Chronic thickening of skin and lymph plexuses, horse hind limb after
eczema, grease, glanders, ox neck and head, knees, shoulder.
Calcification. Treatment: laxatives, diuretics, exercise, elastic
bandage, friction, astringents, iodine.
Chronic thickening of the skin is most commonly seen in horses as a
sequel of lymphangitis in the hind limb, the engorgment of the lymph
plexus and thickening of its walls being associated with a general
productive inflammation and thickening of the derma until the fetlock
may be thirty inches or more in diameter. It may follow eczema, grease
or chronic glanders. In cattle a productive dermatitis in the region of
the head and neck, has led in the experience of the author to a similar
distention of the lymph vessels and morbid thickening of the skin. The
pads and calluses which form on the knees of the camel and on other
parts subject to friction, furnish examples of hypertrophy of another
kind. Again the thick dense cutaneous plates on the shoulders of the old
boar may serve to illustrate a physiological hypertrophy. The writer has
seen thickening of the skin in the seat of an incision made in spaying
the pig and the deposition of earthy salts so as to form a distinct
calcification.
_Treatment_ is very unsatisfactory, yet something may be done by
laxatives, diuretics, regular exercise, an evenly applied elastic
bandage when in the stable, massage and the use of astringent and dilute
iodine ointments. It is much more important to prevent the lesion by
cutting short the morbid condition on which it depends. When developed,
attention is usually given to prevent its advancement and to utilize the
animal at slow work.