Part 76

Sprain with or without rupture of the suspensory ligament may happen in either the fore or hind legs, and is occasionally seen in horses of all classes and at all ages. Old animals, however, and especially hunters, runners, and trotters, are the most subject to this injury, and with them the seat of the trouble is nearly always in one or both the fore legs. Horses used for heavy draft are more liable to have the ligament of the hind legs affected.

When the strain upon the suspensory ligament becomes too great, one or both of the branches may be torn from the sesamoid bones, one or both of the branches may be torn completely across, or the ligament may rupture above the point of division.

Symptoms.--The most common injury to the suspensory ligament is sprain of the internal branch in one of the fore legs. The trouble is indicated by lameness, heat, swelling, and tenderness of the affected branch, beginning just above the sesamoid bone and extending obliquely downward and forward to the front of the ankle. If the whole ligament is involved, the swelling comes on gradually, and is found above the fetlock and in front of the flexor tendons. The patient stands or walks upon the toe as much as possible, keeping the fetlock joint flexed so as to relieve the ligament of tension.

When both branches are torn from their attachments to the sesamoids, or both are torn across, the lameness comes on suddenly and is most intense; the fetlock descends, the toe turns up, and, as the animal attempts to walk, the leg has the appearance of being broken off at the fetlock. These symptoms, followed by heat, pain, and swelling of the parts at the point of injury, will enable anyone to make a diagnosis.

Treatment.--Sprain of the suspensory ligament, no matter how mild it may be, should always be treated by enforced rest of at least a month, and the application of cold douches and cold-water bandages, firmly applied until the fever has subsided, when a cantharides blister should be put on and repeated in two or three weeks if necessary. When rupture has taken place the patient should be put into slings and a constant stream of cold water allowed to trickle over the seat of injury until the fever is reduced. In the course of a week or ten days a plaster of Paris splint, such as is used in fractures, is to be applied and left on for a month or six weeks. When this is taken off, blisters may be used to remove the remaining soreness; but it is useless to expect a removal of all the thickening, for, in the process of repair, new tissue has been formed which will always remain.

In old cases of sprain the firing iron may often be used with good results. As a rule, severe injuries to the suspensory ligament incapacitate the subject for anything but slow, light work.

OVERREACH.

When the shoe of the hind foot strikes and injures the heel or quarter of the forefoot the horse is said to overreach. It rarely happens except when the animal is going fast; hence is most common in trotting and running horses. In trotters the accident generally happens when the animal breaks from a trot to a run. The outside heels and quarters are most liable to the injury.

Symptoms.--The coronet at the heel or quarter is bruised or cut, the injury in some instances involving the horn as well. When the hind foot strikes well back on the heel of the fore foot--an accident known among horsemen as "grabbing"--the shoe may be torn from the forefoot or the animal may fall to its knees. Horses accustomed to overreaching are often "bad breakers," for the reason that the pain of the injury so excites them that they can not readily be brought back to the trotting gait.

Treatment.--If the injury is but a slight bruise, cold-water bandages applied for a few days will remove all the soreness. If the parts are deeply cut, more or less suppuration will follow, and, as a rule, it is well to poultice the parts for a day or two, after which cold baths may be used, or the wounds dressed with tincture of aloes, oakum, and a roller bandage.

When an animal is known to be subject to overreaching, he should never be driven fast without quarter boots, which are specially made for the protection of the heels and quarters.

If there is a disposition to "grab" the forward shoes, the trouble may be remedied by having the heels of these shoes made as short as possible, while the toe of the hind foot should project well over the shoe. When circumstances permit of their use, the fore feet may be shod with the "tips" instead of the common shoe, as described in treatment for contracted heels.

CALK WOUNDS.

Horses wearing shoes with sharp calks are liable to wounds of the coronary region, either from trampling on themselves or on each other. These injuries are most common in heavy draft horses, especially on rough roads and slippery streets. The fore feet are more liable than the hind ones, and the seat of injury is commonly on the quarters. In the hind feet the wound often results from the animal resting with the heel of one foot set directly over the front of the other. In these cases the injury is generally close to the horn, and often involves the coronary band, the sensitive laminae, the extensor tendon, and even the coffin bone.

Treatment.--Preventive measures include the use of boots to protect the coronet of the hind foot and of a blunt calk on the outside heel of the fore shoe, since this is generally the offending instrument when the fore feet are injured. If the wound is not deep and the soreness slight, cold-water bandages and a light protective dressing, such as carbolized cosmoline, will be all that is needed. When the injury is deep, followed by inflammation and suppuration of the coronary band, lateral cartilages, sensitive laminae, etc., active measures must be resorted to. Cold, astringent baths, made by adding 2 ounces of sulphate of iron to 1 gallon of water, should be used, followed by poultices, if it is necessary to hasten the cleansing of the wound by stimulating the sloughing process. If the wound is deep between the horn and the skin, especially over the anterior tendon, the horn should be cut away so that the injured tissues may be exposed. The subsequent treatment in these cases should follow the directions given in the article on toe cracks.

