432 WOUNDS. 
A piece of loose rag, saturated in the oil or the solution of tar, 
should, during summer, be suspended over the mouth of every wound, to 
keep off the flies. The only tent which the author approves of is when 
an incised wound happens where assistance is far away, and difficult to 
procure. Then, to arrest the hemorrhage, let the horse rug, a man’s 
coat, or anything else be violently thrust into the gash, and forcibly held 
there until proper assistance can be obtained. 
Such is the present method of treating wounds; this to the reader 
may appear very cruel; but could he have walked through and have 
inhaled the atmosphere of the wards in hospitals appropriated to such 
injuries as they existed in former times, he would thoroughly under- 
stand that apparent want of feeling is, in reality, the 
height of charity. 
To conclude this part, the author lays before his 
readers the following bandage, intended to meet an 
inconvenience hitherto experienced when a horse has 
the walls of the abdomen punctured. The constant 
motion of the part renders ordinary sutures of no avail, 
and for that reason bandages, unless so tight as to 
Apanpace pesiavenror Check circulation, are of little use. The annexed is 
seep wote  ~6omade like a broad belt, and is buckled round the body. 
The bars are composed of vulcanized India-rubber; 
they wilt yield to the movements of the abdomen, and yet serve as sutures 
supporting any pendant flap, while at the same time they will allow the 
wound to be dressed without disturbing the bandage. They also offer 
the advantage of permitting the attendant to pull one support aside 
without removing the whole. 
Every part in the horse subjected to much motion when wounded, 
should have an adhesive plaster placed over it, and retained there until 
the suppurative action is confirmed. By this means is excluded the 
atmosphere, which, when this precaution was neglected, has entered the 
wound, penetrated between the muscles, and by distending the body 
increased the suffering, as well as led to the worst of consequences. 
Wounds in veterinary surgery rank among the most formidable cases 
with which the practitioner has to contend. They are not so because 
the flesh of the horse is slower to heal than that of the human being. 
Indeed, the scale in this respect inclines toward the animal; but they are 
rendered slow to heal and difficult to cure by two causes. The horse is 
always impatient of restraint; any effort to confine the creature is more 
likely to provoke dangerous resistance than to induce the slightest symp- 
tom of amendment. The quadruped naturally delights in motion. It 
was formed for activity. Even when in its stall the body is never abso- 
