320 THOROUGH-PIN. 
ought always to commence with the thorough-pin; therefore, for a horse 
which will not endure the bandage, a truss must be procured from the 
instrument-maker. The truss is of the ordinary description, only adapted 
to bear upon the parts. This will probably act with efficacy equal to 
the bandage. When the truss has performed its office, then a perfect 
India-rubber bandage may be safely applied. Only, mind and also 
employ with the last the corks and cloths; else, when endeavoring to 
remove one disorder, you may reproduce another. Watch the animal 
while wearing the bandage; on the slightest change, either in habit or 
appearance, remove the India-rubber. Should the pressure affect the 
skin, (as it will in certain cases,) rags, thoroughly wetted, should be 
wrapped round the hock before lacing the bandage up. If the rags 
appear to be of no avail, it is better to forbear for a time, and to renew 
the attempt hereafter. 
The horse which exhibits bog spavin and thorough-pin also gener- 
ally shows wind-galls on the hind legs. Let the reader consider the 
hard usage the limb must have undergone before 
it could have become thus deranged. Here is a 
specimen, demonstrating the connection which ex- 
ists between thorough-pin and bog spavin. It was 
made in consequence of Mr. Varnell having in- 
formed the author that thorough-pin was a bulging 
out of the synovial sheath, proper to the flexor 
i tendon; and was not, as is generally taught and 
PESOS EOSIN credited, an enlarged bursa. The author found 
STRATING THE JuNcTIONOr them to be in accordance with the description he 
Suen ne had received: the enlargement called thorough- 
pin, and the synovial membrane of the hock, had united, and free com- 
munication existed between them, in the joint which the writer examined. 
Nature formed the synovial cavity of the joint as a distinct and 
separate part. It is usual for teachers to promulgate a maxim that 
Nature is all-wise. Man, however, it appears, can violently disarrange 
her provisions; yet, by his fellow-men, he is accounted to have done no 
wrong who destroys the harmony of Nature. Thorough-pin is not, in 
popular estimation, essentially unsoundness. A horse thus disfigured is 
believed, nay, professionally pronounced to be, perfect, although two dis- 
tinct parts are battered into one. If two are beneficial, why was one 
only created? The horse may not be lame; but, granting Nature to be 
all-wise, must not the uses for which the limb was designed be injured ? 
The question is not, whether an animal trots sound; but it is, whether 
it really is sound. What sane man would assert such to be the case, 
where the anatomical structures have been disorganized ? 
