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course, in cases of which the features are too distinctlj^ evident to the 

 senses to admit of error. It is true that by carefully noting the man- 

 ner in which a lame leg is performing its functions, and closely 

 scrutinizing the motions of the whole extremity, and especially of the 

 various joints which enter into its structure; by minutely examining 

 every part of the limb; by observing the outlines; by testing the 

 change, if any, in temperature and the state of the sensibility— all 

 these investigations may guide the surgeon to a correct localization of 

 the seat of trouble, but he must carefully refrain from the adoption 

 of a hasty conclusion, and above all, assure himself that he has not 

 failed to make the foot, of all the organs of the horse the most liable 

 to injury and lesion, the subject of the most thorough and minute 

 examination of all the parts which compose the suffering extremity. 



The greater liability of the foot than of any other part of the 

 extremities to injury from casualties, natural to its situation and use, 

 should always suggest the beginning of an inquiry, especially in an 

 obscure case of lameness at that point. Indeed the lameness may 

 have an apparent location elsewhere, when that is the true seat of 

 the trouble, and the surgeon who, while examining his lame patient, 

 discovers a ringbone, and satisfying himself that he has encountered 

 the cause of the disordered action suspends his investigation with- 

 out subjecting the foot to a close scrutiny, may deeply regret his 

 neglect and inadvertence at a later day, when regrets willava^il noth- 

 ing towards remedying the irreparable injury which has ensued upon 

 his partial method of exploration. But, as in human pathological 

 experience, there are instances when inscrutable diseases will deliver 

 their fatal messages, while leaving no mark and making no sign by 

 which they might be identified and classified, so it will happen that 

 in the humbler animals the onset and progress of mysterious and 

 unrecognizable ailments will at times baffle the best veterinarian skill, 

 and leave our burden-bearing servants to succumb to the inevitable,' 

 and suffer and perish in unrelieved distress. 



DISEASES OF BONES. 

 PERIOSTITIS— OSTITIS— EXOSTOSIS. 



From the closeness and intimacy of the connection existing between 

 the two principal elements of the bony structure while in health it 

 frequently becomes exceedingly difficult, when a state of disease has 

 supervened, to discriminate accurately as to the part primarily affected, 

 and to determine positively whether the periosteum or the body of 

 the bone is originally implicated. Yet a knowledge of the fact is 

 often of the first importance, in order to secure a favorable result 

 from the treatment to be instituted. It is, however, quite evident 

 that m a majority of instances the bony growths which so frequently 

 59G1— HOR 10 



