34 EXAMINATION OF HORSES 
are more vascular,. and consequently the hair grows 
stronger, and will not lie smooth; or, again, the hair 
bulbs may be so encroached upon by the organized 
hyperplasia which. has become permanently lodged in 
the skin, that atrophy takes place through absorption, 
and you find thin, wiry, starved white hairs. 
The second degree, or. wounded skin, shows itself in 
either condition of hair already enumerated, if the injury, 
has been severe, or in the form of a bruise; but if only 
a clean incision—a condition seldom seen—you would 
have no evidence whatever after the hair had grown, as 
the cicatrix would be entirely covered. If the cellula 
tissue have suffered, as well as the skin, here again a 
clean ineision leaves no evidence ;. but when, as in th 
majority of cases, it has been crushed and lacerated, 
a slough forms, and the cicatricial tissue being hard and 
inelastic, renders the skin fixed and immovable. Th 
fourth and fifth degrees of injury cause adhesion betwee! i 
the extensor tendons and their sheaths; so that if you 
flex the limb, and endeavour to make the fetlock touch 
the elbow, you find it will not do so. It must be evident! 
to you that a horse suffering from the effects of the: 
fourth and fifth degrees is unsound, inasmuch as he 
cannot bend his knee; but how about the remaining; 
three? It is just as evident that the lesions, if any, 
remaining after any one or all combined of the first 
three degrees of injury, will not mechanically interfere: 
with the free flexion and use of the knee. But, unfor- 
tunately, there happens to be an injury, the nature; 
