STRINGHALT. 161 



will teach the careful groom the value of these mimitise of practice ; and the 

 successful termination of many a case may be traced to the careful nursing of 

 the patient. 



When the horse is getting decidedly better, and the weather will permit, 

 there can be no better practice than to turn him out for a few hours in the 

 middle of the day. His toddling about will regain to him the use of his limbs j 

 the attempt to stoop in order to graze will diminish the spasm in his neck ; the 

 act of grazing will relax the muscles of the jaws ; and he can have no better 

 food than the fresh grass. 



CRAMP. 



This is a sudden, involuntary and painful spasm of a particular muscle or set 

 of muscles. It differs from tetanus in its shorter duration, and in its occasion- 

 ally attacking the muscles of organic life. It may be termed a species of tran- 

 sitory tetanus, affecting mostly the hind extremities. It is generally observed 

 when the horse is first brought out of the stable, and especially if he has 

 been hardly worked. One of the legs appears stiff, inflexible, and is, to a 

 slight degree, dragged after the animal. After he has proceeded a few steps, 

 the stiffness nearly or quite disappears, or only a slight degree of lameness remains 

 during the greater part of the day. 



Cramp proceeds from an accumulation of irritability in the muscles of 

 the extensors, and is a sudden spasmodic action of them in order to balance the 

 power which their antagonists have gained over them during the night. 



If a certain degree of lameness remains, the attendant on the horse should 

 endeavour to find out the muscle chiefly affected, which he may easily do by a 

 feeling of hardness, or an expression of pain, when he presses on the extensors 

 of the hock somewhat above that joint. He should then give plenty of good 

 hand-rubbing, or a little more attention to the grooming generally, or a wider 

 or more comfortable stall, as the circumstances of the case may appear to 

 require. 



STRINGHALT. 



This is a sudden and spasmodic action of some of (he muscles of the thigh 

 when the horse is first led from the stable. One or both legs are caught up at 

 every step with great rapidity and violence, so that the fetlock sometimes 

 touches the belly ; but, after the horse has been out a little while, this usually 

 goes off and the natural action of the animal returns. In a few cases it does 

 not perfectly disappear after exercise, but the horse continues to be slightly lame. 



Stringhalt is not a perfectly involuntary action of a certain muscle, or a cer- 

 tain set of muscles. The limb is flexed at the command of the will, but it acts 

 to a greater extent and with more violence than the will had prompted. There 

 is an accumulation of excitability in the muscle, and the impulse which should 

 have called it into natural and moderate action causes it to take on a spasmodic 

 and, perhaps, a painful one. 



Many ingenious but contradictoiy theories have been advanced in order to 

 account for this peculiarity of gait. What muscles are concerned ? Clearly 

 those by which the thigh is brought under the belly, and the hock is flexed, 

 and the pasterns are first flexed and then extended. But by which of them is 

 the effect principally produced? What muscle, or, more properly, what nerve 

 is concerned ? Instead of entering into any useless controversy on this point, 

 a case shall be related, and one of the most interesting there is on record : the 

 author was personally cognisant of every particular. 



Guildford, first called Roundhead, and then Landlord, was foaled in 1826. 

 He was got by Hampden out of a Sir Harry Dimsdale mare. In 1828, and 



