338 LAMENESS. 
spot; the head is lowered; the eyes are dejected; the breathing is fit- 
ful; and the entire frame is apparently resigned to a huge sense of 
degradation. All the pride of life is lost. Every trace of animation 
has fled. The animal evidently is, in its own conviction, useless and 
disgraced. A horse in such a state is, indeed, a melancholy spectacle; 
and the feelings of that man who, understanding the image, can con- 
template it unmoved are not to be envied. Still, for how many years 
has such a sight been before the eyes of mankind, without any individual 
possessing the heart to interpret it! 
Surely in all life there exists no other creature so willing to obey— 
so happy in its labor, and so entirely obedient under command—which 
is equally subjected to abuse! All the horse demands, in requital for its 
manifold services, is food and shelter: kindness it does not insist upon, 
and even bad usage it submits to. For permission to live, it mildly 
pleads; and in return for the liberality which merely supports the 
strength, it contentedly resigns its body and relinquishes its intelligence. 
Yet the natural wants are often stinted, although the toil is always bit- 
terly exacted. Surely in all life there exists no other creature equally 
subjected to abuse! 
The patience of the reader is solicited, while the author notices a 
circumstance connected with the present subject, which has repeatedly 
come under his observation. Nothing can so entirely subdue the spirit 
of a horse as an acute lameness: the suffering must be intense. Toa 
distant conception of the agony endured man cannot excite his imagina- 
tion. Still, all of the effect upon the quadruped is not to be attributed 
to that cause. Other diseases are painful, but by them the constitution 
is affected. Lameness, generally, is a local affliction—it is not a general 
involvement; it leaves the constitution healthy. Yet a high-mettled, or 
even a savage animal, is often quieted as by a charm when the foot is 
disabled. The intractable of the species has, by a sudden visitation of 
this nature, been rendered passive. The existence seems then to be 
given up to misery, and the horse becomes disregardful of whoever 
approaches it. On such a sufferer expend but a little time striving to 
convince it of your intent. It is astonishing how quick affliction is to 
comprehend humanity; and the painful foot is given up to man’s desires 
—nay, sometimes it is even advanced for his inspection. 
The writer has applied to the crippled feet of horses certain remedies 
which must have augmented what previously appeared to be the extreme 
of anguish. The author has been painfully conscious of the agony 
attendant on the operation; but to his surprise the animals have not 
flinched, neither have the feet been withdrawn. The quadruped appeared 
to suffer torture with the patience of stoicism, influenced by the aban- 
