THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XVIII, No. 212. AUGUST 1845. New Series, No. 44. 
LAMENESS. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S. 
[Continued from page 368.] 
We ought to be able to establish it as an axiom, although it may 
prove one not unassailable by argument, that a lame horse is an 
unsound horse. It might be objected, for example, that a horse 
having a stone in his foot — than which nothing, for the time, ren- 
ders a horse more lame — should be regarded as unsound ; and yet 
by this rule he must be so considered so long as he continues to go 
lame, though as sound from the moment that the stone is removed. 
The shoe “ nailed on too tight” furnishes another similar example. 
A horse, quite sound, enters a forge to be shod, and comes out going, 
as grooms call it, “ scrambling” i. e. lame ; he is, in fact, no longer a 
sound horse : take him back, however, into the forge and remove 
his shoes, nail them on “ easy,” and, if not completely restored to 
soundness, he is thereby evidently so much relieved as to give pretty 
fair earnest of his becoming as well or sound as ever by the next or 
the following day. It may be said, and we quite agree in the re- 
ply, that such trivial points as these are not likely to come before 
us for decision, or to cause us any trouble if they do : still it is 
right we should be armed on all sides to defend that law which we, 
as professional men, deem it wholesome and just to lay down : viz. 
that every horse going lame — no matter from what cause — ought 
to be pronounced unsound. 
If any real objection can be urged to the institution of such a 
law, one presents itself in the case of a horse who is lame at one 
time and sound at another. For instance, a horse shall have a 
frush, of which he shall flinch or go palpably lame every time he 
happens to tread upon a stone, or whenever he goes upon hard 
VOL. XVIII. 3 M 
