STR1KGHALY. 161 



of organic life. It may he termed a species of iran- 

 mosdy the hind extremities. It 



out of the stable, and especially if he has 

 One of the legs appears stiff, inflexible, and is, to a 



After he 

 or only a: 



in the muscles of 

 of them in order to balance the 

 hm gained over them during the night. 



chiefly affected, whkh he may easily do by a 

 hem he presses on the extensors 

 He should then gire plenty of good 

 to the grooming generally , or a wider 

 the fiirFfr^^r*** of the case may appear to 



8TBXKGHALT. 



This is a sudden and spasmodic action of some of Ihe muscles of the thigh 

 the hone is first led fiom the stable. One or both legs are caught op at 

 every step with great rapidity and riolence, so that the fetlock sometimes 

 touches the befly; but, after the hone has been out a little while, this usually 

 goes off and the natural action of the animal returns. In a few eases it does 

 not pel fectly disappear anez* exercise, hut the horse continues to he slightly laine. 



Stringhalt is not a perfectly mTolimtary action of a certain muscle, or a cer- 

 tain set of moseks. The limb is flexed at the command of thewiD, both acts 

 to a greater extent and with more violence than the wffl had prompted. There 

 is an accumulation of excitability in the muscle, and the impulse which should 

 hare called it into natural and moderate action causes it to take on a spasmodic 

 and, perhaps, * painful one. 



Many ingenious hut contradictory theories hare been adranced in order to 

 account for this peculiarity of gait. What muscles are concerned? Clearly 

 those by which the thigh is brought under the belly, and the hock is flexed, 

 and the pasterns are first flexed and then extended. But by which of them is 

 the effect principally produced? What muscle, or, more properly, what nerre 

 is concerned! Instead of entering into any nsdeas cauLrofersy on this point, 

 a case shall be related, and one of the most interesting there is on record: the 

 author was personally cognisant of every particular. 



GwW/om, first called Roundhead, and then Landlord, was foaled in 1826. 

 He was got by Hampden out of a Sir Harry Dimsdak mare. In 1828, and 



