WORMWOOD
.—This plant is of two sorts, distinguished by the names of Roman and Common Wormwood: both have their properties of utility; but the former is esteemed the most efficacious of the two. It has a strong but fragrant smell, and is intensely bitter to the taste: it powerfully resists putrefaction, and is highly useful in antiseptic and emollient fomentations; consequently well worthy a place in the garden of every rural sportsman, to be ready upon unexpected emergencies. Experiments have been made with this article dried, powdered, and given to horses in balls, for the cure of worms; but it does not appear to have acquired reputation for any specific or infallible effect in their extirpation.
WOUNDS
—are well known to be occasioned by various means; and, in the strictest signification, imply an accidental separation of parts, or solution of continuity, by some sharp instrument, suddenly and accidentally, or wilfully introduced. In all recent wounds casually encountered, and in a bleeding state, (if not deeply seated,) little more is required, or can indeed be effected by the most expert practitioner, than to absorb the flux of blood, and then to bring the edges of the wound as nearly into contact with each other as circumstances will admit, either by suture or bandage, where the seat of injury will admit of such process; which is not always the case; wounds sometimes happening where the edges of the separated parts cannot be brought into any degree of union, and the cure can only be effected by incarnation. In some circumstances, wounds are sustained in such singular situations, and across such large muscles, that the insertion of stitches, to secure the edges, would prove of no effect, as the whole would inevitably rupture upon every exertion of the horse, in either laying down or getting up.
Wounds of magnitude vary so much in appearance, as influenced by the healthy or morbid state of the body, the proper or improper mode of treatment, or even the changes in the weather, that no precise and invariable plan can be derived from books, or inculcated by the pen, but what must necessarily become subject to such alterations as prudence may prompt, or the judicious practitioner point out. In all wounds of the smaller kind, and where neither the arteries or the tendinous parts are affected, dressings of mild digestive or other emollient unguents, upon pledgets of lint, with a soft bed of tow, and proper covering for the whole, will promote a speedy incarnation, when cicatrization will follow of course. Wounds of other kinds are produced by different means, and require modes of treatment in a degree adapted to their magnitude, and the causes by which they have been occasioned. See Abscess, Fistula, and Strangles.
Y.
YARD-FALLEN
—is what some horses are constitutionally subject to, and frequently display it in a state of weariness, or bodily lassitude, denoting no indisposition, and to which no ill appertains. If the yard is seen to drop, and continue so any length of time, in a state of flaccid debility, (the horse being in other respects healthy, and free from pain,) it indicates a previous injury, sustained by pinch, pressure, or some other means, upon that part in the groins; or by slip, strain, stroke, or bruise upon the back, by which the internal organs are severely affected. From whatever cause such debility may have been derived, the restorative and invigorating system is the only rational plan to be adopted; nursing in all such cases is preferable to a paltry and unnecessary profusion of medicines: the latter may be proper for an interested individual to recommend, but is too inconsistent for a man of sense to adopt. Good mashes, prepared of malt and bran, equal parts, solutions of gum arabic in oatmeal gruel and water, for common drink thrice a day, and a cordial ball night and morning, for two or three days in succession, are the best and simplest means that can be brought into use upon such an occasion.
YARD FOUL
.—A foulness within the sheath is what happens with most geldings; but some generate or form much more filth than others. This collection, for want of being occasionally relieved, and cleaned out, so nearly plugs up the orifice, that the yard, in its vapid state, has not the power to protrude itself for the purpose of evacuation, and the urine falls dribbling from the sheath; a circumstance that in itself points out the necessity of occasional cleansings, to prevent so unpleasant an obstruction.