s treatment should subdue the
inflammation, abate the soreness, absorb the excess of secretion,
strengthen the walls of the sac, and finally cause the windgalls to
disappear, provided the animal is not too quickly returned to labor and
exposed to the same factors that occasioned them at first.

If the inflammation has become chronic, however, and the enlargement has
been of considerable duration, the negative course will be the wiser
one. If any benefit results from treatment it will be of only a
transient kind, the dilatation returning when the patient is again
subjected to labor, and it will be a fortunate circumstance if
inflammation has not supervened.

Notwithstanding the generally benignant nature of the swelling there are
exceptional cases, usually when it is probably undergoing certain
pathological changes, which may result in lameness and disable the
animal, in which case surgical treatment will be indicated, especially
if repeated blisters have failed to improve the symptoms. Line firing is
then a preeminent suggestion, and many a useful life has received a new
lease as the result of this operation timely performed. Another method
of firing, which consists in emptying the sac by means of punctures
through and through, made with a red-hot needle or wire, and the
subsequent injection of certain irritating and alterative compounds into
the cavity, designed to effect its closure by exciting adhesive
inflammation, such as tincture of iodin, may be commended. But they are
all too active and energetic in their effects and require too much
special attention and intelligent management to be trusted to any hands
other than those of an expert veterinarian.

BLOOD SPAVIN, BOG SPAVIN, AND THOROUGHPIN.

The blood spavin is situated in front and to the inside of the hock and
is merely a varicose or dilated condition of the saphena vein. It occurs
directly over the point where the bog spavin is found, and has thus been
frequently confused with the latter.

The complicated arrangement of the hock joint, and the powerful tendons
which pass on the posterior part, are lubricated with the product of
secretion from one tendinous synovial and several articular synovial
sacs. A large articular sac contributes to the lubrication of the shank
bone (the tibia) and one of the bones of the hock (the astragalus). The
tendinous sac lies back of the articulation itself and extends upward
and downward in the groove of that joint throug