304 . DISEASES OF THE HOUSE. 



This last condition of disabled function — lameness on three legs— 

 and many of the lower degrees of simple lameness are very easy of 

 detection, but the first, or mere tenderness or soreness, may be very 

 difficult to identify, and at times very serious results have followed 

 from the obscurity which has enveloped the early stages of the malady. 

 For it may .easily occur that in the absence of the treatment which an 

 early correct diagnosis would have indicated, an insidious ailment 

 may so take advantage of the lapse of time as to root itself too deeply 

 into the economy to be subverted, and become transformed into a 

 disabling chronic case, or possibly one that is incurable and fatal. 

 Hence the impolicy of depreciating early symptoms because they are 

 not accompanied with distinct and pronounced characteristics, and " 

 from a lack of threatening appearances inferring the absence of 

 danger. The possibilities of an ambush can never be safely ignored. 

 An extra caution costs nothing, even if wasted. The fulfillment of 

 the first duty of a practitioner, when introduced to a case, is not 

 always an easy task, though it is too frequently expected that the 

 diagnosis, or " what is the matter " verdict, will be reached by the 

 quickest and surest kind of an " instantaneous process " and a sure 

 prognosis, or " how will it end," guessed at instanter. 



Usually the discovery that the animal is becoming lame is compar- 

 atively an easy matter to a. careful observer. Such a person will 

 readily note the changes of movements which will have taken place 

 in the animal he has been accustomed to drive or ride, imless they 

 are indeed slight and limited to the last degree. But what is not 

 always easy is the detection, after discovering the fact of an existing 

 irregularity, of the locality of its point of origin, and whether its 

 seat be in the near or off leg, or in the fore or the hind part of the 

 body. These are questions too often wrongly answered, notwith- 

 standing the fact that with a little careful scrutiny the point may be 

 easily settled. The error, which is too often committed, of pronounc- 

 ing the leg upon which the animal travels soundly as the seat of the 

 lameness, is the result of a misinterpretation of the physiology of 

 locomotion in the crippled animal. Much depends upon the gait with 

 which the animal moves while under examination. The act of walk- 

 ing is unfavorable for accurate observation, though, if the animal 

 walks on three legs, the decision is easy to reach. The action of gal- 

 loping will often, by the rapidity of the. muscular movements and 

 their quick succession, interfere with a nice study of their rhythm, 

 and it is only under some peculiar circumstances that the examina- 

 tion can be safely conducted while the animal is moving with that 

 gait. It is while the animal is trotting that the investigation is made 

 with the best chances of an intelligent decision, and it is while mov- 

 ing with that gait, therefore, that the points should be looked for 

 which must form the elements of the diagnosis. 



