ON PHLEBITIS IN HORSES. 
625 
or you will serve him as you did the last you bled.” This, how¬ 
ever, I believe to be rarely a cause, let the gentleman farmer or 
groom think what he will. If this was a common cause, as they 
believe it to be, more accidents would occur. No men strike 
harder in order to perform this operation than smiths, farriers, or 
grooms, yet but few more cases happen from their operating than 
from ours. 
Now, in my humble opinion, it is closely connected with one of 
three causes:—First, a peculiar idiosyncrasy of temperament; 
secondly, a non-union of the parts by the first intention; thirdly, 
a dependent head after the operation. 
The temperament to which I allude I would call the adipose and 
phlegmatic, almost peculiar to black and iron-grey farm horses, for 
in those kind of horses the purulent process is more quickly deve¬ 
loped from wounds. In seven cases out of ten that have come 
under my notice for inflamed veins, these have been the colours. 
I likewise believe that all horses fed on farinaceous food, oats 
and beans, have a greater tendency to form pus from wounds, and 
are more liable to phlebitis, than the grass-fed horse, whose temper¬ 
ament I shall designate the lymphatic, and in which wounds do 
not so kindly suppurate. Horses meeting with punctured wounds 
at grass have more lymphatic cellular effusion than the stabled 
one, and suppuration is not so easily induced in them. I will now 
illustrate this opinion from casual circumstances. 
Some farmers turn out their horses to grass in the spring, and, 
in about a fortnight or three weeks, take them up to be bled, and 
turned out again. No evil ensues : they have acquired while they 
were turned out an excess of lymph, consequently the bleeding 
orifices heal by the first intention. Some farmers, on the other 
hand, bleed before they turn out in the spring. Phlebitis is then 
common from, as I have before stated, there being a greater ten¬ 
dency to suppuration in horses fed on substances containing farina. 
Some farmers bleed on taking their horses up in the fall of the year. 
On referring to my case-book I find none at that period. 
Cows seldom have inflamed vein, although they are so forcibly 
struck when bled, and so carelessly managed after the operation. 
I think the reason is their having such a tendency to lymphatic 
exudation; for we know from observation that wounds, cut or 
punctured, do not easily form pus in cattle, but are chiefly sur¬ 
rounded by lymphatic infiltration. 
I have ventured to offer these opinions, and respectfully ask my 
veterinary brethren, through the medium of this our invaluable 
.Journal, whether in their practice they have had more cases from 
the colour, idiosyncrasy, and diet, before described, than from the 
grass-fed horse. This being an interesting subject, and so much 
VOL. XIII. 1 o 
