68 SYMPTOMS OF SPAVIN. 



pass such horses; but to take them, guarded by special war- 

 ranty* ; and I cannot say I have had any cause to regret such a 

 change of opinion. 



It is an observation of old date — Gibson makes it — that "a 

 spavin which begins at the lower part of the hock is not so dan- 

 gerous as that which puts out higher, "between the two round pro- 

 cesses of the leg bone" ; by which I take it, he means the malleolus 

 above and the cuneiform hone below : the same Avriter adds — " a 

 spavin near the edge is not so bad as that which is more inward, 

 towards the middle, as it does not so much affect the bending of 

 the hock." These are observations to which my own experience 

 would lead me to subscribe ; and I hope, when we come to the 

 pathology of spavin, to have it in my power to shew they admit 

 of satisfactory explanation. 



Lameness arising from Spavin is sometimes present 



WITHOUT THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE OF SpAVIN. This is a 

 form of disease better known to veterinary surgeons in general, I 

 believe, under the denomination of occult hock lameness. My 

 own attention to the subject was first drawn so long ago as in the 

 year 1815, though then I was quite in the dark as to the nature 

 of the case. On my return from Belgium, after the Battle of 

 Waterloo, I had in my possession a bay blood mare, who was 

 lame in one of her hind legs — I forget which — but whose lameness 

 was of that nature that no external sign whatever was apparent to 

 account for it. The limb had been searched over and over again 

 by myself and some other veterinary surgeons, and the mare had 

 been trotted and walked, circled and backed, and put to all 

 other known trials and tests, without the examinations ending in 

 any thing like concurrent opinions respecting either the seat or 

 the nature of her lameness. The mare returned home, marching 

 with the troops, led by a man on horseback — for notwithstanding 

 her lameness she walked very well — and as soon as she arrived 

 at head quarters (Woolwich), I shewed her to my father, at the 



* The chief use of such special warranty being, to throw the responsibility 

 upon the dealer, in case the painless and insensible spavin should turn into 

 one productive of lameness : a change, however — as will be seen hereafter — 

 by no means likely to happen. 



