THE HORSE IN SICKNESS AND DISEASE 399 



injury called " speedy-cut." A horse lifting his legs high in 

 a fast trot strikes this part with the hoof or edge of the 

 shoe. Occasionally bony enlargement is the result, pre- 

 ceded by great heat and tenderness ; and sometimes the 

 pain from the blow is so great that the horse drops as 

 suddenly as if shot. Care is necessary that with such 

 horses no part of the shoe projects beyond the foot. The 

 term overreach is also applied to a blow inflicted on some 

 part of the fore leg by the hind foot ; frequently it strikes 

 the flexor tendon, and produces inflammation and tumour. 

 We shall have something more to say of this when we come 

 to the pasterns, to which we shall also defer the subject of 

 " break-down." 



v.— The Pasterns and Fetlocks. 



BREAKING DOWN (RUPTURE OF SUSPENSORY LIGAMENT) — 

 CUTTING — RINGBONE — GROGGINESS — SPRAIN OF THE 

 COFFIN- JOINT. 



BREAKING DOWN. 



This accident, as already observed, is not strain of the 

 back sinews, though that is bad enough as a disablement. 

 The distinction should be made, for the sake of the accurate 

 local application of remedial measures, and the correct 

 observation of the progress of amendment. " Break-down," 

 then, is a rupture of the suspensory ligament of the leg, or 

 of those passing from the sesamoid bones to the pasterns. 

 The treatment is the patten-shoe, as already mentioned 

 under sprains — or, more commonly, a pistol-shot. With 

 valuable race-horses, where work is not demanded, breaks- 

 down have been followed by a stud-life, and nature has 

 partly repaired the rupture, the intervening space of the 

 severed ligament filling up with granulations. 



Sprain of the fetlock-joint, arising from injury to the 

 ligamentous and tendinous connection of these parts, has 

 sometimes been mistaken for a common swelling, and the 

 horse exercised to " take down the enlargement." Hence 

 incurable deposits of coagulable lymph, forming stiff* joint. 

 The treatment should be the same as in other cases of 

 sprain. 



