550 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
itself after a laborious calving or an incomplete delivery.” The same: 
author accuses also barns badly kept, where cows lay always in the: 
dirt. To-day, it is admitted that this arthritis may follow parturition, 
abortion, or appear as accidents of metritis, of some inflammatory 
affections of the genital organs, aphthous fever, enteritis, mammitis. 
(Rossignol). It is not yet known if it is determined by an intrasynovial. 
microbian pullulation, or by toxines elaborated in the genital organs. 
In a case of femoro-tibial arthritis that we have observed, the sowing’ 
of the synovia has given cultures of a micrococcus having all the char- 
acters of the staphylococcus albus. 
Ordinarily, the march of the disease is chronic or sub-acute. In ex- 
Fig. 113.—Femoro tibio-patellar arthritis. (From a photograph.) 
ploring the stifle, one observes a puffy swelling of the region, but the: 
synovial tumors, especially the internal, indicate plainly the articular 
dropsy. At a more advanced period, the walls of the distended synovial. 
may become calcareous. The process does not end in suppuration. 
“ Never,” says Pauleau, “ have I seen, at any period of the disease, pus. 
formed in the diseased parts.” 
The prognosis is serious. The affection is very tenacious; left to- 
itself, it rapidly brings on loss of flesh; death sometimes occurs in. 
marasmus. 
Antisepsy of the genital organs after parturition or abortion is at: 
present the only prophylactic indications. 
Pauleau and many other practitioners have noted the little efficacy 
of irritating topics and of the numerous liniments recommended. 
Cauterization succeeds often. The cow represented in fig. 113 entered. 
