612 
STRANGLES. 
we should be able to afford the animal relief, so far as his breath¬ 
ing is concerned, by the operation of hronchotomyy yet, from the 
pain and irritation he is suffering, added to the impossibility of 
his getting aliment into his stomach, must he speedily sink to 
rise no more. Fortunately for us, however, and still more so for 
our patient, it is but rarely that the disease assumes this malig¬ 
nant and dangerous form. In a general way, the tumour con¬ 
tinues to augment daily, and become more prominent. Feeling at 
first firm and resisting, but now opposing less resistance to pres¬ 
sure, becoming soft, and tense, and fluctuating, and finally pom^- 
ing: by which we learn, that the contained matter has now 
arrived immediately beneath the skin—that the abscess is 
ripCy or quite full of matter, and in a fit condition for evacuation. 
It does not always happen, however, that the tumour suppurates, 
and comes to a head externally. In some cases it appears to be 
carried off through a sort of revulsion internally, occasioned by 
a catarrhal flux from the nose, in which form it is called false or 
bastard strangles. In other cases, it disappears without any ap¬ 
parent discharge or flux whatever; the tumour becoming spon¬ 
taneously resolved or absorbed: an event that commonly happens, 
when it does take place, white the swelling is yet small and com¬ 
posed of solid matters only ; though it may happen even after 
matter is deposited. Respecting this absorption or 
Repulsion of theTuxMour, there is a division in the 
opinions of professional men : some favouring the notion handed 
down to us in most works on farriery, and very prevalent, even 
now-a-days, among the gentry of the stable, viz. that, by bring¬ 
ing the abscess forward somewhat obnoxious to the constitu¬ 
tions of young horses is discharged f while others (among whom 
I must enter myself) apprehend that the same benefit is derived, 
though the tumour be resolved, as when it imposthurnates, and 
its contents become discharged. The former opinion appears not 
only to me, in the light of doctrine irreconcileable with the pre¬ 
sent state of pathological science, but is one which all the ob¬ 
servation and practice I have had, I must say, runs counter to. 
Indeed, so far from believing any thing of the kind, I am inclined 
to the opinion, that many horses escape strangles altogether. 
