lameness: its causes and Tni:AT.MKNT. 317' 



quently seen is tluit of tlie lu':i\y draft liorsc aiid others similarly 

 employed. There is a wide margin of diireiciice in re^<i)et't to the 

 degrees of severity which may characterize dilleient cases of side- 

 bone. While one may be so slight as to cause no inccmvenience, 

 another may devel<»p elements of danger which may iiivohe the 

 necessity of severe surgical interference. 



Treatment. — The curative treatment should he .siiuilar to the pi-o- 

 phylactic, and su.ch means should be used as would teud to pre\"ent 

 the deposit of bony matters by checking the acute inllammation 

 which causes it. The means recommended aic the free use of the 

 cold bath: fiecpient soaking of the feet, and at a later period treat- 

 ment with iodin. either by painting the surface with the tincture 

 several times daily or by applying an ointment made by mixing 

 1 dram of the crystals with '1 ounces of vaseline, rubbed in once a 

 day for several days. If this proves to be ineffective, a Spanish-fly 

 blister to which a few grains of biniodid of merciuy have been 

 added will effect in a majority of cases the desired result and remove 

 the lameness. If finally this treatment is ineffectual the case must 

 be relegated to the surgeon for the operati(m of neurectomy, or the 

 free and deep application of the firing iron. 



SPAVIN. 



(ris. xxvii-xxix.^ 



This affection, popidarly teimed bone spavin, is an exostosis of 

 the hock joint. The general impression is that in a spavined hock 

 the bony growth shoidd be seated on the anterior and internal part 

 of the joint, and this is partially correct, as such a growth w ill con- 

 stitute a spavin in the most nearly correct sense of the term. But an 

 enlargement may appear on the upper part of the hock also, or 

 possibly a little below the inner side of the lower extremity of the 

 shank bone, forming what is known as a high spavin: or, again, the 

 growth may form just on the outside of the hock and become an out- 

 side or external si)avin. And, finally, the entire under surface may 

 bei^ome the seat of the o.sfeeous deposit, and involve the articular face 

 of all the bones of the hock, which again is a bone spavin. There 

 would seem, then, to Ix' but little dilliculty in comj^rchending the 

 nature of a bone spavin, and there would be none but for the fact 

 that there are similar affections whieh may confuse one if the diag- 

 nosis is not veiv carefully made. 



But the hock may be "spavined." while to all outward observation 

 it still retains its perfect form. With no enlargement perceptible to 

 sight or touch the animal may yet be disabled by an occult spavin, 

 an anchylosis in fact, which has resulted from a union of several 

 of the bones of the joint, and it is only those who are able to realize 



