284 



insure a ready comprehension of the essential matters which are to 

 follow as our review is carried forward to completion. What we 

 have said touching these elementary truths will jjrobably be sufficient 

 to facilitate a clear understanding of the requirements essential to 

 the perfection and regularity which characterize the normal j)erform- 

 ance of the various movements which result in the accomplishment of 

 the action of locomotion. So long as the bones, the muscles and their 

 tendons, the joints with their cartilages, their ligaments and their syn- 

 ovial structure; the nerves and the controlling influences which they 

 exercise over all, with the blood vessels which distribute to every part, 

 hoAvever minute, the vitalizing fluid which sustains the whole fab- 

 ric in being and activity — so long as these various constituents and 

 adjuncts of animal life preserve their normal exemption from disease, 

 traumatism, and pathological change, the function of locomotion will 

 continue to be performed with perfection and efficiency. 



But on the other hand, let any element of disease become implanted 

 in one or several of the parts destined for combined action, any change 

 or irregularity of form, dimensions, location, or action occur in anj'^ 

 portion of the apparatus — any obstruction or misdirection of vital 

 power take place, any interference with the order of the phenomena 

 of normal nature, any loss of harmony and lack of balance be betrayed, 

 and we have in the result the condition of lameness. 



DEFINITION OF LAMENESS. 



Physiology. — Comprehensively and universally considered, then, 

 the term lameness signifies any irregularity or derangement of the 

 function of locomotion irrespective of the cause which produced it or 

 the degree of its manifestation. However slightly or severely it may 

 be exhibited, it is all the same. The nicest observation may be 

 demanded for its detection, and it may need the most thoroughly 

 trained i^owers of discernment to identify and locate it, as in cases 

 where the animal is said to be fainting, tender, or to go sore. Or the 

 patient may be so far affected as to refuse utterly to use an injured 

 leg, and under compulsory motion keep it raised from the ground, and 

 prefer to travel on three legs rather than to bear any i3ortion of his 

 weight upon the afflicted member. In these two extremes, and in all 

 the intermediate degrees, the patient is simply lame — pathognomonic 

 minutiae being considered and settled in a place of their own. 



These last two classifications of the condition of disabled function, 

 of simple lameness and lameness on three legs, are very easy of detec- 

 tion, but the first or mere tenderness, or soreness, may be very diffi- 

 cult to identify, and at times very serious results have followed from 

 the obscurity which has enveloped the early stages of the malady. 

 For it may easily occur that in the absence of the treatment which an 

 early correct diagnosis would have indicated, an insidious ailment 

 may so take advantage of the lapse of time as to root itself too deeply 



