328 BLOOD SPAVIN. 
the animal was with difficulty led. Being sheltered in an unoccupied 
building, a groom was placed at the horse’s head. A long rope, thrown 
over a beam, was fastened to the fetlock of the protruded limb. By 
this rope the owner stood; and while he pulled the leg upward and for- 
ward, the writer was by the quarters, with both hands pushing the luxated 
bone inward. The patella soon slipped into its situation; and the horse 
was afterward sold by auction for four guineas more than the author had 
refused to pay for it. 
Mr. Spooner, in his lectures at the Royal Veterinary College, always 
THE MANNER OF RETURNING THE PATELLA OF AN ADULT ANIMAL. 
recommends his hearers, after this bone has been returned, to place an 
assistant by the horse’s side, with strict orders to hold the patella in its 
situation for some hours. Such advice is most excellent; to which we 
can only add, perfect rest, and as much strengthening food as the animal 
can consume. If such measures are pursued, and the horse be not used 
for six weeks subsequent to the accident, there need be little fear enter- 
tained of a second luxation of the patella. 
BLOOD SPAVIN. 
This disease is, happily, with the past: the writer has not seen an 
instance. Neither had the late Mr. Percival—the highest veterinary 
authority—after a life laboriously passed in scientific research. It is 
described to have existed as varicosity of the vena saphena, where the 
vessel crosses the hock. The cause is said to have been bog spavin 
when of magnitude: this, it is asserted, opposed circulation within the 
vessel; but the author conjectures the swelling must have assumed the 
callous state, before it could have offered sufficient resistance to the 
flow of blood to occasion the vessel to enlarge or to become varicose. 
