432 LOCAL INFLAMMATION. 



in and around them, sphacelus, or mortification, is said to 

 have come on. 



The treatment of local inflammation must be varied ac- 

 cording as the tendency to these different kinds of termina- 

 tion exists ; when it Hes in our choice, there are but few 

 instances in w^hich we would not prefer it to adhere. 

 When any injury, attended with inflammation, occurs, the 

 first thing to be done is to quiet the system, and not to 

 imagine the rest of an hour or two, or even of a day or two, 

 can remove the shock which has excited all the animal 

 fear by endangering life. This end is far better accom- 

 plished by a cheering and sustaining drink, than by the 

 bleeding, purging, &c. formerly in fashion ; which, by fur- 

 ther lowering the body, increased or deepened the effect it 

 was desired to remove. In these cases, therefore, give 

 sulphuric ether and laudanum, of each one ounce, cold 

 water one pint, and repeated at intervals of an hour, until 

 the horse is perfectly restored. Bleeding, when imperative, 

 is better performed locally, as we thereby create a greater 

 effect, with less cost to the system. When blood cannot 

 be drawn from the immediate part, still it is often practi- 

 cable to open a vein in the neighbourhood of it, which 

 does return the blood to the heart, from the individual 

 part involved. Topical applications are among our most 

 active agents in dispelling local inflammations. In inflam- 

 mations, accompanied with much heat, the application of 

 cold promotes resolution. With the coldest water mix 

 spirits of wine, by which means constant evaporation will 

 still lower decrease the temperature ; or a more cold 

 application may be formed from the muriate of ammonia 

 w^ith vinegar. As cold proves itself an active agent in 

 some local inflammations, so also heat, or rather warmth, 

 in many other cases, proves no less so. It is in vain to 

 theorize on the seeming incongruity of curing the same 

 disease by two such opposites : the facts are so, and all the 

 theoretic arguments in the w^orld cannot overturn them. 

 In many cases, therefore, we reap the most decided advan- 

 tages from the use of warmth, in the form of poultices or 

 fomentations ; which appear to act by unloading the ves- 

 sels of the part ; but as actual heat increases inflammatory 



