150 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
their cicatrization, J. Guerin, about the year 1840, invented the sw/~ 
cutaneous method, the value of which has been considerably diminished 
by antisepsis. We use it, however, for some operations, especially in. 
plantar tenotomy, in cervical or patellar desmotomy and in caudal 
myotomy. 
Subcutaneous wounds, which are free from infection, and have a. 
natural tendency to heal, require simple treatment. This consists 
principally in closing the solution of continuity of the skin with a 
collodion cover, after a thorough cleansing of the region. A light com~ 
pressive antiseptic dressing is sometimes useful. The wounded region 
should be immobilized as much as possible, to avoid the rubbing of 
the surfaces which are to unite the loosening of the exudation collected. 
between them, or the irritation of the newly-formed tissue. Sub- 
cutaneous wounds of operations made in healthy tissues are always. 
aseptic, and cicatrize by adhesive union when sufficient care has been 
taken. Accidental subcutaneous wounds do not always act in such a 
simple way ; they often suppurate and may be complicated with other 
accidents ; they belong then to the series of exposed wounds. 
a 
CONTUSIONS (BRUISES). 
Contrary to what is customary, we have separated contusions from 
contused wounds. Jf both are made by a similar mechanism by the 
action, upon tissues, of blunt, bruising bodies, and although since the 
beginning of the era of antisepsis, the principal clinical characteristics. 
which distinguish them—absence or presence of a solution of continuity’ 
of the skin—is less important than in past days, among animals, they: 
still offer sufficiently great differences to justify this division,—also. 
taking into consideration their gravity, progress, mode of repair, 
possible complications and the therapeutics that they require. 
Constituted essentially by a traumatic lesion—laceration, bruise or 
crushing of the subcutaneous tissues—without solutions of continuity 
of the teguments, contusions are of very varied form and gravity. 
Sometimes the disorders and the functional symptoms are exclusively 
local ; at others, there are distant troubles. It is for this reason that. 
contusions which are united on the lateral side of the head may give rise. 
to facial hemiplegia. Nervous brariches (radial, sciatic, external 
popliteal) may be injured on the extremities, and paralysis will be 
observed to follow, which lasts for a longer or shorter time. 
Considered as lesions, they are divided into three classes : contusions: 
of the first degree, with rupture of the capillaries of the skin or of the 
subcutaneous tissue and with ecchymosis; contusions of the second degree, 
with rupture of small blood-vessels, and formation of a bloody en~ 
