THE HORSE’S FOOT. 
197 
It is difficult to say which is the more useful of these drugs 
and which has been most successful. Success has also been ob¬ 
tained with injections of tincture of iodine, phenie acid and even 
petroleum. It is less the nature of the drug that insures the effect 
than the mode of using it. We ought also to say that, advantageous 
as this mode of treatment is, it is not infallible, though Mariage 
and others so consider it. It is not to be preferred to the extir¬ 
pation of the cartilage, an operation which proves successful when 
all other means have failed. 
To obtain a cure by the use of liquid applications it is essen¬ 
tial to make injections every day, and even several times daily. 
These are made with a syringe, carefully adapted in respect to 
size, with a small canula. The injection must be pushed well in, 
but must be allowed to escape freely after coming in contact with 
all the diseased surfaces which it is designed to modify. To effect 
this it becomes necessary, as the fistulas«are sometimes very narrow, 
and even irregular, to enlarge them, or to make counter openings. 
Mariage had originally insisted that these precautions were essen¬ 
tial to the success of the treatment. H. Bouley and Viseur also 
strongly insisted upon the same point, viz., that of enlarging the 
fistula in order that the liquid should not be allowed to remain 
at the bottom of the fistulous tracts, by which all possibility of 
the extension of the disease from that cause might be avoided. 
These enlargements of the fistulas, or counter openings, close, 
however, very rapidly; as a remedy to which, Hivernat has sug¬ 
gested the introduction into the tracts of little wedges of wood 
pointed like pencils, for the purpose of lacerating the walls of the 
fistula, followed by the insertion in them of small setons moist¬ 
ened with Yillate’s solution. Guerrapain introduced a fine meche 
of oakum, a seton in the tract, by means of a curved needle. If 
the fistula runs downward its bottom is under the wall, and he 
thins this down and makes a counter opening through the hoof 
thus thinned. This seton prevents the closing of the counter 
openings, and enables the operator to push through the injection 
regularly. 
Other precautions are also necessary. One, especially, is rest. 
The animal must not be put to work. Lafosse says that these 
