374 DISEASES OF BREATHING. 



such as particles of food, into the sinuses, may give rise to nasal 

 gleet. Against this supposition experiments on living animals 

 have proved that the tension of the air in the sinuses of the head is 

 increased during expiration, and diminished during inspiration. 

 Consequently the horse has no tendency to draw into these sinuses 

 any particles which may be contained in the air that he takes into 

 his lungs. The impossibility has been demonstrated of intro- 

 ducing powdered material into the sinuses by blowing it up 

 the nostrils even with considerable force. It was also found that 

 sinuses of the heads of two coal-pit ponies which had worked 

 for years in an atmosphere more or less charged with mineral 

 dust, were, after the animals had been killed, free from the 

 slightest trace of coal dust. These experiments, besides proving 

 that it is highly improbable that nasal gleet can be caused by 

 the entrance into the sinuses of irritating particles from without, 

 show the futility of trying to relieve nasal gleet which proceeds 

 from the sinuses, by blowing or injecting medicinal agents up 

 the nostrils. 



Old age appears to be a predisposing cause of nasal gleet, which 

 hardly ever affects young horses, except from injury. 



Formerly, reported cases of nasal gleet were far more common 

 than at present, because, apparently in those times, glanders was 

 much more frequent and much less understood than it is now. 

 Consequently, maliy cases which should have been put down as 

 glanders, were regarded as those of nasal gleet. 



TEEATMENT. — Treatment should be varied according as the 

 inflammation is confined to the nose, or has extended to one or 

 more of the sinuses. In the case of the nose, use, say, twice a day, 

 injections up the diseased nostril, or nostrils, of some suitable 

 astringent, as ^ oz. sulphate of zinc, 1 oz. creolin, or 20 grains of 

 chinosol (p. 67) to the pint of tepid (say, 98° F.) water. Or 

 perhaps, better still, blow into the nostrils burnt alum by means of 

 an insufflator, which is an instrument made for the purpose of 

 blowing medicines in the form of fine powder, into parts they 

 could not otherwise reach. It sometimes happens that the horse 

 will violently resist his nostrils being blown into or injected, in 

 which case put on a twitch, blindfold him, and tie up a fore leg. 

 If pus be in the sinuses, trephine, and syringe out the cavities, 

 say, twice a day, with one of the solutions just mentioned ; having, 

 in the first instance, copiously syringed them out with tepid water. 

 Dried collections of pus in the sinuses may have to be broken up 

 with some convenient instrument, such as a whalebone probe. If 

 the partition dividing the inferior from the superior maxillary 

 sinus has not been opened by the operation of boring a hole 



