196 
A. A. HOLCOMBE 
The suppuration takes place beneath the true periosteum upon the sur¬ 
face of the bone, and separating the two, the periosteum is to an extent 
destroyed. The lameness at this time, even where the horn has been 
completely pared away, is so great as to prevent entirely the use of the 
foot, it being continually raised from the floor, and allowed to bear none 
of the weight of the body even during locomotion, the animal preferring 
to hobble along on three legs. In noting the constitutional symptoms 
you will find an elevated temperature, a quickened pulse and respiration, 
and sometimes a loss of appetite ; the mucous membranes will be slightly 
injected, and the animal persist in standing. These cases usually lose 
flesh very lapidlv, especially where synovitis is an accompaniment. 
After the pus is allowed to escape, where periostitis without synovitis is 
present, most of the cases will do well; the denuded bone becomes 
covered with the granulating soft tissues, which eventually replace the 
destroyed periosteum, and as the inflammation subsides, the tissues, 
which have been greatly swollen, become gradually reduced and finally 
covered with new horn. The lameness improves as the recovery pro- 
giesses, and the constitutional symptoms disappear as the suppuration 
terminates. In those cases where synovitis is present the suffering is 
still more acute than in the cases previously mentioned, for, as a rule, 
all food is refused, and the patient rapidly runs down in flesh, and if 
suppuration sets in he may die of pyaemia. But even where the case 
does not terminate fatally, anchylosis of the joint is almost sure to fol¬ 
low, leaving the patient a permanent cripple. The presence of suppur¬ 
ative synovitis will be easily made out by the character of the discharge, 
theie being mingled with the pus a large amount of synovia, streaked 
with more or less blood. 
Where fracture of the os pedis exists as the result of a puncture, 
and you cannot detect it with your probe, you will suspect it from the 
long-continued and acute lameness, or from the callus formed in the 
reunion of the parts. There is yet another course the processes following 
an inconsiderate puncture may take, which, although not common, is 
very interesting, and that is, where the lameness is slight from the com¬ 
mencement, and continues for months without getting better or appa¬ 
rently worse. It is in these cases that a chronic periostitis exists, and a 
deposition of lime salts takes place^around the attachment of the flexor 
tendon, the lameness being permanent from the interference with the 
action of the joint. 
[to be continued.] 
