HYGROMA OF THE KNEE IN CATTLE. 809 



straps. This serves all the purposes of a plaster bandage, is slightly 

 flexible, will not crack, and is less likely to injure the skin. The 

 legging extends from just above the fetlock to 8 inches, more or 

 less, above the knee. 



All being well, the dressings are removed about the twelfth day 

 after operation, when, if all details of the operation have been 

 thoroughly carried out, the operative wound is found cicatrised 

 without any sign of pus. The threads may then be cut with scissors 

 and removed with forceps. A light bandage of iodoform gauze, 

 retained in place by tarlatan bandages, is applied for another week, 

 after which time the animal may be exercised in hand or put to light 

 work. 



Painful swelling of the limb, or discharge or smell from the 

 dressing during the progress of treatment, points to suppuration. 

 In such case the dressing must be removed, the parts irrigated 

 thoroughly with an antiseptic solution and the dressing renewed. 

 Where stitch suppuration occurs, it is sometimes sufficient to touch 

 the points lightly with iodoform or nitrate of silver. 



(2.) HYGROMA OF THE KNEE IN CATTLE. 



When lying down and in dwelling on the knees when rising, cattle 

 are apt to bruise the knee, and to produce chronic inflammation 

 of its subcutis, which often leads to great swelling and increase of 

 fibrous tissue. The same result occasionally follows falls on rough, 

 hard ground, in which case inflammation is acute. These swellings 

 were formerly divided into hard and soft forms. A better classi- 

 fication is : — (a) Cutaneous, (b) synovial, and (c) articular or 

 periarticular. This classification, ' though it cannot always be 

 observed clinically, facilitates the study of the condition. 



The cutaneous form consists either in excessive thickening of 

 the skin and subcutis covering the front of the knee, not infrequently 

 associated with active increase in the epidermis covering it (Fig. 469), 

 by which a horny swelling, often as large as a man's head, results, 

 or in the development in the subcutis of cavities filled with serous 

 fluid, which often contains lymph flocculi. Hence the condition 

 is sometimes regarded as " capped knee " and is compared with the 

 retention cysts. The descriptions given indicate that in many cases 

 cysts form in the cutis and subcutis at the same time that the 

 epidermis undergoes active proliferation. Johne describes this con- 

 dition as " dermoid cyst, with diffuse keratosis." 



The synovial form consists in a tendovaginitis chronica serosa 



