rupturp: of muscular fibre. 373 



The usual way in which such lamenesses have their origin 

 appears to be during some act of hard galloping or leaping; — step- 

 ping unguardedly into a rabbit-hole, or upon some surface which 

 gives way under the animal's weight. The horse immediately, or 

 soon afterwards, falls " dead lame ;" he can hardly limp, perhaps, 

 out of the field oi' wood in which he happens at the moment to be 

 going. He is said to have " ricked " {wrecked ?) himself; but no 

 sign of sprain is to be found. Perhaps, it is thought, he may have 

 "picked up something" in his foot; but examination of that part is 

 attended with no better success than the search after sprain. The 

 case is vexatiously obscure : nothing can be seen, nothing felt, to 

 account for the lameness. If the ailing member be a fore leg — as 

 most probably it is — the limb is taken up into the arms of the exa- 

 miner with a firm and close grasp, so as to enable him to swing it 

 backward and forward ; and he fancies one or both of these motions 

 " hurts" the horse : still, there is nothing to make him quite certain 

 that the horse, from such rough handling, does not feign being 

 hurt ; or that he in reality is not hurt ; not in consequence of any 

 lesion of muscle, but purely from the ordeal the examiner is put- 

 ting him through. Still, however, I do not mean to deny that 

 there may and do occur cases in which laceration or rupture, or 

 other lesion of muscular fibre, if it exist, is likely to be discovered 

 by manual examination of this or other kind, though a good deal 

 in all cases of muscular rend or lesion must be determined through 

 observation of the alteration occasioned by the injury in the horse's 

 action. 



Some years ago a very remarkable — indeed, as T thought at the 

 time of its occurrence, an unique — case of ruptured muscle hap- 

 pened in my practice ; but I have since found that so far from the 

 case, rare as it may be, being unparalleled, we have only to turn 

 over the leaves of Solleysel to meet with accounts of what appear 

 to be the same lesion, under the head of " Relaxation and 

 Straining of the Master Sinew." Before I relate this case 

 I will transcribe one which would appear less uncommon. 



