Grease. 99 



And there will, therefore, be great advantage, in considering- the 

 Grease, in the lig^ht of common inflammation, aflfecting the skin of 

 the fetlock joint ; the structure of which, is extremely grandular. 



For, as it was necessary that the skin of the Horse's fetlock, 

 should he kept constantly soft and pliable, on account of its great 

 and almost incessant motion, so we find from our anatomical injec- 

 tions, that a large apparatus of Glands is provided in the skin of 

 this part, to serve this important purpose. But we shall cease to 

 wonder, that the skin of the fetlock joints of Horses is liable to be 

 attacked with inflammation, especially in the winter season ; if we 

 consider the peculiar circumstances to which it is exposed. And a 

 litde reflection will convince us, that all the phoenomena of this 

 loathsome, and too frequently, tedious disease, will admit of an easy 

 and satisfactory explanation, without having recourse to the doctrine 

 of foul blood or vitiated humors. In the first place, the seat of the 

 disease, is remote from the great fountain of life, the heart; a cir- 

 cumstance, which of itself is sufficient to account for many of the 

 phoenomena. Again, the fetlocks are exposed to greater vicissitudes 

 of heat and cold, than any other part of the animal. At one mo- 

 ment enveloped in a hot bed of litter and fosces at a temperature of, 

 from fifty to sixty degrees, the next, exposed to a current of cold 

 air, several degrees below the freezing point. 



And not only so, but whilst in the unnatural heated situation, 

 which has been described^ the skin is frequently, not merely enibued 

 with moisture, but with such as is of a peculiar and most deleterious 

 kind, to a part susceptible of inflammation, namely the urine of the 

 animal; which (as has been proved under the head of stable manage- 

 ment,) contains a great deal of volatile Alkali, even beiore that salt 



