3«-8 DADD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



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

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

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

 but few ringbones were met with, compared to the number that 

 Attracted 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 horsemen to fol- 

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

 A vast number of our best as well as inferior horses are the 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 bones 

 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 superincumbent 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, 

 upright pastern, comes to the ground. In such, instead of the 

 weight 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 

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

 effort of Nature to strengthen the parts, by investing them w itli 

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

 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." 

 Another quotation may possibly interest the reader : 

 " Ring-bone is an exostosis (a growth of bone from bone) situated 

 tround the coronet, mostly near the pastern joint, at other times 

 just above it; and not unfrequently the joint becomes anchylosd 



