CUTANEOUS HYPERTROPHY. ELEPHANTIASIS. PACHYDERMIA.
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.