230 ELBOW-JOINT LAMENESS. 



The latter end of June 1845 he took the influenza again, and 

 though the epidemic of that year was of a severe and fatal cha- 

 racter, he had it very hghtly; the only question being, as will 

 arise in the sequel, whether his system did or did not in conse- 

 quence of the attack, notwithstanding it was a mild one, imbibe 

 the arthritic or rheumatic diathesis, which along with the influenza 

 so much prevailed. Albeit, he recovered about the middle of 

 July from the attack, and went to work again, appearing com- 

 pletely restored to health and strength and spirits. 



A month afterwards — the middle of August — while driving him, 

 I fancied he went lame in the off" fore leg. I at first thought his 

 lameness might arise from some temporary cause. I looked for a 

 stone in his foot, but found none. I continued my drive notwith- 

 standing, and when I returned home I had his shoe taken ofl". 

 Still I found nothing to account for his slight and transitory lame- 

 ness : I say transitory, for the following day I drove him again, 

 and then he appeared better — hardly lame, in fact, at all. I con- 

 tinued working him — unwisely giving way to a vulgar notion that, 

 in his somewhat dubious condition, he " might work sound" — for 

 a few days longer; when I became ashamed of myself for driving a 

 lame horse, and resolved on submitting him to some treatment 

 likel)'^ to prove more eflfective than any thing which had hitherto 

 been tried. Considering his lameness to be in his foot, blood was 

 taken from the toe, and that followed up by a sweating blister 

 upon the pastern. This treatment occupied the month of Sep- 

 tember. No relief resulting from it, 1 shewed him in the begin- 

 ning of October to Mr. Arthur Cherry, whose opinion was that 

 the knee was the seat of his lameness. Accordingly, treatment 

 was directed to that locality, with, however, no better success 

 than the former. On the 1st November both his fetlock joints 

 were blistered, and he was, when fit, turned into straw-yard. There 

 he remained until the 15th December, when he was taken up 

 again into the stable, and, strange to say, in a lamer condition 

 than he had ever yet been ; and was thought now to be lame in 

 the near as well as in the off fore limb. At all this I was so 

 much surprised, and at the same time so disheartened, that I felt at 

 a loss either to account for his lameness, or what steps to take by 