FROSTBITES.

Excepting the ears, the feet and legs are about the only parts of the horse liable to become frostbitten. The cases most commonly seen are found in cities, especially among car horses, where salt is used for the purpose of melting the snow on curves and switches. This mixture of snow and salt is splashed over the feet and legs, rapidly lowering the temperature of the parts to the freezing point. In mountainous districts, where the snowfall is heavy and the cold often intense, frostbites are not uncommon, even among animals running at large.

Symptoms.--When the frosting is slight the skin becomes pale and bloodless, followed soon after by intense redness, heat, pain, and swelling. In these cases the hair may fall out and the epidermis peel off, but the inflammation soon subsides, the swelling disappears, and only an increased sensitiveness to cold remains.

In more severe cases irregular patches of skin are destroyed and after a few days slough away, leaving slow-healing ulcers behind. If produced by low temperatures and deep snow, the coronary band is the part most often affected.

In many instances there is no destruction of the skin, but simply a temporary suspension of the horn-producing function of the coronary band. The fore feet are more often affected than the hind ones, and the heels and quarters are less often involved than the front part of the foot. The coronary band becomes hot, swollen, and painful, and after two or three days the horn separates from the band and slight suppuration follows. For a few days the animal is lame, but as the suppuration disappears the lameness subsides. New horn, often of an inferior quality, is produced by the coronary band, and in time the cleft is grown off and complete recovery is effected. The frog is occasionally frostbitten and may slough off, exposing the soft tissues beneath and causing severe lameness for a time.

Treatment.--Simple frostbites are best treated by cold fomentations followed by applications of a 5 per cent solution of carbolized oil. When portions of the skin are destroyed, their early separation should be hastened by warm fomentations and poultices. Ulcers are to be treated by the application of stimulating dressings, such as carbolized oil, a 1 per cent solution of nitrate of silver or of chlorid of zinc, with pads of oakum and flannel bandages. In many of these cases recovery is exceedingly slow. The new tissue by which the destroyed skin is replaced always shrinks in healing, and, as a consequence, unsightly scars are unavoidable. When the coronary band is involved it is generally advisable to blister the coronet over the seat of injury as soon as the suppuration ceases, for the purpose of stimulating the growth of new horn. Where a crevasse is formed between the old and the new horn no serious trouble is liable to be met with until the cleft is nearly grown out, when the soft tissues may be exposed by a breaking off of the partly detached horn. But even if this accident happens final recovery is effected by poulticing the foot until a sufficient growth of horn protects the parts from injury.

QUITTOR.

Quittor is a term applied to various affections of the foot wherein the tissues which are involved undergo a process of degeneration that results in the formation of a slough followed by the elimination of the diseased structures by means of a more or less extensive suppuration.

For convenience of consideration quittors may be divided into four classes, as suggested by Girard: (1) Cutaneous quittor, which is known also as simple quittor, skin quittor, and carbuncle of the coronet; (2) tendinous quittor; (3) subhorny quittor; and (4) cartilaginous quittor.

CUTANEOUS QUITTOR.

Simple quittor consists in a local inflammation of the skin and subcutaneous connective tissue on some part of the coronet, followed by a slough and the formation of an ulcer which heals by suppuration.

It is an extremely painful disease, owing to the dense character of the tissues involved; for in all dense structures the swelling which accompanies inflammation always produces intense pressure. This pressure not only adds to the patient's suffering but may at the same time endanger the life of the affected parts by strangulating the blood vessels. It is held by some writers that simple quittor is most often met with in the hind feet, but in my experience more than two-thirds of the cases have developed in the fore feet. While any part of the coronet may become the seat of attack, the heels and quarters are undoubtedly most liable.

Causes.--Bruises and other wounds of the coronet are often the cause of cutaneous quittor, yet there can be no question that in the great majority of cases the disease develops without any known cause. For some reason not yet satisfactorily explained most cases happen in the fall of the year. One explanation of this fact has been attempted in the statement that the disease is due to the injurious action of cold and mud. This claim, however, seems to lose force when it is remembered that in many parts of this country the most mud, accompanied with freezing and thawing weather, is seen in the early springtime without a corresponding increase of quittor. Furthermore, the serious outbreaks of this disease in the mountainous regions of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana are seen in the fall and winter seasons, when the weather is the driest. It may be claimed, and perhaps with justice, that during these seasons, when the water is low, animals are compelled to wade through more mud to drink from lakes and pools than is necessary at other seasons of the year, when these lakes and pools are full. Add to these conditions the further fact that much of this mud is impregnated with alkaline salts which, like the mineral substances always found in the mud of cities, are more or less irritating, and it seems fair to conclude that under certain circumstances mud may become an important factor in the production of quittor.