372 DADDS VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 
amination, by dint of whip and spur, and management in the 
bridle-hand, he might pass his merchandise off to an unwary 
buyer as sound. Indeed, so much is sweating work, or exercise 
approaching thereto, apt to prove a foil to showing lamencss, 
that one is almost inclined to say no horse ought to be examined 
under such circumstances; certainly no horse suspected of spavin. 
The time, of all others, that a spavined horse will be apt to man- 
ifest his lameness will be the day following after a hard day’s 
work; and when he makes his first egress from the stable in the 
morning is the critical period for examination. Horses that go 
limpingly lame from spavin, lame at all times, and lamer still 
when they work, often experience pain in the seat of disease to a 
degree which, in the language of Solleysell, causes them ‘to pine 
away, especially about the flanks.’ They have probably beeu 
blistered and fired, perhaps setoned ; have had their hocks fright- 
fully scarred, anc yet are lame to that degree that they are unable 
to do more than gingerly put the toe of the fout of the spavined 
timb to the ground, and so painfully hobble along ; and, although 
they may still maintain their appetite, yet they are low in condi- 
tion, tucked up in their flanks—evidently, in short, ‘ pining away.’ 
Such pitiable subjects, it is true, may be kept at work. The 
little, however, they can do, when put to any thing requiring 
strength of action or pull, together with the wretched condition 
they are generally in, is a fact so well known to coach and omni- 
bus proprietors, and horse-keepers in general, that at the horse 
auctions such animals fetch little or nothing. Even for agricul- 
tural work such laborers as these prove of but little worth. Now 
and then, however, it happens that the spavined horse, although 
treatment has failed to render him sound, continues, in respect to 
his disease, in that state in which he appears to suffer no local 
pain at all while at rest, av’ but little while at work, and so is 
able to do a considerable « . of some kinds of labor, lasting 
in it perhaps for year.  .cuil, such a horse is more likely than 
another to receive injuries, to experience aggravation or relapse 
of disease in his already diseased hock; and, under such return 
or augmentation of ailment, unless great care be taken, and fre- 
quently with all the care we can take, may and will fail altogether. 
Spavins exist which occasion no lameness. How this comes to 
pass will appear when the time arrives to consider the reasons why 
vpavins in general cause lameness, and, on occasions, very greal 
