MALLENDERS AND SALLENDERS. SWELLED LEGS. 29 i 



flicts upon himself in the act of kicking : therefore it is that a horse with a capped 

 hock is very properly regarded with a suspicious eye. The whole of the hock 

 ghoul d be carefully examined in order to discover whether there are other marks of 

 violence, and the previous history of the animal should be carefully inquired into 

 Does he ki. x in harness or in the stall, or has he been lying on a thin bed, or on no 

 bed at all ; and inus may the hock have been bruised, and the swelling produced 1 



It is exceedingly difficult to apply a bandage over a capped hock ; and puncturing 

 the tumour, or passing a seton through it, would be a most injudicious practice. 

 Blisters, or iodine, repeated as often as may be necessary, are the best means to be 

 employed. Occasionally the tumour will spontaneously disappear; but at other 

 times it will attain a large size, or assume a callous structure, that will bid defiance 

 to all the means that can be employed. 



MALLENDERS AND SALLENDERS. 



On the inside of the hock, or a little below it, as well as at the bend of the kne* 

 (A, p. 277), there is occasionally a scurfy eruption, called mallenders in the fore leg, 

 and sallenders in the hind leg. They seldom produce lameness ; but if no means are 

 taken to get rid of them, a discharge proceeds from them which it is afterwards 

 difficult to stop. They usually indicate bad stable management. 



A diuretic ball should be occasionally given, and an ointment of sugar-of-lead and 

 tar, with treble the quantity of lard, rubbed over the part. Should this fail, a weak 

 mercurial ointment may be used. Iodine has here also been useful. 



The line of direction of the legs beneath the hocks should not be disregarded. Th 

 leg should descend perpendicularly to the fetleck. The weight and stress will thus 

 6e equally diffused, not only over the whole of the hock, but also the pasterns and 

 the foot. Some horses have their hocks closer than usual to each other. The legs 

 take a divergent direction outward, and the toes also are turned outward. These 

 horses are said to be Cat or Cow hocked. They are generally supposed to possess 

 considerable speed. Perhaps they do so ; and it is thus accounted for. The cow- 

 hocked horse has his legs not only turned more outward, but bent more under him, 

 and this increases the distance between the point of the hock and the tendons of the 

 perforating muscle : see 6, in the cut, page 283. It increases the s'^ace which ia 

 usually occupied by thoroughpin, see a, in the same page. Then tl e point of the 

 hock, moved by the action of the muscles, is enabled to describe a greater portion of 

 a circle ; and in proportion to the increased space passed over by the point of the hock, 

 will the space traversed by the limb be increased, and so the stride of the horse may 

 be lengthened, and, thus far, his speed may be increased. But this advantage is 

 more than counterbalanced by many evils. This increased contraction of the muscles 

 is an expenditure of animal power ; and, as already stated, the weight and the con- 

 cussion being so unequally distributed by this formation of the limbs, some part must 

 be over-strained and over-worked, and injury must ensue. On this account it is that 

 the cow-hocked horse is more subject than others to thoroughpin and spavin ; and ia 

 so disposed to curbs, that these hocks are denominated by horsemen curby hocks. 

 The mischief extends even farther than this. Such a horse is peculiarly liable to 

 windgall, sprain of the fetlock, cutting, and knuckling. 



A slight inclination to this form in a strong powerful horse may not be very objec 

 rionable, but a horse decidedly cow-hocked should never be selected 



SWELLED LEGS. 



Th3 fore legs, but oftener the hind ones, and especially in coarse horses, are somt> 

 times subject to considerable enlargement. Occasionally, when the horse does nol 

 seem to labour under any other disease, and sometimes from an apparent shifting of 

 disease from other parts, the hind legs suddenly swell to an enormous degree from 

 the hock and almost from the stifle to the fetlock, attended by a greater or less degree 

 of heat, and tenderness of the skin, and sometimes excessive and very peculiar lame- 

 ness. The pulse likewise becomes quick and hard, and the horse evidently labours 

 under considerable fever. It is acute inflammation of the cellular substance of the 

 legs, and that most sudden in its attack, and most violent in its degree, and therefore 

 attended by he effusion of a considerable quantity of fluid into the cellular membrane, 

 *t occurs ii, young horses, and in those which are over-fed and little exercised 



