86 CURABILITY OF SPAVIN. 



say that spavin in the end will prove to be an incurable disease, 

 I should be asserting that which in the main has been found to be 

 correct. Inveterate spavins rarely admit of any alleviation, even 

 of their lameness; and such as have not arrived at that state of 

 disease or inveteracy that precludes all hope of cure, have but too 

 frequently their alleged "cures" followed by return and perma- 

 nency of lameness. Cceteris paribus, a spavin upon the hock of 

 a colt or a young horse is more likely to admit of cure than one 

 in an old horse, the powers of restoration being greater in one than 

 in the other. A spavin that is put forth on a sudden, and with 

 which lameness is simultaneous, is more likely to be cured than 

 one that has been long in coming forward — long in '' breeding," as 

 people say — and which has been preceded by lameness of a tran- 

 sitory character. This brings to our mind the old observation 

 about those lamenesses being the most difficult of removal which 

 steal gradually on our notice. Such lamenesses in their tardy ad- 

 vance bring with them two important pieces of information : they 

 shew they cannot be the result of injury; at the same time they 

 afford us pretty strong evidence in themselves of being the off- 

 spring of inward and insidious disease — disease of a nature that 

 has been some considerable time coming to such maturity as to 

 occasion pain, and that sufficient to pi^duce lameness ; and which 

 will require — as most diseases, they say, require double the time 

 to quit they take in coming — a more considerable time still before 

 it takes its departure. 



Persons bringing to us lame horses are naturally anxious about 

 them, importunate to be informed not only as to the probabi- 

 lity of cure, but as to the space of time the cure, supposing it to 

 be probable, is likely to occupy in bringing about : the}^, of course, 

 especially want to know when they shall be able to work their 

 horses again, and, in their importunity to obtain as earl}^ a date as 

 they can to this day of restoration to work, they are very likely 

 to extract from the practitioner, at some unguarded moment, a 

 promise of a shorter time being occupied in treatment than, in 

 justice to his patient as well as to himself, he ought to have con- 

 sented to. It is not impossible the veterinary surgeon may be 

 requested to treat the spavin during the time the horse is at work, 



