DEFECTS OF THE LEGS. 113 



EiNdBOXE is a circular excresence of the bone, as its 

 aame indicates, encircling the coronet, or part of the foot 

 immediately above the junction of the hair and hoof. It 

 produces one of the worst and the most incurable of all 

 foot lamenesses. 



Side-bone is the same affection when it is only partial — 

 not forming a complete ring round the foot. It produces 

 the same lameness, and is equally incurable. It is com- 

 mon to both fore and hind feet, although far more frequent 

 before. It can easily be detected by the hand passed care- 

 fully over the part. 



Of navicular disease and other deep-seated lamenesses, 

 there are no exterior signs, and, if the animal do not go 

 lame, they are undiscoverable and beyond suspicion ; it 

 needs not, therefore, to allude to them. 



Gle.an legs are those free from all splents, bony excres- 

 cences and protuberances, the effect of accident or knock- 

 ing about. 



I'resh legs are those in which there are no windgalls or 

 puffy excrescences of the skin, but in which the bones, 

 sinews, ligaments and cuticle are all in their normal and 

 proper condition. 



In the hind legs the joint most to be looked to is the 

 hock, and the ailment most to be dreaded, the spavin. 



The Spavin is either bone, blood or bog, all equally 

 producing a desperate and dangerous lameness; but the 

 first curable, the last two utterly incurable. The first ia 

 a bony excrescence of the inward and lower anterior por- 

 tion of the hock joint. It is discoverable by the eye 

 looking from before backward, or by the hand. It some- 

 times produces total lameness; sometimes seyere lame- 

 ness on first starting, which passes entirely away as soon 

 as the animal gets warm to his work ; and sometimes, 

 though rarely, exists without producing any lameness at 



