38 UHEUMATIC LAMENESS. 



In the course of the late influenza — which has, for the most part, 

 assumed the form of pleuro-pneumonia, and in that form has 

 proved most destructive to horses — during the concluding months of 

 1844, and the earlier ones of 1845, several cases of this erratic 

 or rheumatic description have occurred. The lameness in general 

 makes its appearance during convalescence, and is to be regarded 

 rather as a favourable symptom than otherwise, no case having 

 happened to us of death from the constitutional disease after its 

 manifestation. The lameness, which is commonly both sudden 

 and excessive, comes oftener in one of the fore limbs than in the 

 hind : occasionally, however, it appears first in one of the hind 

 legs ; rarely, very rarely, in two legs at the same time. The part 

 in which the local disease shews itself, accounting for the lameness, 

 is either the sheath of the flexor tendon or the fetlock joint : we 

 have never seen the disease in any other part ; at the same time, 

 we cannot give any good reason why these parts, to the exclusion 

 of their fellows, should prove the seat of it. A puffy circumscribed 

 tumour is felt upon the flexor tendons, about midway between 

 the knee and fetlock, which, shewn to a veterinarian unacquainted 

 with the history of the case, might, from its appearance, be pro- 

 nounced to be the effect of sprain, or by any unprofessional person 

 called " broken down in the flexor sinews." The tumour evi- 

 dently contains fluid — is, in fact, a collection of synovia between 

 the tendons, confined there, seemingly, by adhesion of the investing 

 cellular tissue. When the fetlock joint is the seat of the disease, 

 there is perceptible heat and fulness of the whole joint, with tume- 

 faction and fluctuation of the sesamoid bursse — evident winclgalls, 

 in fact. In either case, the disease assumes the appearance of 

 what we are in the habit of calling sprain of those parts ; nor 

 should we, as we have before said, setting aside the knowledge 

 of their history, be able by manual examination to distinguish one 

 affection from the other. The ordinary duration of the disease, or 

 of the lameness — for they come and go together — is from one to 

 three weeks ; rarely is its duration less than a week or so long as 

 a month, and its common termination is in translation into another 

 leg; from one fore leg into the other, or into a hind leg, or from 

 one hind leg into the other hind leg. 



