282 VETERINARY HOMCEOPATHY. 



is, generally speaking, softer, more elastic and yielding than the 

 ligament it is not necessary to go more closely into these details. 

 The muscles consist of a much more highly organized tissue than 

 is the fibrous tissue of tendons and ligaments; muscular tissue is 

 endowed with the power of contraction produced by a stimulus 

 from the nervous system; by means of this power of contraction 

 or shortening of the muscles the various phenomena associated 

 with motion are effected. The composition of muscular tissue 

 renders it much more amenable to the action and influence of 

 drugs than are the tissues of either tendons or ligaments; for this 

 reason cases of injury to the muscles, as a rule, are more easily 

 and quickly cured than in those where the tendons and ligaments 

 are damaged; moreover the lowly organized insensitive tissue of 

 which tendons and ligaments consist requires severer methods of 

 treatment than does muscular tissue, which fact will serve to 

 make clear the absolute necessity, in bad cases of injury to liga- 

 ments for instance, for the use of the actual cautery or some 

 irritant that will set up active inflammation for a time, a pro- 

 cedure which practical experience has shown is necessary before 

 these lowly organized tissues can be restored to a sound and 

 healthy condition. This, of course, is a very common style of 

 treatment among allopathic veterinarians for all sorts of lameness, 

 and it must be understood that we do not advocate its adoption as 

 common or even ordinary practice, but only in very extreme and 

 chronic cases; at the same time we are satisfied that the applica- 

 tion of the actual cautery, inasmuch as it is used to set up inflam- 

 mation in a given tissue, is distinctly homoeopathic in principle; 

 inflammation in the first instance was the cause of the morbid 

 change that has taken place in a sprained tendon or ligament, and 

 so caused lameness, to overcome this morbid condition and restore 

 the tissue to its pristine condition, inflammation must sometimes 

 be set up and allowed to subside naturally; without going into a 

 detailed explanation of the various changes which take place 

 under such treatment, it will suffice to state that as a rule satis- 

 factory results follow its adoption, a thickened tendon or ligament 

 thereafter assuming its normal size and usefulness. 



In the first instance we invariably advocate the adoption of 

 gentler measures, such as the application of a non-irritating lotion, 

 and in all recent cases of sprains and inj uries this method of pro- 



