SUMMERING THE HUNTER. 185 



its inutility, but, by the spread of veterinary science, 

 sportsmen have found oat tliat the application of 

 blisters to healthy legs is injurious. The merely 

 irritating the surface of the skin cannot be produc- 

 tive of advantage, when no disease exists ; on the 

 contrary, it often rouses the sleeping lion, which it 

 is afterwards difficult to pacify. As counteractors 

 of internal inflammation, or as counter-irritants, as 

 they are called, blisters are highly useful ; likewise 

 to all bony excrescences, such as splents, spavins, 

 or ring-bones, when in an incipient state ; but, in 

 order to render them efficacious, they should be 

 repeated till healtJiy pus is obtained. If judiciously 

 applied in strains, they are also not unserviceable, 

 as they help to unload the vessels near the afiected 

 part. Supposing, then, no serious mischief has been 

 done to the legs of a hunter during the season, we 

 thus proceed in our course of treatment of him : — 

 Previously to stripping him of his clothes, he 

 should go through his second dose of physic, and be 

 treated exactly as if he were in work for at least a 

 fortnight afterwards, with the exception of his hav- 

 ing only walking exercise, a diminished allowance 

 of corn, and the wisp, without the brush, applied 

 to his body. We now arrive at a point on which 

 there is some difterence of opinion, at all events, 

 one which must be left to the option of the owner ; 

 namely, whether, as is the practice in the stables of 

 some of our first-rate sportsmen, the hunter is to 

 be kept in gentle work throughout the summer, or 

 to be thrown entirely aside for a certain number of 

 weeks, varying from nine to twelve^ We will, 



