LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
483 
farm horses—are the common subjects of the disease. The same 
fact will also teach us how to prevent them, as well as suggest a 
necessary precaution in their cure or removal. 
The Cure or Removal of Capped Elbow admits of a bolder 
practice than does capped hock. The reason for which is, that, 
while the latter is ever contingent to a bursal cavity, the former 
is, in general, too remotely placed from synovial structure to afford 
any ground for apprehension on that score. Therefore, so long as 
the tumour retains a fluctuating feel, or, indeed, a soft or penetra¬ 
ble feel, we without hesitation pierce its substance with a trocar or 
seton-needle, and fasten a seton of broad tape within it; than which 
there is no more summary or better practice for its speedy and per¬ 
manent dispersion. Should such procedure give rise to any pain¬ 
ful or alarming inflammation in the tumour or parts adjacent— 
which has rarely proved to be the case—withdrawal of the seton, 
with fomentation of the part, and physic, will abate it, and soon 
enable us to re-introduce the seton. Indeed, it is possible, the pre¬ 
sence of inflammation might from the first forbid, for a time, the 
insertion of the seton. The insertion should be made in such 
manner that the lower orifice may be completely dependent; i. e. 
in the vertical direction, And whether tape or hemp or silk be 
used, the ends must not be joined together—for this would leave 
hanging out of the apertures a loop extremely dangerous, from its 
liability to catch in something and so be by force probably torn out— 
but should have knots tied in them large enough to prevent their 
withdrawal through the holes in the tumour. The seton ought to 
be retained until the swelling has become reduced to the greatest 
reducible degree. 
Either from the hard consistence of the tumour, or from its long 
duration, a seton being deemed or proving unavailing, we must turn 
our thought to extirpation of it; and there is no more ready and safe 
mode of proceeding with this view than excision with the scalpel. 
If the tumour happen to prove encysted, the first cut had better be 
made directly across its free or posterior surface, from above down¬ 
wards; which done, the tumour will, as the phrase goes, “shell 
out,” and so leave all that further requires to be done simply to the 
stitching up of the integument. When the skin, however, proves 
on all sides adherent to the surface of the tumour, it will be better 
to make a circular incision, carrying it around the broadest circum¬ 
ference of the tumour, or else varying its line of direction according 
to any ulcerations or tubercular eminences there may be upon its 
surface we may be desirous of getting rid of. Caution will be 
required whenever the tumour appears to have a broad and inter¬ 
minable base; since it is not so very unusual for callous swellings 
of long standing to have a connexion with the capsular ligament 
of the elbow-joint. 
