OPERATIONS WITH ANTISEPTIC PRECAUTIONS. 97 
If we in this way create a funnel shaped wound we can, with 
one glance, see in what direction the wound, or any changes in 
its condition are located. 
If the flexor pedis perforans should be found to be punctured 
through, or necrotic, it should be reduced in such a way that 
the rear frog surface in its center part is laid bare. If we then 
see that the navicular bone also has been injured, or that the 
canal penetrates still deeper, I bore the canal out with a sharp 
scoop so that all diseased bony tissue is removed, even an 
opening of the navicular-coffin joint can, under antiseptic pre- 
cautions, be ventured in this way, with no danger whatever. 
Very often we find, especially if the flexor pedis perforans 
is intact, the inflammatory and suppurative process creeping 
along in the frog cushion, so that it is pierced by numer- 
ous canals in the region of the plantar cushion and the cushion 
fossa. These canals I scrape out with a sharp scoop, and 
eventually I place a drainage tube of rather large caliber 
through the fleshy frog, which is led into the operation wound 
and carried out by an opening through the fossa. 
The after treatment consists chiefly in a regular disinfection 
of the wound. To obtain this object I put on a moist subli- 
mate bandage, which can, if the course is normal, stay there 
from 14 days to three weeks if necessary, changed every three 
or four days. 
If an opening is made in the fossa for drainage purposes, 
the bandage must cover the pastern joint, and has to, in this 
case, be changed oftener. The reason for the necessity of 
frequent bandaging in such a case is not the drainage itself, but 
the fact that the drainage is conditional, as a rule, on the 
strongly secreting processes of the frog cushion, which causes 
a quick saturation of the bandage. 
If there is but one wound made on the plantar surface of the 
hoof, one moistened sublimated bandage, reaching up to the 
pastern, is sufficient. Lately in such cases I have simplified 
the bandage so that I merely put a covering iron on it, and the 
space between the cover and sole I pad with absorbent cotton, 
while a few layers of cotton and bandage tours are put around 
