/80 THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 



"Waterford, many years ago, was the first person who mentioned 

 to me about puncturation with needles : he told me it was a very 

 common practice with him. This case, however, did not fully 

 answer my expectation ; and the matter remained unsettled in my 

 mind until I saw in the pages of the Veterinarian a drawing and 

 account of a spring truss for the hock, where the two remedies, 

 puncturation and pressure conjointly, struck me as being very 

 feasible ; and now I am quite satisfied that they will answer in 

 many cases. I do not think that bursal enlargements can with 

 safety be opened in any other way than by puncturation with 

 needles." 



OPEN JOINT.* 



Open joint, or broken knees, as some term it, is generally occa- 

 sioned by falling on them ; open joint, however, is an opening 

 into its capsular ligament, which may also be made, by accident 

 or design, with any sharp instrument. Cases of open joint very 



* Open Joint. — On page 377, No. 67, third series, London Veterinarian, 

 we find a communication from E. Mayhew, (a part of which we submit to the 

 reader,) on the treatment of this lesion : — 



" For a long time it occurred to me, that the present treatment of open joints 

 was based upon false principles. What could Coleman mean by the free use 

 of the budding iron, which he both taught and practised ? In the first place, 

 when a knee is opened, the injury does not stop there ; we know little of the 

 real state the part will ultimately assume for three days or a week ; we must 

 wait till the slough has taken place before we can pronounce a definite judg- 

 ment of the extent of the wound ; then applying the hot iron, even supposing 

 it upon each application to act as the late professor intended, was merely to 

 singe that which must eventually come away. It must, however, be a good- 

 sized budding iron, which is to fit the orifice left, after the vast majority of 

 sloughs have fallen off. But setting aside the folly of that remedy which is 

 of no use when we most require assistance, did it never strike the advocates 

 of the iron, that, if it is sometimes reparative, it is more often destructive in its 

 agency ? Is it fair or prudent to employ upon other people's property a remedy 

 which, if its chance of doing good do not answer, is certain of doing serious 

 harm ? Yet I say too much, when I allow it has a chance of doing good. Heat 

 an iron to any extent that it may please the operator, then plunge it into the 

 white of a broken egg. Hold it within the substance till the iron cools, or is 

 of a dead heat, and then withdraw it. In what condition will the iron be when 

 it is taken out ? Yet this is exactly the basis upon which Mr. Coleman used to 

 advocate the use of the budding iron. The iron plunged into white of egg 

 will be coated with its coagulation, and the same weapon inserted among 

 synovia will be covered with the like product. The substance which was to bo 



