8 LAMENESS. 



Such cases of lameness as have been just described are in ge- 

 neral obvious enough in their character : the chief question for our 

 consideration is, by what signs or indications are we to determine 

 which of the four legs is the lame one in cases where a run of the 

 horse becomes absolutely necessary for its manifestation. The 

 generality of persons, in their notions about lameness, are apt to 

 commit two blunders: — One is, that, because a horse does not 

 shew lameness in his walk he cannot ail much ; the other, that in 

 trotting, the limb upon which he " drops " is the lame one. 



For a horse to " walk lame," he must be lame indeed — limp- 

 ingly lame — feel sharp pain every time he sets his foot to the 

 ground. The erroneous notion that lameness of every degree must 

 be evinced at a walking pace, appears to have originated in the 

 circumstance of a man shewing any lameness he may have in his 

 walk : it not being borne in mind that the cases of the biped and 

 the quadruped are widely different. A lame man, with his two 

 legs, is compelled at every alternate step he takes to throw his 

 weight upon his ailing limb ; the instant, however, he has done so 

 the pain occasioned by it makes him flinch from the pressure, and 

 he instinctively brings forward, with all the celerity he can, his 

 sound limb to the relief of the infirm one, and upon that reposes 

 his weight, as it were, with a sort of satisfaction for the moment at 

 the ease thereby afforded himself. Not so, however, with the ani- 

 mal that has four legs. In the quadruped's walk there is that 

 rapid succession of movement in the limbs, and consequent rapid 

 succession of bearing upon them, that the weight of the body 

 thrown upon the lame leg is too light and transient to cause him to 

 flinch or evince lameness, unless the pressure, light and transient 

 as it is, gives him actual pain. But in the trot, the weight he is 

 obliged to throw upon the leg may cause the animal pain, notwith- 

 standing, as I said before, he evinced no pain in his walk, and on 

 this account; — because the limbs in the accelerated pace, being 

 elevated and projected with additional force, come to the ground 

 with more weight and more concussion. In the gallop, the legs 

 stride and come to the ground with more force still ; and, therefore, 

 a person might suppose that this is a pace in which a horse would 

 most of all manifest his lameness. Such, however, is not the fact; 

 and the reason why it is not, is, that the two fore and two hind 



