ANTERIOR MEMBER. 235 



cases the integument has been injured more deeply or even partly destroyed, and 

 then no new hairs grow when the cicatrization has been completed. In the eyes 

 •of the connoisseur the horse is no less blemished in the one case than the other, 

 whether he has an abnormal white spot upon the knee or an indelible cicatrix 

 deprived of hairs ; he is considered weak upon his limbs, predisposed to repeated 

 falls, and, consequently, much depreciated from a commercial point of view, 

 although, at times, the blemish may be altogether accidental. We should, there- 

 fore, beware of the so-called recipes which horse-merchants never fail to recom- 

 mend for the reproduction of the hairs. More especially should we be on our 

 guard against the fraudulent means used by certain individuals for the purpose 

 of concealing from the eyes of too credulous buyers a blemish which baffles all 

 such attempts. Some have been known to go so far as to blacken the denuded 

 spot with a particular blacking; others cover it rather skilfiilly with false hairs, 

 which they temporarily keep in due position by means of a thin coating of 

 dextrine ! As may be readily imagined, all these exjjedients are of such a nature 

 as not to deceive the attentive and experienced observer. 



Fissures known under the name of malanders are met in the region of the 

 fold of the knee. They are grave in so far as they cause much pain, and are often 

 very tedious to heal. 



b. Subcutaneous Connective Tissue. — It is not rare to observe more or 

 less abundant effusions into the subcutaneous connective tissue as the result of 

 contusions of the knee. The anterior face of this region is then seen to present 

 a voluminous, fluctuating, and non-inflammatory tumor, whose walls, at first thin, 

 soon become indurated and irregularly thickened ; this constitutes the hygroma, 

 or cyst, of the knee. It sometimes becomes inflamed and very painful. As a 

 general rule, it interferes with locomotion only in a mechanical manner, and is 

 nothing more than an eyesore. 



Indurated tumors of the connective tissue have the same origin ; they differ 

 from hygromata in the fact that they are not fluctuating and that they can be 

 much more easily dissolved. 



c. Tendinous and Articular Bursae.— A complex articulation like the 

 knee, endowed as it is with such extensive movements, is sure to give signs of 

 fatigue in the long run, by synovial dilatations at the level of the most mobile 

 parts, — that is to say, at the points where the gliding apparatus must needs have 

 displayed an excessive and almost incessant functional activity. Indeed, that is 

 what is observed in the radio-carpal and intercarpal articulations, in spite of the 

 powerful union which protects them. 



Hydropsy or hydrarthrosis of the first manifests itself by the presence of 

 two tumors, soft and fluctuating when the limb is semiflexed, and tense and con- 

 vex when it is in extension. The one is situated immediately above the supra- 

 carpal bone and against the radius ; the other forms at the upper part of the 

 anterior surface of the knee. They correspond evidently, therefore, to the por- 

 tions of the synovial membrane which are feebly supported ; pressure applied 

 upon the lateral tumor is distinctly transmitted to the anterior, a fact which 

 indicates the close relation which they bear to each other. 



Hydrarthrosis of the intercarpal joint is shown, Avhen the foot is in contact 

 with the ground, by the appearance of two or three nodosities of the size of a 

 hazel-nut or a walnut, between the extensor tendons of the phalanges and of the 

 metacarpus, almost over the middle of the anterior surface of this region. 



