the application of pressure. However, I am happy to have it in my power to announce, that, under judicious management, more may be effected in this way than we appear to be aware of; to which I may add, that we may seemingly take some discredit to ourselves for not having learnt so wholesome a lesson from our sister art long before. Mr. Alex. Gray, V.S., Edinburgh, appears to have done much towards rescuing our reputation in this particular, at the same time that he has considerably enhanced his own, as will be evident on the perusal of two cases he has recently published in the fifth volume of "The Veterinarian," which I shall here take the liberty, for the benefit of science, to transcribe. "About the year 1816, I was in the habit of attending the stud of the late Earl of Morton. Being at Dalmahoy one day, I met his Lordship's land steward: he asked me to go to the farm, and look at a bay cart-mare, which they had consigned to the kennel. I accordingly went, and saw the said animal, and found the top of her neck much enlarged, accompanied by two deep sinuses, which, upon inquiry, I found to have been running for the last twelve months, nothing having been done, with the exception of cleaning away the matter. I proposed to the steward that she should be sent to my own stable, so that she might be more under my own immediate care; and that I would give her a fair trial, not with the infernal scalding mixture, but upon scientific principles; and I am proud to record, that the result fully answered my most sanguine expectation. "The mare was sent to me, and I proceeded to examine the extent of the disease. I found two deep sinuses, one on each side of the neck, the bones of which could be distinctly felt with the probe. After cleaning away the matter, I took a scalpel, and laid both orifices open in an oblique direction downwards: then, having fomented the parts with warm water, I dressed the wounds with tincture of myrrh and aloes; and in order to apply pressure to the parts (for in this I founded all my hope of success), I had two pieces of wood prepared, about twelve inches long and three broad, thicker in the middle than at the edges, which were rounded off, and also a long flannel bandage four inches broad. I then placed two pledgets of tow next the wounds, putting on the pieces of wood one on each side, and then applied the bandage over all, and as tightly as I could without impeding deglutition. It is necessary, while putting on the bandage, to keep the nose extended, in order to adapt the bandage more perfectly to the part, and apply it more closely. I removed the bandage night and morning, and had the parts well fomented and dressed with the tincture; and in the course of four weeks the mare was well, and returned to her work. SADDLE-GALLS, NAVEL-GALLS, &c. 205 "The second case came under my observation about a year after the foregoing. It was a grey cart-horse, the property of Mr. M'Nab, of Cupar, in Fife. This was also an old and inveterate case, and had been under the treatment of some person in the neighbourhood for a considerable time. I proceeded with this in the same manner as the former case, and left him under the care of a very respectable country practitioner, with proper directions, who, in the course of a very few weeks, sent me the gratifying intelligence of the perfect recovery of my patient." HOPELESS CASES.-Every now and then, however, it happens (as in the instance of poll-evil), either from neglect, or probably previous maltreatment, the disease has already made such ravages, that the cure is either very dubious, or so remote that the poor animal is not considered worth incurring an expense of keep which is certain, at the hazard of a cure which is probably uncertain; and therefore is doomed, by his owner, to destruction. In these hopeless cases, we find the spinous processes of the vertebræ, the ligamentous substance investing them, the cartilage, and, perhaps, even the bone of the scapula, all in a carious sloughy condition, with a profuse discharge of greenish or brownish purulent matter of the most fœtid disgusting character. And such is the established disposition in some of these old sores to continue in the sloughy state, that, do all we may, it seems often quite out of our power to destroy the morbid action, and institute in its place one of health. SADDLE-GALLS, NAVEL-GALLS, WARBLES, SITFASTS. To a person conversant in the principles and practice of inflammation, common trifling injuries of this description present but little surgical novelty or interest, however annoying they may occasionally prove either to the animal himself, or to his rider. From too partial bearing or pinching of the saddle or harness-pad, or girths or collar, or, in fact, bruise of any kind, the part over-pressed or pinched will "rise;" that is to say, vessels will become ruptured, blood extravasated, and tumour produced; though, where friction is combined, it is more likely to chafe or fret, become excoriated or galled. Nothing is more common with horses whose saddles do not fit, or who have their saddles over-weighted, or upon their backs for an inordinate length of time, than for swellings to rise upon the places that have been most compressed the moment the saddle is removed; at least, providing it be taken off before the back has become perfectly cool: a knowledge of which fact it is that has led to the wholesome practice of keeping the saddle on for some hours even after the return of the horse to the stable. Indeed, some people advise us, supposing the saddle to have been removed, in case the back rises, to put it on again, as the best remedy that can be adopted. Although, however, these swellings are