MALLENDERS
.—The DEFECT or DISORDER so called, is a large flat scab, or more properly an accumulation of eschars, (more or less inveterate,) seated at the hinder part of the fore-legs, directly behind the knee, just where the back sinews have their insertion at that joint. They are seldom seen with horses who are properly managed, but merely with those of an inferior description, that are little attended to. If discovered, and proper means of counteraction adverted to in their early state, little or no inconvenience ensues; but if suffered by time to become inveterate, with deep-seated cracks, from whence oozes a greasy kind of ichor, with bristly hairs making their way through the hardened scabs upon the surface, they are productive of much trouble before a perfect cure can be obtained. When advanced to this stage, they are not only exceedingly painful in action, but constitute such a stricture upon the part, as to affect the elasticity of the TENDONS; in which state the horse is retarded in progress by the preternatural rigidity of the joint, with the additional danger of stumbling and falling in every effort he makes to avoid it.
Those horses having the greatest quantity of hair upon their legs are the most subject to this malady, where it remains a long time obscured from the eye of the MASTER; as it is not to be expected, a discovery will be made, and communicated, by a servant, in palpable proof of his own neglect and indolence. If the part inveterately affected is covered with hair, either totally or partially, it must be taken off as close as possible, before any attempt at cure is made; that done, a patient fomentation of hot gruel, a decoction of linseed, or mallow roots and leaves, should be persevered in for a quarter of an hour daily, letting, however, the process of soft soap and warm water be adopted on the first day, continuing one of the before-mentioned fomentations every day after. When the scabs or eschars are completely softened, got loose, and begin to exfoliate, the parts may be well impregnated with camphorated SPERMA CÆTI LINIMENT every day after the fomentation; but not before the part is made properly dry to receive it. If the subject is supposed to have an acrimonious tendency in the blood, or displays the least appearance of cutaneous eruption in any other part of the body, the best method will be to put him upon a course of ANTIMONIAL ALTERATIVES, which he will consume with his corn without farther trouble.