LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 311 
Symptoms.—A splint may thus frequently become a cause of lame- 
ness though not necessarily in every instance, but it is a lameness 
possessing features peculiar to itself. It is not always continuous, 
but at times assumes an intermittent character, and is more marked 
when the animal is warm than when cool. If the lameness is near 
the kneejoint, it is very liable to become aggravated when the animal 
is put to work, and the gait acquires then a peculiar character, aris- 
ing from the manner in which the limb is carried outward from the 
knees downward, which is done by a kind of abduction.of the lower 
part of the leg. Other symptoms, however, than the lameness and 
the presence of the splint, which is its cause, may be looked for in the 
same connection as those which have been mentioned as pertaining to 
certain evidences of periostitis, in the increase of the temperature of 
the part, with swelling and probably pain on pressure. This last 
symptom is of no little importance, since its presence or absence has 
in many cases formed the determining point in deciding a question 
of difficult diagnosis. 
Cause.—A_ splint being one of the results of periostitis, and the 
latter one of the effects of external hurts, it naturally follows that 
the parts which are most exposed to blows and collisions will be 
those on which the splint will most commonly be found, and it may 
not be improper, therefore, to refer to hurts from without as among 
the common causes of the lesion. But other causes may also be pro- 
ductive of the evil, and among these may be mentioned the over- 
straining of an immature organism by the imposition of excessive 
labor upon a young animal at a too early period of his life. The 
bones which enter into the formation of the cannon are three in 
number, one large and two smaller, which, during the youth of the 
animal, are more or less articulated, with a limited amount of mo- 
bility, but which become in maturity firmly joined by a rigid union 
and ossification of their interarticular surface. If the immature 
animal is compelled, then, to perform exacting tasks beyond his 
strength, the inevitable result will follow in the muscular straining, 
and perhaps tearing asunder of the fibers which unite the bones at 
their points of juncture, and it is difficult to understand how inflam- 
mation or periostitis can fail to develop as the natural consequence 
of such local irritation.. If the result were deliberately and intelli- 
gently designed, it could hardly be more effectually accomplished. 
The splint is an object of the commonest occurrence—so common, 
indeed, that in large cities a horse which can not exhibit one or more 
specimens upon some portion of his extremities is one of the rarest of | 
spectacles. Though it is in some instances a cause of lameness, and 
its discovery and cure are sometimes beyond the ability of the 
shrewdest and most experienced veterinarians, yet as a source of 
vital danger to the general equine organization, or even of functional 
