LAMENESS, FROM VARIOUS CAUSES. 373 



pain as well, which can not be done before we come to treat of the 

 pathology of spavin. It is sufficient for our purpose here that we 

 note and establish the fact that lameness is not a necessary conse- 

 quence of spavin. Nothing is more common than to meet with 

 horses, colts even, who have what the dealers call ' knots ' in their 

 spavin places; and the time was when such 'knots' (which have 

 always been regarded as spavins) were certificated as constituting 

 unsoundness. 



Lameness arising from spavin is sometimes present without the 

 outward appearance of spavin. This is a form of disease better 

 known to veterinary surgeons in general, I believe, under the de- 

 nomination of occult hock lameness. My own attention to the 

 subject was first drawn so long ago as in the year 1815, though 

 then I was quite in the dark as to the nature of the case. On 

 my return from Belgium, after the battle of Waterloo, I had in 

 my possession a bay blood mare, who was lame in one of her hind 

 legs (I forget which), but whose lameness was of that nature that 

 no external sign whatever was apparent to account for it. The 

 limb had been searched over and over again, by myself and some 

 other veterinary surgeons, and the mare had been trotted and 

 walked, circled and paced, and put to all other known trials and 

 tests, without the examinations ending in any thing like concur- 

 rent opinions respecting either the seat or the nature of her lame- 

 ness. The mare returned home, marching with the troops, led 

 by a man on horseback — for, notwithstanding her lameness, she 

 walked very well — and, as soon as she arrived at head-quarters 

 (Woolwich), I showed her to my father, at the time senior veteri- 

 nary surgeon of the Ordnance Department. He examined her, 

 and without hesitation pronounced her 'lamp in the hock,' and 

 she was treated accordingly ; and the result was, at no great dis- 

 tance of time, her complete restoration to soundness. 



It is true, so far as the case above related goes, that the only 

 proof that the mare's lameness was in the hock, was her restor- 

 ation to soundness after the application of remedies to that joint. 

 There is, however, tr be said, in addition, to induce us to believe 

 that it was so, that, of all the joints of the hind limb, no one is so 

 "frequently or so likely to be deranged as the hock ; and, conse- 

 quently, from this fact alone, is a prima facie case made out. 

 Moreover, we have, to assist us in our diagnosis, the stiff or im- 

 perfect flexion of the hock-joint in action, >.nd the wearing away 



