Part 55 (1/2)
_Treatment._--This disease is so often the result of indigestion that a laxative of 1 pound Glauber's salt in 3 or 4 quarts water or 1-1/2 pints olive oil is often demanded to clear away irritants from the alimentary ca.n.a.l. Following this, in recent and acute cases, give 2 drams of acetate or bicarbonate of potash twice a day in the drinking water. If the bowels still become costive, give daily 1 ounce sulphate of soda and 20 grains of powdered nux vomica. In debilitated horses combine the nux vomica with one-half ounce powdered gentian root. As a wash for the skin use 1 dram bicarbonate of soda and 1 dram carbolic acid in a quart of water, after having cleansed the surface with tepid water. Employ the same precautions as regards feeding, stabling, and care of harness as in simple congestion of the skin.
In the more inveterate forms of eczema more active treatment is required. Soak the scabs in fresh sweet oil, and in a few hours remove these with tepid water and Castile soap; then apply an ointment of sulphur or iodid of sulphur day by day. If this seems to be losing its effect after a week, change for mercurial ointment or a solution of sulphid of pota.s.sium, or of hyposulphite of soda, 3 drams to the quart of water. In these cases the animal may take a course of sulphur (1 ounce daily), bisulphite of soda (one-half ounce daily), or of a.r.s.enic (5 grains daily) mixed with 1 dram bicarbonate of soda.
INFLAMMATION WITH PUSTULES.
In this affection the individual elevations on the inflamed skin show in the center a small sac of white, creamy pus, in place of the clear liquid of a blister. They vary in size from a millet seed to a hazelnut.
The pustules of glanders (farcy buds) are to be distinguished by the watery contents and the cordlike swelling, extending from the pustules along the line of the veins, and those of boils by the inflammation and sloughing out of a core of the true skin. The hair on the pustule stands erect, and is often shed with the scab which results. When itching is severe the parts become excoriated by rubbing, and, as in the other forms of skin disease, the character of the eruption may become indistinct. Old horses suffer mainly at the root of the mane and tail and about the heels, and suckling foals around the mouth, on the face, inside the thighs, and under the tail.
Pustules, like eczema, are especially liable to result from unwholesome feed and indigestion, from a sudden change of feed--above all, from dry to green. In foals it may result from overheating of the mare and allowing the first milk after she returns, or by milk rendered unwholesome by faulty feeding of the dam. If a foal is brought up by hand the souring and other decompositions in the milk derange the digestion and cause such eruption. Vetches and other plants affected with honeydew and buckwheat have been the cause of these eruptions on white portions of the skin. Disorders of the kidneys or liver are common causes of this affection.
_Treatment._--Apply soothing ointments, such as benzonated oxid of zinc, or vaseline with 1 dram oxid of zinc in each ounce. Or a wash of 1 dram sugar of lead or 2 drams hyposulphite of soda in a quart of water may be freely applied. If the skin is already abraded and scabby, smear thickly with vaseline for some hours, then wash with soapsuds and apply the above dressings. When the excoriations are indolent they may be painted with a solution of lunar caustic 2 grains to 1 ounce of distilled water.
Internally counteract costiveness and remove intestinal irritants by the same means as in eczema, and follow this with one-half ounce doses daily of hyposulphite of soda, and one-half ounce doses of gentian. Inveterate cases may often be benefited by a course of sulphur, bisulphite of soda, or a.r.s.enic. In all, the greatest care must be taken with regard to feed, feeding, watering, cleanliness, and work. In wet and cold seasons predisposed animals should, so far as possible, be protected from wet, mud, snow, and melted snow--above all, from that which has been melted by salt.
BOILS, OR FURUNCLES.
These may appear on any part of the skin, but are especially common on the lower parts of the limbs, and on the shoulders and back where the skin is irritated by acc.u.mulated secretion and chafing with the harness.
In other cases the cause is const.i.tutional, or attended with unwholesome diet and overwork with loss of general health and condition. They also follow on weakening diseases, notably strangles, in which irritants are retained in the system from overproduction of poisons and effete matter during fever, and imperfect elimination. There is also the presence of a pyogenic bacterium, by which the disease may be maintained and propagated.
While boils are pus producing, they differ from simple pustule in affecting the deepest layers of the true skin, and even the superficial layers of the connective tissues beneath, and in the death and sloughing out of the central part of the inflamed ma.s.s (core). The depth of the hard, indurated, painful swelling, and the formation of this central ma.s.s or core, which is bathed in pus and slowly separated from surrounding parts, serve to distinguish the boil alike from the pustule, from the farcy bud, and from a superficial abscess.
