650 
THE VETERINARY ART IN INDIA. 
This blister should be thoroughly rubbed in, after which it 
may be tied up with a bandage. After six or seven days it 
should be repeated, and, when the effects of the second blister are 
quite removed, frictions twice a-day of strong mercurial oint- 
ment, for a few days, should succeed. The blister may increase 
the swelling, but it will abate with the effect of the blister. 
If the complaint yet resists, I would recommend firing round 
the parts affected, which will tighten the skin and act as a kind 
of natural bandage. At the Veterinary College, the firing is re- 
commended previous to blistering ; but I should imagine this 
mode of hardening the skin would render the blisters and subse- 
quent mercurial frictions less pervious to the parts, independent 
of the unsound appearance which firing produces, and which we 
would evade if possible. 
Blood Spavin 
Is occasioned by a dropsical enlargement of the mucous capsule 
of the joint, which, pressing against a superficial vein passing up 
the inside of the hock, occasions an obstruction of blood and sub- 
sequent enlargement. 
Thus the blood spavin does not originate in the vein, but is 
merely an effect ; consequently, in order to remedy this disease, 
the cause must be removed. This is generally effected by blister- 
ing, firing, and bandages ; and if much inflammation or lameness 
exists, a few quarts of blood should be taken from the animal. 
This treatment in general succeeds ; and, if the vein does not 
recover its natural size, it is but of little consequence, as lameness 
very seldom exists after the mucous capsule is reduced. The vein 
is sometimes tied up, but no real advantage results from it. 
Section VII. 
On the Eye and its Diseases. 
This chapter I wrote previous to joining the cavalry brigade 
in which I practised, consequently 1 could form no competent 
knowledge of what variety might exist in diseases of the horse's 
eye in this country: I therefore wrote according to those which 
the animal is afflicted with in Europe. On shewing it to a me- 
dical gentleman, he informed me that the animal in India was 
by no means subject to so fatal a disease as I had described it, 
the inflammation being merely superficial : I have, however, ex- 
perienced the reverse. In H. M. 25th Dragoons there are several 
blind horses, which I found on inquiry became so precisely in the 
same manner as I had described, that is, by repeated inflamma- 
