SPRAINS OF TENDONS, LIGAMENTS AND MUSCLES. 285 



muscles are very liable to waste if the injury is neglected, in 

 which case stimulating remedies and long rest are absolutely nec- 

 essary to effect a cure. The wasting, as a rule, takes, place in 

 those muscles that clothe the shoulder-blade, leaving a hollow 

 space down the course of the bone which causes the prominent 

 portion in the centre to stand out like a ridge. 



The objective symptoms during motion, are marked dropping of 

 thie head, and the throwing out of the leg in a stiff, helpless fash- 

 ion; when standing, the knee is flexed and the leg hangs just 

 resting on the point of the toe. There will probably be some 

 swelling and evident pain on pressure of the affected parts; a fur- 

 ther test is to lift the leg from the ground, move it backwards, 

 forwards and in a rotary manner, whereupon the animal will 

 shrink from the proceeding and give evidence of considerable 

 pain. When treatment is commenced early, it is rarely necessary 

 to require anything more than that already indicated with Arnica 

 lotion, plenty of hand friction and hot fomentations; but should 

 the horse have been at all susceptible to the rheumatic diathesis, 

 and Arnica does not effect a satisfactory cure, resort may be had 

 to the application of Rhus toxicodendron on similar lines, both ex- 

 ternally and internally. 



Shoulder slip, by which is meant an apparent dislocation of 

 the shoulder joint when the foot is planted on the ground, but 

 which disappears when the foot is lifted from the ground, and 

 ELBOW LAMENESS are both associated with the muscular injuries 

 already described, having symptoms very much alike, but dis- 

 cernible the one from the other by the marked sensitiveness on 

 manipulation of the affected part. When we descend to the knee, 

 the tissues affected are of the fibrous character, and we have to 

 deal with ligaments and bones, as in inflammation of the knee 

 joints, including those very fine membranes which serv^e to secrete 

 the lubricating fluid, known as synovia, that is required to enable 

 the bones forming joints to play smoothly one upon the other as 

 the joints are flexed and extended; below the knee are found the 

 FLEXOR tendons, or BACK SINEWS as they are vulgarly called, 

 underneath which, in the groove of the canon bone, lie the sus- 

 pensory LIGAMENTS bounded on either side by the small canon 

 BONES; these exist in the hind as well as the fore limbs; the 

 fibrous tissues of which these ligaments are formed are of an in- 



