WoUiVDs. 583 



occasional stimulating drink will "be attended with benefit. Place the animal in a cool, well- 

 ventilated stable, offer a little oatmeal gruel or mash with scalded oats in the shape of food, 

 and endeavour to secure an even temperature by clothing the body and bandaging the legs. 



Avoid the use of tinctures, oils, ointments, and all other nostrums, however highly they 

 may have been recommended ; for wounds, owing to tiie manner in which they arc produced, 

 their position, and many other circumstances, frequently require very different modes of treat- 

 ment ; thus it is that an agent which in one case would be the best that could be applied, 

 when used in another, ay, even in another stage of the healing of the same wound, might 

 be followed with the most untoward results. The character of the dressing required must 

 depend upon the circumstances in connection with the wound — such circumstances as can only 

 be thoroughly understood by the expert. 



If a wound is associated with a considerable discharge, a generous diet should be given 

 to the animal, taking care that the food be of a kind easy of digestion. In such cases, where 

 the appetite is impaired, powdered gentian root, about a dessertspoonful to a quart, given in ale 

 or stout, will prove of much benefit. 



Laceration of the wall of the belly occasionally takes place to such a degree as to allow 

 of protrusion of some portion of the intestine ; in a case of this kind the horse should be 

 so secured as to allow of effort being made to return the exposed gut to its proper situation, 

 and this should be done as cjuickly as possible, because the part outside the cavity soon 

 becomes congested, strangulated, and so fixed in the wound as to render it too large to be 

 passed back, so much so that an enlargement of the orifice becomes necessary. Having 

 cleansed the portion of intestine with tepid water, and returned it to the belly, bring the 

 edges of the wound together by strong stitches, and apply a compress by passing a bandage 

 around the body. The horse should be subsequently kept as quiet as possible in a standing 

 position, and fed upon small quantities of soft food. Should symptoms of inflammation 

 set in, they should be combated by bleeding, the administration of opening medicines, and 

 the application of hot wet rags to the belly. The horse, when suffering from injury to the 

 lining membrane of the abdomen, is particularly liable to take on inflammation of that 

 membrane, "peritonitis" ; hence it is that in such wounds as just alluded to a fatal termination 

 too frequently happens. 



BROKEN KNEES 



Is a term commonly given to wounds occurring to the front of the knees by the horse falling. 

 In most instances the injury is confined to the skin clothing the knee, but in others the sub- 

 cutaneous tissues, in others the ligaments and tendons in the region, and in some unfortunate 

 cases even the joints of the knee, are involved in the lesion. 



In treating cases of broken knees the wound, from the manner in which it occurs, 

 particularly needs careful cleansing : the parts should be well fomented for at least half an 

 hour ; grit and other foreign matter will thus be removed, and pain to a great extent will be 

 allayed. If the injury be confined to the skin, a little tincture of myrrh, "styptic colloid," or 

 collodion, will probably be all the dressing required. Should the wound extend to structures 

 more deeply situated, a daily dressing of the tincture of myrrh, applied by means of cotton- 

 wool and a bandage, will be necessary; if after a time the surface of the wound should, by 

 superfluous granulations — " proud flesh " — protrude beyond the level of the skin, an astringent, 

 in the shape of powdered alum, a weak solution of the sulphate of zinc, of sulphate of copper, or 

 the bichloride of mercury, should be used, about one twelfth part in water. If the wound involves 



