258 DISEASES OF THE HOBSE. 



The local treatment consists in astringent, soothing lotions (sugar 

 of lead 30 grains, laudanum 2 teaspoonfuls, rain water — boiled and 

 cooled — 1 pint), applied with a soft cloth kept wet with the lotion, 

 and hung over the eye by tying it to the headstall of the bridle on the 

 two sides. If the mucous membrane lining of th« lids is the seat of 

 little red granular elevations, a drop of solution of 2 grains of nitrate 

 of silver in an ounce of distilled water should be applied with the soft 

 end of a clean feather to the inside of the lid twice a day. The 

 patient should be removed from all such conditions (pasture, faulty 

 food, exposure, etc.) as may have caused or aggravated the disease, 

 and from dust and irritant fumes and gases. He should be fed from 

 a manger high enough to favor the return of blood from the head, 

 and should be kept from work, especially in a tight collar which 

 would prevent the descent of blood by the jugular veins. - His diet 

 should be laxative and nonstimulating (grass, bran mashes, carrots, 

 turnips, beets, potatoes, or steamed hay), and any costiveness should 

 be corrected by a mild dose of raw linseed oil (1 to 1^ pints). In 

 cold weather warm blanketing may be needful, and even loose flannel 

 bandages to the limbs, but heat should never be sought at the expense 

 of pure air. 



(2) In inflammations due to local irritants of a noninfective kind 

 a careful examination will usually reveal their presence, and the first 

 step must be their removal with a pair of blunt forceps or the point 

 of a lead pencil. Subsequent treatment will be in the main the local 

 treatment advised above. 



(3) In case of infective inflammation there will often be found a 

 prick or tear by which the septic matter has entered, and in such case 

 the inflammation will for a time be concentrated at that point. A 

 round or conical swelling around an insect bite is especially character- 

 istic. A snake bite is marked by the double prick made by the two 

 teeth and by the violent and rapidly spreading inflammation. Ery- 

 sipelas is attended with much swelling, extending beyond the lids 

 and causing the mucous membrane to protrude beyond the edge of 

 the eyelid (chemosis). This is characterized by a bright, uniform, 

 rosy red, disappearing on pressure, or later by a dark, livid hue, but 

 with less branching redness than in noninfecting inflammation and 

 less of the dark, dusky, brownish or yellowish tint of anthrax. Lit- 

 tle vesicles may appear on the skin, and pus may be found without 

 any distinct limiting membrane, as in abscess. It is early attended 

 by high fever and marked general weakness and inappetence. An- 

 thrax of the lids is marked by a firm swelling, surmounted by a blis- 

 ter, with bloody serous contents, which tends. to burst and dry up 

 into a slough, while the surrounding parts become involved in the 

 same way. Or it may show as a diffuse dropsical swelling, with less 

 of the hard central sloughing nodule, but, like that, tending to spread 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



