275 



policy of depreciating early symtoms because they are unaccompanied 

 bydistinct and pronounced characteristics, and from a lack of threaten- 

 ing appearances inferring the absence of danger. The possibilities of 

 an ambush can never be safely ignored. An extra caution costs nothing, 

 even if wasted. The fulfillment of the first duty of a practitioner, 

 when introduced to a case, is not always an easy task, though it is too 

 frequently expected that the diagnosis or " what is the matter" verdict 

 will be reached by the quickest and surest kind of an "instantaneous 

 j)rocess," and a sure prognosis, or " how will it end" guessed at instanter. 



Usually the discovery that the animal is becoming lame is compara- 

 tively an easy matter to a careful observer. Such a person will readily 

 note the changes of movement which will have taken place in the ani- 

 mal he has been accustomed to drive or ride, unless they are indeed 

 slight and limited to the last degree. But what is not always easy is 

 the detection, after discovering the fact of an existing irregularity, of 

 the locality of its point of origin, and whether its seat be in the near or 

 oif leg, or in the fore or the hind part of the body. These are questions 

 too often wrongly answered, notwithstanding the fact that with a little 

 careful scrutiny the point may be easily settled. The error, which is 

 too often committed, of pronouncing the leg upon which the animal 

 travels soundly as the seat of the lameness, is the result of amisinter- 

 j)ertation of the i)hysiology of locomotion in the crippled animal. Much 

 depends upon the gait with which the animal moves while under exam- 

 ination. The act of "walking is unfavorable for accurate observation, 

 though, if the animal walks on three legs, the decision is easy to reach. 

 The action of galloping will often, by the lapidity of the muscular move- 

 ments and their quick succession, interfere with a nice study of their 

 rhythm, and it is only under some peculiar circumstances that the ex- 

 amination can be safely conducted while the animal is moving with that 

 gait. It is while the animal is trotting that the investigation is made 

 with the best chances of an intelligent decision, and it is while moving 

 with that gait, therefore, that the points should be looked for which 

 must form the elements of the diagnosis. 



Our first consideration should be the physiology of normal or healthy 

 locomotion, that from thence we may the more easily reach our conclu- 

 sions touching that which is abnormal, otherwise lameness, and by this 

 process we ought to succeed in obtaining a clew to the solution of the 

 first ])roblem, to wit: in tchich leg is the seat of the lameness ? 



A word of definition is here necessary, in order to render that which 

 follows more easily intelligible. In veterinary nomenclature eacli two 

 of the legs, as referred to in pairs, arc denominated a biped. The four 

 points occupied by the feet of the animal while standing at rest, form- 

 ing a square, the two fore legs are known as the anterior biped; the 

 two hinder, t\iQ posterior ; the two on one side, the lateral ; and one of 

 either the front or hind biped with the opposite \id^ of the hind or front 

 biped will form the diagonal biped. 



