LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 385 



however, will also be more superficial. The use of the firing iron 

 applied deeply with fine points is then to be strongly recommended, 

 to be followed by blisters and various liniments. This course may 

 generally be relied on as quite sure to be followed by satisfactory 

 results. 



While the treatment is in progress it will, of course, be necessary 

 to secure the animal in such manner that a recurrence of the injury 

 will be impossible from similar causes to those which were previously 

 responsible. 



CAPPED HOCK. 



A bad habit of rubbing cr striking the partitions of their stalls 

 with their hocks prevails among some horses, with the result of an 

 injury which shows itself on the upper points of those bones, the 

 summit of the cs calcis. From its analogy to the condition of capped 

 elbow the designation of capped hock has been applied to this con- 

 dition. 



Symptoms. — ^A capped hock is therefore but the development of a 

 bruise at the point of the hock, which if many times repeated may 

 excite an inflammatory process, with all its usual external symptoms 

 of swelling, heat, soreness, and the rest of the now-familiar phenom- 

 ena. The swelling is at first diffused, extending more or less on the 

 exterior part of the hock, and in a few instances running up along 

 the tendons and muscles of the back of the shank. Soon, however, 

 unless the irritating causes are continued and repeated, the edema 

 diminishes, and, becoming more defined in its external outlines, leaves 

 the hock capped with a hygroma. The hygroma, at the very begin- 

 ning of the trouble, contains a bloody serosity which soon becomes 

 strictly serum, and this, through the influence of an acute inflamma- 

 tory action, is liable to undergo a change which converts it into the 

 usual purulent product of suppuration. 



The external appearance ought to be sufficient to determine the 

 diagnosis, but there are a few signs which may contribute toward a 

 nicer identification of the lesion. The capped hock, whether under 

 the appearance of an acute, edematous swelling, or as a bloody serous 

 collection, or as a simple serous cyst, does not give rise to any remai'k- 

 able local manifestation other than such as have already passed imder 

 our survey in considering similar cases, nor will it be liable to inter- 

 fere with the functions which belong to the member in question, un- 

 less it assumes very large dimensions and on each side of thfe tendons, 

 as well as on the summit of the bone. But if the inflammation is 

 quite high, if suppuration is developing, if there is a true abscess, 

 or — and this is a common complication — especially when the kicking 

 or rubbing of the animal is frequently recurring, then, besides the 

 36444°— 16 25 



