INTKODUCTION. 27 



mencing, of less dark color, etc. Of course, wnen tne amateur is used 

 to the feel of the pulse, he finds the artery grow larger and softer at the 

 time the blood begins to flow freer and become better in color, and then 

 he has the further assurance of the desired end being gained. Long, 

 starving, wasting diseases generally, and some blood diseases, cause wiry, 

 empty arteries; but where there have been no such causes at work, and 

 the horse within a few days, or it may be hours — as in enteritis — comes 

 to have a thin, wiry pulse, it is a sure and certain indication of a crowded 

 overwhelmed right heart, which needs relieving, when the bleeding 

 never fails to deliver the animal from such a disastrous combination. 

 Even in human practice, where general bleeding has been so largely 

 abandoned these forty years past, the above indication has always called 

 forth the lancet with all reasonable practitioners. 



The altered color is a sign for stopping in the above-named condition, 

 then sighing is a sign for stopping under any circumstances; so is a di- 

 lated pupil, though sighing and a dilated pupil are usually present at 

 the same time. We hardly need say that the less blood drawn, sufficient 

 for our purpose, the better, and under no circumstances should a horse 

 be bled beyond six or eight pints. If the hand be not used to press on 

 the vein, but the edge of the receptacle be used, care has still to be taken 

 lest we drag on the skin." 



Pinning-up or arresting the flow of blood is the most important part 

 of the operation. (For full directions see the section of this chapter on 

 Sutures.) 



The horse should always have his head tied up nign, ana tnus stea- 

 died, for one or two hours after bleeding, when practicable. We ought 

 never to forget that an opiate (tincture of opium as a draught, or mor- 



€ 



Fig. 18. 

 Acupressure. 



phia hypodermically) in suitable cases acts like a cliarm after general 

 blood-letting; it is, in fact, the coffee after dinner of therapeutics. 



If the blood is drawn from an artery, the operation is best performed 

 by a lancet. In some cases of cerebral meningitis, the temporal artery 



