262 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
both divided ends together by sutures ; but generally they are cut by the 
threads. Complications must be guarded against; dressings must be ap- 
plied on the legs; on the trunk, ordinarily one is satisfied with washings 
and the use of absorbing powders. In most cases a thick fibrous layer is 
formed between the two muscular stumps; the muscle becomes digastric. 
One must also watch the progress of the repairing phenomena; it is 
possible that the cicatricial tissue will contract adherences with the sur- 
rounding bone, thus destroying the action of the muscle; though ordin- 
arily these fibrous adhesions break up and the leg returns to its normal func- 
tion. 
In all animals, contused wounds are the most common and also the 
most serious. They expose thei to all the complications of extensive 
traumatisms. The bloody exudation, the laceration of injured parts, and 
the abundant connective tissue interposed between the various muscular 
layers are so many conditions which promote suppuration and the mi- 
gration of pus into more or less distant regions. In the observation of 
Rigollat, the great scapulo-humeral muscle had been entirely divided by a 
kick at its insertion in the humerus; there was a wound twelve centimeters 
long, five wide and four deep. ad/s that pierce through a muscle make 
a canaliculate loss of substance. if the wound has been made during con- 
traction of the muscle, when it relaxes the tract does not correspond any 
more to the cutaneous and aponeurotic openings, and if suppuration oc- 
curs, it accumulates in the tract. The wound should be carefully dis- 
infected in every part (irrigation, antiseptic bath), and, if possible, it 
should be protected with a dressing. The wounds of the trunk should be 
irrigated two or three times a day with disinfecting fluids, then covered 
with antiseptic or simply absorbing powders. In the traumatisms of the 
croup or of the thigh, subcrustaceous cicatrization is obtained easily: the 
wound having been disinfected, and then dusted with tannin, coal-tar, 
or charcoal, covers itself with a scab, under which cicatrization goes on 
without abundant suppuration. In wounds made with substances soiled 
by earth, septicaemia and tetanus are particularly to befeared. Ifthe pus 
filtrates between muscular layers, counter-openings should be made. 
Drains will permit the thorough cleansing of the wounds. The thera- 
peutics of éearings does not differ from that of contused wounds. 
II. 
RUPTURES. 
Solutions of continuity of muscles by their contraction are the ones 
which truly deserve the name of ruptures. When traumatic, they belong 
to the chapter on Contusions. 
Muscular tears haye been especially observed in horses ; they are not so 
