PENETRANT CAUTERIZATION IN THE TREATMENT OF LAMENESS FROM OSTITIS. 20 J 
when properly applied, is largely localized in the diseased tis¬ 
sues, and it is almost impossible to produce anything like this 
reparative inflammation, within the diseased structures, by medici¬ 
nal remedies applied to the integument without unduly irritating 
this tissue and probably causing large patches to slough, leaving 
unsightly blemishes. 
It is well to remember that many exostoses in close prox¬ 
imity to joints ma}z cause acute lameness and still the joint not 
yet be seriously affected. By prompt measures such as a scien¬ 
tific and proper use of the actual cautery and repose, the disease 
may be arrested before it involves the joint. This is often so in 
many cases of bony exostoses in the neighborhood of the knee, 
fetlock, pastern and hock joints. 
All these diseases are the more satisfactorily treated the 
earlier they are taken in hand. A bone spavin, taken in its in¬ 
cipient stage, may soon yield to treatment, though that treat¬ 
ment must be bordering on severity. Usually when the disease 
starts, it is very circumscribed in its extent, and if we can only 
get at this particular part before the surrounding tissues are in¬ 
volved and before the nutrition of the parts has been impaired, 
resolution may soon be brought about. 
The actual cautery is the last, and often the only successful 
recourse, by which a cure is effected. It is always well to con¬ 
sider treatment by milder means, for in case of splints and side- 
bones, all that is generally required is the application of a smart 
blister. But any time spent in treatment milder than this is 
valuable time lost. 
But in the case of bone spavin, with or without exostosis, 
bog spavin,' accompanied with lameness (for such lameness is 
generally the result of bone disease which is causing the over 
secretion of synovia) ringbones, exostosis of the pasterns and in 
the region of the knee, nothing can approach penetrant cauteri¬ 
zation in the sureness and speediness of a cure, and the blemish 
is less than that of any other method of cauterization. It may 
be well in some cases to combine the use of the feather iron 
with that of the points; this might be the case in bog spavin, 
l 
