LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 363 
THE SHOULDER JOINT. 
We mention this displacement without intending to imply the 
practicability of any ordinary attempt at treatment, which is usually 
unsuccessful, the animal whose mishap it has been to become a victim 
to it being disabled for life. The superior head of the arm bone as 
it is received into the lower cavity of the shoulder blade is so situ- 
ated as to be liable to be forced out of place in four directions. It 
may escape from its socket, according to the manner in which the 
violence affects it—outward, inward, backward, or forward—and the 
deformity which results and the effects which follow will correspond- 
ingly differ. We have said that treatment is generally unsuccessful. 
It may be added that the difficulties which interpose in the way of 
reduction are nearly insurmountable, and that the application of 
means for the retention of the parts after reduction would be next to 
impossible. The prognosis, from any point of view, is sufficiently 
grave for the luckless animal with a dislocated shoulder. 
THE HIP JOINT. 
This joint partakes very much of the characteristics‘of the humero- 
scapular articulation, but is more strongly built. The head of the 
thigh bone is more separated, or prominent and rounder in form, and 
the cup-like cavity, or socket, into which it fits is much deeper, form- 
ing together a deep, true ball-and-socket joint, which is, moreover, 
reenforced by two strong cords of funicular ligaments, which unite 
them. It will be easily comprehended, from this hint of the anatomy 
of the region, that a luxation of the hip joint must be an accident of 
comparatively rare occurrence; yet cases are recorded in which the 
head of the bone has been affirmed to slip out of its cavity and assume 
various positions—inward, outward, forward, or backward. 
The indications of treatment are those of all cases of dislocation. 
When the reduction is accomplished the surgeon will be apprised 
of the fact by the peculiar, snapping sound usually heard on such 
occasions. 
PSEUDO-LUXATIONS OF THE PATELLA. 
This is not a true dislocation. The stifle bone is so peculiarly 
articulated with the thigh bone that the means of union are of suffi- 
cient strength to resist the causes which usually give rise to luxations, 
yet there is sometimes discovered a peculiar, pathological state in the 
hind legs of animals, the effect of which is closely to simulate the 
manifestation of many of the general symptoms of dislocations. 
This condition originates in muscular cramps, the action of which 
is seen in a certain change in the coaptation of the articular sur- 
faces of the stifle and thigh bone, resulting in the exhibition of a 
