798 
DISEASES OF THE FOOT. 
course of the disease. The French school, which first invented the opera¬ 
tion, practise it with great success. If conditions are favourable to healing, 
operation should certainly be postponed, otherwise, and especially if careful 
after-treatment is possible, it should, on the contrary, at once be resorted 
to. When, for example, the quittor is of old standing, and has extended to 
the anterior portions of the cartilage, when pain is slight, and the animal 
able to work in spite of the discharge, it is better to try one or other of 
the above-described methods of treatment. An opposite condition indi¬ 
cates the necessity for operation. In performing this, however, a time 
should be selected when inflammation is not acute, or pain severe, and 
when suppuration is slight, for under these conditions the chance of 
1 2 3 4 5 
Fig. 300.—I and 2, Double and single edged knives for thinning the horn; 3, 4, and 5, 
left-handed, right-handed and double-edged knives for removing the lateral cartilage in the 
operation for cartilaginous quittor. (French models.) 
aseptic wound-healing is far greater. Total extirpation of the cartilage 
is preferable to any partial measures, though, if the disease and swelling- 
on the coronet be circumscribed, the latter may be tried. But even 
under these circumstances it very frequently fails to stop the disease, 
and complete extirpation afterwards becomes necessary. The method 
of total extirpation is divided into three stages—(1) Preparation of the 
field of operation; (2) Besection of the cartilage ; and (3) After-treatment. 
I he last requires at least as much care and precaution as the operative 
procedure, and if after-treatment cannot be properly carried out, operation 
is better avoided. 
Aftei caiefully cleaning and thinning the hoof, a portion of the horny 
wall, corresponding to the diseased cartilage, is rasped until thin enough 
