287 



The means recom mended are the free use of the cold bath ; frequent 

 soaking of the feet, and at a later period treatment with iodine, either 

 by paiuting the surface with the tincture several times daily, or by ap- 

 plying an ointment made by mixing 1 dram of the crystals with 2 ounces 

 of vaseline, rubbed in once a day for several days. If this proves to be 

 ineffective, a Spanish fly blister, to which a few grains of biniodide of 

 mercury have been added, will, in a majority of cases, effect the desired 

 result and remove the lameness. If, finally, this treatment is resisted, 

 the case must be relegated to the surgeon for the operation of neurot- 

 omy, or the ai)plicatiou of the fire-iron, freely and deeply. 



SPAVIN. 



This affection, popularly termed bo)ie spavin, is an exostosis of the 

 hock joint. The general impression is that in a spavined hock the bony 

 growth should be seated on the anterior and internal part of the joint, 

 and this is partially correct, as such a growth will constitute a spavin 

 in the most correct sense of the tern). But an enlargement may appear 

 on the upper part of the hock also, or possibly a little below the inner 

 side of the lower extremity of the shank bone, forming what is known 

 as a high spavin; or, again, the growth may form jast on the outside 

 of the hock and become an outside or external spavin. And, finally, 

 the entire under surface may become the seat of the osseous deposit, 

 and involve the internal face of all the bones of the hock, and this again 

 is a hone spavin. There would seem, then, to bo but little difficulty in 

 comi)reheuding the nature of a bono spavin, and there would be none 

 but for the fact that there are similar affections which might confuse a 

 diagnosis if not very carefully and intelligently made. 



But the hock may be spavined, while to all outward observation it 

 still retains its perfect form. With no enlargement tangible to sight 

 or touch the animal may be disabled by an occult spavin, an anchylosis 

 in fact, which has resulted from a union of several of the bones of the 

 joint, and it is only those who are able to realize the importance of its 

 action to the perfect fulfillment of the function of propulsion by the 

 hind leg, who can comprehend the gravity of the only prognosis which 

 can be justified by the facts of the case — a prognosis which is essen- 

 tially a sentence of serious import in respect to the future usefulness 

 and value of the animal. For no diseases, if we except those acute in- 

 flammatory attacks upon vital organs to which the patient succumbs 

 at once, are more destructive to the usefulness and value of a horse 

 than a confirmed spavin. Serious in its inception, serious in its prog- 

 ress, it is an ailment which, when once established, becomes a fixed 

 condition which there are no known means of dislodging. The perios- 

 titis, of which it is nearly always a termination, is usually the effect of 

 a traumatic cause operating upon the complicated structure of the 

 hock, such as a sprain which has torn a ligamentous insertion and lac- 

 erated some of its fibers; or a violent effort in jumping, galloping, or 



