KNBB, PBTIX)CK, ANKI.B, AND FOOT. 225 



little consequence. It consists in the inflammation of a small part of the 

 coronary band and adjacent skin, followed by sloughing and more or 

 less suppurration, which in most cases extends to the neighboring 

 sensitive laminae. 



HOW TO DETECT THE SEAT OF LAMENESS. 



In conducting an examination to detect the seat of lameness, the ani- 

 mal should be unblanketed, and held by a plain halter in the hands of a 

 man who knows how to manage his paces, and preference should be given 

 to a hard road for the trial. He is to be examined from various posi- 

 tions — from before, from behind, and from each side. Watching him as 

 he approaches, as he recedes, and as he passes by, the observer should 

 carefully study that important action, the dropping of the body upon 

 one extremity or the other, and this can readily be detected by attend- 

 ing closely to the motions of the head and the hip. The head drops on 

 the same side on which the mass of the body will fall, dropping towards 

 the right when the lameness is in the left fore-leg, and the hip dropping 

 in posterior lameness, also off the sound leg, the reverse of the conditions; 

 of course, producing reversed effects. In other words, when the animal 

 in trotting exhibits signs of irregularit}' of action, or lameness, and this 

 irregularity is accompanied by dropping or nodding the head, or depres- 

 sing the hip on the right side of the body, at the time the feet of the right 

 side strike the ground, the horse is lame on the left side. If the dropping 

 and nodding are on the near side the lameness is on the off side. 



But in a majority of cases the answer to the first question relating to 

 the lameness of a horse is, after all, not a very difficult task. There are 

 two other problems in the case more difficult of solution and which often 

 require the exercise of a closer scrutiny, and draw upon all the resources 

 to settle satisfactorily. That a horse is lame in a given leg may be 

 easily determined, but when it becomes necessary to pronounce upon the 

 query as to what part, what region, what structure, is affected, the easy 

 part of the task is over, and the more difficult and important, because 

 more obscure portion of the investigation has commenced, except, of 

 course, in cases of which the features are too distinctly evident to the 

 senses to admit of error. It is true that by carefully noting the manner 

 in which a lame leg is performing its functions, and closely watching the 

 motions of the whole extremity, and especially of the various joints 

 which enter into structure; by minutely examining every part of the 



