SPAVIN. 69 



The Definition of spavin, casting away all old and fanciful 

 notions about the disease, ought in propriety to be one consistent 

 with our present improved state of pathology. For a definition in ac- 

 cordance with the commonly received or popular ideas of spavin — 

 with, in fact, what we actually see of the disease — we can hardly 

 have a better than Blundeville's : — " Spavin is a great hard knot, 

 as big as a walnut, growing in the inside (meaning m^ier side) of 

 the hough, hard under the joint, nigh unto the maister veine, and 

 causeth the horse to halt." Defining it to be '' an exostosis" or 

 " a deposit of bony matter" upon the inner side of the hock, as 

 our modern writers in general have done, is surely little improve- 

 ment on Blundeville's definition. 



Unfortunately, spavin is one of those appellations in our veteri- 

 nary nosology which has not only been applied to diseases of 

 opposite natures, but has received different interpretations from 

 different writers : thus, Blundeville has one chapter treating " of 

 the drie spauen," another " of the wet spauen or through spauen;" 

 whereas Solleysell makes the dry spavin synonymous with string- 

 halt, calling the bone spavin, ox spavin, " because old oxen are 

 commonly subject to it, and have it extremely big." In our own 

 day we are constantly hearing of hone spavins, hog spavins, and* 

 hlood spavins. Well might Hurtrel D'Arboval say — " La science 

 veterinaire plus qu'aucune autre, est encore embarrassee d'un 

 patras indigeste de mots insignificans ou impropres, inutilement 

 employes les uns pour les autres, et une judicieuse reforme a 

 cet egard est vivement desiree." For my own part, I would fain 

 discard the word spavin altogether from our nosology, and in its 

 place introduce some appropriate names for the three or four dis- 

 eases it at present is used to denote : such however is the attach- 

 ment for old or received appellations, such the prejudice against 

 new ones, that I must confess I lack courage to embark in so un- 

 gracious an undertaking. One thing, however, I must do, and 

 that is, circumscribe the meaning of the word spavin, whenever and 

 wherever I may make use of it, to that disease of the hock com- 

 monly called hone spavin ; in which sense, that I may render my 

 definition at once sufficiently comprehensive and characteristic, 



I DEFINE Spavin to be, an exostosis of the hock, commonly 

 located and detectible on its inner side, whereby bones before move- 



