SYMPTOMS. OF SPAVIN. G3 



Symptoms of Spavin. 



These are in general plain, simple, and unequivocal. The horse 

 manifests lameness in one of his hind limbs, and on examination 

 a circumscribed spheroid tumour, of the magnitude of half a walnut 

 or more — " a jack" as a spavin is often called by dealers — is evi- 

 dent enough both to the sight and feel of the man practised in such 

 matters. Lameness, however, the effect of spavin, may be pre- 

 sent without any detect! ble tumour : on the other hand, there may 

 be a tumour, even of large size — " a thumping jack," in dealers' 

 phraseology — and yet lameness not be a consequence. 



In the Detection of Spavin, the eye is a nicer test than the 

 hand : though the two, one in confirmation of the other, constitute 

 our ordinary agents in the examination. Commencing with critical 

 inspection of the hock, the place in which the examiner can best 

 trace in his eye the line of its inner superficies, is, standing by the 

 side of the horse's (correspondent) fore limb : here, by stooping his 

 body, and carrying his head either near to or away from the 

 animal's abdomen, according as may be required, he will obtain 

 the sought-for profile view of the inner superficies of the hock. 

 Now, supposing the examiner, in this position, casting his eye down 

 the inner surface of a sound or normal hock, he begins, superiorly, 

 with that prominence so remarkable in all hocks — though more 

 conspicuous in some than in others — the internal malleolus of the 

 tibia ; from which the descending line, marked in his eye by the 

 profile of the superficies, undulates inward and backward until it 

 has reached the bottom of the hock, where it suddenly declines 

 down to a level with the line of the cannon. Now, it is precisely 

 the interval between the prominence of the hock ceasing and the 

 cannon beginning — the part of the superficial line which constitutes 

 the dip from one into the other — that is the site of spavin : a small 

 round tumour interrupts the natural declivity from the hock to 

 the cannon, and in a moment catches the eye of the experienced 

 observer. In cases where the tumour, from its smallness or flat- 

 ness, or diffuse character, is indistinct to the eye, the examiner 

 will not make his mind up concerning it until he has narrowly 

 compared the suspected with the sound or normal hock. For my 



