638 PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 



walking on the stumps of thiee metacarpal bones, which had been completely 

 dislocated from the first phalanx and had perforated through the binding 

 ligaments of the skin. Less than five minutes elapsed between the appearance 

 of the lameness and the complete dissolution of the three articulations. 



Analogous instances are not rare. Running horses, laid up for a con- 

 siderable time for treatment of lameness that is usually diagnosed as a 

 traumatic lesion, but which in reality was osteoporosis from the onset, 

 often break down completely in the first race after the rest. The trainers 

 of such horses, knowing that they are unable to withstand the grief of 

 severe training, usually reserve their efforts for a final grand attempt to 

 win, but to their surprise their horse, before running many furlongs, breaks 

 down with compound dislocations of one, two or even three legs. 



When the patient begins to break down on the road, and before there 

 i) any marked alteration in the flexion of the joints, the distress, the dif- 

 ficulty to move, the perspiration, and especially the fact that there has been 

 a period of rest, may lead even an experienced diagnostician to mistake 

 the condition for azoturia.. 



Treatment. — It is very evident that Dieckerhoff's cases in young horses 

 that were so promptly cured by alfalfa and clover diet, were not cases of 

 generalized osteoporosis, but local tumefactions of dental origin, so common 

 at that age. These cases usually recover spontaneously in two or three 

 months, and never remain permanent even though they persist a whole year. 

 Is it not possible that the clover diet cured another disease and one that 

 might have cured itself? The genuine case of osteoporosis already present- 

 ing deformities of the head (and this is the only symptom by which the dis- 

 ease can with certainty be diagnosed) is not readily cured. We have, how- 

 ever, seen perceptible amelioration by a complete change of diet and pro- 

 tracted rest. Country life, for the city horse, with a nominal grain allow- 

 ance will often do wonders for even an advanced case. Whatever is done, 

 the city horse must be removed from the foul, ill-ventilated stable, the cheaa, 

 crushed feed diet, and the hard work, or his usefulness will soon be at an 

 end. Medicines accomplish but little, if anything, toward a cure. Arsenic 

 is probably the most potent remedy, but the benefit derived is too often im- 

 perceptible to warrant its recommendation too highly. — L. A. M. 



DIFFUSED OSTEOPERIOSTITIS. 



Diffused osteoperiostitis is particularly observed in the 

 dog, but may be encountered in the horse. Wiart and 

 Cadeac refer to periostitis of the knees, the hocks, and the 

 cannon bones from strangles, which seem to be of an infec- 

 tious origin, and of quite common occurrence. 



It is a disease that cannot be easily distinguished from 

 that which attacks the dog. In the dog the words "diffuse 

 osteoperiostitis" are applied to an affection of the osseous 

 system characterized by chronic, hypertrophic lesions and 



