SYMPTOMS OF SPAVIN. 67 



they are generally in, is a fact so well known to coach and omni- 

 bus proprietors, and horse-keepers in general, that at the horse 

 auctions such animals fetch little or nothing. Even for agricul- 

 tural work such labourers as these prove of but little worth. Now 

 and then, however, it happens that the spavined horse, although 

 treatment has failed to render him sound, continues in respect to 

 his disease in that state in which he appears to suffer no local pain 

 at all while at rest, and but little while at work, and so is able 

 to do a considerable amount of some kinds of labour, lasting 

 in it perhaps for years. Still, such a horse is more likely than 

 another to receive injuries, to experience aggravation or relapse of 

 disease in his already diseased hock ; and under such return or 

 augmentation of ailment, unless great care be taken, and fre- 

 quently with all the care we can take, may and will fail 

 altogether. 



Spavins exist which occasion no Lameness. How this 

 comes to pass will appear when the time arrives to consider the rea- 

 sons why spavins in general cause lameness, and on occasions very 

 great pain as well, which cannot be done before we come to 

 treat of the pathology of spavin. It is sufficient for our purpose 

 here that we note and establish the fact, that lameness is not a 

 necessary consequence of spavin. Nothing is more common than 

 to meet with horses — colts even — who have what the dealers call 

 'knots' in their spavin places; and the time was when such 

 'knots' — which have always been regarded as spavins — were 

 certificated as constituting unsoundness. This was professional de- 

 cision which met with a good deal of opposition at the time, and 

 justly so; and the result has been, that such " knots" are now al- 

 lowed to pass as compatible with soundness. I remember, in the 

 year 1827, rejecting a mare shewn by the late Mr. Harnjan 

 Dyson to the First Life Guards, on account of having in each 

 hock what I regarded as a large spavin : the mare, however, 

 went perfectly free from lameness, and it was urged by Mr. Dyson 

 at the time that he frequently met with enlargements of the kind 

 — "low down," as these were — without any accompanying or 

 consequent lameness. The mare, notwithstanding, I objected to. 

 Since then, however, experience has taught me not to refuse to 



