imation it is ranked among eyesores and continues
indefinitely to be that and nothing different. The inflammation in which
they originated, acute at first, either subsides or assumes the chronic
form, and the bony growth becomes a permanence--more or less
established, it is true, but doing no positive harm and not hindering
the animal from continuing his daily routine of labor. All this,
however, requires a proviso against the occurrence of a subsequent acute
attack, when, as with other exostoses, a fresh access of acute symptoms
may be followed by a new pathological activity, which shall again
develop, as a natural result, a reappearance of the lameness.

_Treatment._--It is, of course, the consideration of the comparative
harmlessness of splints that suggests and justifies the policy of
noninterference, except as they become a positive cause of lameness. And
a more positive argument for such noninterference consists in the fact
that any active and irritating treatment may so excite the parts as to
bring about a renewed pathological activity, which may result in a
reduplication of the phenomena, with a second edition, if not a second
and enlarged volume, of the whole story. For our part, our faith is firm
in the impolicy of interference, and this faith is founded on an
experience of many years, during which our practice has been that of
abstention.

Of course, there will be exceptional conditions which will at times
indicate a different course. These will become evident when the
occasions present themselves, and extraordinary forms and effects of
inflammation and growth in the tumors offer special indications. But our
conviction remains unshaken that surgical treatment of the operative
kind is usually useless, if not dangerous. We have little faith in the
method of extirpation except under very special conditions, among which
that of diminutive size has been named; this seems in itself to
constitute a sufficient negative argument. Even in such a case a resort
to the knife or the gouge could scarcely find a justification, since no
operative procedure is ever without a degree of hazard, to say nothing
of the considerations which are always forcibly negative in any question
of the infliction of pain and the unnecessary use of the knife.

[Illustration: PLATE XXV.

SPLINT.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXVI.

SOUND FOOT.

RINGBONE.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.

VARIOUS TYPES OF SPAVIN.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII