100 STABLE ECONOMY. 



them, and that little can not be properly dried after washing, 

 no washing should take place. 



Wet Legs. — It is a very common practice, because it is 

 easy, to wash the legs ; but none, save the best of stablemen, 

 will be at the trouble of drying them ; they are allowed to dry 

 of themselves, and they become excessively cold. Evapora- 

 tion commences ; after a time a process is set up for producing 

 heat sufficient to carry on evaporation, and to maintain the 

 temperature of the skin. Before this process can be fully 

 established, the water has all evaporated ; then the heat ac- 

 cumulates ; inflammation succeeds, and often runs so far as 

 to produce mortification. When the inflammation is slight 

 and transient, the skin is soon completely restored to health, 

 and no one knows that it had ever been inflamed. When 

 the process runs higher, there is a slight oozing from the skin, 

 which constitutes what is termed grease, or a spot of grease ; 

 for when this disease is spread over a large surface, it is the 

 result of repeated neglect. When the inflammation has been 

 still more severe, mortification ensues ; the horse is lame, the 

 leg swollen, and in a day or two a crack is visible across the 

 pastern, generally at that part where the motion is greatest. 

 This crack is sometimes a mere rupture of the tumefied skin, 

 but very often it is produced by a dead portion of the skin 

 havinur fallen out: what is called a core in the heel arises 

 from the same cause ; it diflers from the crack only in being 

 deeper and wider. The reason why cold produces such local 

 injury of the skin covering the legs, and not of that covering 

 any other part, is sufficiently plain. The legs, in proportion 

 to their size, have a very extensive surface exposed to evapora 

 tion, and the cold becomes more intense than it can ever be 

 come on the body. To avoid these evils, the legs must eithei 

 be dried after washing, or they must not be washed at all. 



Among horses that have the fetlocks and the legs well 

 clothed with long and strong hair, it is not necessary to be sc 

 particular about drying the legs : the length and the thickness 

 of the hair check evaporation. This process is not permitted 

 to go on so rapidly ; the air and the vapor are entangled among 

 the hair, they can not get away, and of course can not carry 

 oif the heat so rapidly as from a naked heel. But for all tliis, 

 it is possible to make the legs, even of those hairy-heeled 

 horses, so cold as to produce inflammation. And when these 

 horses have the legs trimmed bare, they are more liable to 

 grease than the lighter horse of faster work. But the greatest 

 number of patients with grease occur where the legs and heels 



