CONTRACTED TENDONS IN FOALS. 
585 
in this position, either by using a plaster bandage or applying a 
strong leather splint. Ehrle uses a plaster bandage or a glue bandage 
and splints. The parts are freely padded with wadding to distribute 
pressure. The degree of success is usually astonishing, especially when 
treatment is early resorted to. Weight can often be placed on the limb 
after a few days; the bandage should then be removed, because the 
weight of the body acting through the oblique position of the pastern 
will produce further extension of the tendons, and is quite sufficient to 
prevent contraction. Friebel’s extension apparatus (fig. 219) appears 
very practical. It consists of a small leather shoe, provided in front 
with a well-padded iron splint. By means of a screw the splint can be 
Fig. 219.—Friebel’s extension apparatus. 
so fixed as to exercise pressure on the anterior surface of the fetlock- 
joint and thrust the latter backwards, i.e., into its normal position. 
Eassie saw “ knuckling over ” in all four limbs in a five months old 
foal. In front the disease was cured by tenotomy, behind by proper 
shoeing. Ostertag cured congenital contraction of the tendons in a 
foal in four weeks by applying a wooden splint and plaster bandages, 
which were changed several times. As the dressing accommodates 
itself to the gradually improving position of the fetlock, Ostertag 
considers it necessary to change it two or three times. 
Hofer had a gutter-shaped splint made from pine wood which reached 
to the fetlock; he states having seen recovery occur in one to three 
weeks. “Knuckling,” which sets in two years or so after birth, even when 
unaccompanied by inflammatory disease of the tendon, can seldom be so 
