THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 270 



reply to a question put to him, how it happened that but a few 

 ringbones were now met with, compared to the number that at- 

 tracted notice in times past. The reply was, " Because no 

 breeder of horses nowadays will send a mare to a horse having 

 ringbones." (A very good example for American horse-breed- 

 ers to follow.) There appeared something like reason and truth 

 in this ; and we felt more inclined to attach faith to it, when 

 we came to read in Sollysell's work, " The ringbone is some- 

 times hereditary ; though it is usually occasioned by a strain 

 taken in curvetting, bounding turns, and violent galloping or 

 racing." 



" That form, as well as breed, is concerned in the production of 

 ringbone, we have sufficient living demonstration. A coarse or 

 half-bred, fleshy, or bony-legged horse, with short and upright 

 pasterns, is, we have observed, the ordinary subject of disease ; 

 and there exist satisfactory reasons why we should expect him 

 to be so. The pastern and coffin bones constitute the nethermost 

 parts — the pedestals — of the columns of bones composing the 

 limbs ; and being so, they receive the entire weight and force 

 transmitted from above. The pastern, when long and oblique in 

 position, receives the superincumbent weight in such an indirect 

 line, that, bending towards the ground with the fetlock, nothing 

 like jar or concussion follows. The very reverse of this, how- 

 ever, happens every time the foot of a limb, having a short and 

 upright pastern, comes to the ground. In it, instead of the weight 

 descending obliquely upon the sesamoids, and the fetlock bending 

 therewith, it descends direct, or nearly so, upon the pastern, 

 making this bone entirely dependent upon the bone beneath it — 

 the coffin — for counteracting spring ; and should any thing occur 

 to destroy or diminish this spring, or to throw more weight, or 

 sudden weight, upon the coffin bone, than it can counteract, jar 

 of the whole apparatus ensues, and an effort of nature to strength- 

 en the parts, by investing them with callus and ossification, is 

 likely to be the ultimate result. For we would view ringbone, 

 disease though it most assuredly must be called, as frequently, in 

 voung horses, a resource of nature whenever the [pastern] bones 

 are found unequal to the exertions or efforts required of them." 



The exciting Causes of Ringbone. — " These may be said to 



