BLEEDING
—of horses is a simple and easy operation, hitherto performed with an instrument called a fleam, which being steadily supported over the neck vein (about five inches below the superior process of the jaw-bone) is forcibly struck with what is professionally termed a bloodstick, turned out of the wood called lignum vitæ, as being sufficiently heavy to insure weight and certainty to the blow: the blade of the fleam is supported by a shoulder, to prevent the incision's being made beyond the depth of safety: the use of the line round the lower part of the neck, previous to the operation, is now greatly out of use; although it is certainly a means of keeping the vein firm from fluctuation, and of course a very proper guide, particularly for young practitioners. Of late years this mode of operating has greatly declined, particularly with veterinarians of the new school, the most expert of whom adopt the use of the lancet, and are introducing it to general practice; and, although the neatness of the operation must be candidly admitted, yet, with high spirited, shy, unruly horses, (where there is a chance of the point of the lancet's being broken in the orifice,) a doubt naturally arises, whether, in such cases, the former method is not both the least troublesome and least dangerous of the two.
The consistency and propriety of BLEEDING upon slight or moderate occasions, has always been matter of cavil and capricious controversy with those whose cynical rigidity, and restless spirit, ever prompts them to take even the wrong side of any argument, (however absurd and ridiculous,) rather than want a cause to carp at; but with those possessing the power of scientific disquisition, and practical professional knowledge, such fallacious and ill-founded reasoning must fall to the ground. Its utility, upon the attack of almost every disease to which the animal is subject, is now so generally admitted, that it stands in need of no additional corroboration from the more refined rays of constantly increasing improvement.
The quantity proper to be taken away at one time, in any case, may be from three to five pints; the latter only in such disorders as require plentiful depletion: in all cases of inflammation (particularly the lungs) frequent repetitions are to be justified, provided they follow not too fast upon each other; the lives of many horses have been preserved (particularly in those influenzas of late years called "the distemper") by four or five plentiful bleedings in so many days; and, vice versa, as great a number lost by a want of the same means. As blood is generated, and the unloaded vessels replenished, by the constant supply of aliment in health, or nutriment in disease, so little, or, in fact, no permanent injury can be sustained by leaning to the safe side, and taking away even too much, provided it be at different times, particularly when it is remembered, that the life of a valuable horse is very frequently lost by a too great pusillanimity and forbearance in the operation.