234 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
fications are sometimes useful. If fluctuation is present, early opening is 
to be advised, as by it and antisepsis, complications and gangrene at 
times are avoided. 
If mortification already exists, the treatment must be that of moist 
gangrene. The wound resulting from the cutaneous slough should be care- 
fully disinfected with baths of tepid water and covered with an antiseptic 
dressing. We prefer iodoformed, cresylated or carbolated vaseline to old 
ointments. Before antisepsis, when cutaneous quittor was treated with 
greasy substances or poultices, complications were frequent; a serious 
lymphangitis often followed; or a tendon, a synovial sac or one of the 
fibro-cartilages of the foot would become involved. If modern therapeutics 
has not removed all those serious accidents, their frequency is at least con- 
siderably reduced. 
Contagious pustular dermatitis of horses, generally limited to regions 
upon which the harness or blankets rest, may exceptionally extend to the 
whole surface of the body. It is characterized by small isolated or col- 
lected pustules varying from the size of a pea to that of a bean. After 
a few days these pustules burst, their contents dry up and form yellowish 
scabs, which soon drop off. In the light forms recovery is complete in two 
or three weeks; in severe cases the very numerous pustules are followed 
by ulcerations at various depths; lymphangitis makes its appearance and 
the surrounding glands sometimes enlarge and suppurate. Purulent cen- 
ters may also develop in the affected region. All these are not very 
painful, the itching is slight or even absent, and the general condition is 
not at all altered. 
Contagious and inoculable, produced by a specific bacillus, this der- 
matitis is transmitted by harness, blankets and tools for cleaning. The 
period of incubation varies between six and fifteen days. 
Isolation of the sick, disinfection with boiling water or corrosive subli- 
mate solution of harness, blankets, stables, etc., are the two principal 
requirements for prophylactic treatment. 
All care should be taken to avoid the dissemination of the bacillus upon 
the skin of regions which surround the acneic regions. In the beginning 
lotions of corrosive sublimate (1 in 1000), cresyl (3 per cent.), sulphate 
of copper or zinc (2 per cent.) (Trasbot) should be applied. When the 
crusts are formed, they can be scraped off, removed, and applications 
made of vaseline mixed with carbolic acid, corrosive sublimate or iodoform. 
Verrucous dermatitis of the horse, the morbid affection, commonly 
called grease, consists essentially of a chronic, exudative and hypertrophic 
inflammation of the skin of the inferior regions of the extremities. It 
was very common in past times, but with the progress of hygiene it has 
become more and more rare. As in the past, it is principally observed on 
