586 
SPLINTS. 
completely removed as to restore the animal’s working powers. Trager, 
however, states having cured cases by section of the perforans and 
perforatus tendons. 
Eichbaum suggested the use of a long-toed shoe; Bombach, who 
regarded the disease as a secondary matter resulting from uprightness of 
the hoof, cured it by freely lowering the heels. Matz applied blisters 
and recommended turning the animal out. 
Brunet used a peculiar extension apparatus, which started from the 
shoe and exercised pressure on the front of the knee-joint. Experience 
shows that treatment should depend on the degree of displacement; 
when slight, it is sufficient to freely lower the heels, but should this be 
unsuccessful, a long-toed shoe may be used. If needful, tenotomy can 
be performed, it being sometimes sufficient to divide the flexor per¬ 
forans. Tenotomy is, however, seldom necessary, and can only be 
recommended as a last resort. 
YI.—SPLINTS. 
Pathology. Splints are due to a form of periostitis which is frequent 
in horses though rare in ruminants, and which develops between the 
large and the inner small metacarpal, or on the inner, rarely on the 
outer, surface of the large metacarpal itself. On account of its frequency 
—for splints are met with in most horses—and of its interference with 
usefulness, it is not surprising that even in the earliest times this con¬ 
dition received attention both from practitioners and authors. Jordanus 
Buffus described splints as supraossa, and Solleysel distinguished five 
varieties of them. At first they were regarded as a secretion from the 
bone, and it was only in the present century that their dependence on 
periostitis was clearly demonstrated. The real disease, i.e., the con¬ 
dition causing lameness, is a periostitis ossificans, associated with 
formation of exostoses. Two periods can, therefore, be distinguished : 
the first that of inflammation—of periostitis; the second that of com¬ 
plete development, in which inflammation is absent. During the first, 
lameness is therefore very general, but disappears during the second. 
The process usually starts in the periosteum or in the interosseous 
ligament, which fixes the internal small splint bone to the cannon bone. 
Irritation in its deep layers produces growth of bone and swelling, the 
permanence of which led older writers to view it as an exudate. The 
process of splint formation is completed by ossification of the newly- 
formed material. The size of the splint depends on the extent of 
surface involved and the duration of the periostitis, and varies between 
that of a threepenny and a five-shilling piece. The splint itself generally 
assumes an elongated form, lying parallel with the small splint bone. 
When periostitis has passed away, and the formation of the splint is 
