DISEASES OP HORSES. 233 



heated. Should the laceration be considerable, this cannot be done ; 

 but the treatment must then consist of saturnine poultices, bleeding, 

 low diet, and the other anti-febrile remedies, until the swelling has 

 subsided, when apply the astringent paste recommended by Clarke, 

 made of pipe clay and alum, every day, but by no means introduce 

 any escharotics. On the subject of broken knees, a prejudice prevails, 

 that a horse that has once broken his knees, is more liable to fall 

 again than a horse that has not before fallen down ; but unless the 

 knee be injured so as to become stiff by such accident, the supposi- 

 tion is wholly erroneous. Horses fall as often by treading on sharp 

 stones when they have corns, as they do by stumbling ; and as corns 

 sometimes come on rapidly by pressure, so such a horse becomes 

 afterwards liable to trip, and this gives rise to the opinion formed, 

 hat when once he has been down he will ever after be- liable to it. 



86. Splints and bone spavin. The former are usually situated 

 on the inner side of the canon or shank before — and as they are 

 situated, so they are more or less injurious. When buried, as it 

 were, witliin the tendons or back sinews, they are very apt to lame 

 the horse seriously ; but when situated on the plain bone, unless 

 they are very large, they seldom do much injury. If a splint be 

 early attended to, it is seldom difficult to remove. Blaine recom- 

 mends the swelling to be rubbed night and morning for five or six 

 Cays, with a drachm of mercurial ointment, rubbing it well in ; after 

 which to apply a blister, and at the end of a fortnight or three 

 weeks to apply another. In very bad cases he recommends firing 

 in the lozenge form. 



87. Bone spavin is an exostosis of the hock bones, the treatment 

 of which in no wise differs from that of splint ; except that as a 

 spavin in general is more injurious than a splint, so it is more 

 necessary to commence the treatment early, and to continue it 

 energetically. It also unfortunately happens, that from the com- 

 plexity of structure on the hock, spavin is not so easily removed as 

 splint, and more usually requires the application of firing. 



■ 88. Ring bone is of the same nature, being an exostosis or bony 

 3ircle, formed around the coronet, the treatment of which is the 

 «ame with splint and spavin. 



89. Blood spavin, bog spavin, and thoroughpin, are all of them 

 originally of the nature of wind galls, and are nothing more than 

 enlargements of the brusal capsules described in the anatomy as 

 surrounding tendons, ligaments, and bones, to furnish them with 



