LAMENESS. 5 



it happen that the horse one person, one veterinary surgeon even, 

 calls lame, another will declare to be sound. Discreditable as this 

 may appear to be to our profession, it is not always to be avoided. 

 From a variety of causes and circumstances, now and then it hap- 

 pens that a horse will at one time go lame, at another sound ; or 

 his lameness may be of that slight or transient character that it is 

 but by the narrowest and most critical observation perceptible, or 

 only manifested, perhaps, when the animal happens to step upon 

 a stone or some other hard substance, or on his being turned or 

 stopped in some sharp and unexpected manner. A great difficulty 

 Avith which we have to contend in some of these doubtful cases 

 is the distinguishing between what seems to be lameness and what 

 may in reality be only some peculiarity in the gait of the horse, 

 with which the examiner, for want of knowing the animal better, 

 is unacquainted. Some horses, from bad riding or driving, ac- 

 quire a sort of hitch or lift in their trot ; and though this in gene- 

 ral is by a professional eye readily distinguished from actual lame- 

 ness, it may still exist in a form that, in a suspected case of 

 lameness, might lead to a difficulty in discrimination. The dealer 

 in horses is very apt to avail himself of the benefit of any dubious 

 point of this kind, and say — '' In my opinion, sir, that which you 

 suspect to be lameness is nothing more than the horse's manner of 

 going /" 



But it may happen that a horse may go lame at one time and 

 not at another. That horses are subject to rheumatic affections 

 I feel no hesitation in asserting, and hope to be able on some future 

 occasion to prove ; and that such a disease is of that fleeting cha- 

 racter that comes and causes excessive lameness at one time, and 

 on a sudden departs and leaves the horse sound, I also believe to 

 be able to shew. Again, spasm or cramp may seize a horse, and 

 render him for the time dead lame : in another minute or two, the 

 horse may go as though nothing had ailed him. When I say, how- 

 ever, " a horse may go lame at one time and not at another," I am 

 not making mention of this fact so much in allusion to any disease of 

 a fleeting or transient character, as in regard to those cases of lame- 

 ness which either manifest themselves on first emerging from the 

 stable, or else only become developed through work or some ex- 

 traordinary efibrt : one horse will come lame out of his stable, and 



