294 SPLINT. 
spavin, and the boasted treatment for ages, only consists in torturing the 
hocks of the animal. 
While inflammation exists, apply poultices, and well rub the part with 
a mixture of belladonna and of opium—one ounce of each drug rubbed 
down with one ounce of water. Or place opium and camphor on the 
poultices; or rub the enlargement with equal parts of chloroform and 
camphorated oil. The pain having subsided and the heat being ban- 
ished, apply, with friction, some of the following ointment. It may 
reduce the disease by provoking absorption; at all events, it will check 
all further growth by rendering further deposit almost an impossibility. 
Todidevofléad: 2-2 ee me ee ke a e “Onesouace: 
Simple ointment . . .. . .. =. =. . . Hight ounces. 
Mix. 
SPLINT. 
The horse, could it only speak, would have sufficient cause to over- 
whelm man with its injuries. It is to be hoped that He who heeds not 
language, but reads the heart, will not peruse the horror written on that 
of the most contented and sweetest-dispositioned of man’s many slaves. 
It is true, colts have spavin and splints. Creatures, whose days of bit- 
terness are as yet to come, exhibit exostoses; but these blemishes are 
the sad inheritances of the cruel service exacted by thoughtless masters 
from the progenitors of the deformed. Nature gave the horse a fibro- 
cartilaginous or elastic union to particular bones, so that all its motions 
might be bounding and graceful. The animal, thus formed, was pre- 
sented to man; but the gift was not prized by him to whom it was given. 
The authority possessed was abused. The capability of the horse was 
only measured by what it was able, at the risk of its life, to perform. 
The most humane of modern proprietors is an ignorant tyrant to his 
graceful bond-servant. The most meek of owners likes his horse to 
possess high action. The consequence is, the leg, lifted from the ground 
to the highest possible point, is forcibly driven again to the earth. This 
pace is imposed upon a creature so docile, it only seeks to learn that 
which pleases its master, and, in the entirety of its confidence, never 
mistrusts its instructor. The lesson is learned. The animal soon 
becomes proud to exhibit its acquirement. High action, however— 
especially that kind of action the horse is taught to exemplify—soon 
deranges the system. It breeds inflammation in the fibro-cartilaginous 
tissues, upon which its chief strain is felt. The union between the splint 
bones and the cannon, or between the shin-bone and the accessories, one 
on either side, speedily becomes converted into osseous matter. 
However, man cannot say to nature, ‘“ Thus far shalt thou go, and no 
