LAMENESS. 279 



in the hind limb the dropping of one quarter will be apparent as 

 the horse goes from the observer, while in approaching him there 

 is not so great a tendency to the counter-motion in front, and mis- 

 takes are not so liable to be made as when the opposite condition 

 exists. Having then determined at which end of the body the 

 lameness is to be found, the next matter for consideration and de- 

 termination is in which particular limb the cause of pain is located; 

 if a horse is lame of the off fore limb he drops the weight of the body 

 upon the near fore and his head bobs and sways toward that side 

 and vice versa; it may be also that the animal is unable to flex (or 

 bend) one of the joints of the faulty limb, which necessitates its 

 being carried forward stiffly and in a stilty fashion; such a coinci- 

 dence furnishes still further proof of the particular limb that is 

 affected; again, an animal may be lame of both fore limbs, as is 

 frequently the case when a horse is the subject of navicular dis- 

 ease; under such conditions lameness will more often than not be 

 overlooked by anyone other than an experienced veterinary 

 surgeon, as there will be no dropping, no bobbing of the head, 

 and the general action will be fairly level; shady horse dealers fre- 

 quently take advantage of this state of affairs to palm off an un- 

 sound animal as a perfectly sound one to the ma wary purchaser; 

 and, what is still worse, a hors2 that was considered to be suffer- 

 ing from an incurable lameness of one foot has had some foreign 

 substance, such as a small piece of iron, inserted between the shoe 

 and the sole of the sound foot, so as by pressure to produce ten- 

 derness and pain equiv^alent to that experienced in the diseased 

 foot; in this waj' the sound limb w^as rendered as bad as the other, 

 by which means the real lameness was temporaril}^ obscured; it is 

 of no use to rely upon the dropping gait to detect double lameness 

 of this character; the way to discover it is to watch careful!}- the 

 action, which under such circumstances is palpably short, stilty 

 and cramped, accompanied by a distinct rolling of the bod}-, as 

 though the animal was afraid to bring any weight to bear on thi 

 feet, and no doubt this is the case. Cases of lameness in a hind 

 limb are to be detected during motion from the dropping of the 

 quarter on the side of the unaffected or sound limb, while the 

 quarter of the affected limb is jumped at, as the animal, in course 

 of progression, throws the weight of the body off the injured 

 limb on to the sound one; the peculiar stiffness of gait already re- 



