262 



WIND-GALLS. 



tjuently caused by violent action and straining of the tendoLa, 

 or, often, from gome predisposition about the horse, these little 

 sacs are injured. They take on inflaimnation, and sometimes 

 become large and hardened. There are few horses perfectly free 

 from them. When they first appear, and until the inflamma- 

 tion subsides, they may be accompanied by some degree of 

 lameness ; but otherwise, except when, they attain a great size, 

 they do not interfere with the action of the animal, or cause any 

 considerable unsoundness. The farriers used to suppose that 

 they contained wind — Whence their name, wind-galls ; and hence 

 the practice of opening them, by which dreadful inflammation 

 was often produced, and many a valuable horse destroyed. It 

 IS not uncommon for wind-galls entirely to disappear in aged 

 horses. 



A slight vnnd-gall will scarcely^ be subjected to treatment ; 

 but if these tumors are numerous and large, and seem to impede 

 the motion of the limb, they may be attacked first by bandagS. 

 The rollers should be of flannel, and soft pads should be placed 

 on each of the enlargements, and bound down tightly upon 

 them. The bandage should also be wetted with the lotion 

 recommended for sprain of the back-sinews. The wind-gall will 

 often diminish or disappear by this treatment, but will too fre 

 quently return when the horse is again hardly worked. A blis- 

 ter is a more effectual, but too often temporary remedy. Wind- 

 galls will return with the renewal of work. Firing is still more 

 certain, if the tumors are sufficiently large and annoying to jus- 

 tify our having recourse to measures so severe ; for it will not 

 only effect the immediate absorption of the fluid, and the reduc- 

 tion of the swelling, but, by contracting the skin, will act as a 

 permanent bandage, and therefore prevent the reappearance of 

 the tumor. The iodine and mercurial ointments have occasion- 

 ally been used with advantage in the proportion of three parts 

 of the^former to two of the latter.* 



* Note by Mr. Spooner. — ^Numerous dissections of these -wind-galls have 

 enabled us to gi-re 'a different explanation from that stated in the text. 

 They appear to be of two kinds, those situated between the suspensory 

 ligaments and the flexor tendons, and which are the most common, and 

 those formed between the suspensory ligaments and the bone in front, in 

 eacli case immediately above the fetlock joint. Now the former wind- 

 galls consist in an extension of the investment of the sheath of the flexor 

 perforans formed for it by the perforatus, and_the latter a distension of the 

 capsular ligaments of the joint itself In each a synovial cavity is effected, 

 and consequently the wind-gall cannot be opened without considerable dan- 

 ger. They rarely occasion lameness unless attended with considerable 

 mflammation or ossification of the neighboring parts, or a solidification of 

 the synovia (joint oil). When this is the case the treatment advis«<' in the 

 text shotld be adopted. 



