358 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



Symptoms. — The lesion may be a simple bruise, or it may be a 

 severe contusion with swelling, edema, heat, and pain. The joint 

 becomes so stiff and rigid that it interferes with locomotion and 3^et 

 under careful simple treatment the trouble may disappear. 



Or, again, instead of altogether passing off, the edema may dimin- 

 ish in extent, becoming more defined in form and remain as a sAvelling 

 on the front part of the knee. Resulting from the crushing of small 

 blood vessels, this is necessarily full of blood. The swelling is some- 

 what soft, diffuse, not painful, more or less fluctuating, and after a 

 few days becomes crepitant under the pressure of the hand. 



Instead of being filled with blood the swelling may be full of serum, 

 as often occurs when violence, though perhaps slight, has been fre- 

 quently repeated. In that case the swelling is generally well defined, 

 soft, and painless, with more or less fluctuation, and it may even 

 become pendulous. In other cases the swelling may be of an acute 

 inflammatory nature with heat and pain, accompanied by stiffness of 

 the joint. This leads to the formation of an abscess. Whatever the 

 nature of these swellings may be, either full of blood, serum, or pus, 

 some blemish usually remains after treatment. 



Prognosis. — Though simple bruises of the knee without extensive 

 lesions are usually of trifling account, a different prognosis must be 

 pronounced when the lesion assumes more important dimensions; and 

 though a capped knee may be comparatively an affair of little impor- 

 tance we have seen cases where not only extensive blemishes were left 

 to disfigure the patient, but where the animals had become worthless 

 in consequence of the extension of the diseased process to the various 

 elements of structure composing the joint, and giving rise to the most 

 complicated cases of carpitis. 



Treatment. — Usually the first symptom of trobule is the edematous 

 swelling on the front of the " knee." The prevention of the inflam- 

 mation and consequently of the abscess, is the prime object in view, 

 and it ma}'^ be realized by the use of warm water fomentations or 

 compresses applied over the swelling, which may be used either in a 

 simple form or combined with astringents, such as Goulard's extract, 

 alum, or sulphate of zinc. The application of warm poultices of oil 

 meal or ground flaxseed, enveloping the whole joint and kept in place 

 by bandages, is often followed by absorption of the swelling, or, if 

 the abscess is in process of formation, by the active excretion of pus. 

 If an abscess forms in spite of these precautions it may be treated 

 surgically in several ways. 



In one it should be done by a careful incision, which will allow the 

 escape of the blood or the serum, or of the pus which is inclosed in 

 the sac ; in another it may be by means of a seton, in order tliat the 

 discharge may be maintained and allowed to escape; and for another 

 the more cautious mode may be adopted of emptying the cavity by 



