3ti8 DADD'S VEIERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



able, says that his attention to the hereditary origin of ring-bou« 

 was first aroused from a remark made by an extensive dealer ia 

 horses, in reply to a question put to him, How it happened that 

 but fe\^ ringbones were met with, compared to the number that 

 pttractec notice in times past? The reply was, "Because no 

 breeder of horses nowadays will send a mare to a horse having 

 ring-bone." A very good example for American horsemi n to fol- 

 low, for the disease is very prevalent in some parts of this country. 

 A vapt number of our best as well as inferior horses aia le sub- 

 jects of this infirmity. The disease lurks in breed, after the fash- 

 ion of scrofula and consumption in the human subject. When 

 both parents are affected, the disease in the offspring is doubly 

 severe. 



The author just quoted remarks that " a coarse or half-breed, 

 fleshy or bony-legged horse, with short and upright pasterns, is 

 the ordinary subject of this disease ; and there exists satisfactory 

 reasons why we should expect him to be so. The pastern and 

 coffin bones constitute the nethermost of the column of bonea 

 composing the limbs, and being so, they receive the entire weight 

 and force transmitted from above. The pastern, being long and 

 oblique in position, receives the sujierincumbent weight on such an 

 indirect line that, bending toward the ground with the fetlock, 

 nothing like jar nor concussion follows. The very reverse of this, 

 however, happens every time the foot of a limb, having a short, 

 upriglit pastern, comes to the ground. In such, instead of tho 

 weiglit descending obliquely upon the sessamoids, and the fetlock 

 bending therewith, it descends directly, or nearly so, upon the 

 pasterns, making this bone entirely dependent on the bone beneath 

 it for counteracting concussion; and should any thing occur to 

 diminish this, or to throw more weight on the bones beneath than 

 tney can counteract, jar of the whole apparatus ensues ; and an 

 effort of Nature to strengthen the parts, by investing them with 

 callous and ossification, is likely to be the ultimate result ; for w€ 

 would view ring-bone, disease though it must assuredly be called, 

 a recourse of Nature to strengthen weak parts, the bones being 

 unequal to the exertions or efforts required of them." 

 A.nother quotation may possibly interest the reader : 

 " Ring-bone is an exostosis (a growth of bone from bone) si*^uated 

 EfO'ind the coronet, mostly near the pastern joint, at othp^ timei 

 just above it; and not unfrequently the joint beromof ^"'Qylose'^ 



