NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 435 
to be thinned, after which we are to carefully cut down upon the point 
where pain is greatest upon pressure, and, finall5% through the sole at this 
spot. When the matter has escaped, the sole, so far as it was undermined 
by pus, is to be removed. The foot must now be poulticed for one or 
two days and afterwards dressed with a compress of oakum saturated 
with carbolic acid solution or other antiseptic dressing. 
If we discover a nail or other object in the foot, the principal direction, 
after having removed the offending body, is to cut away the sole, in a 
funnel shape, down to the sensitive parts beneath. This is imperative, 
and if a good free opening has been made and is maintained for a few 
days, hot fomentations and antiseptic dressings applied, the cure is 
mostly easy, simple, quick, and permanent. The horse should be shod 
with a leather sole under the shoe, first of all applying tar and oakum 
to prevent any dirt from entering the wound. In some instances nails 
may puncture the flexor tendons, the coffin bone, or enter the coffin joint. 
Such injuries are always serious, their recovery slow and tedious, and the 
treatment so varied and difficult that the services of a veterinarian will 
be necessary. 
PUNCTURED WOUNDS OF JOINTS, OR OPEN JOINTS. 
These wounds are more or less frequent. They are always serious, 
and often result in anchylosis (stiffening) of the joint or death of the 
animal. The joints mostly punctured are the hock, fetlock, or knee, 
though other joints may, of course, suffer this injury. As the symptoms 
and treatment are much the same for all, only the accident as it occurs 
in the hock joint will be described. Probably the most common mode of 
injury is from the stab of a fork, but it may result from the kick of 
another horse that is newly shod, or in many other ways. At first the 
horse evinces but slight pain or lameness. The owner discovers a small 
wound scarcely larger than a pea, and pays but little attention to it. 
In a fevv' days, however, the pain and lameness become excessive; the 
horse can no longer bear any weight upon the injured leg; the joint is 
very much swollen and painful upon pressure; there are well-marked 
symptoms of constitutional disturbance— quick pulse, hurried breathing, 
high temperature, 103° to 106° F., the appetite is lost, thirst is present, 
the horse reeks with sweat, and shows by an anxious countenance the 
pain he suffers. He may lie down, though mostly he persists in stand- 
ing, and the opposite limb becomes swollen from bearing the entire 
weight and strain for so long a time. The wound which at first appeared 
so insignificant, is now constantly discharging a thin whitish or yellowish 
fluid — joint oil or water, which becomes coagulated about the mouth of 
the v^ound and adheres to the part in clots like jelly, or resembling 
somewhat the v/hite of an egg. Not infrequenly the joint opens at dif- 
ferent places, discharging at first a thin bloody fluid that soon assumes 
the character above described. 
Treatment of these wounds is most difficult and unsatisfactory. We 
can do much to prevent this array of symptoms it the case is seen early — 
within the first twenty-four or forty-eight hours after the injury; but 
when inflammation of the joint is once fairly established the case be- 
