310 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 
Treatment.—When, by careful scrutiny, the ailment has been 
located, a resurt to treatment must be had at once, in order to pre- 
vent, if possible, any further deposit of the calcareous structure and 
increase of the exostotic growth. With this view the application of 
water, either warm or cold, rendered astringent by the addition of 
alum or sugar of lead, will be beneficial. The tendency to the forma- 
tion of the bony growth, and the increase of its development after 
its actual formation, may often be checked by the application of a 
severe blister of Spanish fly. The failure of these means and the 
establishment of the diseased process in the form of chronic perios- 
titis cause various changes in the bone covered by the disordered 
membrane, and the result may be softening, degeneration, or necro- 
sis, but more usually it is followed by the formation of the bony 
growths referred to, on the cannon bone, the coronet, the hock, etc. 
SPLINTS. 
We first turn our attention to the splint, as certain bony enlarge- 
ments that are developed on the cannon bone, between the knee or 
the hock and the fetlock joint, are called. (See Plate XXV.) They 
are found on the inside of the leg, from the knee, near which they are 
frequently found, downward to about the lower third of the principal 
cannon bone. They are of various dimensions, and are readily per- 
ceptible both to the eye and to the touch. They vary considerably in 
size, ranging from that of a large nut downward to very small pro- 
portions. In searching for them they may be readily detected by the 
hand if they have attained sufficient development in their usual situ- 
ation, but must be distinguished from a small, bony enlargement that 
may be felt at the lower third of the cannon bone, which is neither a 
splint nor a pathological formation of any kind, but merely the but- 
tonlike enlargement at the lower extremity of the small metacarpal 
or splint bone. 
We have said that splints are to be found on the inside of the leg. 
This is true as a general statement, but it is not invariably so, for 
they occasionally appear on the outside. It is also true that they 
appear most commonly on the fore legs, but this is not exclusively the 
case, because they may at times be found on both the inside and out- 
side of the hind leg. Usually a splint forms only a true exostosis, or 
a single bony growth, with a somewhat diffuse base, but neither is this 
invariably the case. In some instances they assume more important 
dimensions, and pass from the inside to the outside of the bone, on 
its posterior face, between that and the suspensory ligament. This 
form is termed the pegged splint, and constitutes a serious and per- 
‘manent deformity, in consequence of its interference with the play 
of the fibrous cord which passes behind it, becoming thus a source of 
continual irritation and consequently of permanent lameness. 
