NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 443 
The splint is an object of the commonest occurrences — so common, in- 
deed, that in large cities a horse which can not exhibit one or more 
specimens upon some portion of his extremities is one of the rarest of 
spectacles. Though it is in some instances a cause of lameness, and its 
discovery and cure are sometimes beyond the ability of the shrewdest and 
most experienced veterinarians, yet as a source of vital danger to the 
general equine organization, or even functional disturbance, or of prac- 
tical inconvenience, aside from the rare exceptional cases which exist 
as mere samples of possibility, it can not be considered to belong to the 
category of serious lesions. The worst stigma that attaches to it is that 
in general estimation it is ranked among eyesores and continues in- 
definitely to be that and nothing different. The inflammation in which 
they originated, acute at first, either subsides or assumes the chronic 
form, and the bony growth becomes a permanence — more or less estab- 
lished, it is true but doing no positive harm and not hindering the ani- 
mal from continuing his daily routine of labor. All this, however, re- 
quires a proviso against the occurrence of a subsequent acute attack, 
when, as with other exostoses, a fresh access of acute symptoms may be 
followed by a new patholigical activity, which shall again develop, as a 
natural result, a reappearnce of the lameness. 
Treatment. — It is, of course, the consideration of the comparative 
harmlessness of splints that suggests and justifies the policy of non- 
interference, except as they become a positive cause of lameness. And 
a more positive argument for such non-interference consists in the fact 
that any active and irritating treatment may so excite the parts as to 
bring about a renewed pathological activity, which may result in a re- 
duplication of the phenomena, with a second edition, if not a second and 
enlarged volume, of the whole story. For our part, our faith is firm in 
the impolicy of interference, and this faith is founded on an experience 
of many years, during which our practice'has been that of abstention. 
Of course, there will be exceptional conditions which will at times 
indicate a different course. These will become evident when the occasions 
present themselves, and extraordinary forms and effects of inflammation 
and growth in the tumors offer special indications. But our conviction 
remains unshaken that surgical trep,tment of the operative kind is usu- 
ally useless, if not dangerous. We have little faith in the method of 
extirpation except under very special conditions, among which that of 
diminutive size has been named, which seems in itself to constitute a 
suflicient negative argument. But even in such case a resort to the knife 
or the gouge could scarcely find a justification, since no operative pro- 
cedure is ever without a degree of hazard, to say nothing of the con- 
siderations which are always forcibly negative in any question of the 
infliction of pain and the unnecessary use of the knife. 
If an acute periostitis of the cannon bone has been readily discovered, 
the treatment we have already suggested for that ailment is at once 
indicated, and the astringent lotions may be relied upon to bring about 
beneficial results. Sometimes, however, preference may be given to a 
lotion possessing a somewhat different quality, the alternative consisting 
of tincture" of iodine applied to the inflamed spot several times daily. 
