70 AFFECTIONS OF THE LEG AND FOOT. 



Stance is treasured up that constantly supplies the material for new horn tc la* 

 foot below. At aa the sesamoid bones, freshly severed at the fetlock joint. 



Fig. 3. A section of a foot, agreeing essentially with my subject, at paffo 

 1()G, but evidently drawn from a diseased foot, the elastic process marked cent 

 that picture being wanting in this, and the shuttle-bone, <i, having lost its 

 function; neither do we perceive the descent of the back sinew {k in the pre- 

 ceding) to its insertion at the coffin-bone. At a is the lower end of the large 

 pastern, h is tiie small pastern, c the coffin, d the shuttle-bone, e the cleft of the 

 frog, g the wall or hoof, h the situation of the sinew, i the sensible sole. 



Fig. 4. Transverse section of the foot, from the coronet a to the point Oi 

 the frog 6, having the wall ce on each side, and showing the divided edge of the 

 sensible sole d. 



CHAPTER II. 

 Disorders of the Foot and Leg. 



Introductory Observation. — All those derangements of the limbs which 

 we come next to consider, I shall divide, for the reader's more ready compre- 

 hension, into — 1st, those of the leg, and 2d, diseases of the foot : for it does 

 not always happen that affections of the leg alone can be properly denominated 

 diseases, whilst those of the foot are invariably so. I before observed, that 

 both, or either, may be occasioned by accident, derived from ancestry, or b« 

 the fault of misconstruction and consequent misapplication of the individual') 

 powers. They may he also considered as, 1st, those of the bones, 2d, of the 

 ligaments, tendons, and muscles. But L shall not so subdivide the heads of 

 my treatises on the several diseases, since each will appear under the respec- 

 tive heads of information, besides which (as will be seen further down), when- 

 ever the bones suffer derangement, original or acquired, the integuments fol- 

 low the same evil course. Enough, however, has been said on these points in 

 the first chapter of this volume. 



Rest is the primal remedy for all acquired disorders of the limbs, whether 

 those of hard work or of accident ; but employing the animal whilst yet too 

 young, is an universal error, which is but seldom remedied by allowing it rest 

 when lameness once lays hold of him, much less is it capable of being cured. The 

 impolicy of this practice, the fruitful source of so many evils, is demonstrable 

 by the custom of the Arabs, who never mount a lame horse, even in the desert, 

 nor propagate from horse or mare which is permanently marked with the ef- 

 fects of overwork. One remote consequence whereof is, that the foal is not 

 entailed with a predisposition to contract readily such disorders as I come 

 shortly to treat of; whence the superiority of the Arab breed in this respect. 

 At least, the fact is to be deplored, that most of our stallions of the wagon- 

 horse breed are worked at plough and in the team at two and three years 

 old, too much for their tender years, and permitted to cover mares at this very 

 early age ; the result of this luiiieiitable cupidity of ownership is, that their get 

 are impregnated willi one or other of the maladies that I come shortly to enu 

 merate, ere they reach maturity ; but the causes and symptoms whereof I 

 have shown are so similar, or proceed so naturally out of each other, that they 

 dilTfir but in name for situation, in treatment nothing. Higher bred cattle 

 arc subjected to the same disadvantages in most breeding studs, in which the 

 breeders prefer to derive their stock from parents which may have bee?) 

 Buccessful at winning three year old slakes, or probably strained e .?ery mus 

 cle bone, and tendon whilst yet yearlings. We owe to the late Sir T <"' 



