LAMENESS-ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 



By Prof. A. LIAUTARD, M. D., V. M., 

 Principal of the American Veterinanj College, Neir York. 



The consideration of the usefulness and consequently of the value 

 to their human masters of those of the Inferior animals ^vhich are 

 classed as beasts of burden ultimately and naturally resolves itself 

 into an inquiry into the condition of that special i^ortion of their organ- 

 ism which controls the function of locomotion, for it is onlj^ as living, 

 organized locomotive machines that the horse, the camel, the ox, and 

 their burden-bearing companions are of practical value to man. This 

 is especially true in regard to the members of the equine family, the 

 most numerous and valuable of them all, and it naturally follows that 

 with the horse for a subject of discussion the special topic and leading 

 theme of inquiry will, by an easy lapse, become an inquest into the 

 condition and efficiency of his power for usefulness as a carrier or 

 traveler. There is a large amount of abstract interest in the study of 

 that endowment of the animal economy which enables its possessor to 

 change his ijlace at will and convey himself whithersoever his needs 

 or his moods m.aj incline him; but how much greater the interest that 

 attaches to the subject when it becomes a i)ractical and economic 

 question and includes within its iDurview the various related topics 

 which belong to the domains of x)hysiology, pathology, therapeutics, 

 and the entire round of scientific investigation into which it is finally 

 merged as a subject for medical and surgical consideration, in a word, 

 of actual disease and its treatment. It is not surprising that the intri- 

 cate and complicated apparatus of locomotion, with its symmetry and 

 harmony of movement and the x^erfection and beauty of its details 

 and adjuncts, sliould be admiringly denominated by students of cre- 

 ative design and attentive observers of nature and her marvelous 

 contrivances and adaptations a living macliine. 



The horse in a state of domesticity is of all the animal tribe the 

 largest sharer with his master in his liability to the accidents and dan- 

 gers which are among the incidents of civilized life. From his expo- 

 sure to the missiles of war on the battle-field to his chance of picking 

 uj) a nail from the city pavement there is no hour- when he is not in 

 danger of incurring injuries which may demand the best skill of the 



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