BOILS, OR FURUNCLES. 439 



from dry to green food. In foals it may result from overheating of 

 the mare and allowing the first milk after she returns, or by milk 

 rendered unwholesome by faulty feeding of the dam. If a foal is 

 brought up by hand the souring and other decompositions in the milk 

 derange the digestion and cause such eruption. Vetches and other 

 plants affected with honeydew and buckwheat have been the cause of 

 these eruptions on white portions of the skin. Disorders of the 

 kidneys or liver are common causes of this affection. 



Treatment. — Apply soothing ointments, such as benzonated oxide 

 of zinc, or vaseline with 1 dram oxide of zinc in each ounce. Or a 

 wash of 1 dram sugar of lead or 2 drams hyposulphite of soda in a 

 quart of water may be freely applied. If the skin is already abraded 

 and scabby, smear thickly with vaseline for some hours, then wash 

 with soapsuds and apply the aboVe dressings. When the excoriations 

 are indolent they may be painted with a solution of lunar caustic, 2 

 grains to 1 ounce of distilled water. Internally counteract costive- 

 ness and remove intestinal irritants by the same means as in eczema, 

 and follow this with one-half ounce doses daily of hyposulphite of 

 soda, and one-half ounce doses of gentian. Inveterate cases may 

 often be benefited by a course of sulphur, bisulphite of soda, or 

 arsenic. In all, the greatest care must be taken with regard to food, 

 feeding, watering, cleanliness, and work. In wet and cold seasons 

 predisposed animals should, so far as possible, be protected from 

 wet, mud, snow, and melted snow — above all, from that which has 

 been melted by salt. 



BOILS, OR FURUNCLES. 



These may appear on any part of the skin, but are especially com- 

 mon on the lower parts of the limbs, and on the shoulders and back 

 where the skin is irritated by accumulated secretion and chafing with 

 the harness. In other cases the cause is constitutional, or attended 

 by unwholesome diet and overwork with loss of general health and 

 condition. They also follow on weakening diseases, notably strangles, 

 in which irritants are retained in the system from overproduction of 

 poisons and effete matters during fever, and imperfect elimination. 

 There is also the presence of a pyogenic bacterium, by which the 

 disease may be maintained and propagated. 



While boils are pus-producing, they differ from simple pustule in 

 affecting the deepest layers of the true skin, and even the superficial 

 layers of the connective tissues beneath, and in the death and slough- 

 ing out of the central part of the inflamed mass (core). The depth 

 of the hard, indurated, painful swelling, and the formation of this 

 central mass or core, which is bathed in pus and slowly separated 

 from surrounding parts, serve to distinguish the boil alike from the 

 pustule, from the farcy bud, and from a superficial abscess. 



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