RUPTURE OF MUSCULAR FIBRE. 371 



Chivery, near Wendover, and I operated upon her above the point 

 where this ligamentous band is inserted into the tendon : such 

 procedure giving me, in this instance, an opportunity of knowing 

 the real seat of the affection. Having divided both tendons, I 

 found the limb was still as rigid as before ; and finding no other 

 cause to account for such anomaly, I examined the metacarpal 

 ligament, which I found considerably thickened. This I deter- 

 mined to divide ; and the effect was, that the limb directly came 

 into its proper position without any force at all being applied. The 

 animal being released, and the direction of the limb attended to by 

 the usual means, she was put to work at the proper time, and has 

 continued to do well up to the present period, being nearly two 

 years since she was operated upon. I am quite aware that I 

 should have succeeded in bringing the limb into its normal position 

 had I divided the tendon helow the insertion of the metacarpal 

 ligament; still, in cases where this ligament is the primary seat, 

 I think a division of it alone, if resorted to in time, might suffice, 

 without going to such an extreme as that of carrying the incision 

 through the tendons." 



And Mr. C. has since sent me the leg of an old dray horse, con- 

 firming this view of the disease : the metacarpal ligament being 

 found much thickened and enlarged, with divers unnatural adhesions 

 to the contiguous parts, altogether producing contraction or shorten- 

 ing of it, and, through it, of the flexor tendons. From the length of 

 time the horse had been forced to tread upon his toe, it was curious 

 to observe how Nature had provided him with a most extraordinary 

 thickness of horn from the heels of the crust and frog, downward, 

 which answered all the purpose to him of a shoe with high calk- 

 ings. How far, in operating for tenotomy, • it would be advisable 

 to divide this ligament, so diseased, remains questionable. 



Lameness arising from Laceration or Rupture 

 OF Muscular Fibre. 



According to our notions of the general or ordinary causes 

 of lesions of muscular fibre, if men are not infrequently the sub- 

 jects of it, horses seem in our eyes to manifest double the liability. 



