316 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
he elongation of the tendons, the fetlock touching the ground ; we have 
seen the same accident, and one sloughing of the hoof. Sciatic neuro- 
tomy seems more dangerous than median. This difference can be ex- 
plained: the section of the sciatic above the hock removes all: sensibility 
in the lower part of the leg, while that of the median leaves a certain 
amount of it, due to the cubital nerve, which co-operates to the formation 
of the external plantar. 
VII. 
KNUCKLING. 
Knuckling is congenital or acquired, essential or symptomatic. It is 
specially common on the fore extremities. In adults, the deviation of 
the fetlock is either essenf#a/, connected with tendinous lesions, or again 
symptomatic, secondary to one of the numerous painful diseases of the 
anterior extremity ; more particularly those of the feet or of the digital 
region. Young horses are subject to an essential form of knuckling, or- 
dinarily differently marked on both legs (fig. 75). 
The remarkable extensibility of tendons in colts permits the easy cure 
of this knuckling of youth. Numerous examples of it are recorded (Ehrle, 
Friebel, Brunet, Ostertag, Easy, Méller). When the deviation of the 
phalanges is not great, the cutting away of the heels, an elongated toe 
shoe raised:at its point, will be sufficient, if.the animal, is turned loose in 
afield. If the ailment is more marked, it may be reduced: with the hinged 
splints, by which the fetlock is pushed backwards. The orthosome of 
Brogniez is useful here. (fig. 76). 
In the Recwei/ of 1881, Brunet has described an apparatus which has 
given him good results. It is applied as follows: A shoe, the branches of 
which are elongated backwards and united by a crosspiece, is put on the 
shoe. From the crosspiece rises a metallic upright which; carries a plate 
of sufficient height to reach the back of the knee in a fo jleg or the 
chestnut of a hind leg, and about 2 centimeters in. thickness. This plate, 
hollowed and padded, carries two leather straps, ofié riear the superior ex- 
tremity of the canon, the other a little above the fetlock; they allow 
regulated traction on the deviated levers and permit of them being grad- 
ually brought back in their normal position. The filly treated by Brunet 
was much knuckled on the left fore leg and rested on the..toe; she was 
straight in twenty-two days (no relapse). Another was affected on the right 
hind leg to such extent that the entire anterior face of the wall of the foot 
rested on the ground, from the toe to the coronet. In five weeks the 
animal had recovered, and her fetlock was straight, 
