LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
612 
fairly started on the high road to safety. Should the symptoms 
become more urgent, bleed largely again the next day ; and should 
not the physic be operating in twenty-four hours, lose no time, but 
go on with smaller doses till their full effect is produced : fever 
medicine may then be substituted, and given two or three times a 
day. Within twenty-four or thirty-six, or say, if you will, forty- 
eight hours, his physic will be operating and his setons discharging; 
and having produced these effects, you have as effectually secured 
your patient against separation of the laminae and sinking of the 
soles as if no disease whatever had existed. Nothing can be more 
pleasant than the feeling of confidence with which each morning, 
when the poultices are being changed and the setons dressed, you 
tell the groom to pick out his feet and examine his soles. * All 
right, sir.’ ‘What! no dropping] ’ ‘ Not a bit of it, sir,’ is the 
certain reply. — In the course of five or six days, if the case is 
progressing favourably, leave off your poultices, and have the 
feet stopped up — supposing the shoes to be on — dressing your 
setons daily for ten days or a fortnight. A striking peculiarity in 
the discharge from the setons, occasionally, is its extreme fetid 
character. Imagine the worst thrush you ever put your nose near ; 
it is a perfect nosegay to this discharge.” 
We have but one or two suggestions to make touching these 
excellent directions. The “ full dose of physic” directed to be given 
at once, and without “ any thing like preparation,” is absolutely 
necessary from the circumstance of the patient being unable to 
take exercise to work it off, and from the consequence it is to his 
future welfare that full purgation should become as early as pos- 
sible established. Mr. Gabriel bleeds from the jugular vein. 
Would not the plat veins be preferable, as affording,, in some 
measure, a topical as well as constitutional depletion I Mr. Castley 
mentions a case in which he opened “ both cephalic (plat) veins at 
the same time.” After the loss of seven or eight, or perhaps more, 
quarts of blood, coming rapidly away, the horse began to break 
out in a sweat, breathe hard and stagger. He was standing in a 
warm bath, out of which he was immediately taken and pinned 
up. “ Next morning the animal was found standing upon his feet, 
apparently free from pain ; and he got rapidly well again*.” The 
poultices should be applied as hot as can be borne ; and instead of 
being composed of bran only, are sometimes made up in part of 
linseed meal, which makes them more retentive of heat and 
moisture. Mr. Gloag has informed me, he uses with excellent 
effect boiled linseed and turnips mashed together. Whatever in- 
gredient be employed, it is advisable to wet the poultices from time 
to time by dipping them in hot water or pouring the water over 
* Veterinarian, vol. iii, p, 203. 
