484 VETERINARY. SURGICAL OPERATIONS 



the ground, but sometimes on the topmost one. In the at- 

 tempt to withdraw the foot thus caught the wire falls into 

 the space behind the lateral cartilage that extends from its 

 anterior extremity to the median lacuna of the frog, where 

 it soon saws a ragged laceration, the depth and extent of 

 which depends upon the maneuvers executed in the frantic 

 efforts to release the leg. Sometimes one, or even both 

 quarters, are almost severed from the body, but the real se- 

 riousness of the wound depends more upon whether or not 

 the navicular or sesamoidean synovials have escaped direct 

 injury. Strangely enough, these structures are not as fre- 

 quently invaded by the wire as might be supposed from the 

 relations they bear to the traumatic cavity. 



When these wounds are allowed to become infected, and 

 especially if the synovials are involved, a serious, distressing 

 lameness ensues that may incapacitate the patient for 

 months, leave a deforming indelible horn-like blemish, and 

 even terminate fatally. 



TREATMENT. — As a proper nosocomial operation and 

 after-care must usually be substituted by ordinary stable 

 treatment, much the best procedure is to promptly submit 

 the wound to an "intensive antisepsis" amounting to cauter- 

 ization. Shreds should be trimmed off, bleeding arrested 

 and dirt particles washed out; then, without. further cere- 

 mony, every part of the wound is touched up with the fol- 

 lowing solution : Mercuric chloride, four drams, hydro- 

 chloric acid one ounce and alcohol twelve ounces, after 

 which it is filled full of boric acid and bound up loosely with 

 cotton and bandage. Each day the boric acid is wiped out 

 with pledgets of cotton without washing, and the walls of 

 the wound painted with the solution, after which it is again 

 filled up with the former. The strong cauterant solution . 

 will promptly destroy any microbes invading the living tisr 

 sues, and the boric acid may be depended upon to prevent 

 putrefaction of the dead cauterized elements. Thus, after 

 eight days of treatment the eschar separates, falls out, and 

 leaves behind a wound well carpeted with rosy granulations 

 that will soon fill up the wound and be transformed into a 

 scar. After separation of the eschar the boric acid may be 

 continued to prevent infection of the granulations, or it may 

 be substituted by iodoform or any potent antiseptic powder. 

 Exuberant granulations will require astringents, trimming 

 or even actual cautery, but these are rarely ever in evidence 

 in the absence of infection with pyogenic microbes. 



When the wound is of some days' duration, and of course 



