=2d. Don’t mix the Remedies= with other medicines. They won’t act if you mix them up with other things; or bring the patient under the influence of other drugs, however harmless you may suppose them to be. The sure way of safety and success, is to _trust_ to the _Remedies alone_. You will not improve the case by resorting to other medicines or other measures. If the patient does not improve as rapidly as you desire, a little rest will do no harm, and the kindly reaction may come on later. =3d. Don’t be in to great haste.=—Medicines must have time to act and time to cure. In some cases, such as colics, neuralgias or nervous pains, the evidence of good action is prompt—almost immediately. In other slower, less pronounced, not so decided. When you see the patient relieved.—_less pain_,—_more quiet_,—_more natural_,—_easier_, then you know that the remedy is _acting curatively_, and _don’t interfere with it_, by giving new doses or other remedies or medicines. Simply _let the remedy act_. _Hurrying does not hurry the cure._ When a good action has begun it will continue faster when quietly permitted to expend its action, than if doses are multiplied upon it. The time to repeat the dose is when the action of the former has ceased or begun to decline. The patient is in more danger from your doing too much, than too little, after a good action has been set up. =4th.= Disease of the bones, joints and ligaments, only get well slowly. So of old chronic affections—such as “Spavin,” “Founder,” “Ringbone,” “Wind galls,” “Warts,” or other blemishes. A new action has to be set up in the implicated part, often a process of absorption and of reformation of tissue, and _time_ must be allowed for these changes, through which only a cure can be made. Sometimes a good reaction is only produced after some days or even weeks use of the remedy. Such is nature’s way of cure and you cannot hasten it. So your true interest and true philosophy is, act _patiently_, _perseveringly_, if you would act _successfully_. =5th. The action of Humphreys’ Remedies continues a long time.= PART I. Diseases of Horses CHAPTER I. DISEASES OF THE SKIN and SUBJACENT TISSUE Abscess—Ulcers—Fistulas An abscess is a collection of matter. Any tumor softening, or in other words coming to a head, forms an abscess. They are usually the result of injuries, such as a blow or contusion, or may be occasioned by a thorn, nail or splinter entering the flesh. In the more severe cases these act in connection with a constitutional predisposition or peculiar state of the blood. SYMPTOMS.—A hot and painful swelling; in the earlier stage, hard, and by degrees softening or fluctuating in the center, and gradually approaching the surface, attended with more or less heat and fever, according to its situation and nature.