34 EXAMINATION OF HORSES 



are more vascular, and consequently the hair grows 

 stronger^ and will not lie smooth ; or, again, the hair 

 bulbs may be so encroached upon by the organized 

 hyperplasia which has become permanently lodged in 

 the skin, that atrophy takes place through absorption, 

 and you find thin, wiry, starved Avhite hairs. 



The second degree, or wounded skin, shows itself in 

 either condition of hair already enumerated, if the injury 

 has been severe, or in the form of a bruise ; but if only 

 a clean incision — a condition seldom seen — you would 

 have no evidence whatever after the hair had grown, as 

 the cicatrix would be entirely covered. If the cellular 

 tissue have suffered, as well as the skin, here again a 

 clean incision leaves no evidence ; but when, as in the 

 majority of cases, it has been crushed and lacerated, 

 a slough forms, and the cicatricial tissue being hard and 

 inelastic, renders the skin fixed and immovable. The 

 fourth and fifth degrees of injury cause adhesion between 

 the extensor tendons and their sheaths ; so that if you 

 flex the limb, and endeavour to make the fetlock touch 

 the elbow, you. find it will not do so. It must be evident 

 to you that a horse suffering from the effects of the 

 fourth and fifth degrees is unsound, inasmuch as he 

 cannot bend his knee; but how about the remaining 

 three?' It is just as evident that the lesions, if any, 

 remaining after any one or all combined of the first 

 three degrse&-of injury, will not mechanically interfere 

 with the free flexion and use of the knee. But, unfor- 

 tunately, there happens to be a-n injury, the nature, 



