284 BUKEAU OI ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



region, what structure is affected, the easy part of the task is over, 

 and the more difficult and important, because more obscure, portion 

 of the investigation has commenced — except, of course, in cases of 

 which the features are too distinctly evident to the senses to admit of 

 error. It is true that bj^ carefull}' noting the manner in which a lame 

 log is performing its functions, and closeh^ scrutinizing the motions 

 of the whole extremit}^, and especialh' of the various joints which 

 enter into its structure; by minutely examining ever}^ part of the 

 liml); by observing the outlines; by testing the change, if any, in 

 temperature and the state of the sensibility — all these investigations 

 ma}' guide the surgeon to a correct localization of the seat of trouble, 

 but he must carefully refrain from the adoption of a hasty conclusion, 

 and, above all, assure himself that he has not failed to make the foot, 

 of all the organs of the horse the most liable to injury and lesion, the 

 subject of the most thorough and minute examination of all the parts 

 which compose the suffering extremity. 



The greater liability of the foot than of an}' other part of the 

 extremities to injury from casualties, natural to its situation and use, 

 should always suggest the beginning of an inquiry, especially in an 

 obscure case of lameness at that point. Indeed the lameness may 

 have an apparent location elsewhere when that is the true seat of 

 the trouble, and the surgeon who, while examining his lame patient, 

 discovers a ringbone, and satisfying himself that he has encountered 

 the cause of the disordered action suspends his investigation without 

 subjecting the foot to a close scrutiny, may deeply regret his neglect 

 and inadvertence at a later day, when regrets will avail nothing 

 toward remedying the irreparable injury which has ensued upon 

 his partial method of exploration. But, as in human pathological 

 experience, there are instances when inscrutable diseases will deliver 

 their fatal messages, while leaving no mark and making no sign by 

 which they might be identified and classified, so it will happen that 

 in the humbler animals the onset and progress of mysterious and 

 unrecognizable ailments will at times baffle the most skilled veteri- 

 narian, and leave our burden-bearing servants to succumb to the 

 inevitable, and suffer and perish in unrelieved distress. 



DISEASES OF BONES. 



PERIOSTITIS, OSTITIS, AND EXOSTOSIS. 



From the closeness and intimacy of the connection existing between 

 the two principal elements of the bony structure while in health, it 

 frequently becomes exceedingly difficult, when a state of disease has 

 supervened, to discriminate accurately as to the part primarily affected, 

 and to determine positively whether the periosteum or the body of 

 the bone is originally implicated. Yet a knowledge of the fact is 

 often of the first importance, in order to secure a favorable result 



