458 LAMENESS, TEST FOR ASCERTAINING. [BK. III. 



about the stable, is kept secret from the owner and 

 the doctor. (< Let them find it out," is sometimes 

 heard muttered in the distance ; and in order to 

 comply with the unfeeling permission, we pass the 

 hand down over the whole leg and foot from the 

 top to the sole, compare the size of the lame limb 

 with the corresponding sound one, and move the 

 animal about. For without this examination it 

 would be next to impossible to ascertain the precise 

 seat of the disorder, and quite so to apply even the 

 right remedy at the proper place. As an illustra- 

 tion of this position by its reverse, we may adduce 

 the coming on of bone-spavin as that kind of attack 

 which we can ascertain with the greatest precision 

 of all those which lie concealed from our view and 

 touch. It happens, too, that this is one of the few 

 disorders of the leg that admits of cure by early 

 applications, as it is also that which, being ne- 

 glected, renders the animal wholly useless. When 

 a horse becomes lame of a hind leg occasionally, 

 and that after rest only, the complaint going off on 

 taking a short exercise, we may be quite sure he 

 labours under incipient bone-spavin, provided no 

 other distinct cause can be adduced for his lame- 

 ness ; but should the lameness increase with exer- 

 cise, then it does not depend upon bone-spavin, but 

 some other malady. Further consideration of the 

 causes, symptoms, and cure of this disorder will be 

 found a few pages lower down. 



N.B. When lameness occurs to his horse unac- 

 countably, and the inquiring reader turns to these 



