HIP-JOINT LAMENESS. 
259 
be freely injected so as to wash out any decaying food in the 
maxillary cavity, we may hasten healthy action and con- 
sequently expedite a cure. I would also administer tonic 
medicines, and, if required, apply counter-irritants. Guiding 
is often found to be a very troublesome affection; it is, 
nevertheless, a most interesting subject, and one which is 
not properly understood, while it would amply repay the 
diligent investigator; but, as it does not come within my 
province here, 1 shall not now further allude to it. 
My next paper I shall devote to the nature and treatment 
of nasal gleet arising from natural causes. 
ON HIP-JOINT LAMENESS. 
By F. J. Sewell, M.R.C.V.S., London. 
Mr. Gibbon, V.S., writing in the last number of your 
valuable periodical, details a case of incurable hip-joint lame- 
ness, and inquires how we can correctly diagnose these cases 
or affections of the acetabulum joint. This kind of lameness 
is of greater frequency, at least in London, than is generally 
imagined. In working on the stones in town, there is more 
slipping and sliding about than is the case on roads ; and 
consequently, with harness-horses in particular, more stress 
is thrown on the hind extremities, as they have more to do. 
All these cases may in general be traced to a fall, to being 
cast in the stable, or to some sudden wrench of the hinder 
limb, w 7 hich from its violence causes an excessive strain on 
the ligament (ligamentum teres ) of the acetabulum. The 
synovial membrane, and the other structures entering into 
the formation of the hip-joint, are thus most likely also 
injured; the consequence of which is, inflammation and 
more or less pain and lameness. As the inflammation pro- 
gresses, ulceration and even caries of the joint gradually 
supervene ; and these parts, which in a state of health do not 
exhibit any particular sensibility, when once they become 
the seat of inflammation, give rise to the most acute pain. 
The symptoms wdiich I have observed of hip-joint lame- 
ness are very striking, and cannot fail to indicate the seat of 
the affection. In the first place, there is the posture of the 
horse w 7 hen standing : the affected limb is quite pendulous, as 
it were, from the quarter, resting only slightly on the toe, the 
weight of the body being supported entirely by the sound 
limb till the lameness is relieved; then the stifle joint is 
