DISEASES OF THE BONES. 



TREATMENT. 



Besides allowing absolute exemption from labor, not much 

 can be done. One or two applications of corrosive liniment 

 will assist in keeping down inflammation, and preventing 

 lameness. The shape of the hips can never be restored. 



BONE SPAVIN. 



There are two kinds of spavin known to the farmer — bog 

 and bone spavin. Of these, only thfi latter can properly be 

 considered in this connection. The former is described in 

 Chapter YIIT. 



Bone spavin is an enlargement which appears upon the in- 

 side of the hock, just below the joint. It is really a very 

 formidable disease, usually ruining the horse entirely, if not 

 promptly treated. In some instances it seems to do no ma- 

 terial harm, although it is always a great deformity; while 

 in others the swelling assumes such enormous proportions 

 that the joint becomes as large as a child's head, and so stiff 

 and lame that the horse can barely step at all. 



The joint, at the hock, has a middle bone — from its shape 

 called the cube-bone — resting upon two others below it,, of 

 quite different shapes and sizes. Of these, the larger — de- 

 nominated the shank-bone — is situated upon the outside of 

 the leg. The smaller one, that upon the inside, is known as 

 the splint-bone, on account of its thinness, and because, in - 

 its union with the shank-bone, it resembles a splint bound 

 to a fractured limb. The head of the splint-bone is quite 

 porous, and much thicker, as well as softer, than the other 

 portions of it, the bone increasing in solidity and strength 

 toward the lower end. All the various parts of this compli- 

 cated joint, in common with others throughout the entire 

 frame-work of the body, are supplied with an oily fluid — or 

 synovia, as anatomists term it — which serves as a lubricator 

 to prevent friction and soreness from the movements of the 

 tendons. It also performs an important ofllice in nutrition, as 

 the medium for transmitting the materials necessary to make 



