CHAPTER IX 



SURGICAL DISEASES, LAMENESS, TEETH AND CONFORMATION 



396. Lameness. The commonest ailment that 

 the horse suffers from is lameness. Lameness 

 is the outward sign of inward pain. It is 

 very often the result of bad horsemanship, and 

 can, therefore, be put down to pure neglect. 

 Such cases as sprains in the hunting field or a 

 horse slipping on an icy road are, however, 

 usually examples of accidental lameness. It 

 might be safely said that 90 per cent, of lame 

 horses become lame through causes which are 

 preventable, such as bad shoeing, over-driving, 

 over-loading, over-riding, bad jumping, careless 

 riding or driving (as on slippery pavements or 

 in heavy ploughed fields), abuse with sticks or 

 other cruel usage, under-feeding, leaving the 

 system in a weak state to resist strains, etc. etc. 

 The horse's balance is easily upset by improper 

 shoeing. 



Lame horses are seldom found in the posses- 

 sion of the most careful horsemen, who naturally 

 have only the best grooms. Percivall defined 

 lameness as " the manifestation, in the act of 

 progression or while at rest, by one or more of 

 the limbs of pain or weakness, inability or im- 

 pediment." A horse becomes lame when pain 

 or inability (such as stiffness) causes him, during 

 movement, to diverge from permitting the 

 normal distribution of weight upon his limbs. 



Irregularity of gait is not necessarily lame- 

 ness. For example, "bridle lameness" consists 

 in the horse placing one leg about six inches 

 farther forward than the other while trotting, 

 and is due to bad training ; this is often difficult 

 to overcome afterwards. On the other hand, a 

 horse which is lame in both fore or both hind- 

 legs may go apparently sound. Lameness, as a 

 rule, consists in decreased action in the painful 

 limb. Stringhalt, which is a nervous affec- 

 tion due chiefly to an increased involuntary 

 contraction of the peroneus muscle (the tendon 

 of which passes down on the outer side of the 

 hock), is not strictly a lameness, because, as a 

 rule, no pain or inconvenience is felt. 



397. The commonest form of lameness is 

 that due to pain, and not to stiffness or other 

 mechanical hindrance ; pain is, more often than 

 not, the result of a sprain. A sprain must not 

 be confounded with a strain ; the latter is far 

 less serious, and usually consists of a temporary 

 over-exertion which has been placed on an 



organ that recovers itself rapidly after this 

 exertion has been removed. A sprain is a certain 

 injury caused to a muscle, ligament or tendon, 

 the result of excessive work enforced upon it by 

 tension or torsion, or the result of an application 

 of work repeated for too long a period ; it con- 

 sists in the stretching of the fibres of the muscle, 

 ligament or tendon, and generally in a breakage 

 of some of these fibres, or the fibres may be 

 broken away from their hold upon the muscle, 

 bone or tendon to which they are attached. 

 Almost all sprains could be cured if rest were 

 as much considered as it should be. Local treat- 

 ment is only secondary. Permanent injury is 

 generally the result of trying to keep a lame 

 horse "on his legs." 



398. Muscles are of two kinds : red voluntary 

 (striated), and pale involuntary (non-striated), 

 with the exception of those of the heart, which 

 are red and involuntary and striated. Voluntary 

 muscles are those that are generally sprained ; 

 they consist of bundles of minute fibres laid 

 longitudinally side by side. At the attachment 

 of a muscle these fibres are very securely con- 

 nected by fibrous tissue to the bone, etc. The 

 end of the muscle that has least motion is called 

 its origin, whilst the other end is called the in- 

 sertion. The tendon that is attached to a muscle 

 usually has the same name as that of the muscle. 



Ligaments are of two kinds : inelastic white 

 fibrous, and yellow elastic. The inelastic liga- 

 ments chiefly join bones together and form 

 joints ; they will not stretch. It is, therefore, 

 these that usually suffer when a severe strain is 

 placed upon a limb, etc. These ligaments are 

 composed of strong white fibres bound tightly 

 together like suspension-bridge cables. The 

 elastic ligaments can be stretched considerably 

 without injury. The chief ones in the horse are 

 the interspinous ligaments in the region of the 

 neck, which allow so much movement in a 

 horse's neck, and the large ligamentum nuchse, 

 which extends from the withers to the poll 

 (occipital bone), and supports the great weight 

 of the horse's head. This ligament is particu- 

 larly well developed in horses with heavy heads, 

 as Clydes. In the Suffolk Punch and Percheron 

 the heavy appearance of the neck is due to the 

 fibrous crest. (See P. 126-131.) The ligamen- 

 tum nuchee is also well developed in the horned 



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