PENETRANT CAUTERIZATION IN THE TREATMENT OF LAMENESS FROM OSTITIS. 205 
Dr. Williams says he has never seen any benefit accrue from 
external applications to the loins or back; on the contrary they 
increase the irritability. In every case where I have used them 
they gave ease and comfort to the patient. While not claiming 
that this remedy is a specific, I have found that it gave the 
patient great comfort and rest. 
I did not relate these cases on the plea of any individual 
merit, but simply to illustrate the facts as I find them. 
PENETRANT CAUTERIZATION IN THE TREATMENT OF LAME¬ 
NESS FROM OSTITIS. 
By E. Sturge, V. S., Scranton, Pa. 
Read before the Keystone Veterinary Medical Association. 
Lameness from ostitis, and more especially from disease of 
the joints, is very common in our patients and no less serious, 
on account of the high development and the great work which 
is put on the limbs of the horse, what wonder that they are sub¬ 
ject to these various troubles. 
A perfect moving horse, with a perfect limb, may stand a 
great amount of work of any kind, but so many suffer from 
faulty conformation, from an hereditary tendency to bone dis¬ 
eases; so many have been put to hard work before arriving at 
maturity, and others are working under many disadvantageous 
circumstances, that we are often called upon to patch them up. 
It is in the treatment of bone diseases, such as bone spavin, 
ringbone, splint, side bones and bony exostoses that I wish to 
refer to in this paper. 
Before going further, it is well to lightly review the path¬ 
ology of these diseases so that we may intelligently understand 
what we are treating and how we are to bring about a cure. 
Take for example an ordinary bone spavin causing lame¬ 
ness. Here we have at first an inflammation originating in the 
cancellated structure of the bones involved. From here it soon 
spreads to the periosteum, the interosseus ligaments and the 
cartilage of these joints. An exudation is gradually thrown 
out between the bones and their cartilage, the nutrition of the 
