BACK-SINEWS. 
BACON. 307 
horses, and some experimental acquaintance with | ing only sufficient, After the firing, the whole 
leg, from the knee down to the heel, and all the | 
BACK-SINEWS. ‘The strong tendons in a} hollow places on both sides, must be charged 
the methods of controlling them. 
horse, which extend along the hinder part of the 
shank from the knee to the heel. They are con- 
fined to their situation and defended from in- 
jury, by an enclosing sheath of dense cellular 
substance ; and they are kept in a lubricated 
condition, and protected from injurious friction, 
by the interposition of a mucous fluid between 
them and the sheath. A peculiar hurt, techni- 
cally but improperly called a sprain of the back- 
sinews, is one of the most frequent accidents 
which occur to a horse, and is often very trouble- 
some, and sometimes followed by very prolonged 
bad consequences. When a horse is overworked, 
or overladen, or violently exerted, or ridden hard 
upon dry ground, or makes a bad false step, or 
has the heels of his shoes too much lowered, a 
rupture is made in some of the fibres which con- 
fine the tendons, or inflammation is excited 
in the delicate membrane-lining of the sheath ; 
a coagulating liquid is exuded, adhesion is 
effected between’ the tendons and the sheath, 
and the motion of the limb becomes difficult 
and painful. When these injuries occur, or the 
sprain, as they are called, has been produced, 
swelling is easily observable in the sinews, and 
sometimes extends over their whole length from 
the knee to the heel, and the horse does not care 
to set his hurt foot even on the ground, but, when 
standing, usually sets it before the uninjured 
foot. Cold charges, often renewed. frequently cure 
this malady. Currier’s shavings bound round 
the knee with a bandage, have sometimes been 
employed with success. Vinegar or verjuice 
mnixed with bole, soaked warm into the sinews 
many times in a day, has been still oftener and 
more signally successful. Even fomentations 
with warm water, every half hour, and inter- 
mediate poulticings with linseed meal, are emi- 
nently efficacious. Put when any risk exists of 
the local inflammation producing general distur- 
bance of the system, the animal should be bled 
at the toe and physicked. When any lameness 
or swelling remains after the reduction of the in- 
flammation, and the fair use of topical washes, 
foments, and poultices, a mild blister, free from 
all corrosive matter except such as is requisite 
to effect the blistering irritation, will, in general, 
effect a cure. Hot and relaxing oils, though re- 
commended by many practitioners, ought by no 
means to be used; for they are apt to engender 
bad wind-galls, to make the veins on each side 
of the sinews full and gorged, to aggravate all 
the evils which they are designed to assuage, and 
even, in some instances, to induce a lameness of 
two or three years’ duration. A very severe 
sprain, or a sprain which has been confirmed and 
ageravated by bad treatment, may require the 
application of the cautery. “ Blistering in this 
case,’ says Gibson, “ has very little or no effect ; 
firing through the vein till the blood comes be- 
with « good strengthening plaster, which will 
perfect the cure, especially if the horse be turned 
to grass for a month or five weeks, or, in the 
winter, if he run a little while in a smooth yard, 
where he has good dry litter.” Any person who 
examines a horse with the view of purchasing 
him, ought to observe narrowly whether there 
be any thickness in the cellular substance around 
the back sinews; for if there be, the horse has 
almost certainly suffered a severe sprain, and 
will probably become Jame and unsound within 
a day or two of being put to ordinary hard work. 
—Gibson on the Diseases of Horses.— Youatt on the 
Horse —Clater’s Every Man his own Farrier. 
BACON. The salted and dried carcass of the 
hog. But the salted and dried hams are usually 
regarded as a distinct commercial article from 
bacon; only dried and smoked flitches are fre- 
quently regarded as bacon; salted and half dried, 
but ill-smoked flitches are called sometimes bacon 
and sometimes green bacon; and salted but un- 
dried flitches are called sometimes green bacon 
and sometimes salt pork. All parts and condi- 
tions of the salted carcass of the hog, however, 
must, for the sake of a correct and comprehen- 
sive view of the subject, be treated by us as | 
bacon ; and, in this large sense, they include on | 
the one hand a bulky, important, and very com- 
mon aliment of the agricultural poor, and, on 
the other hand, a highly esteemed and very gen- | 
eral luxury of the middle and upper classes of | 
both town and country. 
The fat of the hog differs from that of other 
quadrupeds and of man, at once in quality, in 
consistency, and in mode of distribution over the 
body. “ The fat of man, and of those animals 
which have no suet, as the dog and the horse,” | 
remarks Buffon, “ are pretty equally mixed with 
the flesh; and the suet of the sheep, the goat, 
and the deer, is found only at its extremities; 
but the fat of the hog covers the animal all over, | 
and forms a thick, distinct, and continued layer 
between the flesh and the skin.” Well-fed, pro- 
perly killed, and judiciously salted bacon, whether | 
dried or undried, is a pleasant, valuable, and com- 
paratively cheap provision for the peasantry in 
many parts of Great Britain ; and even miserably 
fed and abominably prepared bacon, in its crudest 
salted condition, serves many tens of thousands 
of the Irish population in lieu of all other animal 
food, and performs, in their case, the requisite 
function of a mixture of animal aliment with 
vegetable matter in maintaining health in the 
human constitution. But the luxurious forms 
of smoked ham used in cities by the middle 
classes and the rich, are far more a condiment 
than an aliment, and often act deleteriously 
upon health. The best bacon usually sold in 
London is the ill-cured flesh of rapidly fattened 
hogs, and, though not a bad food of its kind, is 
— 
