SPLENT. 
87 
nexions, and so effect lameness ] The writer, three or four years 
since, returned a high-priced hunter as unsound from splent. The 
splent was situate very favourably about midway, and was 
thought incapable of producing mischief. The horse stood his 
walking exercise for a month without any sign of damage or ten- 
derness on or about the splent ; but on his first gallop the splent 
became tender, and the neighbouring parts in a line with the sus- 
pensor above and below swelled, precisely as in an incipient sus- 
pensor affection. The symptoms were easily removed by the usual 
hot and cold treatment, but returned on a second gallop, almost to 
lameness ; this reduced the case to demonstration, and the dealer 
submitted qualifiedly. 
It would seem, too, that the splent may produce suspensory 
affections by damaging the connexions therewith, without touch- 
ing the suspensor itself. Now, it is doubtful — and this is suggested 
as another problem for veterinary solution — whether the neighbour- 
ing swellings and tenderness preceding or accompanying suspen- 
sory affections are an original damage, communicating disease and 
enlargement to the suspensor; or whether the suspensor, being 
first damaged, communicates such damage to the neighbouring parts. 
The lumbrici, for instance, as described by Spooner, p. 27, may 
be first damaged ; but the writer only suggests this as a matter 
for inquiry, feeling himself here getting somewhat out of his 
depth. Having been recently hit in the suspensory regions from 
overweighting a well-bred nag, he is led by his observations of 
the case to offer these suggestions. " 
The third mode Spooner slightly alludes to, and this mode may 
account for splents close to the knee being more mischievous than 
elsewhere. Nature seems to have intended the splent bone as a 
separate bone from the cannon ; and it is obvious that the bony 
union of the two must increase the concussion, and that in pro- 
portion to its nearness to the great centre of concussion, the knee. 
As bearing on this point, it is important to ascertain whether the 
union said to take place naturally from age, without an external 
splent, and without lameness, extends throughout, up to the knee, or 
ceases short of it. The remarks on Carpitis^F’^m'?zanaw,vol.xviii, 
p. 670) bear strongly on this part of the case, and seem almost to 
have anticipated the writer of this, whose notice was directed to 
that part of your publication by a veterinarian with whom he was 
accidentally discussing the point. 
Similar considerations are applicable, though not so easily, to 
the subject of spavin, which has been called splent of the hind 
leg ; but that subject is in such able hands, that even to suggest 
would be impertinent ( Veterinarian , vol. xviii, p. 663) in the 
writer of this, who, though a zealous hippophilist, is, it is needless 
to add, no vet. 
