RUPTURE OF BICEPS MUSCLE. 
509 
In chronic bursitis intertubercularis, inflammatory symptoms are 
wanting, though there is inability to place weight on the leg, and the 
forward stride is shortened. When the disease appears bilaterally, the 
animal seems “ tied at the shoulder.” In some cases both atrophy and 
contraction of the muscles occur. 
Prognosis and course. Acute bursitis occasionally takes a favourable 
course, but is prone to become chronic. When severe, the animals die 
from continuously lying in one position, otherwise recovery occupies 
several months, and chronic lameness is apt to remain; treatment is, 
therefore, only advisable in valuable horses. If the local symptoms are 
slight, if weight is still placed on the foot, and if lameness is not severe, 
recovery may be looked for in six to eight weeks, but sometimes takes 
several months. 
In chronic bursitis, prognosis is even less favourable, though the 
disease takes a slower course, and the animals continue to some extent 
useful. 
Treatment must follow general principles, being guided by the existing 
changes. In acute bursitis, it comprises absolute rest, cold applications 
(best in the form of ice poultices), or permanent irrigation with cold 
water; as the pain diminishes, warm moist applications, at a later stage 
irritants and blisters, and finally setons. 
Dieterichs says that in horses lameness is sometimes caused by dislocation 
of the biceps brachii muscle. Such a case never occurred in Moller’s practice, 
nor did Hertwig, even in his extensive practice of so many years, see one. 
Even Dieterichs’s description leaves it doubtful whether the condition occurs, 
and the same may be said of Becker and Dominic’s cases. From the latter’s 
statement, it is clear that the scapula was displaced, but probably from 
muscular rupture. 
Rupture of both biceps muscles was seen in a fourteen year old gelding 
which had suddenly gone lame. The neighbourhood of the shoulder-joint 
was swollen and painful. The condition somewhat improved, and the horse 
was put to light work; but four months later, after being driven about two 
miles, became suddenly much worse, and appeared to have lost control of 
both fore limbs. It was placed in slings, but gradually wasted, whilst the 
^thorax sank between the shoulders, so that four weeks after the last attack 
the withers were 4-| inches lower than before. The sternum reached to the 
lower half of the fore arm, and the scapula lay in an almost horizontal posi¬ 
tion. Both shoulder-joints were greatly swollen, but not painful. The 
animal’s movement was passable, though it often stumbled. Post-mortem 
showed extensive periostitis around the shoulder-joint. Instead of the 
coracoid process, there only existed on the scapula a roughened spot, the 
biceps muscles of both sides were torn away from their scapular insertions, 
and their tendons thickened (Nesbit). 
