lameness; ITS oaoses^ and-seeatment. 317. 



quently ' seen is that of the heavy draft horse and others similarly 

 employed. There is a wide margin of difference in respect to the 

 degrees of severity which may characterize different cases of side- 

 bone. While one may be so slight as to cause no inconvenience, 

 another may develop elements of danger which may involve the 

 necessity of severe surgical interference. 



Treatment. — The curative treatment should be similar to the pro- 

 phylactic, and such means should be used as would tend to prevent 

 the deposit of bony matters by checking the acute inflammation 

 which causes it. The means recommended are the free use of the 

 cold bath ; frequent soaking of the feet, and at a later period treat- 

 ment with iodin, either by painting the surface with the tincture 

 severar times daily or by applying an ointment made by mixing 

 1 dram of the crystals with 2 ounces of vaseline, rubbed in once a 

 day for several days. If this proves to be ineffective, a Spanish-fly 

 blister to which a few grains of biniodid of mercury have been 

 added will effect in a majority of cases the desired result and remove 

 the lameness. If finally this treatment is ineffectual the case must 

 be relegated to the surgeon for the operation of neurectomy, or the 

 free and deep application of the firing iron. 



SPAVIN. 

 (Pis. XXVII-XXIX.) 



This affection, popularly termed bone spavin, is an exostosis of 

 the hock joint. The general impression is that in a spavined hock 

 the bony growth should be seated on the anterior and internal part 

 of the joint, and this is partially correct, as such a growth will con- 

 stitute a spavin in the most nearly correct sense of the term. But an 

 enlargement may appear on the upper part of the hock also, or 

 possibly a little below the inner side of the lower extremity of the 

 shank bone, forming what is known as a high spavin ; or, again, the 

 growth may form just on the outside of the hock and become an out- 

 side or external spavin. And, finally, the entire under surface may 

 become the seat of the osseous deposit, and involve the articular face 

 of all the bones of the hock, which again is a bone spavin. There 

 would seem, then, to be but little difficulty in comprehending the 

 nature of a bone spavin, and there would be none but for the fact 

 that there are similar affections which may confuse one if the diag- 

 nosis is not very carefully made. 



But the hock may be " spavined," while to all outward observation 

 it still retains its perfect form. With no enlargement perceptible to 

 sight or touch the animal may yet be disabled by an occult spavin, 

 an anchylosis in fact, which has resulted from a union of several 

 of the bones of the joint, and it is only those who are able to realize 



