EHEUMATOID AETHEITIS. 



271 



horse, which was about nine years old, and which was accustomed 

 to do hard work. Figs. 101 and 102 show the two characteristic 

 positions alternately assumed by him while at rest during the 

 progress of the disease. He would raise the foot off the ground 

 and keep the limb bent for several seconds as in Fig. 101, and 

 then, seemingly because the muscles got tired, would lower the leg 

 down, as in Fig, 102, to be raised again in about half a minute's 

 time. Although the first steps taken were extremely painful, 



Fig. loi. — Position assumed in rheumatoid arthritis of stifle. 



the lameness, after that, was not very great. No exciting cause 

 could be found for this case, which was in charge of Mr. F. B. 

 Jones, M.R.C.V.S,, of Leicester, and which ran a chronic course 

 of some months before slaughter. There was gradual and well- 

 marked wasting of the muscles of the croup and thigh of the 

 affected side. Post-mortem examination showed an inflamed 

 condition of the stifle joint, which contained a large amount of 

 orange-coloured synovia. Its synovial membrane was orange- 

 coloured, thickened, and covered with wart-like growths. The 

 articular cartilages were partly worn away, and gave almost un- 

 mistakable evidence of rheumatoid arthritis. An apparently 

 identical case in the near hind leg is described by Moller, who 

 terms the disease gonitis chronica sicca. 



I have no reason for supposing that this disease of the stifle 



