there be no wound of the soft 

 parts, the bone being- simply broken, the treatment is 

 extremely easy. Apply a piece of wet leather, as re- 

 commended at (109), taking care to ease the limb when 

 swelling supervenes. When the swelling is consider- 

 able, and fever present, you cannot do better than open 

 a vein of the head or neck, allowing a quantity of blood 

 to escape, proportioned to the size and condition of the 

 animal and the urgency of the symptoms. The exhi- 

 bition of purgatives should never be neglected. Epsom 

 salt, in one ounce doses, given either as a gruel or a 

 drench, will be found to answer the purpose well. If 

 the broken bones are kept steady, the cure will be 

 complete in from three weeks to a month, the process 

 of reunion always proceeding faster in a young than in 

 an old sheep. Should the soft parts be injured to any 

 extent, or the ends of the bone protruding, recovery is 

 very uncertain, and it will become a question whether 

 it would not be better at once to convert the animal 

 into mutton ; indeed, removal of portions of bone and 

 iunputation, of which some well known writers on the 

 surgery of the sheep speak so learnedly and confidently, 

 may be viewed, as, in this case, chimerical, if not absurd. 



OPERATIONS. 



(116.) Cutting Lambs. Polled sheep should be 

 castrated about the tenth day after birth, but the end 

 ot the fifth week is soon enough for horned sheep> as 

 eaily castration has always a tendency to spoil tne 



