70 
CRIMEAN RETROSPECTS. 
slightest movement or touch. For a time, poulticing and 
wet applications had to be altogether dispensed with, in 
consequence of their lowering too much the natural tempe- 
rature. When properly managed, these sores generally got 
well, though slowly : but if the exciting cause was still kept 
up, the integuments around the pastern would become de- 
stroyed, and finally the hoof would be separated, in con- 
sequence of the implication of the coronary substance ; and 
then the animal’s fate was sealed. 
Quittors were the most frequent disease which owed their 
production to frost-bites. The treatment was mainly directed 
to the exciting a strong and healthy vascular action ; at the 
same time protecting the parts from the depressing influence of 
the cold air. For this purpose, I found the compound tincture 
of myrrh and aloes, conjoined with moderately firm ban- 
daging, the most successful. 
The only extensive case of frost-bite, that I had, occurred to 
an animal, one of the camp slaves, which was employed to con- 
vey water from a ravine close to the Turk’s Hill. In snowy or 
wet weather, the mud reached almost to the water-bags which 
it carried. On one of the days in March, it had been at its 
usual duties until the evening, when a stern frost setting in, 
after a day’s snowing, the poor brute was put into its cold 
corner untouched, not so much as the mud having been 
scraped from its limbs, for the man in charge of it was glad 
to seek his hut. 
On looking round, towards ten o’clock at night, I found the 
poor creature in a miserable plight, being literally frozen 
stiff; the legs were immoveable, ice covering them to the 
elbows and stifles, wdiile from the belly depended icicles some 
four or five inches in length. No time was to be lost, for I 
dreaded the worst, and humanity dictated that every effort 
should be made to avoid gangrene. 
The vital powers were ebbing fast, showing that unless prompt 
measures were taken, all treatment would prove to be too late. 
Diffusible stimulants were administered ; cold water was em- 
ployed to wash down the body and legs, an operation which 
occupied some time ; four men were also put to work, to dry, 
and rub the whole of the body. The animal was then gradually 
shifted to a warmer corner of the shed, and the limbs were 
bandaged, and the body clothed. In spite of all this, the 
limbs still remained cold, the hind ones were especially so, 
and insensible. The pulse was weak and irregular, with, 
at intervals, a sort of sighing in the respiration, resembling 
hickup. 
A very mild stimulating liniment was, in the morning, applied 
