Diseases of the Horse's FootReeks, H. Caulton (Harry Caulton)
Science
Diseases of the Horse's Foot
Reeks, H. Caulton (Harry Caulton)
Hoofs -- Diseases; Horses -- Diseases
In this case we advise the injection of the original wound, and also such
fistulous openings as may have formed, with the 1 in 1,000 sublimate
solution. Also, in order to avoid the sometimes abortive attempts of the
antiseptic pad, to maintain a condition of asepsis around the wound, we
advise the continual soaking of the whole foot in a cold antiseptic bath.
This may be either carbolic acid 1 in 20, or--what is less volatile,
perhaps more effectual, and certainly more economical--perchloride of
mercury 1 in 1,000.
It has been our good fortune, even when we have seen the foot almost
detached from the limb by the devastating inroads of the pus, to see
the suppurative process by this means gradually overcome, a reparative
anchylosis set in, and the animal restored to good health and usefulness,
if not to soundness.
Once the suppurative process is checked and anchylosis commences, it is
good treatment to smartly blister the whole of the region of the coronet,
the pastern, and the wound itself with a mixed blister of cantharides and
biniodide of mercury, repeated at intervals of a fortnight. This prevents
to some extent further infection of the wound, and assists also in
promoting the changes that tend to anchylosis.
_(d)_ ANCHYLOSIS.
The word anchylosis signifies the stiffening of a joint. When one has read
the serious changes occurring within the joint in the more serious forms
of arthritis, it is easy to understand how it comes about. In suppurative
arthritis, for instance, we have the synovial membrane destroyed, the
articular cartilages partly or wholly obliterated, and the former
boundaries of the joint entirely lost. If the animal lives, nature is
bound to make repair of a sort. The synovial membrane and the articular
cartilages utterly destroyed, as we have described, cannot again be
replaced. Nature can only build again from such materials as are left to
her. In this case the material is bone.
It must be remembered, however, that often the bone has been so diseased
that spots of necrosis or caries within it are bound to remain unless moved
by operative interference. Such diseased portions, when dealing with the
foot, are beyond reach of the surgeon's knife, and we have no alternative
but to allow them to remain. We get, therefore, in many cases, a condition
of rarefactive ostitis occurring side by side with a slowly progressive
caries within the bone, while outside is occurring an osteoplastic
periostitis. The concurrence of these conditions leads in time to great
increase in size of the parts, together with increasing anchylosis and
deformity.
C. NAVICULAR DISEASE.
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