162 THE HOliSE AND ITS DISEASES. 



incapable of extension, and the tendon or sheath, are 

 scarcely ever ruptured, even in what is called breaking 

 down. In every serious affection of this kind, care 

 should be taken that ,the local inflammation does not 

 produce general disturbance of the system, and therefore 

 the horse should be bled in the toe, and have a dose of 

 physic, when the blood begins to appear ; the vein may 

 be more freely opened by a small lancet thrust horizon- 

 tally under the sole, and almost any quantity of blood 

 may be easily procured. The immersion of the foot in 

 warm water will cause the blood to flow more rapidly ; 

 a sufficient quantity having been drawn, a bit of tow 

 should be placed in the groove, and a shoe tacked on by 

 which the heels may be raised from the ground, and 

 much tension removed from the sinews; the bleeding 

 will thus be immediately stopped, and the wound will 

 be readily healed. 



The leg should be well fomented three times a day 

 with hot water, and half an hour at the time between 

 the fomentation — the leg should be poulticed with lin- 

 seed meal ; should there, however, remain the slightest 

 enlargement, the leg must be blistered, and if there 

 remain a callous enlargement after the blister, the horse 

 must be fired. The principal use of firing is to rouse 

 the absorbents to such increased action that they will 

 take up and remove the diseased thickness of the skin, 

 and likewise the unnatural deposit in the cellular 

 substance beneath. 



Grease. 



This is a disease of the skin of the heels, sometimes 

 in the fore-feet, but most commonly in the hind ones. 



The disease is too frequently the effect of washing the 

 limbs with cold water, while they are over-heated from 

 exercise, and allowing them to dry of their own accord ; 

 the consequence is, the reaction after the application of 

 cold being very great, produces iuflammatiun, or it may 

 be caused by constitutional debility. 



