INJECTIONS AND SETONS IN TREATMENT OE QtJITTOR. 797 
with callous borders. After twenty-four hours the thread is removed, 
and exfoliation of the necrotic walls of the fistulse assisted by warm foot¬ 
baths. Others employ the actual cautery for the same purpose, a farrier’s 
poker being made red-hot and introduced into the sinus. This is some¬ 
times successful, but requires care in well-bred horses with small hoofs. 
The instrument must not be introduced too far, as the pedal-joint might 
be opened, and special precautions are required in operating on the 
forward end of the cartilage. Neither of these methods is, in fact, safe 
unless confined to quittors in the posterior half of the cartilage. In 
enlarging the sinus, Williams employs a specially-constructed bistouri 
cache closely resembling the lierniotome (fig. 129). 
Koch recommends inserting setons. After placing the foot in a bath 
of 3 per cent, creolin solution, he endeavours to produce a counter¬ 
opening below the coronet by passing a Gerlach’s needle, and inserts 
a tape moistened with turpentine through the soft tissues. The parts 
are bathed once a day with creolin and injected with liquor Villati, and 
in sixteen to eighteen days the seton is removed. Moller repeatedly tried 
this treatment, but had no particular success, while he often found the 
insertion of setons a difficult matter. To diminish the pressure of the 
horny wall on the swollen parts, Giesecke recommends applying linseed 
poultices containing creolin, and afterwards removing the softened horn. 
The sinuses above the coronet are scraped out with the curette, injected 
with 8 per cent, solution of chloride of zinc, and finally a small mass of 
tow covered with sulphate of copper is introduced. This procedure may 
require to be repeated ; after-treatment consists of injection with antiseptic 
fluids. 
In France, Lignieres has recently recommended injections of “ resinate 
of copper,” injected daily for three or four weeks. With this treatment 
he cured thirty-two cases, some very serious. Considering the strong 
predilection towards operation shown by French veterinary surgeons, 
this announcement deserves some attention. 
Before using foot-baths the wall should be thinned, and the horn 
removed with the rasp over a space corresponding to the swelling. Free 
curetting seems very useful in some cases, but in others only increases 
pain and inflammation ; Moller therefore prefers sublimate threads or 
“ pokering ” to dilate the fistula. 
Some cases are rapidly cured by one or other of the above-described 
methods, but in others no treatment seems effective. It is exceedingly 
difficult to exactly indicate the necessary conditions for healing, and 
therefore for some years operation has been more and more practised. 
Although operation can only be recommended in really serious cases and 
after simpler methods have received careful consideration, it nevertheless 
offers great general advantages, especially as regards shortening the 
