344 MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
bleeding,—no lessened determination of blood to the tumefied 
part;—no physic, and, for nearly the same reason;—no cooling" 
embrocation, for until the tumour is ripe we must encourage, 
and not diminish the local inflammation ;—no poultices, for they 
are comparatively ineffectual through the thick skin of the horse, 
to say nothing of the difficulty of confining them there, and the 
coldness of the part, and arrestment of the healthy inflammation 
when the poultice is displaced, or the part exposed to the cold; 
—no fomentations, for you cannot rub the part dry after it has 
been fomented, and the cooling, delaying process of evaporation will 
commence. If you will use a fomentation perhaps you may as well 
adopt Mr. Parkinson’s, consisting of water in which elder-leaves 
and white-lily-roots, and groundsell and house-leek have been 
boiled, and then a quantum suff. of chamberlye and cow-dung 
added. Since I have got into the habit of giving quotation upon 
quotation, I will refer you to old Dr. Bracken, whose book is, on 
the whole, a treasure. He recommends “ a poultice of mallows 
and marsh*mallows, and other such potent applications, which is 
a most incomparable cataplasm ; for when nature is, as it were, 
desponding, and cannot throw off the load of matter that causes 
the distemper or swelling, this by its genial warmth comforts the 
stretched fibrillse or animal threads that are distended beyond 
their natural tone, and also greatly contributes to thin the skin 
by its mollifying and softening qualities.” You will not thus 
play with the case, but go more earnestly to work. 
Blistering recommended .—You must stimulate the part, not as 
Mr. Parkinson again writes, by holding a lighted candle to the 
part to make it break the sooner; and as another writer recom¬ 
mends, to hold it there until you have fairly burnt into the 
tumour, but by applying a good sharp blister. You will save 
many a day, perhaps some weeks of indisposition, and much 
weakness and emaciation, the necessary consequence of a long 
struggle between the constitution and the disease. Prompt 
blistering forms the grand secret of the treatment of strangles. 
When you have brought the tumour to a state of suppuration, 
do not open it too soon lest you should prematurely arrest the 
process. On the other hand, do not leave the tumour to break, 
lest you have a ragged ulcer that will not heal. As soon as the 
swelling is fairly softened, lance it, and lance it freely, or the ori¬ 
fice may close before all the matter is discharged. Nothing 
should be done to open the tumour before the process of suppu¬ 
ration is matured, except the enormous bulk of the tumour, and 
its pressing on the trachea, and threatening suffocation. The 
swelling has, in some cases, so enormously increased, and the 
