THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XIX, No. 219. MARCH 1846. New Series, No. 51. 
LAMENESS. 
By W. Percivall, M.B.C.S. 
[Continued from p. 67.] 
SPAVIN. 
THE Derivation of our word spavin is involved in some doubt. 
Blundeville, whose definition of it is perfectly unequivocal, calls 
it “ the spauen,” and informs us that the Italian name for it is span - 
ano or spauanagno*. In Spanish it is called esparavan\. Of our 
own lexicographers, one derives it from the Greek or from 
the Latin spasmus J ; the catch-up of the spavined limb in 
action being regarded, it would seem, as spasmodic : another from 
the old French word espavent\ , the modern French name for 
spavin being tparvin ; while a third derives it either from the 
French adjective tpars, or from the Latin one sparsus §, so called 
from the spavined horse being supposed to go with a straddling 
gait. 
Shakspeare has introduced the word into two of his dramatic 
pieces. His fantastic description of the nag upon which “the 
mad Petruchio” was seen coming to claim his bride, will never be 
forgotten : — 
“ His horse hipped with an old mothy saddle, 
the stirrups of no kindred : besides, possessed with the glanders, and like to 
mose in the chine ; troubled with the lampas, infected with the fashions, 
full of windgalls, sped with spavins , raied with the yellows, past cure of the 
fives, stark-spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots ; swayed in the 
back, and shoulder-shotten.” 
* The four chiefest Offices belonging to Horsemanship, &c. &c. By Master 
Blundeville. 1608. 
f Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana. Madrid , 1732. 
I Skinner and Lemon. 
|| Johnson, Todd, and Richardson. 
§ Thomson’s Etymon of English Words. Edinb ., 1825. 
VOL. XIX. S 
