Sprains of the Forelegs. 195 



olds ' had lost all the * marks ' in their teeth by grazing on 

 pasturage the sand of which used to grind down the teeth, 

 so he said, in less than no time ; and how the absence of 

 hair on the knees of some of his animals was merely the tem- 

 porary result of their sleeping in stalls which had not a suffi- 

 ciency of straw bedding. The poor fellow died miserably 

 from cancer in the throat; yet so strong was his ruling passion 

 even in the presence of death, that when the friend who was 

 tending him wanted to send, on the day before he died, a 

 servant to stop the noise of .some horsebreaking that was 

 going on in the yard below the sick man's room, poor Ker- 

 ouse, overhearing what was said, feebly whispered : * Let 

 them be. I love to hear the sound of the horses.' 



In India, practically, the whole of the heavy cart work 

 is done with bullocks, and in a few cases with buffaloes. 

 There is little or no van work, and carriage horses are not 

 put to any great toil. Consequently, the bulk of serious 

 veterinary cases are those of sprain to tendon and ligament 

 in saddle horses and especially among racehorses. Acting 

 on the advice of Dr Henderson of Shanghai, I had great 

 success during my stay at Calcutta, in the treatment of 

 these injuries to the forelegs, by means of cotton-wool 

 bandaging, an account of which will be found in my Veter- 

 inary Notes. I positively assert that out of the hundreds 

 of cases of sprain to the back tendons, suspensory ligaments 

 and check ligaments of the forelegs treated in the supposed 

 orthodox method by warm water fomentations, cold water 

 applications, and the use of liniments, blisters, etc., I have 

 not seen a single instance of a return to soundness, which 

 implies entire absence of perceptible alteration of structure, 

 as would be shown by ' thickening.' I may go further and 

 say that I have never seen any permanent good result from 

 the application of either hot or cold water to a sprained part. 

 The experience of every trainer is that such sprains are the 

 beginning of the end ; and that their treatment in the old 

 style is, at best, the temporary patching up of a permanently 



