472 RUPTURE OF THE SUSPENSORY LIGAMENTS. 



the inflammation has subsided, then mildly stimulatino- 

 applications are proper ; and they should be accompanied 

 here with due friction and bandaging. The recovery from 

 a severe case is usually very slow : the parts being liga- 

 mentous, do not readily reinstate themselves; the after- 

 treatment must, therefore, fully accord with this view, which 

 IS that of giving sufficient time ; and in most cases it ought 

 to be some weeks after the horse may seem sound before 

 he is put to full work. Excepting in trivial cases, it is 

 not often that the parts are really so reinstated as to be 

 equal to continued exertion. Therefore it is better, in the 

 most favourable lesion, to give a few weeks' rest, using a 

 vulcanized india rubber bandage, having underneath it a 

 piece of spongeo-piline, saturated with water. Where the 

 induration remains obstinate, repeated blisters, applied after 

 the method recommended by Mr. Blaine, in shoulder lame- 

 ness, are the best means of promoting a removal of it; but 

 firing is a disfigurement, without the slightest benefit. ' 



OVERREACH 



^ Is a Uow inflicted on some part of the fore leg by the 

 hind foot; frequently it strikes the flexor tendon, and 'pro- 

 duces inflammation and tumour. The treatment must be 

 similar to that just described : to prevent a repetition of 

 the accident, have the toe of the hind shoe shortened, and 

 the shoe itself put upon the foot so far back as may be 

 convenient. 



. RUPTURE OF THE SUSPENSORY LIGAMENTS. 



Breaking down is the name given by farriers to this acci- 

 dent, the which now and then happens to young horses 

 while being broken in, or in training. It occasionally hap- 

 pens to older animals, while undergoing violent exertion of 

 any kind. It has been often mistaken for a rupture of the 

 flexor tendons themselves ; but it is hardly ever or never 

 that this injury takes place in the horse: the immense 

 strength of these organs very seldom indeed admits of their 

 rupture from the efforts of the animal; but their con- 

 necting and suspending ligaments, being weaker, are occa- 

 sionally broken through. The fimb, in these cases, betrays its 

 loss of support by the fetlock being brought almost to the 



