Neither method occasions at the time the slightest pain to the horse, and therefore may by some persons be esteemed highly humane; but, in the end, such plans of cure prove the very reverse. In either case the maggot dies; but the business, unfortunately, is only rendered worse by killing the source of evil. The dead body putrefies. A foreign and corrupting substance beneath the skin may enlarge the abscess to many times its original dimensions. After all, the system has to cast forth the irritating matter, and for that purpose inflammation, with its attendant fever, must be perfected. Much suffering is thus occasioned, and the proprietor is, for several weeks, forced to forego the employment of a valuable servant.
The safest, the surest, and the quickest manner of eradicating these parasites is, with the point of a lancet, slightly to enlarge the central opening, and then with the finger and thumb, applied on either side of the swelling, to squeeze out the intruder. The abscess rapidly disappears; and it only requires a few dabbings with the solution of chloride of zinc, one grain to the ounce, to close the wound. However, the best manner to avoid such annoyances is not to endeavor at saving money by treating a domesticated animal as though it were an untamed quadruped.
WARTS.
A wart, when of a fixed cartilaginous nature, should, in the horse, be eradicated immediately upon its appearance; being permitted to exist, such growths always increase in number and in magnitude. By certain people, or rather by a tradition, these excrescences are imagined to breed, or it is thought that one can produce many. That warts are possessed of any such inherent property science refuses to acknowledge; but the same system which has generated one may generate several. The faculty of casting forth such growths may even be encouraged by allowing them to remain; and it is possible that the slight shock occasioned by their removal may alter the tendency of the body. Certain it is that, by some mysterious law, nature refuses to build up only for human agency to destroy. Youatt asserts that it was once fashionable to crop the ears of horses until animals were ultimately born with the ears ready shortened.
PORTRAIT OF THE HEAD OF A HORSE WITH WARTS.
A portrait of an extraordinary instance of warty disposition, showing the imprudence of permitting such accumulations to continue, is here given. The writer's experience cannot at all equal the disfigurement there represented; the animal was the favorite saddle-horse of a lady who could not bear the idea of the creature being put to pain. One wart first appeared upon the inside of the thigh; the motion of the legs used to chafe the excrescence, and frequent discharges of blood were the consequence. The growth increased in size, and three times was it "charmed." However, the cure, said to be potent over the human being, was inoperative upon the horse; housewife's remedies were next resorted to, but all of these proved equally unsuccessful.
At length, smaller warts began to show; it would have been easy to have removed the original excrescence, but the numerous after-growths assumed a form which would have rendered them difficult to destroy. Many of them came with wide bases and slight elevation; to have attempted the excision would have almost necessitated the flaying of a living body. The remedy, which at first was easy, was by time rendered impossible; the horse being permitted to exist, could only see imperfectly. It could not move or feed without hemorrhage being provoked. The animal, of course, became useless; but still its kind mistress could not consent to its destruction. A country farrier, previous to the author seeing the animal, had slit up one nostril to relieve the breathing, which before was much impeded. Of course nothing could be done for such an object.
There are three different sorts of growth, all of which are recognized under the term "wart." The first is of a cartilaginous nature and is contained in a distinct sac or shell, which last is entirely derived from the cuticle of the skin. Upon the sac being divided, the substance drops out, leaving behind a perfectly clean cavity, which soon disappears. Little hemorrhage and less pain attend upon this trivial operation. The second sort also is cartilaginous, but, unlike the first, is not contained within a cuticular sac. It adheres firmly to the skin, and is apt to grow large; sometimes it becomes of enormous bulk, when regarded simply in its character of a wart. The crown is rough and unsightly; the body is vascular, and the growth, from its magnitude and uneven texture, is apt to be injured, when it never heals, but invariably exhibits the ulcerative process in a tedious form. This species of wart is often to be found, though of a smaller development, upon the human hand. The third variety is hardly to be esteemed a true wart, and would not here be named, were it not universally accepted as one of these abnormal growths. It consists of a cuticular case, inclosing a soft granular substance.