264 DADD’S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 
But when, by continued irritation, the cutis is exposed, suppura 
tion succeeds, and the part is fully blistered. 
The salutary action of blisters is exerted in 3everal ways—in 
pronoting absorption, in combating deep-seated inflammations, 
and in aiding others. As a stimulus to the abscrbents, they act 
beneficially in the removal of injurious deposits, as the coagula 
remaining after inflammatory lesions; but it is to be remarked 
that when any existing deposit is of long continuance, or is osse- 
ous, it requires that the action of the vesicatory be kept up. 
Mercurial! blisters have been thought to have a superior influence 
in accelerating absorption. Mercurials, rubbed in some weeks or 
days previously to blistering, are certainly great assistants, and 
should always be employed in the treatment of obstinate osseous 
or ligamentary enlargements. Blisters are very important aids in 
inflammatory affections, as counter-irritants, derived from a hw 
in the animal economy, that two inflammations seldom exist in 
the vicinity of each other; the.efore, when such an affection has 
taken place in any part, and we wish to remove it, we attempt to 
raise an artificial inflammation in the neighborhood by means of 
blisters, which, if persevered in, destroy, or at least lessen, the 
original one. Occasionally, alsc, we blister the immediate inflamed 
part, with an intention to hasten the suppurative process by in- 
creasing the activity of the vessels, as in deep-seated abscesses, and 
also in those which attack glandular parts. We therefore employ 
blisters to hasten the maturation of the tumors in strangles. 
When the flagging powers vascillate between resolution and sup- 
puration, as they often do in the phlegmonous inflammations of’ 
glandular or of deep-seated parts, blisters may either hasten the 
resolution, or they may add their influence to the attempted sup- 
puration, and thus bring it to maturity. But we carefully avoid, 
in other cases, applying a vesicant to a part immediately in a state 
of active inflammation. Particularly we should avoid what is ‘oo 
often done, that of blistering over the tendons, ligaments, and ar- 
ticulatory surfaces of a tumid limb, laboring under a congested 
state of the parts from excess of vascular action. Here we should 
do great injury were we to blister, by causing a greater deposit 
of lymph, and by hastening its organization into an injurious bond 
of union between the inflamed parts. 
The vesicatory, or blister, for general use in veterinary medi- 
tine, as a simple stimulant, should be principally composed of 
