296 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



function. And in answer to the query, What is the first treatment 

 indicated? We should answer rest — emphatically, and as an essential 

 condition, rest. Whether only threatened, suspected, or positively 

 diseased, the animal must be wholly released from labor, and it must 

 be no partial or temporary quiet of a few days. In all stages and 

 conditions of the disease, whether the spavin is nothing more than 

 a simple exostosis, or whether accompanied by the complication of 

 arthritis, there must be a total suspension of effort until the danger 

 is over. Less than a month's quiet ought not to be thought of— the 

 longer the better. 



Good results may also be expected from local applications. The 

 various lotions which cool the parts, the astringents which lower the 

 tension of the blood vessels, the tepid fomentations which accelerate 

 the circulation in the engorged capillaries, the liniments of various 

 composition, the stimulants, the opiate anodynes, the sedative prepa- 

 rations of aconite, the alterative frictions of iodine— all these are 

 recommended and prescribed by one or another. We prefer counter- 

 irritants, for the simple reason, among many others, that they tend 

 by the promptness of their action to prevent the formation of the 

 bony deposits. The lameness will often yield to the blistering action 

 of cantharides, in the form of ointment or liniment, and to the alter- 

 ative preparations of iodine or mercury. And if the OAvner of a 

 " spavined " horse really succeeds in removing the lameness, he has 

 accomplished all that he is justified in hoping for; beyond this let 

 him be well persuaded that a " cure " is impossible. 



For this reason, moreover, he will do well to be on his guard against 

 the patented " cures " which the traveling horse doctor may urge 

 upon him, and withhold his faith from the circular of the agent who 

 will deluge him with references and certificates. It is possible that 

 nostrums may in some exceptional instances prove serviceable, but 

 the greater number of them are capable of producing only injurious 

 effects. The removal of the bony tumor can not be accomplished by 

 any such means, and if a trial of these unknown compounds should 

 be followed by complications no worse than the establishment of one 

 or more ugly, hairless cicatrices, it will be well for both the horse and 



his owner. 



Rest and counterirritation, with the proper medicaments, consti- 

 tute, then, the prominent points in the treatment designed for the 

 relief of bone spavin. Yet there are cases in which all the agencies 

 and methods referred to seem to lack effectiveness and fail to produce 

 satisfactory results. Either the rest has been prematurely inter- 

 rupted or the blisters have failed to rightly modify the serous infil- 

 tration, or the case in hand has some undiscernible characteristics 

 which seem to have rendered the disease neutral to the agencies 

 employed against it. An indication of more energetic means is then 



