l
relief may be required. Even in country practice, punctures of the part
should be made with the hot iron, as no other disease so predisposes to
septic contamination. When mechanical asphyxia is threatened tracheotomy
may be demanded. With the first evidence of dyspnea, not due to closing
of the nostrils or glottis, or with the first pawing which gives rise to
a suspicion of colic, a mustard plaster should be applied over the whole
belly and chest. The sinapism will draw the current of the circulation
to the exterior, the metastasis to the lungs or intestines is prevented,
and the enfeebled nervous system is stimulated to renewed vigor by the
peripheral irritation. The organs are encouraged by it to renewed
functional activity; the local inflammation produced by it favors
absorption of the exudation. The objection to the use of blisters is
their more severe action and the danger of mortification. Septicemia,
when occurring as a complication, requires the ordinary treatment for
the putrid diseases, with little hope of a good result.

After recovery the animal regains its ordinary health, and there is no
predisposition to a return of the disease.

HORSEPOX, OR EQUINE VARIOLA.

_Synonyms._--Variola equina; pustular grease; phlyctenold
herpes.

_Definition._--Horsepox is a specific, infectious fever of the horse,
attended by an eruption of pustules, or pocks, over any part of the skin
or on the mucous membranes lining the various cavities in the body, but
chiefly, and often exclusively, upon the pasterns and fetlocks. The
eruption may commence upon the lips, or about the nostrils or eyes.

This disease was described by the early Roman agricultural writers and
by the veterinarians of the eighteenth century. It received its first
important notice from the great Jenner, who confounded it with grease in
horses, since animals with this disease are very liable to have the
eruption of variola appear on the fetlocks. He saw these cases transmit
the disease to cattle in the byres and to the stablemen and milkmaids
who attended them, and furnish the latter with immunity from smallpox,
which led to the discovery of vaccination. Horsepox is also frequently
mistaken for the exanthemata attending some forms of venereal disease in
horses.

Variola in the horse, while it is identical in principle, general
course, complications, and lesions with variola in other animals, is a
disease of the horse itself, and is not trans