176 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



place where the collar rests and presses, when descend- 

 ing a hill in double team, which is very troublesome, 

 and difficult to heal, if the horse be kept at work, and 

 causes the animal great irritation and uneasiness; and 

 when the hand is laid upon it, the horse, if he be a spi- 

 rited animal, will plunge in the stall, and even kick, 

 however quiet he may be at other times. 



Treatment. — Apply simple ointment, and place a firm, 

 but strong piece of leather over it, before the collar is 

 put on, for it to rest and slide over, instead of upon the 

 mane and neck. 



Soundness — Is when a horse has nothing about him, 

 that does or is likely to interfere with his feeding, work- 

 ing, and general usefulness. 



Spavin — Is a variety of disease affecting the hock- 

 joint; but spavin is not now looked upon as in the 

 days of Oliver Goldsmith and William Shakspeare. Be- 

 cause in the minds of those distinguished men, and of 

 some of their readers of the present time, spavin is an 

 enormous enlargement of the hock of the horse ; whereas, 

 in some of the worse forms of spavin, there is no en- 

 largement at all; and yet, the hock joint is completely 

 destroyed, stiff, or anchylosed. Shakspeare thus refers 

 to Petruchio's horse: — ^*His horse hipped with an old 

 mothy saddle, the stirrups of no kindred: besides pos- 

 sessed with the glanders, and, like to mose in the chine, 

 troubled with the lampas, infected with the fashions, full 

 of wind galls, sped with spavins^ raied with the yellows, 

 past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, 

 begnawn with the bots, swayed in the back, and shoulder 

 shotten, ne'er legged before, and with a half-cheeked bit, 

 and a head stall of sheep's leather.'' 



