372 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
the reading of the paper by Leblanc was most interesting and proved 
that the nature of the affection was yet a matter of much controversy. 
However, the theory of Mottet, who saw in ita tarsal inflammation, was not 
accepted. Several advanced the idea that those symptoms, so rapid and so 
accused, might be due to phlebitis of the saphena. Bouley claimed that the 
cord of the inner face of the thigh was due to lymphatics and not to venous 
blood vessels, that it was a lymphangitis and not a phlebitis. To-day, the 
fact is no longer discussed. Everyone recognizes in it an inflammation 
of the white blood-vessels. This lymphangitis, so frequent on the hind 
legs of heavy draught horses, sometimes recurs at more or less remote 
periods. Some subjects seem to be predisposed to it. On examination 
of the leg, one finds a cutaneous solution of continuity, at times cracks, 
pricks, but quite frequently no door of entrance to the pathogenous 
agents can be found. The conclusion is that it is a lymphangitis without 
previous inoculation. If there is no visible solution of continuity, it is 
cicatrized or is so small that it escapes attention. Auto-inoculation 
(endogenous infection, latent microbism) is extremely rare. 
When lymphangitis follows an operation—nevrotomy for instance—the 
process is about the same. A few days after the operation, often after 
twenty-four or forty-eight hours, the swelling of the leg is well marked, the 
pain great, the resting of the foot on the ground suppressed, the appetite 
diminished or gone. The wound contains little or no pus, its edges, 
tumefied, are covered with a yellowish coating, diphteroid in appearance, 
somewhat adherent. After several serious affections of the leg, synovial 
inflammation principally, deep lymphangitis may occur, whose symptoms 
and prognosis are often most severe. 
Bacteriological researches made by us several years ago on suppur- 
ations of horses and dogs, allow us to affirm that, in these species, trau- 
matic lymphangitis are almost always the work of staphylococci and more 
particularly the staphylococcus pyogenes albus. 
The treatment must be specially preventive. Asepsy and antisepsy of 
‘the operation guard against this complication. Accidental traumatisms, 
‘specially wounds of the lower parts of the legs, should be carefully washed 
and protected bya dressing. Bya correct antisepsy, the retention of the 
pus on suppurating surfaces and the infections of lymphatics will be pre- 
vented. 
As soon as lymphangitis exists, an active therapeutic must be started. 
Up to later days, bleeding was recommended; many practitioners per- 
formed it on the jugular. Mottet preferred scarifications (eight or ten to 
the hock, fifteen or twenty to the cannon) two or three centimeters long, 
one or two deep ; he then soaked the leg in tepid water and thus obtained a 
bleeding of two or three liters. According to Serres, three or four fric- 
Loe a 
