270 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
ing muscles” and is caused by severe muscular contractions, severe work or 
cold; (2) symptomatic myositis, which appears in the course of infectious 
diseases or intoxications. 
Primitive myositis is frequently due to the struggling efforts that animals 
make when secured in a standing position, or hobbled while thrown down. 
Every practitioner has observed this. Although the ilio-spinal muscles 
are the most frequently affected, the muscles of the chest, elbow, shoulder 
or hip are equally subject to it. Ordinarily, the general manifestations are 
these : After a variable length of time, the day of the operation or the next, 
the animal is dull, the mucous membranes congested, respiration is ac- 
celerated, the thermometer registers 40 degrees to 41 degrees; a painful, 
hard, tense, and at times cedematous swelling appears in one or several 
regions of the body, most commonly along the ilio-spinalis; the animal 
walks stiff and sometimes with a great deal of pain. Through the in- 
flamed muscles there are almost always partial ruptures and small hemor- 
rhagic centers. In this form of myositis resolution is the rule. Whatever 
is the region affected, the severe symptoms of the first stage disappear 
rapidly, but there sometimes remains for several weeks a certain stiffness 
of the region. 
With plethoric animals bleeding is useful. Low diet, sulphate and bicar- 
bonate of soda given in drinks for several days are sufficient to remove all 
general disturbances. During one or two weeks there remains a certain 
functional deficiency of the muscle which must be treated by massage and 
resolutive or vesicating friction. As soon as improvement takes place 
moderate exercise hastens recovery. 
If the inflammation is active, especially if there exists in some region 
a purulent center, muscular lesions may become complicated with sup- 
puration (endogenous infection). The swelling increases, becomes 
warmer and more painful, and soon fluctuation is detected. Puncture 
allows the escape of a whitish or reddish pus containing sometimes 
necrosed muscular particles; the cavity is ordinarily very anfractuous. 
The myositis of the ilio-spinalis occurring in a horse suffering with “ fistulae 
of the withers” or “of the back,’’ may become complicated with diffuse 
suppurative inflammation and extensive undermining. In one case of 
this kind we have found on the fourth day the ilio-spinalis infiltrated 
with pus. 
When the lesions are not too extensive, the treatment of these muscu- 
lar abscesses is that of purulent collections with or without undermining 
of the skin: puncture, free or counter openings, washing, drainage and an- 
tiseptic irrigations, 
In all cases of serious myositis, the repairing process generally brings 
