WINDGALL. 281 



fluid, by degrees, acquires a turbid hue : instead of remaining a 

 clear oily-looking fluid, it comes to exhibit a flocculent serous as- 

 pect. Flocculi of lymph may even appear in it, a layer of the 

 same constituting the lining of the enlarged and now probably 

 inflamed bursa. Indeed, in the course of time, by increase of this 

 stringy deposit, the bursa, instead of being a sac containing a liquid, 

 becomes the inclosure of solid matters, or of matters partly solid and 

 partly liquid. The tumour now, instead of being soft and elastic, 

 as it was before, grows solid and hard to the feel; evidently, in- 

 deed, has undergone an established change of structure in its pa- 

 rietes, having become thickened and solidified and hardened. And 

 this is the state in which we commonly find windgalls of the 

 fetlock joints in old and hard- worked horses; a state in which 

 they remain for years ; nay, out of which it is but in compara- 

 tively few instances that they ever emerge, to change for one of a 

 still more obstinate character, and one that may prove annoying 

 or painful in a manner we shall hereafter point out. Of such tu- 

 mours, that which was originally but membranous tissue, with the 

 addition of no more than a lining of coagulable lymph, is converted 

 into a fibrous structure, and from this into scirrhus. Even here, 

 however, conversion does not stop. The scirrhus, in time, changes 

 its nature to cartilage : concentric layers of that substance are 

 found lining the inside ; and in the course of time the cartilage 

 changes, perhaps, to bone. At least, such are the transformations 

 which in windgalls of the fetlocks of very long standing, under the 

 protracted aggravation of work, are very apt to take place. Our 

 departed friend, Mr. King, veterinary surgeon of Stanmore, in his 

 lifetime, shewed us a beautiful specimen of ossified windgall. The 

 tumour, which consisted of disease of the bursa lodged between 

 the perforans tendon and the fetlock joint, in many places exhibited 

 osseous patches; and it interfered, from its situation, so much 

 with action, that the animal, incapable of extending his fetlock, 

 was compelled, in going, to tread solely upon the toe. 



Notwithstanding these augmentations of substance and changes 

 of structure the windgall, of the fetlock in particular, in many 

 instances experiences, and notwithstanding the proportionate dimi- 

 nution that, in consequence of the depositions taking place in- 



VOL. IV. 



