Let the horse remain thus for six weeks subsequent to the completion of a cure. Then give gentle exercise to the extent which it can be borne—the quantity being small, and the pace very slow at first, but gradually augmented. This exercise should be maintained for three months. The animal may afterward return to slow work; but if the neck is the place affected, it must not wear a collar or be harnessed to the shafts for the next six months. At the end of that time the horse may return to its customary employment; but, if ridden or driven, it is always well to bear in mind the late affliction, and to grant more than the usual time for the performance of the journey. At the expiration of the year, the smaller veins, having become enlarged, have adapted themselves to the loss which the circulation has sustained, and the horse may resume full work.
For the first year, gruel, crushed and scalded oats, with two bundles of cut grass per day, should constitute the diet. The manger should be heightened, and the halter be so arranged as to prevent the head being much lowered. Do all in your power to render useless violent mastication; and, as the horse never chews when the operation is unnecessary, the animal will obviously second your endeavors.
At the expiration of twelve months the animal which has lost a vein may be sold, and, in law, has been accounted sound. Such a blemish, however, is far from a recommendation; in this case law and common sense may be at variance. The reader, therefore, is advised never to purchase a nag in such a condition without insisting upon a special warranty, in which it is provided that the animal is to be taken back should the loss of a vessel be productive of any evil effects within the space of one twelvemonth.
BROKEN KNEES.
These accidents affect the exterior of the central joint of the fore legs. They may be very trivial or very serious: they may simply ruffle the hair or scratch the cuticle covering the integument; the same cause may, however, remove the hair and lay bare the cutis. Moreover, the wound is often aggravated by the nature of the road on which the animal is traveling. A fall upon a very rough surface might even destroy a portion of the skin, and deprive more or less of the cellular tissue of vitality.
BROKEN KNEES OF VARIOUS DEGREES OF INTENSITY.
The hair ruffled and the cuticle scratched. The hair removed and the true skin exposed. The skin destroyed and the cellular tissue injured.
Accompanying such accidents there is generally some amount of contusion. When it falls, the horse is in motion, and the impetus lends violence to the descent. Probably the animal is being ridden when it comes to the ground. The weight of the blow is not only then proportioned to the heavy body of the horse and the rate at which it is progressing, but its effect is augmented by the load upon its back. These considerations render broken knees the proper dread of every horse proprietor. An animal may stumble and come down which, prior to the mishap, would have been sold cheap for several hundreds. It may be raised from the ground with almost all its worth demolished. The nature of the hurt is not, however, always shown at first. The chief danger, in broken knees, lies in the accompanying contusion. The horse which rises without a hair ruffled, but which fell with violence, is always, with informed persons, a cause of considerable anxiety. Contusion is to be more dreaded in its consequences than is the largest wound when devoid of anything approaching to a bruise.
The reason why contusion is thus gravely regarded is because, when that occurs in severity, the vitality of all the coverings to the knee is destroyed, and, in very bad cases, even the bones are materially injured. All dead parts must be cast from a living body; and no man can predicate how deep may be the injury, or how important may be the structures which shall be opened, when the slough takes place.