MYOSITIS. 269 
as has been indicated, make an incision of the skin and fascia lata four 
or five centimeters long, introduce under the muscle a grooved director 
upwards and backwards, and then in the groove slide the bistoury and 
divide the aponeurosis and the muscle. ‘The obliquity of the incision, 
and a single introduction of the probe, not of the finger, are sufficient to 
facilitate the escape of the fluid, permit the strictly necessary division of 
the tissues and limit the inflammation unavoidably following the opera- 
tion.”? The special instruments invented by Boiteau, Gouze, and others 
are not necessary. 
Sometimes a certain hemorrhage follows which requires plugging of the 
wound. Intramuscular abscesses and gangrene are little to be feared. 
Cruzel says: “I have operated at least two hundred and fifty times and 
have never observed deep abscesses or gangrene.” ‘This last complica- 
tion is at any rate exceptional in cattle. 
The luxation of the long vastus is very rare in the horse. A few ex- 
amples of it are, however, recorded (Eletti, Strebel, Méller). In _ this 
species the long vastus has not the same anatomical disposition as in 
cattle, and its luxation, instead of taking place backwards, occurs forwards. 
The rupture of the muscle at its insertion on the ischium, or the fracture 
of the ischial tuberosity, seems to be necessary conditions for the produc- 
tion of this luxation (Mdller). The muscle being displaced forward, the 
corresponding gluteal region is larger and more prominent than the other ; 
its point is in proportion lowered, and when there is fracture, the postero- 
external angle of the ischium is no longer easily detected. ‘The lameness 
resulting from this injury is incurable. 
IV. 
MYOSITIS. 
Muscular bruises and ruptures are rarely accompanied with violent acute 
inflammatory phenomena, and, as in the case of all subcutaneous lesions, 
suppuration is the exception. On the contrary, open wounds are com- 
plicated with local suppurative myositis when the adhesive union of the 
edges of the wound is not obtained. Some surrounding lesions, especially 
the peri-muscular phlegmasia connected with abscesses or with lymphan-. 
gitis, ordinarily spread to the superficial layers of the muscle, thus giving 
rise to simple or suppurative myositis, as the case maybe. The treatment 
of these lesions derives its regulations from the therapeutics of contused 
wounds and of deep abscesses. 
In the group of non-traumatic acute muscular inflammations one must 
recognize : (1) Spontaneous or primitive myositis, which affects the “ work- 
1 Lafosse': Traité de pathol, vet., vol. di, p. 573: 
