on, to which it will be necessary to give immediate attention,
from the fact of its tendency to form into an organized and permanent
body. To stimulate inflammation in this diseased structure, blisters are
recommended, but chiefly for the purpose of promoting the process of
absorption.

If this treatment fails, the use of iodin and mercurial preparations is
recommended.

Plain mercurial or plain iodin ointment, or both in combination as iodid
of mercury, are commonly used, and may be applied either moderately and
by gentle degrees, as we have suggested, or more freely and vigorously
with a view to more immediate effects, which, however, will also be
more superficial. The use of the firing iron applied deeply with fine
points is then to be strongly recommended, to be followed by blisters
and various liniments. This course may generally be relied on as quite
sure to be followed by satisfactory results.

While the treatment is in progress it will, of course, be necessary to
secure the animal in such manner that a recurrence of the injury will be
impossible from similar causes to those which were previously
responsible.

CAPPED HOCK.

A bad habit of rubbing or striking the partitions of their stalls with
their hocks prevails among some horses, with the result of an injury
which shows itself on the upper points of those bones, the summit of the
os calcis. From its analogy to the condition of capped elbow the
designation of capped hock has been applied to this condition.

_Symptoms._--A capped hock is therefore but the development of a bruise
at the point of the hock, which if many times repeated may excite an
inflammatory process, with all its usual external symptoms of swelling,
heat, soreness, and the rest of the now-familiar phenomena. The swelling
is at first diffused, extending more or less on the exterior part of the
hock, and in a few instances running up along the tendons and muscles of
the back of the shank. Soon, however, unless the irritating causes are
continued and repeated, the edema diminishes, and, becoming more defined
in its external outlines, leaves the hock capped with a hygroma. The
hygroma, at the very beginning of the trouble, contains a bloody
serosity which soon becomes strictly serum, and this, through the
influence of an acute inflammatory action, is liable to undergo a change
which converts it into the usual purulent product of suppuration.

The external appearance ought to be sufficient