224 



Other Joint Lamenesses. 



We have seen that two joints in particular are subject to dis- 

 ease in horses, viz. the navicular joint in the fore limb, and the 

 hock joint in the hind limb. Other joints of the limbs have, on 

 occasions, proved the seats of lameness, but these two are its ordi- 

 nary situations, the reasons for which have been before detailed. 



Formerly, among the farriers of old, ''the round bone," by 

 which is indicated the hip joint, was supposed to be a frequent 

 seat of ailments ; and it was a common practice with those who 

 held this opinion to fire the skin covering the round bone, the 

 part they took for such bone being the great trochanter of the 

 osfemoris, which, in fact, is the nearest point, externally, to the 

 hip joint. The firing was commonly made to imitate the wheel of 

 a carriage ; and some years ago, it was by no means 

 uncommon to meet with horses having this mark upon 

 their hip ; though, at the present day, the occurrence is 

 comparatively rare. This will not appear strange when 

 the reader comes to be informed that numbers of horses whose 

 lamenesses have really been in the hock have been pronounced 

 " lame in the round bone." The advances made in veterinary 

 science have satisfactorily shewn that the farriers' opinion was, for 

 the most part, founded in error; the halting action which they con- 

 sidered as denoting hip-lameness, more critical observation, com- 

 bined with post-mortem results, has demonstrated to have its 

 origin in disease of hock, for the most part, indeed, in spavin. 

 Spavin, as we have seen, is a fruitful source of lameness behind, 

 frequently insidious in its rise and progress, sometimes difficult 

 of detection, occasionally incapable of demonstration ; no wonder, 

 therefore, that it should so often lead the unwary and inexpe- 

 rienced into error. 



But it is an easier task to expose palpable error of this kind 

 than it is to define the limits of articular disease — to say what 

 joints commonly are affected with lameness, and what rarely or 

 never are — than to specify the joints really obnoxious to disease, 

 and those that have never been known or observed to be diseased. 



