392 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



of the shoes injuring this part when the horse sleeps with 

 his legs doubled under him. If a seton be passed through 

 the tumour it will sometimes rapidly diminish, and even 

 disappear ; but if it be of considerable magnitude, the skin 

 should be slit open along the middle of the swelling, and 

 the tumour dissected out. 



Ill— The Knee. 

 BROKEN KNEES- — OPEN JOINTS. 



This important and complicated joint is the seat of the 

 most frequent and the most deteriorating of accidents to 

 which this powerful animal is liable, in most instances 

 from the incautiousness, the severity, or the incompetency 

 of the driver or rider, or the requirements of ostentation 

 and fashion in severe bearing reins, monstrous blinkers, and 

 the like, rendering the horse comparatively helpless and 

 blind, and punishing him for every false step, hesitation, 

 and blunder. 



We will suppose the horse has fallen, no matter how ; the 

 question is the treatment of the injury. 



Treatment — If called in while the wound is recent, the 

 first thing is to sponge the knee clean from any grit, dirt, 

 or extraneous substance ; and even in this simple operation 

 there is much difference in the right and wrong way of 

 using the sponge. Slopping, smearing, and wiping should 

 be eschewed ; the immediate wound not touched in ordinary 

 cases, but the sponge saturated with water squeezed dry 

 above the laceration. The sponge will thus not become 

 charged with dirt, and do the very mischief it is intended 

 to relieve, nor will the water in the pail be fouled with 

 grit (most important trifles are these), but the foreign 

 matters clean w^ashed away, the animal saved much pain, 

 and the parts cleared for surgical examination. Let the 

 horse get easy and calm after the washing, take him to his 

 stall, give him a feed of corn, and water him. 



Place the palm of the hand over the joint, and ascertain 

 if there be much heat or swelling. Should no synovia 

 appear upon the surface, it is prudent to avoid probing ; it 

 can " merely gratify curiosity," says Blaine, " and a surgeon 

 has no business with any such meddling impulse ; the 

 welfare of his patient should be his single thought, and 



