124 MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
Treatment. —Here again, gentlemen, comes the old story, yet 
a little varied : bleed—take as much blood as you can get—let 
the animal bleed on after he is down— do not pin up the phrenitic 
horse at all. You will never lose your patient by this—you will 
never do harm—but you may knockdown the inflammation; and 
the first blow is here the whole of the battle. 
Physic. —^Then the physic; it should be that which can be 
readiest given, and which most speedily acts. The farina of the 
croton will here deserve the preference, and in no little dose 
either. I would give half a drachm. The intense inflammation 
of the brain yields me full assurance that I shall not easily set up 
any dangerous inflammation in the intestinal canal. This can 
be made into a very little ball, or drink, and, in some momentary 
remission of the symptoms, I may administer the one with the pro¬ 
bang or the stick, or the other with the horn. Sometimes the apo¬ 
plectic horse, when he will take nothing else, and is unconscious 
of every thing else, will plunge his nose in his gruel, and sip and 
swallow a little; and I have seen the phrenitic horse drink with 
the utmost avidity a little wmter that was offered to him. Repeated 
doses of purgative medicines may, perhaps, be thus given, and 
must be repeated until the bowels respond. 
Blisters. —We may next call in another powerful subduer of 
inflammation, but not in the efficient manner that we could wish. 
A counter-irritant, applied as nearly as possible to the seat of 
inflammation, will usually divert a portion of the inflammatory 
action from the old to the new tissue; and therefore we rub a 
blister over the forehead in this case, as soon as we can do so 
with proper regard to our personal safety. The cranial roof of 
the horse, however, is not only defended by the dense parietal 
bones, but they are thickly covered by a mass of muscle—the 
temporal muscles; and therefore the thickness of the bone and of 
the muscle is interposed between the brain and the new surface, 
which we expose to inflammatory action. The effect is conse¬ 
quently weakened; but some good may, notwithstanding, be done; 
and a blister should not be omitted. As for rowels and setons, 
they would be perfectly useless here; the business will be settled 
ere they scarcely begin to act. 
Medicine. —Sedatives are here manifestly indicated if they can 
be given. Digitalis will stand at the head of our prescription in 
such a case. Its first and most powerful action is on the heart, 
diminishing both the number and strength of its pulsations; 
while, at the same time, it is a diuretic, but of no great power in 
the horse. To this must be added the other component parts of 
the fever ball—emetic tartar as a diaphoretic, and nitre as a 
diuretic, and a refrigerant; but ive must have no hellebore. If 
