98 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
duced, and the benefit of the treatment will be lost. It is especially 
true in a limited phlegmasia that refrigerants are useful. Where cold 
water is applied in affusions or fomentations often repeated, or by long’ 
immersions or continued irrigation, its action is almost always benefi- 
cial, and in many cases will be sufficient for simple phlegmasia. Cool- 
ing mixtures, much used in days past, are now abandoned, as is also 
refrigeration obtained with atomized liquids (ether). 
‘The experiments of Bayer have proved that irrigation and cold baths 
are superior to all other modes. The mud of clay, with addition ot 
common salt and vinegar, is irritating to the skin; it may produce 
cracked sores, especially on the side of the flexion of joints. 
Against some inflammations, astringent solutions are still much used. 
(alum, metallic sulphate, salts of lead, and a mixture of alum and lead), 
Cold and astringents are not advised for any external inflammatory 
affection in any stage. Not only are they useless in infectious phleg- 
masia, but they may be injurious when there exist in the affected region 
extensive disorders, when numerous vascular currents are obliterated, 
and when tissues, bruised and ischemated, seem threatened with 
gangrene. 
To assist the return of the circulation and stimulate the nutrition of 
these tissues, other means are necessary, among which damp _ heat 
comes in the first rank, Warm water (40-50 deg. C.) renders greatest 
service in the treatment of external phlegmasia, especially when 
situated in the inferior regions of the extremities. Warm affusions, 
damp compresses, especially balneation, have a most favorable action 
in the generality of cases where phlegmasia is recent, particularly when 
the tension of the tissues is severe and the pain acute: the inflammatory 
phenomena become circumscribed and diminish, the swelling and the 
pain subside. When these are excessive, it is advantageous to bring 
into action, upon the inflamed tissues, narcotic or analgesical sub- 
stances. The ointments of the old pharmacopia should be ignored to 
give preference to the preparations with base of vaseline: vaseline, 100. 
grammes ; cocaine, 2 grammes; or, vaseline, 100 grammes; boric acid, 
10; antipyrine, 10; iodoform, 2. (Reclus.) 
Subcutaneous or submucous tissues, when inflamed, become phleg- 
monous, even when the surrounding tegument shows no apparent 
interruption of the continuity. Warm. water is again very advantage- 
ous to.conjure this complication. It softens fatty matter dried on the 
surface of the skin, loosens it, and produces a slight antiseptic effect. 
Inritants—revulsive or vesicatory agents—are at times used when one- 
wishes to accelerate a process or to substitute an artificial for a morbid 
phlegmasia. It is thus that the reactionary inflammation is excited in 
“‘stickfasts,” “scabs” of the skin, by the applications on their borders. 
of a vesicating preparation ; it is also in this way that beneficial inter- 
