226 VETERINARY LECTURES 



338. Joint-Felon — a septic inflammation of the joints. The 

 knee, hock, and stifle are the joints most frequently attacked by its 

 baneful action, and it is usually noticed a few days after birth. A 

 large number of young animals are yearly lost from this disease. 

 The patient is very feverish, and unable to stand when put on its 

 feet, while, on being made to move, lameness is noticed in one or 

 more of its limbs. There is enlargement of the joints, accompanied 

 by great pain on pressure being applied. As a rule the disease is 

 fatal. On opening the diseased joints, they are generally found to 

 contain a quantity of sanious brown stinking fluid, in which are 

 shreds of tissue. The disease is due to septic material being carried 

 into the system through the four vessels that form the navel string 

 (par. 760), which in most cases are found to be open, and from 

 which there is a slight discharge of thin watery fluid ; consequently, 

 as a preventive, I strongly recommend that at all times the navel 

 string be tied immediately after birth with a piece of cord dipped in 

 carbolized oil or iodine solution (par. 1069, No. V.), or a waxed 

 thread as used by shoemakers ; above all, the box in which the mare 

 foaled, or the cow calved and cleansed, should be thoroughly washed 

 out with water containing carbolic acid. Clean dry bedding is an 

 absolute necessity. Treatment is extremely unsatisfactory ; rubbing 

 the affected joint with 3 ounces each of essential oil of camphor and 

 soap liniment and 2 ounces of liquid extract of belladonna mixed, 

 and a little applied twice a day, 1 to 2 drachm doses of hyposulphite 

 of soda, with 5 to 10 grains of sulphate of quinine added and given 

 in a little milk or water, every six or eight hours, answers as well as 

 anything I have tried. 



SHEEP. 



339. Many of the ailments affecting the digestive organs of the 

 cow are seen in the sheep, and the treatment is somewhat analogous, 

 only the medicine used must be about one-fourth less than what is 

 given to the cow. 



340. There is, however, one very complicated affection that 

 deserves special attention, and that is verminous or parasitic bronchitis, 

 or hoose, accompanied by diarrhoea, or scour, and known in some parts 

 as paper -skin, The diarrhoea has already been described (par. 309), 



