THB SKIN. 231 



"Warts. These are essentially a morbid outgrowth of the superficial 

 papillary layer of the skin and of the investing cuticular layer. They 

 are mostly seen in j-oung horses, about the lips, eyelids, cheeks, ears, 

 beneath the belly, and on the sheath, but may develop anywhere. The 

 smaller ones may be clipped off with scissors and the raw surface cauter- 

 ized with bluestone. The larger may be sliced off with a sharp knife, 

 or if with a narrow neck they may be twisted off and then cauterized. 

 If very vascular they may be strangled b}^ a waxed thread or cord 

 tied around the neck, at least three turns being made round and 

 the ends being fixed b}- passing them beneath the last preceding turn 

 of the card, so that they can be tightened day by day as they slacken 

 by shrinkage of the tissues. If the neck is too broad it may be trans- 

 fixed several times with a double-threaded needle and then be tied in 

 sections. Very broad warts that cannot be treated in this way may be 

 burned down to beneath the surface of the skin with a soldering bolt at 

 a red heat and any subsequent tendency to overgrowth kept down by 

 bluestone. 



Cong-estion, with Small Pimples or Papules. In this affec- 

 tion there is the general blush, heat, etc., of erythema, together with a 

 crop of elevations from the size of a poppy-seed to a coffee-bean, visible 

 when the hair is reversed or to be felt with the finger where the hair is 

 scanty. In white skins they vary from the palest to the darkest red. 

 All do not retain the popular type, but some go on to form blisters 

 (eczema, bullse), or pustules, or dry up into scales, or break out into 

 open sores, or extend into larger swellings (tubercles). The majority, 

 however, remaining as pimples, characterize the disease. When very 

 itchy the rubbing breaks them open, and the resulting sores and scales 

 hide the true nature of the eruption. 



The general and local causes may be the same as for erythema, and in 

 the same subject one jjortion of the skin may have simple congestion 

 and another adjacent papules. As the inflammatory action is more pro- 

 nounced, so the irritation and itching are usually greater, the animal 

 rubbing and biting himself severely. This itching is especially severe 

 in the forms which attack the roots of the mane and tail, and there the 

 disease is often so persistent and troublesome that the horse in rendered 

 virtually useless. 



The bites of insects often produce a papular eruption, but in many 

 such cases the swelling extends wider into a button-like elevation, one- 

 half to an inch in diameter. The same remarks apply to the effects of 

 the poison ivy and poison sumac. 



