KNBE, FBTLOCK, ANKI,B, AND FOOT. 20I 



an essential condition, rest.) Whether only threatened, suspected, or 

 positively diseased, the animal must be entirely relieved 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 inflammation, or whether accompanied by a complication, there 

 must be rest until the danger is over. L,ess than a month's quiet ought 

 not to be thought of, the longer the rest, the better. 



Good results may be expected from local applications. There are va- 

 rious applications which cool the parts, the astringents which lower the 

 tension of the blood vessels, the warm fomentations which aid the cir- 

 culation in the congested capillaries, the liniments of various composi- 

 tion, the stimulants, the opiate anodynes, the sedative preparations of 

 aconite, the alterative frictions of iodine, recommended and prescribed 

 by one or another. The best are counter-irritants, for the simple rea- 

 son, among many others, that they tend by the promptness of their ac- 

 tion 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 alterative preparations of iodine or 

 mercury. And if the owner 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, be on guard against the patented "cures" which the 

 traveling horse doctor may urge upon you, and withhold your faith 

 from the circular of the agent who will deluge you with references and 

 certificates. It is possible that nostrums may in some instances prove of 

 service, but the greater number of them are capable of producing only 

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

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

 followed by nothing worse than the forming of one or more ugly, hair- 

 less spots, it will be well for the horse. 



Rest and counter-irritation, with the proper medicines, constitute, 

 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 re- 

 sults. Kither the rest has been prematurely interrupted, or the blisters 

 have failed to rightly modify the serous infiltration, or the case in hand 

 has some hidden characteristics which seem to have rendered the disease 

 neutral to the means used to cure it. An indication of more energetic 



