lamekeSs: its causes and teeaxmestt. 303 



tion as we proceed with the illustration of our subject and examine 

 the matters which it most concerns us to bring under consideration. 

 The foundation of facts which we have thus far prepared will be 

 found sufficiently broad, we trust, to include whatever may be neces- 

 sary to insure a ready comprehension of the essential matters which 

 are to follow as our review is carried forward to completion. What 

 we have said touching these elementary, truths will probably he suffi- 

 cient to facilitate a clear understanding of the requirements essential 

 to the perfection and regularity which characterize the normal per- 

 formance of the various movements that result in the accomplish- 

 ment of the action of locomotion. So long as the bones, the muscles 

 and their tendons, the joints with their cartilages, their ligaments, 

 and their synovial structure, the nerves and the controlling influ- 

 ences which they exercise over all, with the blood vessels which dis- 

 tribute to every part, however minute, the vitalizing fluid which 

 sustains the whole fabric in being and activity — so long as these 

 various constituents and adjuncts of animal life preserve their 

 normal exemption from disease, traumatism, and pathological change, 

 the function of locomotion will continue to be performed with per- 

 fection and efficiency. 



On the other hand, let any element of disease become implanted 

 in one or several of the parts destined for combined action, any change 

 or irregularity of form, dimensions, location, or action occur in any 

 portion of the apparatus— any obstruction or misdirection of vital 

 power take place, any interference with the order of the phenomena 

 of normal nature, any loss of harmony and lack of balance be be- 

 trayed — and we have in the result the condition of lameness. 



DEFINITION OF LAMENESS. 



Physiology. — Comprehensively and universally considered, then, 

 the term lameness signifies any irregularity or derangement of the 

 function of locomotion, irrespective of the cause which produced it or 

 the degree of its manifestation. However slightly or severely it may 

 be exhibited, it is all the same. The nicest observation may be 

 demanded for its detection, and it may need the most thoroughly 

 trained powers of discernment to identify and locate it, as in cases in 

 which the animal is said to be fainting, tender, or to go sore. On the 

 contrary, the patient may be so far affected as to refuse utterly to use 

 an injured leg, and under compulsory motion keep it raised from the 

 ground, and prefer to travel on three legs rather than to bear any por- 

 tion of his weight upon the afflicted member. In these two extremes, 

 and in all the intermediate degrees, the patient is simply lame — 

 pathognomonic minutiae being considered and settled in a place of 

 their own. 



