PUNCTURING AND EXERCISE FOR PURPURA HiEMORRH AGICA. 689 
conflicting opinions reconciled. My opportunities of observing 
and treating cases of this disease are perhaps not quite so 
extensive as those of some of my fellow-practitioners, still 
for over forty-six years in continuous practice, in which have 
occurred probably eight to twelve or more cases in a year, I 
have witnessed the disease in its varied forms, some acute, 
carrying off its victims in three hours, when the disease 
attacks vital organs, others in periods varying from three 
hours to three or four weeks. I have carefully employed 
various methods of treatment at different periods of my 
life and with dissimilar results. I have a distinct recollection 
at one period of my life, about twenty to twenty-five years 
ago, of being sorely perplexed. I had three valuable cases 
of this disease on hand at one time; they were, in spite of my 
most anxious and careful attention, doing unfavorably. At 
that moment my assistant, a shrewd Scotchman, the genuine 
article I believe, intimated to me he thought that he could 
make an improvement upon my method of treatment, he did 
this pleasantly and respectfully, which took the sting out of 
the idea of a servant teaching his master. I consented to 
his taking one of the cases, “ the worst of the three,” into 
his own care. He at once punctured all the most prominent 
swellings in the legs, belly, breast, and head, in many places. 
He used a broad-shouldered lancet, and each incision was half 
an inch or three quarter inch deep ; he also had the horse 
exercised. The horse was so stiff that he had to lift the legs, 
one by one ; locomotion could only be effected by this means. 
He spent an hour at a time most industriously with the case 
three and four times a day; day after day he busied himself 
in puncturing, fomenting, and exercising the animal, the 
medical treatment the same as the other two cases. This 
case made a fine recovery, the swellings subsided entirely, 
and health became completely restored ; the other two 
animals died from breaking up of the lungs, &c. I 
remember his saying, if you puncture freely early in 
the complaint you will never have any sloughing of the 
integument. “ I find this is not invariably the case.” 
It was his custom to puncture freely, and always give 
exercise in the early stage of all these cases, and also in 
those of “ common humour or weed.” I have seen bad 
cases of “ weed,” acute cases, where the limb was enormously 
swollen, make good recoveries, the affected leg becoming 
fine and sound as before the attack through this mode of 
treatment. These cases made impressions on my mind that 
nothing can efface. Since then I have adopted this system 
of treatment. It is often surprising the large quantity of 