_Treatment._--To treat very painful boils a free incision with a lancet in two directions, followed by a dressing with one-half an ounce carbolic acid in a pint of water, bound on with cotton wool or lint, may cut them short. The more common course is to apply a warm poultice of linseed meal or wheat bran, and renew daily until the center of the boil softens, when it should be lanced and the core pressed out.
If the boil is smeared with a blistering ointment of Spanish flies and a poultice put over it, the formation of matter and separation of the core is often hastened. A mixture of sugar and soap laid on the boil is equally good. Cleanliness of the skin and the avoidance of all causes of irritation are important items, and a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda once or twice a day will sometimes a.s.sist in warding off a new crop.
NETTLERASH (SURFEIT, OR URTICARIA).
This is an eruption in the form of cutaneous nodules, in size from a hazelnut to a hickory nut, transient, with little disposition to the formation of either blister or pustule, and usually connected with shedding of the coat, sudden changes of weather, and unwholesomeness or sudden change in the feed. It is most frequent in the spring and in young and vigorous animals (good feeders). The swelling embraces the entire thickness of the skin and terminates by an abrupt margin in place of shading off into surrounding parts. When the individual swellings run together there are formed extensive patches of thickened integument.
These may appear on any part of the body, and may be general; the eyelids may be closed, the lips rendered immovable, or the nostrils so thickened that breathing becomes difficult and snuffling. It may be attended with constipation or diarrhea or by colicky pains. The eruption is sudden, the whole skin being sometimes covered in a few hours, and it may disappear with equal rapidity or persist for six or eight days.
_Treatment._--This consists in clearing out the bowels by 5 drams Barbados aloes, or 1 pound Glauber's salt, and follow the operation of these by daily doses of one-half ounce powdered gentian and 1 ounce Glauber's salt. A weak solution of alum may be applied to the swellings.
PITYRIASIS, OR SCALY SKIN DISEASE.
This affection is characterized by an excessive production and detachment of dry scales from the surface of the skin (dandruff). It is usually dependent on some fault in digestion and an imperfect secretion from the sebaceous glands and is most common in old horses with spare habit of body. Williams attributes it to feed rich in saccharine matter (carrots, turnips) and to the excretion of oxalic acid by the skin. He has found it in horses irregularly worked and well fed and advises the administration of pitch for a length of time and the avoidance of saccharine feed. Otherwise the horse may take a laxative followed by dram doses of carbonate of potash, and the affected parts may be bathed with soft, tepid water and smeared with an ointment made with vaseline and sulphur. In obstinate cases sulphur may be given daily in the feed.
PRURITUS, OR NERVOUS IRRITATION OF THE SKIN.
This is seen in horses fed to excess on grain and hay, kept in close stables, and worked irregularly. Though most common in summer, it is often severe in hot, close stables in winter. Pimples, vesicles, and abrasions may result, but as the itching is quite as severe on other parts of the skin, these may be the result of scratching merely. It is especially common and inveterate about the roots of the mane and tail.
_Treatment_ consists in a purgative (Glauber's salt, 1 pound), restricted, laxative diet, and a wash of water slightly soured with oil of vitriol and rendered sweet by carbolic acid. If obstinate, give daily 1 ounce of sulphur and 20 grains nux vomica. If the acid lotion fails, 2 drams carbonate of potash and 2 grains of cyanid of pota.s.sium in a quart of water will sometimes benefit. If from pinworms in the r.e.c.t.u.m, the itching of the tail may be remedied by an occasional injection of a quart of water in which chips of qua.s.sia wood have been steeped for 12 hours.
HERPES.
This name has been applied to a disease in which there is an eruption of minute vesicles in circular groups or cl.u.s.ters, with little tendency to burst, but rather to dry up into fine scabs. If the vesicles break, they exude a slight, gummy discharge which concretes into a small, hard scab.
It is apparently noncontagious and not appreciably connected with any disorder of internal organs. It sometimes accompanies or follows specific fevers, and is, on the whole, most frequent at the seasons of changing the coat--spring and autumn. It is seen on the lips and pastern, but may appear on any part of the body. The duration of the eruption is two weeks or even more, the tendency being to spontaneous recovery. The affected part is very irritable, causing a sensitiveness and a disposition to rub out of proportion to the extent of the eruption.