260 SPLINT. 



the gentleman, I persuaded them to consent to my keeping the 

 horse three days, in which time I was to give him a dose of 

 physic, and poultice his heel. If he was sound at the end of that 

 period, the gentleman was to keep him ; if he continued lame, he 

 was to be returned. On the third day the horse was sound ; but, 

 instead of the party meeting as agreed, the gentleman sent his 

 attorney to demand the purchase-money. 



" Although I was perfectly satisfied as to the soundness of the 

 horse, yet, to make assurance doubly sure, I advised the man to 

 take the horse to Mr. Field for his opinion. Mr. Field examined 

 him with the greatest minuteness, and gave a written certificate 

 that he was sound. The dealer then resisted the payment, and an 

 action at law was the consequence. The horse remained in my 

 stable. 



" About six weeks after this, Mr. Sewell, accompanied by the 

 purchaser, called to see the horse ; when, after having examined 

 and ridden him, Mr. Sewell gave it as his decided opinion, that, 

 although the horse was not lame, he was unsound, because he had 

 splents ; which splents were (according to Mr. Sewell's notions) 

 precisely the same as nodes in the human subject!" 



The Node and the Splint are different Diseases. — " I 

 consider them," says Mr. Henderson, in the same paper, " to be 

 widely different. The one is produced by a local cause, and in 

 many instances purely accidental ; the other almost invariably 

 arises from a vitiated constitution, produced by the venereal poison." 

 Add to which, they are notoriously different in intrinsic nature. 



Should a Horse really be lame from Splint, we 

 may expect to find that the splint and the lameness have both 

 proved simultaneous, or thereabouts, in their appearance. An old 

 splint is not likely to be the occasion of a new lameness ; neither 

 is it probable that the lameness should much precede the splint. 

 The tumour will, on inquiry, most likely turn out to have been a 

 discovery not made until the lameness was evinced ; and, if felt or 

 pressed with the fingers, it will prove warm, — hot even in com- 

 parison with the surrounding skin ; and the horse will manifest 

 tenderness in it, by flinching or catching up his leg every time the 



