BONE SrAVIX. 391 



work, but they generally improve under it. The lameness in some degree 

 abates, and even the bony tumour to a certain degree diminishes. There 

 is sufficient moderate motion and friction of the limb to rouse the absor- 

 bents to action, and cause them to take up a portion of the bony matter 

 thro'wn out, but not enough to renew or prolong inflammation. It cannot 

 be said that the plough aflbrds a cure for spavin, but the spavined horse 

 ol'ten materially improves while working at it. 



For fast woi"k, and for work that must be regularly performed, spavined 

 horses are not well calculated ; for this lameness behind produces great 

 difficulty in rising, and the consciousness that he will not be able to rise 

 without painful effi^rt occasionally prevents the horse from lying do^\ai at 

 all ; and the animal that cannot rest well cannot long travel far or fast. 



The treatment of spavin is simple enough, but far from being always 

 eS'ectual. The 0"\vner of the horse will neither consult his own interest, 

 nor the dictates of humanity, if he suli'ers the chisel and mallet, or the 

 gimlet, or arsenic, to be used. 



When acute inflammation is present we must endeavour to abate it by 

 antiphlogistic measures. The animal should be kept at rest, a high- 

 heeled shoe placed on the foot, and the hock frequently fomented with 

 vvai-ni water. A dose of physic should be given, and the animal kept on 

 Koft diet. In extreme cases, blood may be abstracted from the femoral vein. 

 When the acute inflammation has subsided, or when we meet with it in. a 

 chronic form, measures of considerable severity must be resorted to. Re- 

 peated blisters will usually cause either the absor23tion of the bony deposit, 

 or the abatement or removal of the inflammation of the ligaments. Setons 

 also are at present a very favourite remedy: two of them inserted per- 

 pendicularly the whole depth of the joint, and their action kept up for 

 three weeks or a month, often prove efficacious ; or, as a last resource, the 

 heated iron must be applied. 



The account of the diseases of the hock is not yet completed. It is Avell 

 known that the hoi'se is frequently subject to lameness behind, when no 

 ostensible cause for it can be found, and there is no external heat or 

 enlargement to indicate its seat. Farriers and grooms pronounce these to 

 be afl'ections of the stifle, or round bone ; or, if the gait of the horse and 

 pecuHar stifl'ness of motion point out the hock as the affected part, yet 

 the joint may be of its natural size, and neither heat nor tenderness can be 

 discovered, the groom has his own method of unravelling the mystery. 

 He says that it is the beginning of spa\an ; but months and years pass 

 away, and the spavin does not appear, and the horse is at length destroyed 

 as incurably lame. 



Horsemen are indebted to Mr. W. J. Goodwin, late Veterinary Surgeon 

 to Her Majesty, for the discovery of the seat of frequent lameness behind. 

 The cut, p. 385, represents the two layers of small bones within the hocK 

 — the larger wedge-like bone, e, above ; and the middle,/, and the smaller 

 one below ; and it will be seen that almost the whole of the weight of the 

 horse, communicated by the tibia, ((, is thrown upon these bones. The 

 cube-bone, d, does little more than supjjort the jjoint of the os calcis, c. It is 

 then easy to imagine that, in the concussion of hard work or rapid travel- 

 ing, these bones, or the delicate and sensible membrane in which they 

 are wrapped, may be severely injured. Repeated dissections of horses that 

 have been incui'ably lame behind, without any external indication, during 

 life, to point out the place or cause of lameness, have shoAvn that inflam- 

 mation of the membranes lining these joints, and secreting the fluid that 

 lubricates them, has taken place. 



Mr, Goodwin narrates a very interesting case in corroboration of this 

 account of hock lameness. The author of this- work had the honour of 



