122 DISEASES OP THE HOESB. 



for the better will be seen in a day or two. This wash 

 seems to have the power of relaxing and softening the skin, 

 and at the same time causes the legs to sweat greatly. 

 Dry them as often after the bathing as you like, there will 

 pom* out great quantities of moisture from the skin as soon 

 as you have done. 



Shot of Grease. — This is a different disease from 

 the one described, from the fact that it attacks only one 

 leg, and that one of the hind ones, and comes on in a night, 

 without any preceding symptoms whatever, and hence it is 

 called a shot of grease. There is no cracking of the skin 

 of the heels or legs, but it remains whole and unbroken. 



Cause. Robust stamina, or too fat and full of flesh, and 

 to get rid of this superfluity, plastic lymph is thrown into 

 one of the hind legs, which causes swelling of the leg to an 

 enormous size. If this material were thrown from the 

 blood into one of the fore legs, where the nearness to the 

 heart increases the activity of the capillary circulation, 

 matter would not remain as it does in the hind legs, which 

 are so far from the centre of circulation. This disease is 

 not unlike the phlegmassia dolens, or milk leg in the 

 human family. 



Treatment. If the disease be observed early or before the 

 leg becomes hard, take about one quart of blood from the 

 neck, and give slop feed, that is, bran with plenty of water 

 in it. Also, give one ounce doses of the sulphite of soda 

 ■once in the day, for a few days, and bathe the legs three 

 times in the day with the same solution of concentrated lye, 

 as is recommended in grease, (which see.) If the swelling 

 does not lessen in two days after these various agents have 

 been employed, then incisions of an inch in length, through 

 the skin, will have to be made for the purpose of letting out 

 the imprisoned fluid before the arteries of the legs have 



