Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 by John Victor Lacroix
page 25 of 341 (07%)
page 25 of 341 (07%)
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structure and adjacent tissues.
The reactionary inflammation which attends a case of tarsitis caused by a horse being kicked is a good example of the result of direct injury. Such cases, if the contusion is of sufficient violence, result in arthritis and periarthritis. In inactive farm horses, during cold weather, this condition becomes chronic, swelling remains for weeks after all lameness and pain have subsided and occasionally hyperthrophy is permanent. Arthritis occasioned by indirect injury, such as characterizes joint inflammation from continuous concussion, is seen in horses that are worked at a rapid pace on city streets or other hard road surfaces. Such affections may be acute, as in some cases of spavin, but are usually inflammatory conditions that do not occasion serious disturbance when these affections become chronic. If the involvement persists with sufficient active inflammation, there may follow erosion of cartilage and incurable lameness. If extensive necrosis of cartilage takes place, the attendant pain will be sufficient to cause the animal to favor the diseased part and such immobilization enhances early ankylosis--nature's substitute for resolution in this disease. Wounds invading the tissues adjacent to joints, when these wounds are of considerable extent, cause inflammation of such articulations by contiguous extension of inflammation. As long as an injury remains practically aseptic, or if infected and the septic process does not involve the joint proper by direct extension, no more serious disturbance than a simple synovitis will result. If, instead, a periarthritic inflammation is serious or destructive in character, the type of arthritis will be grave--even though due to an indirect cause. |
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