4 LAMENESS. 



be attended with pain, and yet there may be permanent and irre- 

 moveable lameness. Parts in their natural condition possessing 

 elasticity or motion one upon the other may from the effects of 

 inflammation become glued together, or converted from soft into 

 hard unyielding tissues, and the result be lameness continuing long 

 after all inflammatory action and pain has departed : examples of 

 this daily meet our eyes, amongst the numberless horses — hunters 

 especially — there are, lame from '' bunged," " round," or solidified 

 legs. A horse may have a tumour of a magnitude or in a situ- 

 ation that interferes with progression, and so causes lameness; and 

 yet the tumour itself may be altogether of a painless description. 

 A form inability now and then assumes is that of 



Weakness in the Limbs ; by which is to be understood, diminish- 

 ed power or tone in their muscular or ligamentous parts. This 

 " weakness," as it is called, may be the result either of disease or 

 of hard work, or, on the other hand, it may proceed from long-con- 

 tinued inaction. A horse suddenly stricken with influenza mani- 

 fests such weakness in his limbs as hardly to be able to walk. Here 

 the debility is a direct effect of disease ; but it may be an indirect 

 effect, and in this way : — A horse dislocates his stifle : the power 

 and tone of the muscles of the dislocated limb remain for the time 

 undiminished, as indeed would speedily be evinced were the patella 

 pushed into its place again ; suffer the bone, however, to remain in 

 a state of dislocation for a length of time, the limb continuing 

 through necessity all the while in inaction, and the result will be 

 shrinking and atrophy of its muscles, and consequent manifestation 

 of weakness and lameness. Indeed, a horse may be kept in a stall 

 tied up to his crib for so long a time that when led out again he will 

 be found to have all but lost the use of his limbs. The weakness en- 

 gendered in the limbs by over-work every body recognizes. The 

 windgalls, the swollen and round sinews, the knuckling-over, the 

 bent and tremulous joints, all evince weakness from hard ymik ; 

 and this is commonly accompanied by more or less " grogginess" 

 and lameness. 



The Presence of Lameness, regarded simply as a bare fact 

 to be determined, might by many persons be supposed to be a 

 matter uncreative of doubt or difficulty ; and yet too frequently does 



