496 PEELIMlIfAET EEMAEKS. , 



sprain, and inflammation of tlie ligaments and tendons, lacera- 

 tion and inflammation of the muscular fibre, disease of the 

 structures peculiar to the foot, faults or accidents in shoeing, 

 contusions, wounds of all sorts, tumours, ulcerations, fractures, 

 dislocations, spasm, and paralysis. A catalogue sufficient to 

 show that the causes of lameness," as remarked above, are 

 innumerable, "and equally various in kind as in degree — some 

 being altogether as simple in their character as others are 

 complex and obscure."* "Without a knowledge of the anatomy 

 and physiology of the locomotive apparatus of the horse, and of 

 the normal conditions of every tissue, the aggregate of which 

 constitutes the limbs — without an extensive experience of the 

 operation of the various causes enumerated, and of their almost 

 innumerable modes of acting and operating, an accurate diag- 

 nosis of the precise nature and seat of lameness in all cases, is 

 simply impossible. 



The parts most prone to injury, and of the animal to 

 become lame in consequence, are the feet, the tendons, and the 

 hock joints. 



Many of the joints, comparatively speaking, are but rarely 

 affected with disease ; the elbow of the fore limb, — the hip, 

 and the navicular joints of the hind limbs are of this character. 



The fore feet are far more prone to be affected with disease, 

 and the animal to be lame in consequence, than the hind feet. , 



Spavin, Navicular Disease, and that condition of bone 

 disease of the knee joint which is very liable to terminate in 

 anchylosis of the knee, are all of a character closely similar to 

 each other. 



In every case of lameness, especialli/ wTien symptomaiie of 

 disease of a fore limb, lefore a practitioner pronounces a decisive . 



•Percival's Hippopathology, Vol. IV., Part 1, Page 8. 



