244 KNEE JOINT LAMENESS. 



known horses who have had, as it were, periodical returns of lame- 

 ness in the shoulder ; at least, who have had their lameness come 

 on as soon as they have been put to the same hard or violent ex- 

 ertion as in the first instance occasioned it, even though a twelve- 

 month or more has intervened between the application of such 

 exciting causes : it being evident enough that the lameness would 

 have relapsed before, had the horse been sooner put to his trying 

 work. In the majority of cases, however, relapses, if they occur at 

 all, take place on the horse's first being returned to work ; and 

 if not then, pretty confident hopes may be entertained they will 

 not happen at all. In a state of convalescence there is no better 

 habitation for the patient than a loose box : to the little motion he 

 can take in which may be added, as he progresses towards sound- 

 ness, walking exercise in hand, at an hour of the day and in a 

 situation, if possible, when and where he will hear and see nothing 

 to cause him to "jump about," and thereby fun a hazard of re- 

 laming himself. 



KNEE JOINT LAMENESS. 



On this occasion we shall, with permission, avail ourselves of 

 the information contained in two valuable papers *' On Carpitis," 

 by Mr. Arthur Cherry, published in The VETERINARIAN for 

 1845. In calling our attention to the knee joint as a seat of lame- 

 ness, and not so infrequent a one as may be or has been imagined, 

 Mr. A. Cherry has opened to our view a field of hippo-pathology 

 hitherto much neglected. The knee in the fore limb may be re- 

 garded as the correlative articulation to the hock in the hind limb. 

 The one and the other are composed of several small bones, op- 

 posed above and below to long cylindrical shafts. Both enjoy 

 greater sphere of motion than is possessed by other individual 

 joints of the limbs; and while the hock constitutes the axis of that 

 motion through which progression is effectuated by the hind limbs, 

 the knee is the joint on which what we call " action" in the fore 

 limbs mainly depends. For, let a horse have an ailing or a stiff 

 knee joint, and what is the consequence 1 — why, nothing short of 

 inability to flex the leg to step forward, thereby rendering him no 

 longer of any service to his master. Seeing, then, that the knee is 