easily got rid of when recent and but occasional, by their frequent relapse inflammation will be excited in the places, and that followed by swellings of another description, such as will not so readily subside on the discontinuance of the cause. Neglect these inflammatory swellings, or still further aggravate the inflammation in them by fresh injury, and they will either augment and run on to abscess, or else subside into tumours of smaller and more circumscribed dimensions, but of a nature indurated, callous, insensible, and indisposed to undergo any change, either for better or worse: for though now and then it happens that a tardy and imperfect suppurative process bursts them and carries them off, it is a very rare thing to find them (even though the cause be discontinued) disappearing by resolution. What confers upon these swellings the specific characters I am assigning to them, is not less the repetition and contused nature of the injury to which they owe their production, than the peculiar conformation of the parts in which they are generated; viz. skin tightly bound down by short and dense cellular tissue to expanded ligamentous textures. A SADDLE-GALL is "a hurt or fretting of a horse's back from the saddle*." The first step to be taken, in all injuries of this description, is the removal or avoidance of the cause. No man who values his horse would ride a second time upon a saddle that had done such mischief. When recent, these injuries * Farrier's Dictionary NAVEL-GALL-WARBLES. 207 (whether they exist in the form of tumour, chafe, fret, or excoriation) require nothing more than being washed clean once aday, and, while the horse remains in the stable, being kept wet with salt and water; for which purpose a piece of linen smoothly folded may be confined upon the part. While the cold water subdues inflammation, the salt it contains has a very beneficial effect in diminishing the tenderness of the part, and reducing the tumour. A NAVEL-GALL" is a bruise on the back of a horse, opposite to the navel, from which circumstance it has its name*.” It is met with in different states. The most common is that of a little, soft, puffy tumour upon the ridge of the back. It consists of fluid effused underneath the aponeurosis covering the back-bone, which is confined in one place by surrounding adhesions. In this state, a blister will remove it: if one should not quite dispel it, apply a second; a third will be but seldom required. Now and then, however, these tumours suppurate and discharge a thin dirty-coloured purulent sort of matter. Should the external opening be but small, and the skin under-run, the aperture may be dilated with a bistoury: or, without doing that, pressure by means of a circingle may be applied, so as to heal the sore in the manner recommended by Mr. Gray, for fistula. The most effectual dressings for these sores (which are, in general, of an indolent character) are those that are both escharotic and stimulant. One of the best is red precipitate. A solution of lunar caustic, j to 3j, will be found useful when the sore is sloughy at bottom. Turpentine dressings may be alternated with spirituous ones as soon as any disposition to healing appears. WARBLES 66 are small hard tumours formed on the saddlepart of a horse's backt." When recent, they are easily got rid of by common repellent means; though, now and then, they run on to suppuration, and disperse themselves in that way. Too often, however, it happens, either from the continuance of See the DISCUTIENT LOTIONS, Treatment of Inflammation, p. 128. injury, or their being suffered to remain in an inactive condition, they become hard, marbly in feel, and callous in substancesorts of sitfasts- a state in which it is not easy to determine whether any thing and what ought to be done by way of remedy*. In general, they are not painful to the animal; and, as it often happens that the saddle is chambered or additionally padded around the places where it bears upon them, they may and do continue for years without getting either better or worse. Under these circumstances, they are often allowed to go unmeddled with: it being with most people an object not to lose their horses' services from a cause appearing to them so trifling; though (as far as the saddle is concerned) that must unavoidably be the case when anything is done by way of cure. Should a remedy be sought, however, repeated blisters may be tried. Mr. Blaine recommends passing setons through them: in my opinion, a commendable practice, providing only you can prevail on the owner of the horse to submit to the time the tardy operation of setons, to prove effectual, demands. To what extent these tumours (like encysted warts) can be dissected out "without removing the integument" (also Mr. Blaine's practice), I am unable to determine: but it strikes me their connexion with the skin must be of too intimate a nature. SITFAST," a part of a horse's hide turned hornyt." The repeated injury any portion of the skin of the saddle-place is liable to receive from the pressure of the saddle from without, and the résistance it meets with from within, either from the back-bone, or from those ribs that are but thinly covered by flesh, causes it to be so pinched and contused, as not only to burst its blood vessels and occasion extravasation in the first instance, but subsequently to excite and keep up a continual inflammatory action in the part, by which, in the course of time, the cuticle becomes thickened, and leathery, and horny, the same as * Mr. Blaine observes, that these swellings may be formed after the maturation of an ulcer, "by repeated friction, delaying the granulating pro cess." + Farrier's Dictionary. |