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CARIES OF THE HIP-JOINT. 
By E. A. Gibbon, M.R.C.V.S., Malvern. 
A case lately came under my notice, although not pro- 
fessionally, of a horse that was lame in the off hind leg. The 
marked symptom was his continually holding the leg off the 
ground when standing, showing that he was suffering pain, 
which his external appearance also indicated, as he was very 
poor. The horse had been fired over the hocks, which, in 
my opinion, although this I kept to myself, not being asked 
for it, w r as an error in judgment, for I considered his hocks 
to be perfectly free from any disease, at least that was visible 
by external examination. The horse was only slightly lame 
in the walk, and did not flinch, or show the slightest lame- 
ness in drawing a heavy load up hill, which he had to do 
very often. From merely seeing the horse occasionally, it 
belonging to a neighbour, I considered the case to be one of 
rheumatism ; yet I must say, in self-defence, that this was 
only an opinion that flashed across my mind : nevertheless, 
I felt convinced the disease was not in the hock. The owner 
told me the animal had been thrown down while drawing a 
cart-load of bricks, and that he was then hurt in the hip. 
Knowing how erroneous, oftentimes, the information derived 
from such parties is, and as nothing was to be seen externally 
to indicate such being the case, I allowed it to pass un- 
noticed. The other day, missing my poor horse, I inquired 
what had become of him, and the owner told me that he had 
had him killed, and afterwards he opened the hip-joint to 
see what was the matter with it. He also informed me that 
the ligament within the acetabulum was quite destroyed, 
and that the cup-like part of the joint was so much eroded 
that the end of the other bone could easily slip in and out of 
it. There was no dislocation perceptible in the living animal, 
but the femur may have been kept in its place by the ten- 
dons, muscles, &c., or the owner may have made a slight 
mistake in his post-mortem examination. 
I should like to ask some of the readers of the Veterinarian , 
who are practically acquainted with the diseases of the aceta- 
bulum-joint, how we can correctly diagnose these cases. If 
we have disease of the muscles, it is generally detectible by 
external manipulation ; and rheumatism may be known by 
its periodical attacks. I think it is the same with diseases 
of the patella. But how shall we diagnose a case quite cor-> 
