WHEN THE HORSE IS SICK 117 



upon the amount of attention you bestow upon 

 your horses, confining yourself to simple remedies 

 and applying them faithfully and painstakingly. 

 Dabbling in drugs, with an imperfect knowledge 

 of their therapeutic effects, is always dangerous 

 and almost always followed by failure and loss. 

 I have, perhaps, already dwelt sufficiently upon 

 this point, but two cases that have come very 

 recently under my notice illustrate it so well that 

 I think they are worth relating. 



A neighbor had a mare that came lame behind. 

 It was nothing worse than a little wrench of her 

 ankle and needed no treatment beyond a few days' 

 rest and bathing with hot water. He sent, however, 

 for a quack veterinarian who told him the leg 

 needed blistering " from hoof to gambrel " and 

 who applied an exceedingly savage blister oint- 

 ment. Before the first blister had healed, he made 

 a second application directly upon the raw flesh. 

 The result, of course, was a terrible inflammation 

 and swelling, and when this injury finally healed, 

 it left the leg round, hard, and permanently 

 swollen. I advised my neighbor, who came to me 

 in his trouble, to use the liniment above recom- 

 mended for indurated swellings ; it greatly reduced 

 it, but nothing could restore it to its natural form, 

 and the mare — a young, handsome, and valuable 

 one — was disfigured for life. 



