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esteem as the most active and beneficial of any, early, deep, and well- 

 performed cauterization. Tliere are, besides, commeikdatory reports of 

 a form of ti^eatment by the application of pads and peculiar bandages 

 upon the hocks, and it is claimed that the removal of the tumors has 

 been affected by their use. But our experience with this apparatus has 

 not been accompanied by such favorable results as would justify our 

 indorsement of the flattering representations which have sometimes 

 appeared in its behalf. 



Open joints — BroJcen Icnees — Synovitis — Arthritis. — The nearness of the 

 relations which exist between these several affections and their apparent 

 connection as perhaps successive developments of a similar if not an 

 essentially identical origin, with the advantage to be gained by the 

 avoidance of frequent repetition in the details of symptoms, treatment, 

 etc., are our reasons for treating under a single head the ailments we 

 have grouped together in the present chajiter. 



The great, comiireheusive, common cause whose effect is the disa- 

 bility, sometimes permanent and sometimes only of transient duration, 

 of chiefly the horse among our domestic animals, is external traumatism. 

 Blows, bruises, hurts by nearly every known form of violence, falls, 

 kicks, lacerations, punctures— we may add compulsory speed in racing 

 and cruel overloading of draught animals — cover the entire ground of 

 the diseases and injuries of the joints, now receiving our consideration. 



In one case, a working horse making a misstep stumbles, and falling 

 on his knees receives a hurt, variously severe, from a mere abrasion of 

 the skin to a laceration, a division of the tegument, a slough, mortifi- 

 cation, and the escape of the synovial fluid with or without exposure of 

 the bones and their articular cartilages. 



In another case an animal, from one cause or another, perhaps an im- 

 patient temper, has formed the habit of striking or pawing his manger 

 with his fore feet until inflammation of the knee-joint is induced, first as 

 a little swelling, diffused, painless; then as a periostitis of the bones of 

 the knee ;. later as bony deposits, then lameness, and finally the impli- 

 cation of the joint, and following all the various conditions of carpitis. 



In another case a horse has received a blow with a fork from a care- 

 less hostler, on or near a joint, or has been kicked by a stable com- 

 panion, with the result of a punctured wound, at first mild-looking, 

 painless, apparently without inflammation, and not yet causing lame- 

 ness, but which, in a few hours, or it may be not until a few days, be- 

 comes excessively painful, grows worse; the entire joint swells, pres- 

 ently discharges, and at last a case of suppurative synovitis is presented, 

 with perhaps disease of the joint proper, and arthritis as a climax. The 

 symptoms of articular injuries vary not only in the degrees of the hurt, 

 but in the nature of the lesion. 



Or. the condition of hroTcen Tcnees, resulting as we have said, may have 

 for its starting point a mere abrasion of the skin — a scratch apparently, 

 •which disappears without a resulting scar. The injury may, however. 



