Take 1 lb. common potash dissolved in 1/2 pint of water. Add 1/2 oz. extract of belladona and 1 oz. gum-arabic dissolved in a little water; work all into a paste with wheat flour, and box or bottle up tight. In applying this, the place should be well cleansed with soap-suds, (castile soap is best) then tallow should be applied all around by the paste dissolving and running over it. Now this paste must be pressed to the bottom of all the orifices; if very deep it must be made sufficiently thin to inject by means of a small syringe, and repeated once in two days, until the callous pipes, and hard fibrous base around the poll evil, or fistula, is completely destroyed. Sometimes one application has cured cases of this kind, but it will generally require two or three. If the horse cannot be kept up, you will put a piece of oiled cloth over the place. The advantage of this caustic over all others is that less pain and inflammation is induced. The sores may be cured by the following or Sloan's ointment: ceder oil is to be applied to the tendons, to prevent them stiffening, in pole evil, or other cases.
334. DeGRAY, OR SLOAN'S HORSE OINTMENT
Take of rosin 4 oz., lard 8 oz., honey 2 oz., mix and melt slowly, gently bring it to a boil, and as it begins to boil slowly, add a little less than a pint of spirits of turpentine, stirring all the time it is being added, then remove from the stove, and stir till cool. This is an extraordinary ointment for bruses in flesh or hoof, broken knees, galled backs, bites, cracked heels, &c. or when a horse is gelded, to heal and keep away flies.
335. NERVE AND BONE LINIMENT
Take of beef's gall 1 quart, alcohol 1 pint, volatile liniment 1 lb., spirits of turpentine 1 lb., oil of origanum 4 oz., aqua ammonia 4 oz., tincture of cayenne 1/2 pint, oil of amber 3 oz., tincture of spanish fly 6 oz., mix and shake well. Uses too well known to need description.
336. TO CURE FOUNDERS IN 24 HOURS
Boil or steam oat straw for half an hour, then wrap it round the horses legs while quite hot, cover up with wet woollen rags to keep in the steam: in six hours renew the application. Take 1 gallon of blood from the neck vein, and give a quart of linseed oil. He may be worked next day.
337. TO CURE COLIC IN TEN MINUTES
Bleed freely at the horse's mouth, and take 1 oz. of oil of juniper, 1 oz. of laudanum, and 2 ozs. of sweet spirits of nitre. Mix in a pint of gruel, and drench him with it.