It also is alleged that the following treatment is given for muscle soreness, caused by use over hard stones: The night before he wishes to sell the horse affected in this way, the “gyp” dealer will pour gasoline over the withers, and let it flow down both shoulders and forearms. The gasoline contracts the capillaries and larger blood vessels and diminishes the blood pressure and nerve sensibility, thus allowing a nearly natural movement of the muscles. Of course as soon as the effect of the gasoline passes away the soreness will return. If gasoline were rubbed on the muscles it would probably result in a blister.
Gingering a Show Horse.
As a preparation for the show ring contest, or before exhibiting a horse to a prospective buyer, it is almost the general practise to insert ginger root in the animal’s rectum that the irritation produced thereby may cause it to carry a high tail and show spirit and action.
While this objectionable practise obtains most as regards coach and carriage horses, it is also followed by exhibitors and sellers of draft stallions and mares, and of recent years has been practised extensively. Indeed the trick is becoming far too common, and we have even seen it boldly and flagrantly practised in the judging ring to the disgust of all decent and fair-minded spectators. Possibly there may be some excuse for the practise as a means of setting a show or sale horse “on edge,” but if allowed at all it should at least be done in private and be absolutely prohibited as a public act in the show ring. We sincerely trust that managers of horse shows will take this view of the matter; and officers of the humane societies should see to it that horses are not excessively tortured in this way. While the grooms of some horse exhibitors use ginger in the judging ring, others pay some regard to the rules of decency by backing the horses into their stalls before showing so that the trick may be practised unnoticed by the visitors who throng the aisles of the horse barns. We have heard of such a plan being followed when preparing the entire string of coach horses of one owner for the evening exhibit at a great horse show.
Unnerving and Cocaining.
Chronic lameness is done away with by skilful obliteration of the large nerves which supply the affected parts with sensation. The operation is termed nerving or unnerving in common parlance and, properly, as neurectomy. It consists in cutting down upon the nerve and then removing a portion so that its function is destroyed so far as the portion below the seat of operation is concerned. Unnerving is most often done to hide the lameness caused by navicular disease which is incurable: it may also be practised on account of ringbone, side-bone, founder or other unsoundness of the foot. After unnerving the horse does not evince pain when the parts below the seat of the operation are pinched or pricked. The operation merely does away with pain and lameness. It is in no way a cure.
Cocaine or eucaine solution injected by means of a hypodermic syringe upon the nerves at the points where neurectomy would be performed will temporarily have an effect like that of the operation. Just after the injection a swollen or puffed place may be discovered at the point where the hypodermic needle was inserted, and local soreness may be present after the effects of the drug have subsided.
Keep an Eye on the Sign-Board.
Dr. Hawley advises that when buying horses at auction one should watch the sign-board, as it may be suddenly shifted from “serviceably sound” to “wind and work.” In such a case a horse slightly lame may be purchased with no chance of rejection.