626 
ON PHLEBITIS IN HORSES. 
connected with the reputation of veterinary practice, I should like 
to see its prevailing cause clearly explained. Let not this inte¬ 
resting subject die away. The treatment pursued by me has been 
more fortunate than I had any right to expect, having never lost a 
case. 
When a case of phlebitis is brought to me, I immediately order 
the head to be elevated, by tying it to the rack during the day; 
and mashes and gruel to be given to the animal, with a little hay at 
intervals, so that he shall not be continually masticating. At 
night the muzzle is put on. Without the least hesitation or 
fear, I at once rub in a blister; pass a seton above and below 
the indurated vein; and repeat the blister every third day (made 
into a liquid state by the addition of oil). I have always been 
enabled to arrest secondary bleeding by the cautery. 
If abscesses form either below the ear or over the parotid glands, 
or in the cellular tissue over the hardened vein, open them, and 
inject diluted naphtha. There is rarely, if ever, any occasion to 
slit up and take out the vein, for it is sure to be absorbed or re¬ 
moved by partial sloughing. 
The most desperate cases that come under my care are those 
that have been under treatment by the empiric, where no attention 
has been paid to elevating the head, a most important feature in 
the cure. In from four to six weeks horses have been to work 
again on the farm in nearly every case. 
I will now mention two cases occurring within the last two 
years. 
Case I.—This was an iron-grey horse belonging to Mr. Kingdon, 
of Thoverton. He was bled by a farrier. The incision was not 
made in a line with the vein, but obliquely across it. Inflamed 
vein rapidly followed. When I was called in to see him, the lips 
of the orifice were everted—there was muco-purulent discharge— 
the neck was much swollen, and the face also on the same side; 
mastication was painfully performed, and the vein indurated from 
its bifurcation to half way down the neck. 
Blistering and setons effected a cure in five weeks. 
Now my firm conviction is, that, from cutting the vein across, 
the edges were not so well opposed to each other, nor so disposed 
to unite as in the longitudinal excision. The obliquity of the 
wound was also a cause of non-union by the first intention. 
Case II.—This was an iron-grey horse belonging to Mr. Jones, 
of the same place. He was bled by the same farrier, and the vein 
was cut in the same direction. Inflammation of the vein in a bad 
form followed. The treatment was as in the preceding case, and the 
horse was at work in six weeks. 
I have introduced these cases in order to shew that non-union by 
