SPAVIN j-j 



cuneiform bones are abnormally small, are also said to be frequently 

 affected, owing to the smallness of the articular surfaces. In animals with 

 broad hocks the bones present a much greater articular area over which 

 the concussion received at the joint is distributed. 



At the same time it may be stated that no form of hock can be said 

 to be immune, for spavin is found in hocks considered to be extremely 

 well formed and symmetrical, whilst, on the other hand, cases of ill-formed 

 hocks are frequently met with which wear well throughout life under 

 the most trying circumstances. 



That there may be inherited a predisposition to the disease appears 

 to be generally conceded — a point which is fully appreciated by most 

 breeders. So far as conformation is concerned, the inliuence of heredity 

 cannot be doubted. In connection with this question of predisposition 

 it is even now interesting to give the following remarks of Percival, as 

 quoted by W. Williams : 



" I am very much disposed to believe in the existence in the system 

 of what I would call an ossific diathesis. I have most assuredly seen 

 unbroke colts so prone in their economy to the production of bone that, 

 without any assignable outward cause — without recognisable injury of 

 any kind — they have at a very early age exhibited ringbones, and splints, 

 and spavins. There might have been something pecuHar in the con- 

 struction of their limbs to account for this ; at the same time there 

 appeared a more than ordinary propensity in their vascular svstem to 

 osseous effusion. Growing young horses — and particularly such as are 

 what is called ' overgrown ' — may be said to be predisposed to spavin 

 simply from the circumstance of the weakness manifest in their hocks as 

 well as other joints. When horses whose frames have outgrown their 

 strength, with long and tender limbs, come to be broke — to have weight 

 placed upon their backs at a time when the weight of their own bodies 

 is as much as they are able to bear — then it is that the joints in an 

 especial degree are likely to suffer, and windgall and spavin to be the result. 

 Indeed, under such circumstances, spavin, like splint and other transfor- 



