< 28 ) 



g>ptain, or Clap, 



IM TB8 



BACK-SINEW* 



-no'frr 



A HE complaint called a Sprain or Clap in the back-sinew, is one 

 extremely common amongst Horses, for reasons which are too evi- 

 dent to need being insisted upon here. There is hardly any disease 

 which is more egregiously mal-treated by Farriers and other un- 

 scientific persons. — Indeed some people of superior information who 

 have of late years undertaken to instruct the Public in the cure of 

 the diseases of Horses, and who have happened to labour under 

 the defect of a professional education, and consequently of first 

 principles, have directed the treatment of this complaint upon very 

 erroneous grounds. — For contrary to what is usually presumed and 

 maintained upon this subject, it almost never happens, let the quan- 

 tity of violence be what it may, that the back-sinew in Horses is 

 ruptured, notwithstanding this accident occurs not unfrequently to the 

 Tendo Achilles in the human subject, from dancing or in conse- 

 quence of any other great or sudden exertion, of the muscle of the 

 tendon. — For although it be indeed true, as Professor Carlisle has 

 very judiciously remarked, that '' When muscles act more power- 

 fully or more rapidly than is equal to the strength of the sustain- 



