8 April, 1907] Lameness in Horses. 215 



It is somewhat confusing to apparently tind a horse going himt- on one 

 limb when coming to you, and on the other when going from )oii. but in 

 such cases it is pretty certain be is lame on both. 



What is known as "cross lameness" is also confusing. Bv this is 

 meant an apparent lameness in a fore limb, accompanying an actual lame- 

 ness in a hind limb, and accounted for by the fact that when- lame in a 

 hind limb more weight is thrown on the diagonal fore limb, with the con- 

 sequent suggestion of lameness in the fore limb of the same side as that 

 on which there is actual lameness behind. 



The next step in the examination for lameness should be the sudden 

 turning or twisting round of the animal to the " right about "' and the 

 "left about " in as short a space as possible. 1 his is best done bv the 

 examiner him.self, who will, while so engaged, be able tO' detect any 

 " faulting " in either of the fore or hind limbs and any dropping of the 

 loins and quarters. Sometimes a horse that has gone apparentlv sound 

 in the straight trot will be found so lame on being smartly swung round 

 as to> hop round on one leg — the sound one, "'carrying." or never touch- 

 ing the ground with the lame one. The horse should next be smartly 

 backed to discover signs of stringhalt and shdvering. In the latter affec- 

 tion, if the indications so afforded are so alight as to be non-committal, 

 backing the horse from the edge of a shallow pool into the water will 

 render them sufficiently pronounced to enable a conclusion to be definitely 

 come to. 



It must be remembered a.lwa)s in examining for lameness that when 

 there is an ob\ious unsoundness it does not always follow- that the lame- 

 ness is produced thereby. Oftentimes a horse lame behind may have a 

 spavin so clear and distinct that a groom might say "he could hang his 

 hat on it.' and still the lameness be due to some other cause — a pricked 

 foot, a fracture of the navicular bone /^or even of the pelvic bones), or 

 some other obscure cause. 



In practice it is always advisable to eliminate lameness in the foot first 

 of all ; and, to be completely on the safe side, in all cases of lameness 

 the shoe should be removed and the foot examined. This was the never- 

 ceasing advice of the ever-famous Professor Dick, of Edinburgh — a man 

 who was reputed to be so gifted and so expert in detecting lameness as 

 to h^ able, when lying in bed in an upstairs room, to correctly decide by 

 sound alone the limb on which a horse passing along the neighboiuiring 

 street w^as lame, and sometimes under the same circumstances to be able 

 to conclude as to the seat of the lameness. And that tO' follow the advice 

 is sound practice, even wheni the cause of lameness is abundantly obvious, 

 is demonstrated by the classical illustration' — also Dick's, — of a horse 

 with a broken leg being found, on removal of the shoe, to have a fester- 

 ing wound in the foot, caused by a gathered rusty nail ; in which case 

 the barren honour of diagnosis of a broken leg was glorified by the dis- 

 covery of the cause of the stumbling which douljtlcss led to the fall and 

 fracture. 



DIAGNOSIS OF OBSCURE LAMENESS. 



It is not an unusual thing to meet with cases of lameness in which the 

 diagnosis is a matter of extreme difficulty. The limb may present no 

 abnormality, there is no apparent increase or decrease of heat or sensi- 

 tiveness in any part, and no resting or easing attitude of the limb. Fur- 

 thermore, when the lameness is only slight, the character of the "action" 



