578 LAMENESS FROM RELAXED. ' 



from want of early attention and runs abroad 

 — the only dependance. 



Mr. Blaine has, with much good fenfe and 

 feeling, reprobated the cruel infanity of attempt- 

 ing to work lame horfes found, but alas ! his 

 reafoning is very ill calculated to enlighten on 

 that head. I fpeak from perfonal feeling, as 

 well as the conftant habit of examining the 

 limbs of horfes, throughout half my life, and I 

 w^U know, that nothing is more common, than 

 ligamentary and tendinous lamenefs, from the 

 debility induced by laxity merely, unattended 

 with tenfion or material inflammation. But the 

 moft apt analogy in the cafe, is that of the ge- 

 nerally relaxed habit, in which the unfortunate 

 patient feels but too plainly a flabby loofenefs 

 and want of contra61ile force, in every mufcle, 

 tendon, ligament, and fibre of his body ; and 

 all this without the aid of ruptured thecce, or 

 fheaths, and extravafated mucus ; although thefe 

 lad are doubtlefs alfo accidents of common oc- 

 currence, as Ofmer long fmce taught. Nothing, 

 " again, can be more appropriate, or more for- 

 cibly illufirative of the grand fundamental doc- 

 trines of conftriclion and relaxation, than the 

 citation made by Blaine, (Vol. , II. p. 264) of 

 John Hunter's opinion refpefting the contrac- 

 tion of the cremaller mufcle, in the human and 

 other animals, as the moll unerring mark of 



ftrength 



