LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 



By A. LiATJTAED, M. D., V. M., 

 Formerly principal of the American Veterinary College, New York. 



[Revised by John R. Mohler, A. M., V. M. D.] 



It is as living, organized, locomotive machines that the horse, 

 camel, ox, and their burden-bearing companions are of practical 

 value to man. Hence the consideration of their usefulness and con- 

 sequent value tt» their human masters ultimately and naturally re- 

 solves itself into an inquiry concerning the condition of that special 

 portion of their organism which controls their function of locomo- 

 tion. This is especially true in regard to the members of the equine 

 family, the most numerous and valuable of all the beasts of burden, 

 and it naturally follows that with the horse for a subject of dis- 

 cussion the special topic and leading theme of inquiry, by an easy 

 lapse, will become an inquest into the condition and efficiency of his 

 power for usefulness as a carrier or traveler. There is a great deal 

 of abstract interest in the study of that endowment of the animal 

 economy which enables its possessor to change his place at will 

 and convey himself whithersoever his needs or his moods may in- 

 cline him ; how much greater, however, the interest that attaches to 

 the subject when it becomes a practical and economic question and 

 includes within its purview the various related topics which belong 

 to the domains of physiology, pathology, therapeutics, and the entire 

 round of scientific investigation into which it is finally merged as a 

 subject for medical and surgical consideration — in a word, of actual 

 disease and its treatment. It is not surprising that the intricate 

 and complicated apparatus of locomotion, with its symmetry and 

 harmony of movement and the perfection and beauty of its details 

 and adjuncts, by students of creative design and attentive observers 

 of nature and her marvelous contrivances and adaptations, should 

 be admiringly denominated a living machine. 



Of all the animal tribe the horse, in a state of domesticity, is the 

 largest sharer with his master in his liability to the accidents and 

 dangers which are among the incidents of civilized life. From his 

 exposure to the missiles of war on the battlefield to his chance of 

 picking up a nail from the city pavement there is no hour when he is 



298 



