300 BLOOD SPAVIN. 



authors," were we to refuse to entertain the subject of " blood 

 spavin," we might justly be said to lay ourselves open to animad- 

 version for offering no opinion on what was regarded and treated 

 as a disease by our ancestors in the practice of " farriery." We 

 feel we have no right to treat either them or the public with such 

 " contemptuous silence ;" but, on the contrary, are called upon to 

 divulge what the result of our own experience has taught us con- 

 cerning the asserted " enlargement of the vein," which is said to 

 be " frequently productive of weakness or lameness in the part." 

 A common accompaniment of bog spavin — nay, almost a con- 

 stant accompaniment whenever the tumour is full and prominent — 

 is distention of the vena saphena, or main superficial vein of the 

 hind limb, at the place where it meets with the bog spavin, over 

 which it passes in its course to the thigh. That pressure made 

 against the vein by the tumour should produce some impediment 

 to the flow of blood through it, and so cause the vessel to become 

 full or distended at this particular part, is no more than one 

 might expect, and what, in fact, does happen. But to say that the 

 vein in consequence becoming " enlarged," or, in surgical language, 

 becomes varicose from this pressure, is more, we must confess, 

 than we.have been able to convince ourselves takes place. We 

 believe the fulness caused by the pressure against the vein to 

 amount at greatest to no more than distention of the vessel ; we 

 have never had reason to suppose that any actual dilatation or 

 " enlargement" existed; and therefore, for our own part, we must 

 be content to dismiss the subject with the remark, that it would 

 appear as though the bulging of the capsule of the hock-joint had 

 been confounded with the distention of the vein, or, in other words, 

 that the tumour was thought to arise from the latter ; and that this 

 supposition would the more readily be entertained from the cir- 

 cumstance of blood, and not joint-oil, being found to issue whenever 

 puncture was made at the place where naturally it would be made, 

 to let out the contents of the swelling, viz. the most prominent or 

 pointing part of the " enlargement." 



