RECEIPT BOOK. 63 



Treatment of Wounds. 

 A wound must be treated in some measure ar. 

 cording to the part of the horse's body in which 

 it happens; but there are some principles to be 

 observed alike in all horse surgery. There are 

 likewise a few, which, as they differ from the prin- 

 ciples of human surgery, should be first noticed, 

 and which should guide the practice of those who 

 might be misled by analogy. The wounds of 

 horses, however, carefully brought together and 

 confined in their situation, as well as shut out from 

 the stimulus of the external air, are seldom dispo- 

 sed to unite at once, or, as it is called in surgical 

 language, by the jirst intention. It is always, 

 therefore, necessary to expect the su|)purative pro- 

 cess; but as the adhesive inflammation does now 

 and then occur, we should never wash with water 

 or other liquids a mere laceration, if no foreign 

 matter, as dirt, Stc, be suspected to be lodgeo 

 within it, still less should we stuff it with candle or 

 tents of any kind. On the contrary, it should be 

 carefully emd smoothly brought together, and sim- 

 ply bound up in its own blood; and if it do not 

 wholly unite at once, and by the Jirst intention^ per- 

 haps some portion of it may; and, at all events, its 

 future progress will be more natural, and the dis- 

 figuration less than when stuffed with tents, tow, 

 &c., or irritated with healing oils or spirits. When 

 an extensively lacerated wound takes place, it is 

 common, and it is often necessary to insert sutures, 

 or stitches, into the lips of the wound: and here 

 we have to notice another considerable variation 

 from the principles of human inflammation, which is, 

 that these stitches in the horse, ox, and dog, soon 

 ulcerate out, seldom remaining longer than the 



