318 VETERINARY SURGICAL OPERATIONS 



often stubbornly sojourns as long as a vestige of the lateral 

 cartilage remains undestroyed by the disease process, or until 

 tile cartilage is removed or disposed of by surgical interven- 

 tion. Quittors that seem to have been cured without dispos- 

 ing of the cartilage, sometimes show, on post-mortem exam- 

 ination, that the cartilage has in reality disappeared or has 

 been replaced by'fibrous tissue, or else has undergone calcifi- 

 cation. That is to say that even though a quittor may have 

 cicatrized promptly after an operation at the posterior part 

 of the cartilage, the entire structure rhay be found to have 

 undergone these pronounced structural changes. In short, 

 the whole cartilage, as a rule, must first be disposed of, be- 

 fore a cure can be effected ; and since spontantous destruc- 

 tion is a slow process that incapacitates the horse for months, 

 that sometimes develops serious complications and that al r 

 ways leaves a permanent blemish and deformity of the foot,. 

 the total and immediate resection of the cartilage at once 

 suggests itself as rational treatment. Such was the reason- 



Fig. 154— Quittor. 



ing of Bayer, who first described a method by which the- lat- 

 eral cartilage can be resected with a degree of safety that 

 would warrant its adoption by the practitioner. 



These radical operations described by Bayer, Moller and 

 Frick, and which have been performed extensively by va- 

 rious American practitioners in recent years, must not be 

 thought o*f where strict asepsis can not be maintained 

 throughout the entire preparation, performance and after- 

 care. Neither should they be attempted for quittors' muti- 

 lated by previous operations or caustic treatments, because 

 of the difficulty encountered in separating the anatomical 

 elements without serious danger of encroaching upon the 

 subjacent synovials, after cicatricial tissues have . changed 

 the anatomical constitution of the diseased area, often by ad- 

 hering to the synovial capsules beneath. When the quittor 

 is old, the quarter badly enlarged by new tissue and there is 

 reason to suspect that the changed remains of what once 

 constituted the lateral cartilage is firmly adhered and fused 

 to the articular appendages beneath, total resection is ex- 



