LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 803 
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 be 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 minutie being considered and settled in a place of 
their own. 
