and give a heaping
tablespoonful twice a day, on the feed or as a drench.

PUNCTURED WOUNDS.

Punctured wounds are produced by the penetration of a sharp or
blunt-pointed substance, such as a thorn, fork, nail, etc., and the
orifice of these wounds is always small in proportion to their depth. In
veterinary practice punctured wounds are much more common than the
others. They involve the feet most frequently, next the legs, and often
the head and face from nails protruding through the stalls and trough.
They are not only the most frequent, but they are also the most serious,
owing to the difficulty of obtaining thorough disinfection. Another
circumstance rendering them so is the lack of attention that they at
first receive. The external wound is so small that but little or no
importance is attached to it, yet in a short time swelling, pain, and
acute inflammation, often of a serious character, are manifested.

Considering the most common of the punctured wounds, we must give
precedence to those of the feet. Horses worked in cities, about iron
works, around building places, etc., are most likely to receive "nails
in the feet." The animal treads upon nails, pieces of iron or screws,
forcing them into the soles of the feet. If the nail, or whatever it is
that has punctured the foot, is fast in some large or heavy body, and is
withdrawn as the horse lifts his foot, lameness may last for only a few
steps; but unless properly attended to at once he will be found in a
day or two to be very lame in the injured member. If the foreign body
remains in the foot, he gradually grows worse from the time of puncture
until the cause is discovered and removed. If, when shoeing, a nail is
driven into the "quick" (sensitive laminae) and allowed to remain, the
horse gradually evinces more pain from day to day; but if the nail has
at once been removed by the smith, lameness does not, as a rule, show
itself for some days; or, if the nail is simply driven "too close," not
actually pricking the horse, he may not show any lameness for a week or
even much longer. At this point it is due to the blacksmith to say that,
considering how thin the walls of some feet are, the uneasiness of many
horses while shoeing, the ease with which a nail is diverted from its
course by striking an old piece of nail left in the wall, or from the
nail itself splitting, the wonder is not that so many horses are pricked
or nails driven "too close," but rather that m