ON METACARPITIS.. 
133 
and go on their course together, or be produced at different periods, 
they may extend the one towards the other, so as to have the ap- 
pearance of being merely an extension of one or the other ; yet 
still the greater number would have shewn indubitably that they 
were the result of distinct morbific action. For, in the greater num- 
ber of specimens I have examined, there has been either a marked 
line of separation between the two states of disease, or they have 
shewn, by that appearance which is unmistakable to the morbid 
anatomist, that they have not been of equal duration ; that they 
have been the production of causes acting at different periods, and 
independent of each other. I do not mean to assert that splent 
never does extend to the contiguous part merely by the extension 
of morbid action, without that part being previously the seat of in- 
jury, or vice versa ; but I mean that it is so rare, that I have not been 
able to trace satisfactorily a case in which it occurred. 
I have not been able to detect that these ossific deposits are pro- 
duced in the substance of the ligament itself, but are confined to 
the periosteum or the connecting medium between the suspensory 
ligament and the metacarpal bone ; and I consider that they are to 
be viewed as the result of abnormal action, followed by the deposit of 
bone, from the proneness of the vessels supplying these parts to 
form such deposit. 
T, therefore, must consider that these ossific deposits are indica- 
tive, in proportion to their extent, of the greater or less period of 
duration of the abnormal action and consequent lameness; for 
that such a change can be produced in a part which is designed to 
bear so much weight or exertion, and go on without shewing some 
considerable symptoms during the period of its formation, cannot 
for an instant be doubted : but when this period has passed, or, 
from some cause or combination of causes, this inflammatory state 
subsides, and the already existing deposits have time to become 
consolidated, and the neighbouring parts to accommodate them- 
selves to the change, then, as in other cases of ossific deposits, the 
lameness may cease; and it is possible that these effects of injury 
may even add increased strength to the parts. 
In the foregoing remarks, I have been speaking of the disease 
as existing in an aggravated form ; but by far the most common 
state to find is, that the surface to which the head of the suspensory 
ligament is attached has become, from granular ossific deposit, more 
rough or asperous than in the normal state ; and for a long period 
before I became aware of the existence of this disease, I had noticed 
the difference that existed between the appearance that different 
metacarpal bones assumed in respect to this asperous surface, but 
only viewed it as a variety in normal condition; yet, when I came to 
trace through the appearances upon a larger scale, and note with 
