434 HEALTH AND DISEASE 



the muscles moving on each other. If the skin is not broken, and the 

 swelling appears tense, hot, and painful, cold applications may be applied 

 to try and reduce the inflammation and the swelling. These may be in the 

 form of cold-water douches and cooling lotions applied by soaking linen 

 cloths and placing them across the wither. If in the course of a few days 

 the swelling does not disappear and the pain subside, but on the contrary 

 continue to increase, we may expect that suppuration is taking place and 

 that an abscess is about to form ; that being so, the sooner we get the matter 

 to the surface the better. To this end, hot water fomentations must be 

 diligently applied, together with some stimulating liniment, such as that of 

 ammonia and turpentine. When this does not succeed, a blister will often 

 be beneficial. As soon as the swelling points, it should be lanced and well 

 opened up to the lowest part of the cavity, so as to give free exit to the 

 matter (pus) and allow of the removal of any dead tissues that may exist, 

 and drainage of the abscess may be effected by passing a piece of tape 

 (seton) through the wound, being careful to bring it out at a lower level 

 than the floor of the cavity, so that no matter may be allowed to accumu- 

 late there. 



Sometimes the pus will have burrowed behind the shoulder-blade, in 

 which case a depending opening must be made or a seton passed through it. 

 At other times the projections of the backbones (vertebral spines) will be 

 diseased, in which case they must be freely scraped or removed by the 

 veterinary surgeon. 



Fistulous withers, like poll evil and quittor, are tedious cases at the 

 best of times, especially if the deeper structures are involved, particularly 

 the bones and fibrous tissue (fascia). In all cases where the diseased part 

 can be found which is not always an easy task it is best to remove it 

 with the knife. When this cannot be determined, the wound throughout 

 should be well cauterized, with the hope of bringing away the injured arid 

 offending tissue. If this is not accomplished and the wound heals up on 

 the outside, as it frequently will, a fresh abscess will form sooner or later, 

 and the whole process will have to be gone through again; therefore it is 

 useless to let the wound heal at the surface before the inside has grown up 

 sound, or, in other words, the wound should be made to heal from the 

 bottom. It is an old but sometimes successful practice to " plug" the sinus 

 to the very bottom with some caustic, such as corrosive sublimate, or 

 arsenic, or a mixture of the two. This destroys the tissues for some 

 distance around, and frequently brings away the damaged structure that 

 prevented healing in the first instance. When this happens the result is 

 very satisfactory, because as soon as the dead part (slough) is removed, the 

 wound at once begins to close, and only requires to be kept clean and 



