64 SYMPTOMS OF SPAVIN. 



own part; I always think this comparison is most critically made by 

 standing in the situation above described, first on one side of the 

 horse and then on the other, and carrying the impression made in the 

 eye from one hock to the opposite. By placing himself, however, 

 immediately in front of the horse, and directing his view between 

 the fore legs, both hocks may be inspected simultaneously, and to 

 more advantage than if he were positioned behind the horse : 

 in neither of these situations, however, to my mind, can the examiner 

 obtain that critical profile view of the superficies which is best 

 suited to the detection of the small or flattened tumour of spavin. 



In these doubtful cases it is that we more especially derive 

 advantage from coupling the feel with the sight ; by the one sense 

 confirming or correcting the impression made by the other. The 

 sensation given to the fingers, carried over the place of spavin in a 

 normal hock, is not one of uniform levelness or rotundity of surface ; 

 we feel certain irregular elevations natural to the parts : below the 

 malleolus we feel the process of the astragalus, the prominences 

 of the cuneiform bones, and immediately beneath that of the small 

 cuneiform bone, the head of the inner small metatarsal bone. 

 Indistinctness to the feel of these landmarks — if I may so deno- 

 minate the natural prominences — and particularly about the site 

 of spavin, or any unusual fulness or rotundity of surface there- 

 abouts, would excite suspicion, and this suspicion would be con- 

 firmed or removed by contrasting the feel as well as the aspect of 

 one hock with that of the other. It is but natural to expect there 

 should be, in their callous or inflamed condition, heat and tender- 

 ness in these tumefactions ; it is difficult, however, in general, to 

 detect the former ; and as to the latter, it is equally difficult often 

 to ascertain whether any flinching the horse may manifest arises 

 from tenderness, or from any pressure the examiner may be making, 

 or from a habit of catching up his hind leg the moment it is 

 handled, as some horses will. 



Lameness, though the ordinary, is not the necessary 

 Consequence of Spavin. The lameness of spavin arises from 

 different causes : — mostly, from the pain or soreness the animal 

 experiences in using his hock, which, varying in different cases 

 and at different periods or stages of the malady, will account for 



