Nevertheless, it is well to remember the possibility of complications due to compression, asphyxia, and even intoxication.
The prognosis may be very hopeful or very grave. Everything depends on the primary lesion, and it is therefore important that the practitioner should know how to interpret the course of affairs.
Treatment. In slight cases the best method is to immobilise the parts and await developments, but in grave cases, for instance where the trachea is much injured, the animal should at once be slaughtered.
Scarification, cutaneous incisions, and massage were formerly recommended as a means of aiding the escape of gas accumulated in the tissues. Such methods, however, are useless, and have the disadvantage of causing numerous suppurating wounds.
Provided the initial wounds are not seriously infected and the animals are kept quiet, in a well-ventilated place, the gas gradually becomes reabsorbed, and healing may take place in a fortnight or three weeks.
SECTION IX.
DISEASES OF THE EYES.
In domesticated animals, apart from parasitic diseases, the diseases of the eye which particularly deserve description and offer a special clinical interest are very few. These are the diseases that affect the globe of the eye or the organs annexed to it.
FOREIGN BODIES.
Foreign bodies become lodged on the internal surface of the eyelids, in the folds of the conjunctiva, in the thickness of the cornea, and sometimes, though rarely, in the anterior chamber, the lens, or the vitreous humour. They include particles of grit or dust, the awns and glumes of grain, etc.
The eyes are half closed and the conjunctiva is swollen, whilst the eye weeps and the animals dread the light.