DISEASES OF HORSES 251 



yet under careful simple treatment the trouble may disappear. Or, 

 again, instead of altogether passing off, the edema may diminish in 

 extent, becoming more defined in form and remain as a swelling on 

 the front part of the knee. Resulting from the crushing of small blood 

 vessels, this is necessarily full of blood. The swelling is somewhat 

 soft, diffuse, not painful, more or less fluctuating, and after a few 

 days becomes crepitant under the pressure of the hand. 



Instead of being filled with blood the swelling may be full of 

 serum, as often occurs when violence, though perhaps slight, has 

 been frequently repeated. In that case the swelling is generally 

 well defined, soft, and painless, with more or less fluctuation, and it 

 may even become pendulous. In other cases the swelling may be of 

 an acute inflammatory nature with heat and pain, accompanied by 

 stiffness of the joint. This leads to the formation of an abscess. 

 Whatever the nature of these swellings may be, either full of blood, 

 serum, or pus, some blemish usually remains after treatment. 



Treatment. Usually the first symptom of trouble is the ede- 

 matous swelling on the front of the knee. The prevention of the 

 inflammation and consequently of the abscess, is the prime object in 

 view, and it may be realized by the use of warm water fomentations 

 or compresses applied over the swelling, which may he used either 

 in a simple form or combined with astringents, such as Goulard's 

 extract, alum, or sulphate of zinc. The application of warm poul- 

 tices of oil meal or ground flaxseed, enveloping the whole joint and 

 kept in place by bandages, is often followed by absorption of the 

 swelling, or, if the abscess is in process of formation, by the active 

 excretion of pus. 



CAPPED HOCK. 



A bad habit prevails among some horses of rubbing or striking 

 the partitions of their stalls with their hocks, with the result of an 

 injury which shows itself on the upper point of that bone, the sum- 

 mit of the os calcis. From its analogy to the condition of capped 

 elbow the designation of capped hock has been applied to this 

 condition. 



Symptoms. A capped hock is therefore but the development of 

 a bruise at the point of the hock, which if many times repeated may 

 excite an inflammatory process, with all its usual external symptoms 

 of swelling, heat, soreness, and the rest of the now familiar phenom- 

 ena. The swelling is at first diffused, extending more or less on the 

 exterior part of the hock, and in a few instances running up along 

 the tendons and muscles of the back of the shank. Soon, however, 

 unless the irritating causes are continued and repeated, the edema 

 diminishes, and, becoming more defined in its external outlines, 

 leaves the hock capped with a hygroma. The hygroma, at tha very 

 beginning of the trouble, contains a bloody serosity which soon be- 

 comes strictly serum, and this, through the influence of an acute 

 inflammatory action, is liable to undergo a change which converts 

 it into the usual purulent product of suppuration. 



Treatment. Capped hocks are in many cases amenable to 

 treatment, and yet they often become the opprobrium of the practi- 



