46 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



tight shoe, a nail driven too close, or from bad shoeinp^ ; the 

 toe being left too long, causes a horse to trip ; tenderness 

 in the feet, contraction, corns, and thrush ; a scar on the 

 head, above the eye (for a forward fall of the horse leaves 

 unmistakable marks there), is a suspicious sign ; when no 

 trace of local disease can be found to account for them, the 

 inquiry should be followed up into the horse's constitution, 

 for the staggers or colic may have occasioned the accident. 



When a scar on the knee is observed in connection with 

 low withers, a thick and upright shoulder and pasterns, 

 with the legs inclined under the bone, he is unwise who 

 does not take the hint that the faulty formation has not 

 produced its natural consequence. To discover the normal 

 state of the knee is not so easy as some suppose, as occasion- 

 ally the hair grows so well over the wound as to leave it 

 hardly discernible ; but on minute inspection, when there 

 has been a scar, an interception of the gloss is apparent, as 

 if the hair grew in an oblique direction ; should this be 

 observed on bending the joint, the secret will be exposed. 

 The shank should be examined for splint, strained or 

 enlarged flexors, and the marks of firing or blisters. 



In inspecting the leg the eye alone should not be 

 trusted, particularly in hairy-legged horses ; but after 

 minutely comparing the appearance of the two limbs, 

 the hand should be deliberately passed down both shanks 

 before and behind ; any difference before or behind points 

 to a deviation from health. 



In the sound flat limb, the tendon is well defined, 

 perfectly distinct, and has a hard tense feel that resembles 

 the touch of a cord tightly strung. If the back sinews 

 feel thick, the flexor tendons and their sheaths swelled and 

 rounded, leaving no distinctive marks, as it were, between 

 the one and the other, but all swelled into one mass with 

 the bone, great mischief has at one time happened ; either 

 some of the ligaments have been ruptured, or there has 

 been inflammation, effusion, and adhesion of the synovial 

 sheaths of the flexor tendons ; or such relaxation has 

 taken place from strain and subsequent inflammation as 

 will always keep him weak. When the injury is recent, 

 it is accompanied with more or less swelling, heat, and 

 lameness. By time and treatment the first are removed, 

 but the swelling remains, and the thickening of the tendons 

 shows the mischief that has been done. Whenever there 



