CHAP. I.] THE LEGS' CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES. 51 



indeed, compatible with the duties the generality of 

 horses have to perform. 



The great additional labour horses with houghs 

 so formed undergo, added to the pain and anguish 

 of continuing it,* occasions irritation of the whole 

 hind quarter, that communicates itself to the region 

 of the kidneys and intestines, and superinduce in- 

 flammatory complaints, which frequently terminate 

 unfavourably. Constitutional diseases appear on 

 the leg behind oftener than before ; and those of 

 the coronet, with curb, thorough pin, spavin, 

 strains, windgall, scarcely fill up the catalogue of 

 evils caused by, or receiving aggravation from, 

 too much expansion of the stifle, with its attendant, 

 the cat-hammed hough, and, consequently, a twisted 

 tread of the hoof. No doubt exists in our mind 

 that Eclipse would have been a cat-hammed horse 

 had he been raced at two or three years old, as our 

 practice now is : but both he and Flying Childers 

 were five years old before they started on the turf. 

 Heavy long-legged children of our species, in like 

 manner, become knock-kneed men, by being put on 

 their legs too soon; this form of their knees de- 

 prives them of calves to thin ill-formed legs, and the 

 thigh, too, seems wasted, when the deformity is 

 great; as it does also when they wear unyield- 

 ing clod-hopper boots, or shoes shod with iron. 

 Whereas, our Welch, Cornish and Irish peasantry, 

 who run bare -footed in early life, can boast enormous 

 calves — the Cornish in particular. 



11. When the fore legs are shortest, the horse, 



d 2 



