PANARITIUM. 
829 
particularly painful. The excessive tenderness, and severe and more 
general swelling, distinguish this condition from simple bruising of the 
bulbs of the claws. 
The course depends on the character and extent of the disease. When 
the bulbs and the structures underlying them are alone implicated, 
recovery takes place in two to four weeks. In disease of the flexor 
tendons or pedal-joint, amputation is the only resource. 
Treatment. Preventive treatment consists in keeping injuries as 
clean as possible, and preventing further infection by dressings or 
smearing the parts with tar, and by giving plenty of dry, clean straw as 
bedding. When a panaritium is detected, the inflammation has usually 
passed the stage at which resolution is possible, and efforts must be 
made to provide the best possible exit for pus and necrotic tissues. The 
most useful agent is certainly the knife, though in many cases it cannot 
at once be used, and the abscess must be assisted to point by warm 
poultices of linseed, &c., to which are added from 5 to 10 per cent, of 
some active disinfectant. In the early stages, indicated by slight redden¬ 
ing of the skin and shuffling with the feet, resolution sometimes follows 
the application of bandages saturated with sublimate or creolin solution. 
Fambach recommended the long-continued application of warm alum 
solution. As soon as an abscess is discovered, and can be reached with 
the knife, it should be opened, the wound being antiseptically treated 
and washed out with 10 per cent, chloride of zinc solution, or injected 
with 8 per cent, of creolin. Esser recommends using the curette, wash¬ 
ing out the parts with 5 per cent, carbolic solution, applying an iodoform 
dressing which is smeared with tar, and allowing it to remain in position 
for eight to ten days. To keep the horn soft, moist dressings are best. 
Gangrenous tissue should, as far as possible, be removed with the knife 
and scissors. 
The opening of abscesses is least dangerous in interdigital panaiitium, 
and Harms recommends completely dividing the skin between the claws, 
if it has not previously been ruptured. In panaritium of the bulb the 
bulbs themselves should be spared as much as possible; they should 
never be completely divided in the longitudinal direction of the claw, as 
their further growth would be interfered with. In panaritium of the toe 
the skin is divided perpendicularly, the diseased point laid open, and 
free exit given to discharges. 
Dressing the parts calls for particular care. In panaritium of the toe 
and interdigital panaritium the interdigital space is filled with tow oi 
jute, soaked in carbolic or creolin solution, to such an extent as. to 
prevent the claws moving. Both claws are then included in one dressing 
and surrounded by a bandage or cloth rendered waterproof by a free use 
of tar. 
