The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, January 1891: An Illustrated MonthlyVarious
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, January 1891: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
Next comes the instrument-room. This is an apartment not calculated to
act as a sedative upon the visitor who is forced to be a frequent caller
on the dentist. The forceps for drawing horses' teeth are more than a
yard long, and it requires a man of might and muscle to use them with
effect. The tracheotomy tubes--inserted when a horse has difficulty in
breathing--stand out brightly from amongst the dull and heavy appearance
of the firing irons, which are employed in lameness, as a blister on the
limb. It is interesting to be told that there are a number of horses in
the hunting field, in the streets, and the park, wearing silver
tracheotomy tubes, as an assistance to their breathing, and, to put it
in the words of a doctor, "doing well."
The pharmacy is by no means to be hurriedly passed by. It is the
chemist's shop of the establishment, the place where students enter to
be initiated into all the mysteries of compounding a prescription. They
may crush the crystals into powder in a mortar of diminutive size, or
pound them in one as big as a copper with a pestle as long as a barber's
pole. A great slate is covered with veterinary hieroglyphics; the
shelves are decorated with hundreds of blue bottles, the drawers
brimming over with tiny phials and enormous gallipots. Step behind a
substantial wooden screen, which practically says "Private," and you
have the most approved of patterns in the way of a chemist's counter.
Here is every item, down to the little brass scales and weights, the
corks and sealing wax, the paper and string.
From the pharmacy to the Turkish bath is but a step. Veterinary
authorities have arrived at the conclusion that a Turkish bath is the
finest remedy that can be found for skin disease in horses. This takes
the form of a square stable, heated by a furnace at the back. Not an
outlet is permitted for the escape of the hot air, and it can be heated
to any temperature required. The horse, too, can enjoy all the
luxuriousness of a shower bath, and if necessary can dabble his four
feet in a foot-bath handy. Indeed, everything goes to prove the whole
system of treating sick animals is founded on the same principle as that
meted out to human beings.
One must needs look in at the open door of the shoeing-forge. The clang
of the blacksmith's hammer makes a merry accompaniment to the prancing
of a dozen fine creatures just entering to be shod. The whistling of the
bellows, and the hissing of the roused-up flames vie with the snorting
of a grand bay mare who cannot be numbered amongst the most patient of
her sex.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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