WINDGALLS OF THE FETLOCK. 291 



indeed, under such circumstances it is that they oftentimes take 

 their rise, and at all times become aggravated and augmented. And 

 cases of this description do occur in which inflammation arising in 

 contiguous parts extends to the bursae, and implicates the windgalls 

 in the causation of the pain and the lameness, in consequence of its 

 rendering them sensitive and tender on pressure or motion. In 

 sprains of the fetlock joint, and of the back sinews and suspensory 

 ligament, this, we know, not infrequently takes place. 



Under such circumstances as we have just described, or from 

 repeated hard work, windgalls, originally attracting no particular 

 attention from their magnitude, will frequently acquire very large 

 volume, and other parts of similar structure in their immediate 

 vicinity will take on the same morbid action. Thus, windgalls 

 about the fetlock now and then, in horses hard-worked or strained, 

 extend high up the back of the leg, in consequence of the sheath 

 of the flexor tendons participating in the same dropsical action. 

 Whether any rupture of the original 'windgall happens, and so com- 

 munication be established between it and the new-formed tumour, 

 is a question in our mind still unsettled for want of a fitting sub- 

 ject for dissection. It is notorious enough, that there is a great 

 deal of variation in the bulk of such large swellings, as there is, 

 indeed, to some extent, in certain ordinary forms of windgalls, they 

 being larger after work than at other times ; hence it is we hear a 

 person say, his horse's windgalls after work " run up to the hock:" 

 owing, we repeat, to the implication of the vagina of the tendons. 

 Now, in cases of this kind, it is very possible, tenderness and stiff- 

 ness, or even lameness, perhaps, may be observed, and be referrible 

 to the enlarged and distended windgalls : there will be evinced a 

 flinching and catching-up of the limb when the tumours are 

 handled, and an uneasiness in standing manifested the day after 

 the work by resting first one leg and then the other. Aged horses 

 that have in their day worked hard are very apt to evince this sort 

 of renewed irritation in their chronic and morbidly altered wind- 

 galls. Old coachers and posters afford evidence enough of this. 

 But give them, however, a day or two's repose, and all comes 

 right again. 



Windgalls occur in the hind Fetlocks a great deal more 



