70 SPLENTS, SPAVINS, RHEUMATISM. [BOOK I. 



According to the parts this membrane may cover, 

 it has received from the learned, in hard words and 

 many, a separate name for each, as if that course 

 would further the cause of science ; and whenever 

 they speak of it as being found upon the joints, the 

 skull, or the bones generally, they term it peri- 

 chondrium, pericranium, and periosteum, as the 

 case may be : why, no one explains. It has been 

 considered insensible, because in health it has not 

 the sense of feeling so, fine as other parts of the 

 system, which are furnished with more nerves 

 {section 30.) ; but the very few of these fine organs 

 with which the membrane of the bone is furnished, 

 renders the pain occasioned by disease, whenever 

 it may be attacked, the more acute ; when flying 

 from one nerve to another, those well-known shoot- 

 ing pains are felt {by us) that are universally mis- 

 taken for pains in the bones themselves. We do 

 not go too far in inferring that the horse is similarly 

 affected. This takes place in splents and spavin, 

 when the bone enlarging forces its way through 

 this tightly-braced membrane, and causes inflam- 

 mation, temporary lameness, and, at length, those 

 well-known appearances we have just named. In 

 the living horse this membrane is red, by reason 

 of the fine blood-vessels with which it abounds; 

 but in the dead subject, the supply of blood being 

 withdrawn, it then turns white. The chronic pain 

 we term Rheumatism, resides in this membrane. 



