212 ' INJURIES. 



chief. Inflammation of the synovial membrane is to be 

 apprehended. The day after the accident, the parts are 

 hot, full, and tender, and these symptoms from day to 

 day augment and spread. About this time the constitu- 

 tion sympathises — sympathetic fever comes on. The pulse 

 rises; the animal loses spirits and appetite; the mouth 

 becomes dry ; the eyes injected ; the skin and extremities 

 exhibit warmth. The breathing becomes disturbed; the 

 animal exchanges his dull mood for watching and irri- 

 tability : from this period, the irritation, unless some check 

 be given, is likely to exhaust the vital energies, even be- 

 fore time has been allowed for the local inflammation to 

 take a turn towards restoration. 



Locked Jaw has been known to follow an opened joint : 

 the circumstance has never happened in my own practice ; 

 but cases of it are on record. 



Anchylosis or stijf joint is, however, to be dreaded, 

 this affliction being a common sequel to the accident. The 

 synovial membrane, from exposure and the escape of its 

 secretion, becomes inflamed, involving the ligaments around 

 in one mass of disease. My own observations accord with 

 those presented in Sir B. Brodie^s work on joints, viz. : 

 There is a preternatural secretion of synovia ; an eff'usion of 

 adhesive matter into the cavity of the joint; likewise, a 

 thickening of the synovial membrane, and subsequent con- 

 version of it into a substance resembling cartilage'; accom- 

 panied by eff'usion into the cellular textures around the 

 joint, cementing them together in one general mass : fol- 

 lowed by suppuration of the joint, and abscess if it should 

 be closed, which abscess will burst the capsule, perhaps in a 

 fresh place : ulceration of the synovial membrane ensues, 

 and leads to caries of the cartilaginous ends of the bones : 

 anchylosis, being not only a consequence of the foregoing 

 changes, but a result ever to be apprehended from a motion- 

 less condition of a limb. The capsular and other ligaments 

 are converted into an osseous mass ; even the heads of the 

 bones contract osseous adhesion : so that, in the end, the 

 anchylosis is totally irremediable. 



