264 LUUD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



But when, by continued irritation, the cutis is exposed, suppura- 

 tion succeeds, and the part is fully blistered. 



The salutary action of blisters is exerted in several ways — in 

 promoting absorption, in combating deep-seated inflammations, 

 and in aiding others. As a stimulus to the absorbents, they act 

 beneficially in the removal of injurious deposits, as the coagula 

 remaining after inflammatory lesions ; but it is to be remarked 

 that when any existing deposit is of long continuance, or is osse- 

 ous, it requires that the action of the vesicatory be kept up. 

 Mercurial blisters have been thought to have a superior influence 

 in accelerating absorption. Mercurials, rubbed in some weeks or 

 days previously to blistering, are certainly great assistants, and 

 should always be employed in the treatment of obstinate osseous 

 or ligamentary enlargements. Blisters are very important aids in 

 inflammatory affections, as counter-irritants, derived from a law 

 in the animal economy, that two inflammations seldom exist in 

 the vicinity of each other; therefore, when such an affection has 

 taken place in any part, and we wish to remove it, we attempt tc 

 raise an artificial inflammation in the neighborhood by means of 

 blisters, which, if persevered in, destroy, or at least lessen, the 

 original one. Occasionally, also, we blister the immediate inflamed 

 part, with an intention to hasten the suppurative process by in- 

 creasing the activity of the vessels, as in deep-seated abscesses, and 

 also in those which attack glandular parts. We therefore employ 

 blisters to hasten the maturation of the tumors in strangles. 

 When the flagging powers vascillate between resolution and sup- 

 puration, as they often do in the phlegmonous inflammations of 

 glandular or of deep-seated parts, blisters may either hasten the 

 resolution, or they may add their influence to the attempted sup- 

 puration, and thus bring it to maturity. But we carefully avoid, 

 in other cases, applying a vesicant to a part immediately in a state 

 of active inflammation. Particularly we should avoid what is too 

 often done, that of blistering over the tendons, ligaments, and ar- 

 ticulatory surfaces of a tumid limb, laboring under a congested 

 state of the parts from excess of vascular action. Here we should 

 do great injury were we to blister, by causing a greater deposit 

 of lymph, and by hastening its organization into an injurious bond 

 of union between the inflamed parts. 



The vesicatory, or blister, for general use in veterinary medi- 

 cine, as a simple stimulant, should be principally composed of 



