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LAMENESS. 
Lameness is but a Symptom of Disease, not of itself dis- 
ease. It is the expression either of pain or inability, the result of 
disease, malformation, or accident, in the limb or limbs by which 
it is manifested : it may, however, arise from disease in the trunk 
of the animal, as is exemplified in injury or disease of the spine, 
in cerebral and nervous disease ; and has, on some rare occasions, 
been instanced in the case of acute hepatitis. But lameness may 
exist independently of disease : it may be caused by a stone 
getting into the foot or by a tight shoe. And when it has ori- 
ginated in disease it does not always quit the animal on the 
cessation of that disease, but frequently continues after all dis- 
ease — in an acute form at least — has passed away. Disease in a 
limb, however, oftener exists without lameness than lameness 
without disease : a horse may have a tumour, a wound, or an 
ulcer in any of his limbs without evincing lameness ; or he may 
have, and indeed commonly does have a windgall, a splent, or 
frush, without lameness; nay, it is possible for him to have a 
spavin or a curb, and still shew no lameness. The diseases and 
accidents of which lameness is commonly a symptom or result 
are, inflammation and ulceration of the joints, inflammation and 
ossification of the periosteal and cartilago-ligamentous tissues, 
sprain and inflammation of the ligaments and tendons, laceration 
and inflammation of muscular fibre, disease of the structures pecu- 
liar to the foot, faults in shoeing, contusions, wounds of all sorts, 
tumours, ulcerations, fractures, dislocations, spasm, paralysis, & c. 
A catalogue sufficient to shew that the causes of lameness are 
many in number, and equally various in kind and degree, some 
being altogether as simple in their character as others are complex 
and obscure. 
It is Pain that commonly produces the Lameness. — The 
animal feels the pain either when he moves his lame limb or 
when he bears weight or presses upon it, and he uses his endea- 
vour in the course of progression to avoid giving himself pain, or 
to mitigate it as much as possible; and it is this endeavour that 
accounts for his stepping short, or treading light, or for using his 
limb in such manner that the bearing comes most upon the heel 
or upon the toe, upon the outer or upon the inner side of the 
foot; — that accounts, in short, for his flinching and thereby evincing 
lameness. Pain being the natural product of inflammation, acute 
disease of any kind attacking one of the limbs can hardly fail to 
be attended with lameness. This accounts for disease being the 
ordinary cause of lameness, at the same time that it lessens any 
surprise we might entertain at the great variety there exists in 
the degrees of intensity of lameness manifested, setting at one 
end of the scale the lameness which is so slight or transitory that. 
