ROWEL in a Horse
,—is a well-known operation, resorted to upon every possible occasion by common farriers, as "a salve for every SORE;" where they have neither judgment to guide or discretion to direct them. It is performed by making an incision through the skin, large enough to admit the point of a finger, which is then insinuated all round the orifice between the skin and the flesh, as far as the extent of the finger can conveniently reach. A thin round piece of leather being previously provided, about the size of a crown-piece, having a large hole in the middle, is covered over with a thin pledget of fine tow, nicely bound round the marginal part; but the hole in the centre is left open: it is then dipped into a melted composition of digestive ointment, and a moderate proportion of turpentine, and is insinuated into the wound. The operation being thus completed, the inflammation soon commences, and swelling ensues; this is followed at first by a discharge of yellowish serum or lymph, which in three or four days is converted into a thick substantial white matter, when the rowel is said to work.
Rowelling has ever been a favourite adoption with farriers of the old school, although very few have ever been known able to give a scientific and satisfactory explanation of its effects. It is said by them "to draw off the humours;" and others are so truly and obstinately illiterate, as to affirm, that "rowels draw off the corrupt and bad blood, leaving the good behind." In confirmation of which opinion, they introduce them in almost every case that can possibly occur, and with almost every horse, without exception. It was allowed by Bracken, "they might be proper in all aches and pains, cold phlegmatic swellings, and sometimes lameness and infirmities of the legs; that they might also give relief where there is a fulness and redundancy of humours, and in defluxions from the eyes." Immediately upon which he admits, what is most truly and scientifically the fact, "that the horse might as well, nay better, lose as much BLOOD every day, as he does matter by the ROWELL." This is so strictly consonant to truth, that it cannot be controverted: the discharge is equally blood, with what at the time flows in the veins; but it is diverted of its colour by the inflammation artificially excited, and its extravasation.