280 EUKEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



the economy to bo subverted, and become transformed into a disabling 

 chronic case, or possibly one that is incurable and fatal. Hence the 

 impolicy of depreciating early symptoms because they are unaccompa- 

 nied by distinct and pronounced characteristics, and from a lack of 

 threatening appearances inferring the absence of danger. The possi- 

 bilities of an ambush can never be safely ignored. An extra caution 

 costs nothing, even if wasted. The fulfillment of the first duty of a 

 practitioner, when introduced to a case, is not always an eas}' task, 

 though it is too frequently expected that the; diagnosis or "what is the 

 matter" verdict will be reached by the quickest and surest kind of an 

 "instantaneous process,'"' and a sure prognosis, or "how will it end,'' 

 guessed at instanter. 



Usually the discovery that the animal is becoming lame is compar- 

 atively an easy matter to a careful observer. Such a person will 

 readil}- note the changes of movements which will have taken place 

 in the animal he has been accustomed to drive or ride, unless they 

 are indeed slight and limited to the last degree. But what is not 

 ahvaj's easy is the detection, after discovering the fact of an existing 

 irregularit}', of the locality of its point of origin, and whether its 

 seat be in the near or off leg, or in the fore or the hind part of the 

 bod}'. These are questions too often wrongly answered, notwith- 

 standing the fact that with a little careful scrutin}- the point may be 

 easily settled. The error, which is too often committed, of pronounc- 

 iug the leg upon which the animal travels soundly as the seat of the 

 lameness, is the result of a misinterpretation of the physiolog}^ of 

 locomotion in the crippled animal. Much depends upon the gait with 

 which the animal moves while under examination. The act of walk- 

 ing is unfavorable for accurate observation, though, if the animal walks 

 on three legs, the decision is easy to reach. The action of gallop- 

 ing will often, by the rapiditj^ of the muscidar movements and their 

 quick succession, interfere with a nice study of their rhythm, and it 

 is only under some peculiar circumstances that the examination can 

 be safely conducted while the animal is moving with that gait. It is 

 while the animal is trotting that the investigation is made with the 

 best chances of an intelligent decision, and it is while moving with 

 that gait, therefore, that the points should be looked for which must 

 form the elements of the diagnosis. 



Our first consideration should be the physiologj' of normal or health}^ 

 locomotion, that from thence we may the. more easily reach our con- 

 clusions touching lameness, or that which is abnormal, and by this 

 process we ought to succeed in obtaining a clew to the solution of the 

 first problem, to wit, in which leg is the seat of the lameness? 



A word of definition is here necessary, in order to render that Avhich 

 follows more easily intelligible. In veterinary nomenclature each two 

 of the legs, as referred to in pairs, is denominated a biped. Of the four 



