314 PAETICULAR LAMENESSES. 



CUEB. 



This is an injury, sprain, to tlie calcaneo-ciiLoid ligament, 

 and not to the cellular tissue, as described by Percivall and 

 others ; nor is it a sprain of the broad annular ligament which 

 passes over and binds down the tendons in their passage down 

 the back of the hock, although the annular ligament as well 

 as the tendons may suffer when the injury is very violent. Such 

 cases are commonly called " sprung hock," and are associated 

 with great lameness. 



The original seat of the injury in curb may be at the point of 

 attachment of the ligament to the cuboid, or at its ultimate 

 termination on the head of the external small metatarsal bone, 

 or its attachment to the posterior aspect of the os calcis may be 

 lacerated to a considerable extent. 



In the first instance, it presents itself as a small hard nodule 

 upon the lower part of the posterior aspect of the hock; so 

 small and so hard that it is sometimes impossible to say whether 

 it is the injured ligament or the bones themselves. In the 

 second, it can easily be recognised as a protuberance upon the 

 back of the hock, from four to five inches below the point of 

 the OS calcis. 



Curb is apt to cause lameness in young horses, or, when of 

 fresh origin, in horses of any age. Curbs of long standing, 

 being merely the remains of former disease, very seldom cause 

 lameness, and are very often considered by men of experience 

 not to be an unsoundness. 



Curby hocks are over-bent or sickle-shaped, and if associ- 

 ated with long calces, are almost sure to become the seat of 

 true curb. 



From what has already been said about the leverage power 

 of a long OS calcis, it will be understood that the ligaments 

 which bind it down are much more liable to sprain when 

 it is long than when it is short. The form of hock the 

 reverse of that liable to thorough-pin is the one predisposed 

 to curb. 



An aged horse, when suffering from curb lameness, is gene- 

 rally sound again in a few weeks; but if the patient be a 

 young horse whose bones are not fully consolidated, it takes a 

 much longer time before the parts are restored ; and if such an 



