The speediest cure for a sitfast is the knife. The excrescence is quickly removed; and the wound, if treated with the solution of chloride of zinc, one grain to an ounce of water, soon heals. A more tedious plan of removal, and one not recommended by any proper feeling, is to rub into the sitfast, every night and morning, a small quantity of blistering ointment. Such is the usual direction; but the ointment may be applied, for some time, to a layer of compact horn, before the true skin or flesh beneath is affected. The unguent must therefore cover the perhaps ulcerated margin of the sitfast; and even then it is a tedious and a painful operation, not likely to improve the disposition of an animal which it is so desirable to keep free from every excitement.
While the sitfast is being operated upon, the bowels should be rendered pultaceous by bran mashes. Four of these per diem will usually loosen the most constipated body in two days. That effect being gained, while the food is liberal and the animal is led to plenty of exercise, give one of those drinks, night and morning, which are tonic to the system, but seem to exhaust their virtue upon the skin.
Drink for Sitfasts.
| Liquor arsenicalis | Half an ounce. |
| Tincture of muriate of iron | Three-quarters of an ounce. |
| Water | One pint. |
| Mix, and give. |
GREASE.
This filthy disorder is a disgrace to every person concerned with the building in which it occurs; it proves neglect in the proprietor, want of fitness or positive idleness in the groom, and culpable ignorance or the absence of the slightest moral courage in all people entering the doors of the stable. It is one of those disorders which it is easier to prevent than to cure. By an ordinary regard to cleanliness, and by an average attention to the necessities of the animal, this taint may be avoided; wherever it is witnessed, it not only argues the human being to whom the building belongs to be in the lowest stage of degradation, but it also testifies to the sufferings endured by the poor creatures which are compelled to drag out life in such custody.
The grease is, in the primary instance, inflammation of the sebaceous glands of the legs; but it soon extends beyond the limits of its origin, and involves the deeper-seated structures. A white leg is more subject to the disorder than one of another color, and the fore limbs are almost exempted from the ravages of grease. The reason of that exemption is found in the greater proximity of the anterior extremities to the heart or to the center of the circulation. Consequently the vitality in the fore legs is more active, and the flow of blood much more energetic; hence the anterior extremities can resist that ailment which fixes with impunity upon the posterior limbs. Added to this, in the fore legs the vessels describe almost perpendicular lines, whereas in the hind members the arterial current is impeded by numerous angles; these conditions doubtless operate upon the health of parts, but, above everything else, ranks the fact that the front legs are not subject to the same external causes as are the members more backwardly located. The stalls are drained from the manger to the gangway; consequently all the contamination of the space in which the horse is confined flows toward the hind feet; there are, moreover, other reasons, which the intelligence of the reader will not require should be particularized.
Grease is banished from every decent stable; it may, however, be occasionally encountered in situations very much secluded; there yet remain places whence so foul a disgrace is never absent. The wretched animals which are employed in brick-yards, in dust-carts, and in drawing canal boats are hardly ever free from this loathsome disorder. These creatures labor incessantly, and are removed far from the wholesome check which brutality receives from public opinion; they are resigned to the mercies of men who, as a class, are certainly not the most refined, and are seldom inconvenienced by any excess of feeling. The places, not stables, into which the miserable quadrupeds are thrust can rarely be entered without the peculiar smell which announces the existence of grease almost overpowering the stranger. The fact is unpleasant to human sense, but it is only right that the probable effect upon the creature, which is doomed for the duration of its weary life to inhale such an atmosphere, should be considered.
Smell is perhaps the most acute sense with which the equine race are endowed; the horse can appreciate that in which the human being vainly endeavors to detect even the slightest odor. Not only is the scent far more acute than that of man, but the two beings have to be compared as regards their habits; the animal is most cleanly in its tastes. Flesh it abhors, and all fatty substance it shrinks from; men eat such things with appetite. Then, the human subject can dwell, and even labor, in a tainted atmosphere with comparative impunity. A quadruped may be forced to toil in such a place; but those who oblige the creature to do this kind of work know the certain consequences of the act. They buy cheap and old horses—animals which have suffered much, and have but a year or two longer to exist. Were younger or dearer quadrupeds purchased, in which an energetic constitution would render disease more malignant, and were such animals obliged to breathe such contamination, the loss in every way would be fearful.