LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 299 
not in danger of incurring injuries which for their repair may de- 
mand the best skill of the veterinary practitioner. This is true not 
alone of casualties which belong to the class of external and trau- 
matic cases, but includes as well those of a kind perhaps more 
numerous, which may result in lesions of internal parts, frequently 
the most serious and obscure of all in their nature and effects. 
The ‘horse is too important a factor in the practical details of 
human life and fills too large a place in the business and pleasure of 
the world to justify any indifference to his needs and physical com- 
fort or neglect in respect to the preservation of his peculiar powers 
for usefulness. In entering somewhat largely, therefore, upon a 
review of the subject, and treating in detail of the causes, the symp- 
toms, the progress, the treatment, the results, and the consequences 
of lameness in the horse, we are performing a duty which needs no 
word of apology or justification. The subject explains and justifies 
itself, and is its own vindication and illustration, if any are needed. 
Tho function of locomotion is performed by the action of two prin- 
cipal systems of organs, known in anatomical and physiological 
terminology as passive and active, the muscles performing the active 
and the bones the passive portion of the movement. The necessary 
connection between the cooperating parts of the organism is effected 
by means of a vital contact by which the muscle is attached to the 
bone at certain:determinate points on the surface of the latter. 
These points of attachment appear sometimes as an eminence, some- 
times as a depression, sometimes a border or an angle, or again as a 
mere roughness, but each perfectly fulfilling its purpose, while the 
necessary motion is provided for by the formation of the ends of the 
long bones into the requisite articulations, joints, or hinges. Every 
motion is the product of the contraction of one or more of the 
muscles, which, as it acts upon the bony levers, gives rise to a move- 
ment of extension or flexion, abduction or adduction, rotation or cir- 
cumduction. The movement of abduction is that which passes from 
and that of adduction that which passes toward the median line, or 
the center of the body. The movements of flexion and extension are 
too well understood to need’ defining. It is the combination and 
rapid alterations of these movements which produce the different 
postures and various gaits of the animal, and it is their interruption 
and derangenient, from whatever causes,’ which constitute the patho- 
logical condition known as lameness. 
A concise examination of the general anatomy of these organs, 
however, must precede the consideration of the pathological ques- 
tions pertaining to the subject. A statement, such as we have just 
given, containing only the briefest hint of matters which, though not 
necessarily in ‘their ultimate scientific minutie, must be clearly com- 
prehended in order to acquire a symmetrical and satisfactory view of 
