UPON THE TREATMENT OF OPEN JOINT. 381 
out ; to this last they are a welcome relief, and their use is 
no sooner comprehended than the body is flung into them. 
Six days from the injury the sloughs came off, and it was, 
indeed, a terrible cavity which they left exposed. However, 
I once more resorted to the chloride of zinc lotion, and with 
such good effects, that at the end of three week the slings were 
removed. All medicine was then discontinued, and the 
animal turned out to grass ; and a fortnight afterwards the 
proprietor called on me at my surgery with the mare in a 
gig, and, from the size of the scar, it would have been im- 
possible to tell whether the horse had merely received a 
graze, or had actually suffered from a broken knee; no one 
would suspect the real nature of the injury. 
Since these two cases occurred, I have had repeated oppor- 
tunities of testing the result, and, I am happy to say, always 
with the same termination. The treatment may appear 
novel,— it may even seem bold ; but whether it really is one 
or the other is not the question. It should be asked, is it 
based upon right principles ? If it be so founded, it may be 
unhesitatingly adopted by the profession ; and let those who 
try this plan candidly report the result to you, that others 
may be encouraged to pursue it, or be put upon their guard 
against its delusions. My chief motive for reporting these 
cases to your journal is to test the efficacy of the measures 
which have in my hands been so eminently successful. But 
if this mode be properly grounded, it will be equally curative 
in other hands as it has been in my own ; and it is to put 
this fact upon its trial that I court the benefit of your 
circulation. 
The advantages of my plan are briefly stated. They do 
not w r eaken the animal ; they rather render him quiet than 
restive, for an infant, provided it had the necessary know- 
ledge, could apply the dressing. As the restoration proceeds 
there is no stench. No application is used that the most 
delicate lady in the land might not, without a shudder, dip 
her hand in ; while, in addition to their being cleanly, is the 
recommendation of their being perfectly harmless, if inad- 
vertently swallowed by a human being, and remarkable for 
nothing so much as for their simplicity. 
I have the honour to be, &c. 
P.S. I forgot to state the mode of action. Of the agents 
which I use, the arnica montana is stimulative, and is in 
Germany, by the poorer class, generally applied to wounds. 
It disperses the coagulum, though it appears from my ob- 
servations, limited as they are, to have no pow er to prevent a 
