HIPPOPATHOLOGY 



SECTION XIX. 



LAMENESS. 



THE diseases of horses admit of being ranged into two classes, 

 under the denominations of SICKNESS and LAMENESS ; the for- 

 mer comprehending such disorders as affect the animal sys- 

 tem generally, or any of the various organs concerned in the 

 functions of digestion, respiration, sensation, &c. ; the latter, such 

 as have for their especial seat the organs of support and loco- 

 motion : those parts of the nervous system which regulate volun- 

 tary motion being also often either directly or indirectly implicated. 

 However painful and dangerous to the horse sickness may prove 

 to be, lameness can hardly be said, so far as his owner is con- 

 cerned, to be a state less vexatious: through it he loses the labours 

 of a valued servant, from habit rendered so indispensably useful 

 to him that he feels at a loss to find a substitute in whom he can 

 place equal confidence. " No foot. No horse," was the quaint 

 title of an old work on lameness ; and an expressive one enough 

 it must be admitted to be, when we come to consider how value- 

 less a horse is whose feet are in an unsound condition. Above 

 half the horses brought to the veterinary surgeon for medical 

 treatment present cases of lameness. Let any person conversant 

 with horses walk but for a day through the streets and parks of 

 our overgrown metropolis, and note down how many lame horses 

 he encounters — too many of them in gentlemen's carriages — and 

 the numbers he will not fail to have observed will, on reflection, 

 bring three facts strikingly before him : — one being, the prevalence 



VOL. IV. B 



