or heavily, and at a low or a high temperature, according to the effect desired to be produced. Hurtrel d'Arboval's mode of slight cauterization, is to besprinkle the surface of the sore with gunpowder, and set light to it. What tends very much to retard the healing of these sores, is the motion-the alternate flexion and extension-of the pastern and fetlock; and as exercise is, otherwise, very beneficial in these cases—indeed, the legs would not endure a state of absolute rest-it seems difficult to steer between these evils. What will very much tend to diminish the effects of the latter one-the extension-is the wearing of a very high-heeled shoe; and this I recommend, providing due attention be paid, while it remains on, to the condition of the frog elevated by it. THE cells of the cellular membrane, and those cavities of the body denominated serous, have naturally exhaled into them an aqueous vapour or secretion, which has no sooner bedewed their internal surfaces, and moistened them by condensation, than it becomes removed by the absorbents. The supply, however, being incessant, either vapour or fluid is always present in these interstices and cavities; though not to any amount unless under circumstances of disease. It is obvious that fluid may collect either from augmented exhalation or diminished absorption; but so various are the causes and influences that may occasion these changes, that it is not only difficult to determine, in some cases, to which of them the collection of fluid is owing, but still harder to discover whether any and what other cause is operating. We learn from the best medical authorities of the day, that dropsies may arise from general or local plethora; from obstructed circulation; from deficient secretion; from a thin or watery condition of blood. DIVISION.-Dropsies are either external or internal, acute or chronic in their nature. An external dropsy consists in an effusion of watery fluid into the cells or interstices of the cellular mem brane-the loose reticulated tissue underneath the skin, which is bound by it to the flesh. An internal dropsy is a collection of similar fluid within any one of the internal cavities of the body; the chest, belly, head, &c. Our present concern is with EXTERNAL DROPSIES. These, in a general way, are comprehended under the technical appellations of anasarca and ædema: terms which, though often indiscriminately applied, seem more correctly to be used with this difference-that the former means a sort of general dropsy, while the latter denotes effusion in some particular place or part. The most common form of external dropsy in horses, is SWELLED LEGS. When a string of young horses first arrive from the country, and are put into London stables, among the various disorders likely to assail them-depending on the season of the year, their ages, subsequent management, &c.-the most common or general will be found to be swelled legs. The changes these animals have been suddenly subjected to, are such as to create plethora* in their systems, of which dropsy may be regarded as one of Nature's modes of relief. The disorder, in this instance, is clearly of an inflammatory nature: it proceeds from the same causes as in other cases produce inflamed eyes, colds and coughs, inflamed lungs, &c.; and, as we shall find hereafter, is in no way so directly removable as by the use of the fleam. At the same time it is not to be denied that the action of the absorbent vessels may be diminished, in consequence of the comparatively quiescent state in which the animal is placed; and from the same cause will the secretions—and, in particular, those from the bowels-suffer more or less decrease. The legs are the common seat of the dropsy thus produced, for two reasons:-1st, being the lowest or most dependent parts of the body, whatever fluid collects in the interstices of the cellular membrane will naturally * Refer back to Plethora, page 11. gravitate into them; and, 2dly, being parts the farthest removed of any from the heart, the forcing power of that organ is comparatively weak in them; and, consequently, when congestion has taken place, it requires a greater effort to propel the blood into the veins, back, against gravity, to the heart, than to discharge it from its present situation in the form of aqueous effusion. The same reasoning will account for the greater disposition there is in the hind legs to fill than in the fore. TURN THE HORSE OUT of his warm and comfortable stable, give him his liberty, and expose him to the open air, and in the course of a short time, all swelling will leave his legs-all indication of humour disappear. The cold air has operated as a sedative on his system, and as a bracer on his legs: it has allayed febrile irritation, and thereby arrested the augmented exhalation; at the same time, in diminishing the action, it has increased the power of the heart, as well as that of the capillaries of the legs, and so removed all further disposition to congestion. In addition to this, the exercise the animal now takes has a tendency to augment the secretions and excretions; and thus, in an indirect manner-if not of itself, directly-to incite the absorbents to greater action. Change of diet will also have its influence in this translation, especially should it be from the stable to the grass-field. DEBILITY. Thus far I have regarded dropsy of the legs as originating in plethora or congestion, and consecutive inflammatory diathesis, either general or local: let us now inquire to what extent and in what manner debility may operate in its production. The circumstances of horses being commonly attacked with swelled legs during spring and autumn, the seasons when they are shedding their coats; and of such horses in particular being the subjects of these swellings as are, from their tender age, their poverty or softness of condition, or their natural laxity of fibre, constitutionally weaker than others; have led veterinary writers to ascribe the disorder to debility. For my own part, however, specious as this doctrine appears, I cannot consider debility to be concerned otherwise than indirectly. Horses whose systems are from any cause in a state of comparative de bility, possess a thinner or more watery kind of blood, with diminished powers of circulating that fluid: I do not regard dropsy, however, even in them-whose bodies we know to be so much more disposed to the disorder-but as the result of vascular disturbance, either general or local; which, after all, consequently becomes the proximate cause, debility being only the remote or predisposing one. VARIETIES, or degrees of intensity, present themselves in swelled legs, ascending from the simple form we call filled to the state denominated round. A horse accustomed to exercise daily, will, from standing for a day or two without any, fill in his hind legs those parts will become congested and slightly infiltrated, for want of the accustomed stimulus of locomotion. This is a failing, however, in regard to which horses exhibit remarkable differences: some will stand for days, nay, weeks, in their stalls, without evincing any disposition to fill; while others will hardly stand twenty-four hours without swelling. As a general rule, horses in condition, well-bred, possessing clean sinewy legs, and in the middle period of life, are least prone to fail in this way: independently of all this, however, there is something operative -but what we cannot explain-in peculiarity of constitution. Mere filling of the legs can hardly be said to amount to disease. The case that especially calls for medical interference, is the one in which all four, or both hind legs, are, to use a vulgar simile, "like mill-posts:" they are swollen from the knee or hock to below the fetlock; they feel round and tense and warm, and pit on pressure; but do not evince any remarkable sensibility, such as they do in water farcy. The horse may be at the time off his feed, out of spirits, and feverish-pulse increased, skin warm, mouth warm and dry, membranes of the nose and eyes reddened. This accessory disorder, however, is as often absent as present: oftentimes the swelling of the legs appears as the only symptom of derangement. THE REGIMEN OF YOUNG HORSES-their management in regard to air, food, and exercise, when received out of the hands of breeders or country dealers, and for the first time placed in stables for the purpose of being broke, or being rendered fit for |