80 PATHOLOGY OF SPAVIN. 



the disease of spavin might have its beginning within the capsular 

 ligament of the hock joint. That in all cases of inveterate and in- 

 curable spavin the synovial membrane is the seat — the main seat 

 — of disease, and that this -is the principal reason why all our 

 known means of cure fail, is a fact beyond all doubt or dispute : at 

 the same time, the supposition that the disease, although attended 

 by lameness in its early stages, may and frequently does consist in 

 pure exostosis, will account for the fact of cases of spavin, when 

 timely and effectively treated, occasionally admitting of recovery. 



There is another fact to which I would call attention, from the 

 circumstance of its appearing in corroboration of the disease of 

 spavin having its commencement outside the joint, and making its 

 progress into the inside. If we examine the cuneiform bones of a 

 spavined hock after maceration, we shall perceive that the caries 

 which their surfaces exhibit has evidently commenced upon their 

 inner parts — that it has, to appearance, spread from the exostosis 

 outside upon the articulating surfaces inside the joint; it very com- 

 monly happening that the outer parts of the same surfaces remain 

 in a sound state*. Again, I have at the present moment another 

 preparation of the bones of the hock before me in which the two 

 cushion bones are inseparably united along their front sides by 

 ossification ; and yet so smooth are their exterior surfaces, that no 

 spavin, or the slightest vestige of one, would be discoverable in 

 the living subject. Such is a true case of occult^ concealed, or 

 indiscoverable spavin. 



Although the diseases inside and outside the joints are different 

 at their commencement, one consisting in inflammation of the syno- 

 vial membrane and subsequent ulceration of the articular cartilages 

 — while the other consists in inflammation followed by ossification 

 of fibrous or fibro-cartilaginous substance, yet in the end do both 

 diseases merge into one and the same morbid action of ossification, 

 tending in its progress to the cementing and fixing of parts, once 

 moveable upon one another, together, and in the end converting 

 the entire mechanism of the joint into one solidified diseased struc- 

 ture, coated inside and out with porous rocky osseous deposit. 



♦ See PI. V, Fig. 1 & 2. 



