INFECTIOUS SYNOVITIS. 329 
During convalescence or when the animal has recovered, lame- 
ness, at times very severe, appears from one day to the other; several 
members may be affected at once. According to Bouley Jr., it shows itself 
most commonly from fifteen to twenty days after the appearance of the 
thoracic trouble, and according to Trasbot from the twentieth to the twenty- 
fifth day. Sometimes it occurs later. Palat has observed it three months 
after pneumonia. It may affect tendinous or articular synovial sacs; but 
has a predilection for the great sesamoid—that of the fetlock. 
The exploration of the lame leg allows the recognition of the diseased 
synovial. There is cedematous swelling, heat and pain of the region; 
these with the previous history render the nature of the trouble sus- 
picious. What characterizes it essentially, is its ambulatory character, its 
moving from one serous to another. Trasbot has seen it affecting suc- 
cessively the two great anterior sesamoid sheaths, then the two posteriors 
and afterwards the two carpals. 
Starting with the idea that the disease resulted from the accumulation 
in the blood of the products of disassimilation—urea, uric or hippuric 
acid, coloring matters, bilious salts—and of the irritating action that 
they would produce upon tendinous synovials, Trasbot believes that 
they can generally be prevented by the use of diuretics at the period of 
resolution of pneumonia. Evidently, the blood undergoes serious changes 
during the inflammation of large parenchymas, but it is hard to explain 
the long retention of these products and their slow action. And again it 
‘is impossible to reproduce experimentally the affection in injecting in the 
veins, even in larger quantity, these products of disassimilation. 
Bacteriology has inquired into the nature of metapneumonic synovitis. 
For man, it is known to-day that it is an inflammation produced by the 
infectious element which gives rise to pneumonia. This pseudo-rheuma- 
tism penumonia, promoted by the single pneumococcus, is not serious ; 
at times there is no pure pneumococcic infection; the pyogenus strep- 
tococcus is sometimes associated with the pneumococcus. (Jaccoud and 
Netter, Meunier.) 
The preservative action of diuretics (bicarbonate of soda, nitrate of 
potass) is uncertain. Many practitioners have seen synovitis appear in 
pneumonic patients treated by diuretics, antiseptics, or by both. A good 
preventive treatment is yet to be found. The curative treatment includes 
local means and an internal medication. We have little faith in setons 
under the chest, as recommended by Palat. The application upon the 
synovial of a blistering preparation, the daily administration internally of 
salicylate and bicarbonate of soda, is the therapeutics which has given us 
the best results, salicylate specially. We give it in doses of 20 to 30 
grammes a day; it may be carried to 100 and 150 grammes (Fried- 
