CAUSES OF SPAVIN. 61 



from Mr. Carlisle, of Wigton, Cumberland, read before the Veteri- 

 nary Medical Association, and published in The Veterinarian 

 for 1839, the writer says — " Hock diseases are often hereditary. I 

 have known the progeny of some horses very much disposed 

 to spavin ; others inherit a tendency to splents, ringbones, &c. 

 The peculiar formation of the parts, inherited from the parent, 

 render them susceptible of those diseases from causes that would 

 make little impression on other horses." 



For my own part I am very much disposed to believe in the ex- 

 istence in the system of what I would call an ossific diathesis. I 

 have most assuredly seen unbroke colts so prone in their economy 

 to the production of bone, that, without any assignable outward 

 cause — without recognisable injury of any kind — they have, at 

 a very early age, exhibited ringbones, and splents, and spavins. 

 There might have been something peculiar in the construction of 

 their limbs to account for this ; at the same time there appeared a 

 more than ordinary propensity in their vascular systems to osseous 

 effusion. Growing young horses, and particularly such as are what 

 we call "overgrown," may be said to be predisposed to spavin, 

 simply from the circumstance of the weakness manifest in their 

 hocks, as well as other joints. When horses whose frames have out- 

 grown their strength, with their long and tender limbs, come to be 

 broke — to have weight placed upon their backs at a time when the 

 weight of their own bodies is as much as they are able to bear — 

 then it is that the joints in an especial degree are likely to suffer, 

 and windgall and spavin to be the result. Indeed, under such cir- 

 cumstances, spavin, like splent and other transformations of soft 

 and elastic tissue into bone, may be regarded as Nature's means 

 of fortification against more serious failures. 



The Hock most disposed to Spavin appears to me to be 

 the compact short-pointed hock which is placed at the extremity of 

 a short muscular thigh, and upon the top of a lengthy leg. This is 

 the kind of hock we frequently see in hunters of good repute, and 

 in hackneys valued for their trotting powers ; and consequently 

 there may be something in the work the hock is put to, as well as 

 in its formation. We do not so frequently observe spavins in 

 race-horses, and horses that have lengthy blood-like quarters; 



