ON CARP1T1S. 
666 
fresh, and was confined chiefly to the synovial membrane, we 
believe that lameness, slight in degree, would ensue : we are not 
sure, however, that this lameness would be shewn — certainly not 
to the same amount — when once the ulcerations had made the 
cartilage their bed, and, in the absence of all inflammatory action, 
either in the synovial membrane or in the bone ; for, as for the 
articular cartilages, it is very doubtful whether they, of themselves, 
be susceptible of any such inward action as inflammation. 
Consideration of these phenomena, connected with health and 
disease, will best guide us through those mazes in practice in 
which we find ourselves so frequently called on to give opinions 
as to the probability of cure, and as to the likelihood there appears 
of that cure being permanent. The grand point for the veterinary 
surgeon to arrive at is the actual morbid condition of the joint he 
is called on to treat : whether inflammation be present or no, and 
in what stage or form ; what is the probable nature of the ulcer- 
ative disease ; to what extent it has proceeded ; whether the case 
be a first, second, or third attack ; what amount or kind of work 
the horse has been doing, his age, &c. Inflammation will always 
be best met by abstractions of blood as nearly topical as they can 
be practised, and blood-letting is rendered doubly effective in those 
joint-cases when it is followed up by sharp blistering over the 
entire surface of the joint, or as near thereto as is possible. Rest 
— absolute rest — is an adjunct all but indispensable to the medical 
treatment; and, in general, great and permanent benefit in the end 
is conferred by turning the horse out into a strawyard with a soft 
and mucky bottom — cold, increased by wet, being a great restora- 
tive to a joint rendered lax and weak by long-standing disease. 
[To be continued.] 
ON CARPITIS. 
By W. A. Cherry, V.S. 
[Continued from p. 605.] 
The diagnostic characters of the disease affecting one leg 
only are the same as exist in both ; but from the contrast which 
is afforded by the sound limb, these are much more recognizable 
than where both are affected; to these, however, one other charac- 
teristic must be added, the step of the lame leg being rather longer 
than that of the sound limb. The reason for this length of step 
1 have before given, but that it should now exceed the one leg 
over the other arises from the necessity of stepping more quickly 
