‘ 
26 Williams, Fisher, and Udall: The Spavin Group. 
by means of the fibro-cartilaginous discs. Throughout the entire 
group, it cannot be well charged that concussion plays a funda- 
mentally essential réle in the causation of the malady. 
It is instructive also to study the frequency of this group of 
affections in those animals where concussion and strain are most 
common and violent compared with those whose environment 
protects them most completely from these injuries. 
Were we to single out the horse amongst all others which is 
most subject to strain and concussion, we would probably select 
the fire department animal, whose work is on a hard pavement, 
before a heavy load, starting suddenly at a run under the whip 
and continuing at high speed until reaching the destination, or 
stopping from exhaustion. This horse may split the hoofs, rup- 
ture the tendons, or break the bones, but is probably about the- 
freest horse iri existence from ringbone, spavin, and navicular 
disease. 
Or let us take the cow horse of the west, bearing a saddle 
of seventy-five pounds and a rider of two hundred pounds during 
a long and trying day, a large part of the time at a brisk gallop, 
over bank and coulee, badger holes and prairie dog towns, over 
stones and through morass, dodging an enraged animal, darting 
here and there in pursuit of fleeing stock and, when the lariat 
is thrown, the horse must suddenly stop to bring his quarry to 
the ground and then be keenly alert to hold it. 
Such animals break their legs or necks, but rarely suffer from 
ringbone, spavin, or navicular disease. We might enlarge further 
and it would be found that those animals put to hard, trying 
work, constant in character, are not the ones to suffer from these 
affections, though admittedly suffering much from strain and 
concussion. On the other hand, we have seen foals less than six 
months old which had been born in a box stall and had never 
been allowed the pleasure of a frolic, to show four large ring- 
bones and two well-marked spavins. 
It is a well-known fact that horses used intermittently, or 
horses doing light delivery work, but kept all day long in the 
harness standing tied to a post, like peddler’s horses and delivery 
horses belonging to small concerns, suffer very seriously, as do 
also the cheaper class of private horses and children’s ponies, 
which are only occasionally used as opportunity or caprice of the 
owner may dictate. It is very common also in those pet horses 
which are driven very sparingly and infrequently or rarely. 
Again it is to be noted that horses suffering from severe 
