CRIMEAN RETROSPECTS. 
69 
skin would slough from the sides of the neck, back, and 
loins, which was difficult to prevent spreading ; and in these 
cases, the actual cautery was found an excellent remedy, as 
by its free application a healthy inflammation immediately 
followed. 
Those pests, the Crimean flies, were often the cause of 
wounds assuming an unfavorable aspect. It was astonish- 
ing how, in the short space of two or three hours, a healthy 
granulating wound, advancing favorably towards cicatrization 
was changed to a large and gaping opening, presenting a mass 
of putrefaction, with a most offensive odour, and a scanty se- 
cretion of sanious pus. 
FROST-BITES. 
Under such exposure to the weather, with a weak and im- 
perfect vital action, caused by change of climate, food, and 
want of being properly cleaned, it need not be wondered at 
that congelation was of frequent occurrence among the horses 
during the winter. I was often surprised to find the 
frost-bites generally in a very mild degree, for with the 
exception of one case, which I shall relate, the skin of 
the heels, and most frequently of the hind feet, was the 
only part of the body which suffered from this cause. 
When it is considered, that the majority of the animals 
were brought from Spain and Genoa, and many of the for- 
mer had their bodies foolishly robbed of that natural pro- 
tection, the hair, before they w'ere sent from Spain — that 
they were suddenly brought into contact with a winter, the 
inclemency of which only a polar bear could manage to sur- 
vive ; that they were without proper shelter, the greater part 
of them standing or lying in cold wet mud ; that snow and 
sleet were drifting over their backs, and that the moisture on 
their limbs was frozen, thus forming a rigid envelope, under 
which vitality must have had many a hard struggle to main- 
tain itself ; when we consider all this, we are only the more 
led to admire the wonderful conservative powers with 
which nature has endowed the animal economy, by bestow- 
ing a powerful and active circulation, and those innate qualifi- 
cations which enable it readily to adapt itself to the altered cir- 
cumstances in which it may be placed. Every precaution had to 
be taken to avoid this mishap, not only amongst the healthy 
working animals, but with the sick ; for, if a poultice was ap- 
plied to a lame foot or limb, and the frost set in, when the poul- 
tice was removed large fissures would be found in the skin, 
between vffiich, sloughing soon took place ; the limb also be- 
gan to swell, and the animal to evince acute pain upon the 
xxx. 10 
