DISEASES. 707 



I. Symptoms. — The first symptom is an excessive lameness, 

 manifesting itself even where no visible change exists in the af- 

 fected leg. The animal evidently suffers great pain, while his 

 actions do not aid us in locaUzing it accurately, though the foot 

 is always examined as being the probable seat of it, the animal 

 raising it more rapidly than the other from the groxmd, and rest- 

 on it with much caution and hesitation. After from two to five 

 days, a phlegmonous tumor apxaears at the coronet, above the 

 heel. It is extremely warm, and much more painful than that in 

 cutaneous quittor, the hoof and the skin preventing the free de- 

 velopment of the inflammation by strangulating it. The foot 

 almost ceases to rest on the ground, but is flexed and raised from 

 it, feeling in the parts being very painful. The swelling of the 

 leg extends to the fetlock, or to the cannons, and even to the 

 knee. The animal has more or less fever, and when there is a 

 deep quittor, he loses all his appetite, and ordinarily lies down 

 and continues in the recumbent position. 



Generally, much time is required for the phlegmon to assume 

 the character of an abscess, as the slough, being in this case no 

 longer formed by the cellular tissue, is slower to define itself. 

 This process of suppuration is not so well localized ; there is, on 

 the contrary, a kind of deep abscess, which probably becomes 

 complicated by the resistance opposed to the ulcerative inflamma- 

 tion by the aponeurosis of the sheath and the thickness of the 

 skin. However this may be, it is always very difficult to recog- 

 nize the presence of one or several of these abscesses, even when 

 they form in the subcutaneous cellular tissvie, and so much the 

 more if the purulent gathering is deeply seated. 



After the opening of the abscess and exfoliation of the slough, 

 either with or without the dropping of a portion of the skin, 

 there does not remain the simple wound of the cutaneous quittor, 

 but on the contrary, a persistent fistula, running down a necrosed 

 point of the tendons or of the fibrous sheaths. At times, almost 

 from the outset, we may observe in the fold of the coronet numer- 

 ous little pimples, which terminate in as many deep fistulse, from 

 which ooze a more or less thick humor, foetid, puriform and 

 bloody. In frequent cases, the disease in unaccompanied with 

 suppuration, and there is a swelling, more or less hard, with a 

 gradual diminution of the j^ain and other inflammatory symptoms. 

 A more frequent complication is the suppurative inflammation of 



