8 April, 1907 



Lameness in Horses. 



217 



occurrence. Such an impression is entirely erroneous, for, in point of 

 fact, lameness in this region is comparatively rare. The impression has 

 arisen on account of the tendency to ascribe all obscure forms of lame- 

 ness to some occult condition of the shoulder, and veterinarians cannot 

 be altogether held blameless for this commonly held^ but mistaken, belief. 

 It has been, and perhaps is, too much the fashion, when non-plussed as 

 to the seat of lameness to, tentatively at all events, blame the shoulder; 

 and having put it (the lameness) on to the shoulder, the putting of some- 

 thing else on, in the shape of a blister, is forthwith proceeded with. While 

 it might be perhaps unfair to say that the object of such procedure is tO' 

 gain time, there is no doubt that the most salutary eifect of blistering in 



Cartilage at top of shouldfr blail 



Antea-spinatiis muscle . . . , 



Shoulder joint 



Seat of sprain of flexor lirai-hii -^V 'I W 



\\ 

 Flexor brachii 



Extensor muscles of knee and- .. - 

 foot 



Knee joint 



- Subscapulari'i muscle. 



Teres internus muscle. 



Caput ma'.;num musrlc 



.. .. Caput Tncdinm mus^'lc. 



Klliow joint. 

 r"le\or muscles of foot and knee. 



Perforans and perforatus tendons. 



Fi;: 



-Dissection of Fore limb — internal asi)ect. — (After Chauveau. 



such cases is to allow of lapse of time during which one of two things 

 frequently happens. Either during tte enforced rest which a blister 

 usually necessitates, the lameness disappears — the injury causing it having 

 been naturally repaired; or, certain positive symptoms l>ecome developed, 

 whereby a correct estimate of the seat and cause of the lameness may be 

 made. It is certain that the number of blistered shoulders (and loins, 

 hips, and stifles, too, for that matter) that may be met with in a hospital 

 paddock is out of all proportion to the number of cases in which shoulder 

 trouble is the actual cause of lameness • and it is amusing or annoying, 

 according as you are the owneir or (as the la,w\ers have it) the "person in 

 charge" of the case, to, later on, find your horse that is blister-bald at 

 the point of the shoulder oozing matter from the coronet as the result 

 of the three-weeks-gone prick in shoeing that had hitht-rto not obtruded 

 any definite sign of its existence. 



