LAMENESS IN THE FORE LEG 123 



Treatment. — Rest is essential in the treatment of ringbone. 

 If diagnosed during its ineipieney, remedial measures such as 

 are usually employed to treat sprains, are indicated and hiter 

 the parts should be blistered. When an exostosis has developed 

 puncture firing is the remedy par excellence. Not that this 

 method of treatment is infallible, for to any thinking one who 

 takes into consideration the pathological anatomy of this condi- 

 tion, it is evident that no manner of treatment is beneficial in 

 some eases. If the exostosis is so situated that it does not me- 

 chanically interfere with function, and is not so large that it 

 may inhiliit flexion and extension, and where the articular por- 

 tions of the joint are not eroded, good results attend the use of 

 the actual cautery. 



In firing, after having anesthetized the extremity, and pre- 

 pared the surgical area, the cautery is deeply inserted in numer- 

 ous places, taking care, however, not to open the joint. The parts 

 are immediately covered with aseptic absorbent cotton and this 

 dressing is left in position for forty-eight hours and if perchance 

 there is evidence of synovial discharge, the parts are again 

 aseptically dressed in order to prevent infection of the articula- 

 tion. If, as is the case usually, no perforation of the joint cap- 

 sule exists, the openings made by the cautery have been closed 

 by the coagulation of serum and there is then little chance of 

 infection causing troul)le, even though the member is left un- 

 bandaged. 



In several instances, the author has treated ringl)one by this 

 method where the periarticular type existed and lameness was 

 marked, and in three weeks the subjects were in service and not 

 lame — this, in one instance in a valual)le polo pony where the 

 subject continued in service for more than a year without any 

 evidence of recurrence of the lameness. The production of a 

 deep-seated and acute inflammation with the actual cautery is 

 preferable to any sort of counter-irritation which may be pro- 

 duced by vesicants. 



There is no occasion for any ditfereuce in the treatment of 

 either of the first three classes of ringbone, l)ut in the rachitic; 

 type where treatment is given, the application of a vesicant is 



