DISEASES OF HORSES 245 



the wound itself or the complications which have rendered it in- 

 curable. 



Cause. Like all similar injuries, these are the result of trau- 

 matic violence, such as contact with objects both blunt and sharp ; a 

 curbstone in the city ; in the country, a tree stump or a fence, espe- 

 cially one of wire. It may easily occur to a runaway horse when he 

 is whipped with fragments of harness or flogged by fragments of 

 splintered shafts thrashing his legs, or by the contact of his legs 

 with the wagon he has overturned and shattered with his heels while 

 disengaging himself from its wreck. 



Symptoms. It is not always necessary that the skin should be 

 involved in this form of injury. On the contrary, the tegument is 

 frequently left entirely intact, especially when the injury follows 

 infectious diseases or occurs during light exercise after long periods 

 of rest in the stable. Yet, again, the skin may be cut through and 

 the tendons nearly severed. A point a little above the fetlock is 

 usually the seat of the injury. But irrespective of this, and whether 

 the skin is or is not implicated, the symptoms very much resemble 

 those of a fracture. There is excessive mobility, at least more than 

 in a normal state, with more or less inability to carry weight. There 

 may be swelling of the parts, and on passing the hands carefully 

 along the tendon to the point of division the stumps of the divided 

 structure will be felt more or less separated, perhaps wholly divided. 

 The position of the animal while at rest and standing is peculiar and 

 characteristic. While the heels are well placed on the ground, the 

 toe is correspondingly elevated, with a tendency to turn up a form 

 of breaking down which was described when speaking of the fracture 

 of the sesamoids. Carrying weight is done only with considerable 

 difficulty, but with comparatively little pajn, and the animal will 

 unconsciously continue to move the leg as if in great suffering, not- 

 withstanding the fact that his general condition may be very good 

 and his appetite unimpaired. 



The effect upon the general organism of compound lacerated 

 wounds of tendinous structure, or those which are associated with 

 injuries of the skin, are different. The wound becomes in a short 

 time the seat of a high degree of inflammation with abundant sup- 

 puration, filling it from the bottom; and the tendon, whether as the 

 result of the bruise or of the laceration, or of maceration in the 

 accumulated pus, undergoes a process of softening, and necrosis and 

 sloughing ensue. This complicates the case, and probably some 

 form of tendinous synovitis follows, running into suppurative 

 arthritis, to end, if close to a joint, with a fatal result. 



Treatment. As with fractures, and even in a greater degree, 

 the necessity is imperative, in the treatment of lacerated tendons, to 

 secure as perfect a state of immobility as can be obtained compatibly 

 with the disposition of the patient; the natural opposition of the 

 animal, sometimes ill-tempered and fractious at best, under the nec- 

 essary restraint, causing at times much embarrassment to the prac- 

 titioner in applying the necessary treatment. Without the neces- 

 sary immobility no close connection of the ends of the tendons can 



