616 LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
Treatment . — If there is nothing more than a little tumefaction 
and oozing of pus, we gradually find that by fomenting the parts 
three or four times a day, and afterwards applying a warm poultice, 
giving a dose of physic, and keeping the head up, and preventing 
the horse from rubbing the parts, we get rid of it in the course of a 
week or nine days. I have now and then, in addition, applied the 
actual cautery. Where there is an unhealthy abscess around the 
orifice I should apply some stimulating application, but I do not 
think it prudent at this period to destroy the coats of the vein by 
caustic tents. 
If the inflammation does not stop here, it will extend along the 
vein upwards, and in some cases downwards, or both, and an 
abscess will form two or three inches distant from the wound, or 
show itself in a small tumour just under the skin, and on opening it 
only a very small channel can be traced into the vein. 
I have often thought, from the abscesses forming at intervals 
of two or three inches, that the valves in these situations were 
the cause of the obstruction, and the abscesses between them the 
consequence. 
In these cases the best plan would be to lay the abscesses open, 
or pass a seton through them, and inject a weak solution of sulphate 
of zinc or the bichloride of mercury, so as to bring on a healthy 
action, when sometimes the parts will soon heal up and the neck 
will get well in that place and all appear to be right ; but soon after- 
wards, especially if the horse has been too early turned out or sent 
to work, or even without these things, similar abscesses will form 
above the others, at intervals of two or three weeks, and will heal 
up below, and continue to appear above, until they have almost 
reached the ear ; ultimately, however, they will heal. 
In some of these cases I have applied blisters with good effect, and 
I am almost inclined to think that blistering in most instances will 
be as efficacious as any treatment. 
I had some years ago rather an unusual case under my hands for 
at least three months. Ulceration had existed a full month before 
I saw the animal. I tried various injections and tents, and blistered the 
neck five or six times, until at last, from excessive thickening of the 
vein and the parts around, and ulceration going on in several places, 
I began to fear I should lose my patient unless I adopted some 
more decisive course. I therefore cast him and dissected out the vein, 
which was as thick as my wrist for about eight inches in length, and 
which extended up to the bifurcation. This, of course, left a most 
formidable gaping wound four to six inches wide nearly the whole 
length of the neck. Immediately after the operation I applied a 
warm bran poultice, and in two or three days after, suppuration 
commenced. I then inserted a few metallic sutures to hold the 
parts together, kept the poultices occasionally on, and in the course 
of three weeks the wound was healed, and the animal went to work. 
I saw him two months after, and there was very little trace of so 
formidable an operation, and I never heard of any ill consequences 
from the loss of the vein. 
