TWO KINDS OF SUTURES RARELY EMPLOYED UPON THE HORSE.
No. 1. The continuous suture, which is employed for sewing up portions of bowel when the intestines are injured and exposed.
No. 2. The deep suture or the quill suture. In the horse pieces of wood are substituted for quills. The wood is notched in the center; and upon the indentations the sutures are fixed, to prevent the movements of the animal from displacing them. It is sometimes employed to bring the sides of deep and gaping wounds closer together.
The treatment of an abraded wound chiefly consists in cleansing the surface with plenty of cold water, which should be allowed by its own weight to wash off any loose particles of dirt. No cloth or other aid should be employed to scrub the living flesh as though it were an insensitive board. The matter which cannot be removed by simply sluicing, had better remain to be expelled by the secretion of pus. The horse, especially when terrified, endures pain very badly; indeed, the animal is so timid and so delicately framed that it is always good surgery to spare all unnecessary suffering.
Support the body with laudanum and ether drinks, one ounce of each to the pint of water, as often as they may be needed. Let the food be generous, unless fever should arise, when the directions already given must be attended to.
Punctured wounds require only one kind of treatment, whether a nail be driven into the flesh of the foot, or the shaft of a cart be forced into the substance of the thigh. Here the knife must be employed; and, unless the animal shows evident symptoms of excessive weakness, it is better, perhaps, to operate while the parts are partially numbed by the shock, than to wait until a morbid sensibility is provoked. Always enlarge the opening; do this in the foot by cutting away the horn of the sole around the small puncture left by the nail. When the soft parts are penetrated, probe the wound first; then, if possible, insert a knife to the bottom of the puncture, and, with the edge downward, draw it forth. By this means a wound resembling a subverted < will be instituted. It will be narrowest toward the extremity, and widest at the mouth. A free opening affords a ready egress for all sloughs and pus. It materially aids the healing process, and effectually prevents the establishment of sinuses; while the clean incision left by the knife is of small import, when taken into consideration with the other consequences of a punctured wound.
Support the animal if necessary, or regulate the food by the symptoms.
A contused wound, when slight, may be rubbed with the iodide of lead ointment, one drachm of the active agent to the ounce of lard; when all enlargement will sometimes subside, and the effused blood may be absorbed. However, the horse commonly receives injuries of magnitude. In the last case, take a sharp knife and draw it along the entire length of the swelling. Make a long gash, only through the integument, at every eighth inch, and be careful to carry the knife through the integument, or to the lowest portion of the detached skin. Any sac that may be left is certain to retain corruption, and may produce fearful after-consequences. The attendant measures consist in bathing the contusion with a lotion composed of chloride of zinc, one grain, water, one ounce, and diminishing the food or supporting the body as nature demands such treatment.
The after-treatment of all injuries consists in keeping any external orifices open till all sloughs and pus have disappeared. In surgery, a large and depending opening, by means of which the interior may drain, is always to be preserved, and the knife, to this end, may be employed so often as the healing process threatens to prematurely close the wound.
Formerly it was the practice to bleed after every injury; this was done to prevent fever. However, observation has shown that the vital powers are more often weakened than increased by the shock attendant on severe accidents. Whenever the contrary happens, it is far better to lower the pulse by repeated doses of aconite, than to abstract that which will subsequently be necessary to repair injury.
It was also once the custom to fill wounds with tents or lumps of tow, and to bandage every injured part. These habits only served to confine that which nature was striving to cast out. They consequently did much harm, and are now happily discarded.