334 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
In the preceding chapter, we have indicated the various therapeutic: 
means employed during this century to treat articular wounds and 
‘traumatic arthritis: bleeding, diet, emollients, dressings with tintcure of 
aloes, camphorated preparations, alum. tannin, sulphate of copper, blis-. 
ters, caustics, firing, continued irrigation, egyptiacum, glycerine, cau-- 
terization of the fistula, lines or points cauterization. The greater: 
part of these methods have been left aside. 
Antiseptic injections and blistering applications or continued irriga-. 
tion remain the practical treatments to oppose to traumatic arthritis at its. 
beginning. During recent years, facts have multiplied which demon- 
strate the superiority of antisepsy, for traumatic arthritis as well as for- 
recent articular wounds. When the wounded synovial is the seat of an 
infectious inflammation, injections and antiseptic irrigations are far sup=- 
erior to the methods or the agents of old therapeutics, not excepting: 
caustics or egyptiacum. 
If already the infectious lesions are deep, if the synovial is much. 
thickened and granulating, if the cartilages are on the road to destruction, 
all hopes to save the joint its normal mobility must be banished. 
Nevertheless, antiseptics will diminish the general disturbance, conjure. 
infectious and putrid infections and assist ankylosis—relatively for- 
tunate termination for certain categories of wounded (breeding or small 
animals.) They may do more, at the beginning of the articular phlo- 
gosis. The synovial alone is infected, sometimes only in a part of its 
extent, the synovia is but little modified in its properties, the cartilages 
are still with their normal polish; recovery is possible. If a little stiff- 
ness and swelling of the joint remain, massage, blisters, or cauterization 
should be resorted to. 
One must not be afraid to enlarge a narrow wound, to permit injec-. 
tions and washings to be made more easily, more complete and active. 
Mauri, Labat and others have related facts which show beyond doubt the- 
beneficial action of sublimate. In the first case of Mauri, it was a mare,. 
which, in falling, had opened her right fore fetlock, Ten days after, 
notwithstanding astringents and camphorated preparations, “the animal 
grew worse and worse. She moves with difficulty, on three legs, in her- 
box; she suffers a great deal from her lame leg. The swelling of the- 
joint is hot, exceedingly painful; the edges of the wound are swollen; 
the synovial, reddish-yellow, escapes in abundance ; it coagulates in 
large clots on the anterior face of the first phalanx and exhales a pecu-- 
liar, characteristic foetid odor. The swelling has spread to the lower- 
part of the fetlock ; lymphatic cords starting from the diseased region. 
extend towards the superior parts of the leg.” A blister was ap~ 
plied on the joint and injections of Van Swieten were made in the fistu- 
