332 CURB. 



rather of stretch or strain or laceration of the faschia or theca than 

 of the muscle or tendon. How commonly does " sprain of the 

 back sinews," as the affection is called, amount to this only, when 

 the general belief is that the fibres of the sinew itself are either 

 stretched beyond their extensibility, or rather are ruptured. There 

 is no difficulty in accounting for the lameness accompanying such 

 an accident. When faschiee or thecse are in a state of inflamma- 

 tion, any motion of them, or of parts connected with them, cannot 

 fail to be productive of acute pain. 



Curb. 



The Derivation of " Curb," there can be no doubt, is from 

 the French word courhe ; the latter answering to the correlative 

 words, curvare in Latin, corbar in Spanish, curve in English, &c. 

 And yet, in the pathological sense in which we understand the 

 word curb, we are unable to find in another language a word like 

 it of the same signification. If we turn to the word courbe in 

 D'Arboval's Dictionnaire Veterinaire, our best French autho- 

 rity, we find it defined to be " an osseous tumour, hard, of greater 

 or less magnitude, so called because in outline it is more or less 

 curved; its seat being the inner surface of the horses hock, pre- 

 cisely where projects the internal condyle of the tibia or bone of 

 the thigh*." The old French author's, SoUeysel's, definition runs 

 not very wide of this. " The curb," he informs us, " is a large 

 and hard tumour, generated of flegmatic matter, seated on the in- 

 side of the hough, higher than spavin, on the substance of the ten- 

 don that strengthens the part : 'tis a long swelling in the shape of 

 a pear cleft through the middle into two pieces, higher above than 

 below, and sometimes makes the horse haltt." The "osseous" 

 composition of the tumour being here omitted, were it not for the 



* CouEBE. — Tumeur osseuse, dure, et plus ou moins volumineux, ainsi 

 appellee parcequ'elle decrit une ligne plus ou moins cowbe. EUe se deve- 

 loppe a la face interne du jarret du cheval, kfendroit qui repond precisement 

 au condyle interne du tibia ou os du jambe. — Diet, de Med. de Chirurg., S^c 

 par UArhoval. 2d edit. 1838. 



t The Couipleat Horseman. By Sollejsel. Translated by Hope 

 2d edition, 1717. • 



