PHLEBITIS. 899 
prejudice which is from year to year perpetuated for the want of a small 
amount of so cheap an article as mental inquiry. 
The worst of the’ evil still remains to be told. The creatures, being 
bled, were esteemed so greatly benefited as to require no subsequent 
attention. Phlebitis was consequently, in other days, a rather common 
affection. If neglected, the disease may terminate in death. In cases 
aggravated by mistaken measures, the disorder mounts to the brain, and 
occasions awful agonies. Taken early and properly administered to, this 
disposition is easily arrested. It was formerly wrongly treated, and was 
traced to an erroneous origin. Phlebitis was, to the perfect. satisfaction 
of learned judges seated on the bench, attributed to the surgeou’s want 
of care. So serious an evil was imagined to be caused by culpable neg- 
lect during a trivial operation. It was thought to have been provoked 
by the use of a foul instrument, or by employing anything else to strike 
a fleam than a properly-made blood-stick. 
Experiments, however, which were instituted at the Royal Veterinary 
College, have proved that no want of care, during the performance of 
bleeding, can provoke the disorder. Wretched horses, in that establish- 
ment, have been punctured with dirty, rusty, blunt, and jagged fleams ; 
all manner of blood-sticks have been employed in every description of 
way. These have been struck violently and tapped in the gentlest 
fashion. Every possible sort of pinning up has been adopted; but the 
utmost endeavor of intentional perversion could not produce inflamma- 
tion of the vein. There appears to be only one ascertained cause: that 
is, bleed; do not tie up the head, but turn it into a field, or present fod- 
der to be eaten off the ground, and the animal will have phlebitis. The 
pendulous position of the head and the motion of the jaws alone seem 
capable of starting inflammation in the jugular vein. Therefore, should 
the reader ever permit a horse to be bled—which, save in extreme cases, 
is perfectly unnecessary—let him remember to place the animal subse- 
quently in the stable, to tie the halter to the rack for twenty-four hours, 
and, during the same space, to abstain from allowing any food. These 
injunctions, however, do not refer to the bleedings sometimes adopted to 
counteract acute disease. 
There is one circumstance which should always be well cousidered 
before any horse is bled: Certain animals have a constitutional predis- 
position toward this peculiar form of disease. The horse whose vein 
shall inflame no man can, by sign, mark, or investigation, pick from a 
herd. It is, however, an ascertained fact that particular animals, of no 
fixed breed, and apparently characterized by no recognized state of body, 
have a mighty tendency to exhibit this particular disorder. The horse 
may appear unexceptionable as regards health ; but, nevertheless, strike 
