4<86 DANGER OF RELAPSE I FIRING, [BOOK III. 



is required for the injured parts to recover their 

 former posture and strength, if that event ever 

 arrive. Firing may be employed after a while, 

 but is very often resorted to prematurely, before 

 the tendons and ligaments have recovered position, 

 or absorption has reduced the muscular parts to 

 their former size, and restored their action. When 

 three, or four, or five months of moderate labour 

 give reason for. believing that these events have 

 taken place, firing is likely to prove highly ser- 

 viceable by bracing the whole together in a tight 

 skin, much resembling, and greatly excelling the 

 long bandage prescribed with the embrocation No. 

 2, in page 485. The reader of discernment will 

 please to note, that if the said artificial bracing be 

 found to lessen the lameness in that early stage of 

 the disorder, no less will the bracing of the natural 

 skin by firing be found beneficial when healthy 

 action is restored, but not perhaps the former 

 strength. 



7. Breaking Down. 



More ruinous than any preceding kind of strain, 

 this accident is moreover remediless, and happens 

 mostly to the better description of horses ; to young 

 racers in training, at their trials, or in the actual 

 race ; to hunters in leaping, or during a hard run 

 over a heavy country. 



Cause. — Simply relaxation of the tendons and 

 ligaments that support and keep together the pas- 

 tern bones. Grooming overmuch by hand-rubbing 



