234 
THE VETERINARY SCIENCE 
year, feed nutritious food — boiled oats or chop stuff with 
plenty of boiled flaxseed in it to keep the bowels loose, little 
medicine being necessary. Give the following powder: 
Mix thoroughly and give a teaspoonful three times a day 
on the tongue with a spoon. Rub the throat and lumps well 
with white liniment three times a day. Apply a hot poultice 
of half linseed meal and half bran to the throat every night. 
This will draw the abscess or swelling to a head and cause it 
to break, which is better than lancing. In cold weather it is 
best to apply a mustard plaster to the swelling instead of a 
poultice, because after the poultice is taken off the animal is 
liable to catch cold. Never, in any case, burn sulphur under 
the nose, because such treatment may result in inflammation 
of the lungs. If the lump in the throat becomes so large that 
life is threatened by choking, it is then necessary to perform 
the operation of tracheotomy. 
6. The Operation of Tracheotomy. 
Tracheotomy is a term derived from trachea (the wind- 
pipe) and is applied to the operation of making an opening in 
the windpipe in such a position as to overcome some obstruc- 
tion of the air passage. 
Place a twitch on the horse's nose. While an assistant 
holds the head high up, make an incision in the following 
manner. About nine inches down the nec'k from the larynx 
(Adam's apple) on the underside is a point at which the 
windpipe is all but bare, being covered only by the skin. 
Make an opening in the skin, lengthwise, about three inches 
long; then cut across three rings of the windpipe and insert a 
regular tracheotomy tube to keep the incision open. This 
enables the horse to breathe freely through this opening 
instead of through the nostrils or the mouth until such time 
as the abscess breaks or the swelling subsides sufficiently to 
allow breathing in the natural way. When this occurs and 
it is possible to again break naturally, remove the tube, draw 
the skin back again to its proper position with a few stitches, 
and treat as an ordinary cut by bathing two or three times a 
day and applying after each bath the white lotion. Tke cut 
usually heals favorably in a short time and it may be added 
that it is well during the presence of the tube to remove it 
once a day to clean it. 
Nitrate of Potash or Saltpetre 
Sulphur 
pound, 
pound. 
