KNEE, FETLOCK, ANKI^E, AND FOOT. 185 



Treatment. If the injury is seen at once the foot should be placed 

 in a bath of cold water with the object of preventing suppuration. If 

 suppuration has alread)' set in the horn of the frog, and of the bars and 

 branches of the sole if necessar}', is to be pared thin, so that all possible 

 pressure may be removed and the foot poulticed. As soon as the pus 

 has loosened the horn, all the detached portions are to be cut away. If 

 the pus is discharging from an opening near the hair the whole frog, or 

 one-half of it will generally be found separated from the plantar cush- 

 ion, and is to be removed with the knife. After a few days' time the 

 gangrene portion of the cushion will slough off under the stimulating 

 effects of the poultice, and under rare circumstances only should the 

 dead parts be removed by surgical interference. Where the slough is 

 all detached the remaining wound is to be treated with simple stimulat- 

 ing dressings, such as tincture of aloes or turpentine, oakum balls, and 

 bandages as directed in punctured wounds. The lameness having sub- 

 sided, and a thin layer of new horn having grown on the exposed parts, 

 the foot may be shod, the frog covered with a thick pad of oakum, held 

 in place by pieces of tin fitted to slide under the shoe, and the animal 

 returned to slow work. 



Rupture of the Suspensory I/igament. Sprain, with or with- 

 out rupture, of the suspensory ligament, may happen in both the fore 

 and hind-legs, and is occasionally seen in horses of all classes and at all 

 ages. Old animals, however, and especially hunters, runners, and trot- 

 ters, are the most subject to this injury, and with these classes the seat 

 of the trouble is nearly always in one, or both, the fore legs. Horses 

 used for heavy draught are more liable to have the ligament of the hind- 

 legs affected. 



When the strain upon the suspensory ligament becomes too great 

 one or both of the branches may be torn from their attachments 

 to the sesamoid bones; one or both of the branches may be torn 

 completely across; or the ligament may rupture above the point of 

 division. 



Symptoms. The most common injury to the suspensory ligament 

 is sprain of the internal branch in one of the fore-legs. The trouble is 

 proclaimed by lameness, heat, swelling and tenderness of the affected 

 branch, beginning just above the sesamoid bone and extending obHquely 

 downward and forward to the front of the ankle. If the whole ligament 

 is involved the swelling comes on gradually, and is found above the fet- 

 lock and in front of the flexor tendons. The patient stands or walks 



