SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. (iOS 



acute rheumatism there may be fever and as much local pain, heat and 

 swelling as is present when the trouble is due to injury of the part 

 affected. 



Sudden stiffness and lameness of one or both hind legs in a horse 

 that is fat — has been idle for a day or two and during that time heavily 

 fed on oats or other rich food, and often appears on first exercising the 

 horse after rest referred to and comes on with sweating — is associated 

 with swelling and hardening of the muscles of the hip and by dark 

 red or coffee color of the urine. This disease is azoturia, by many 

 horsemen erroneously called "spinal meningitis," and, when severe, ends 

 in paralysis of the hind legs and results in death. It causes the loss 

 of hundreds of valuable horses in the large cities following holidays 

 or periods of inclement weather during which horses are rested and 

 heavily fed. 



In seeking the cause of lameness, therefore, take everything into con- 

 sideration, for the history of the case is important, seeing that the 

 sufferer can not talk, and may settle the matter when, on removal of the 

 shoe and careful examination of the foot, tendons and muscles, no cause 

 of the trouble can be found. Despite the most careful examination by 

 the owjier or his assistants it will, however, often be found impossible to 

 locate the seat of the lameness; this applies most often to the slight, 

 spasmodic, mysterious cases of lameness which are the bane of the gradu- 

 ate veterinarian as well as the skilled horseman. Knowing then that 

 much skill is required to determine the location and cause of many 

 lamenesses of the horse it certainly is best, where possible, to immedi- 

 ately call in a qualified practitioner to examine the patient and institute 

 the proper course of treatment. 



PEINCIPLES OF SENSIBLE TREATMENT. 



In giving first aid to the suffering horse, common sense should sug- 

 gest the doing of safe and soothing things rather than the adoption of 

 radical and often irritating measures. Hot or cold water applications 

 are, for example, always indicated as safe and soothing to an injured 

 tendon or muscle. On the contrary, much additional suffering is un- 

 necessarily caused by the empiric who treats such injuries by the im- 

 mediate application of smarting, blistering nostrums; or he may do in- 

 curable mischief by bleeding the animal or administering great doses 

 of active poisons, such as tincture of aconite, which should only be 

 used by the graduate who understands the lessons to be learned from 

 taking the horse's "pulse." A hot or cold poultice often is soothing 

 and beneficial to an injured foot or joint, provided always that it is a clean 

 poultice. A salve may be of benefit to a wound, but it must be an anti- 

 septic, soothing salve, not axle grease, which is a salve, to be sure, but 

 unsuitable and usually filthy. A dressing powder may be indicated for a 

 wound, but it should be a suitable powder and not a strong caustic, such 

 as sulphate of copper (bluestone) or corrosive sublimate (bichloride of 

 mercury) or white arsenic applied with the hope of burning .off the 

 "proud flesh" which is a horseman's horror, but nature's natural new 

 tissue, produced for reparative purposes, but aggravated into exuberance 

 by irritation and filth of unwise treatment. On general principles, every 



