134 
ON METACARP1TIS. 
more accuracy the connecting changes, I found that these appear- 
ances were the result of diseased action. 
This asperous or granular form of the deposits is more common 
to the fore limb, while the prolonged process of bone is rather 
more frequently to be found in the hind limb — that is, speaking as 
to the relative proportion the one form bears to the other. 
I must admit, as 1 before slated, that great obscurity exists as 
to the symptoms by which this disease is to be detected from 
splent, spavin, or carpitis. That a part so completely closed in by 
bone on three sides, and covered by the thick bodies of the sus- 
pensory ligament and the flexor tendons on the fourth, as also from 
the low degree of vascularity and sensibility of the component 
parts, cannot be expected to yield any evidence by which it may 
be recognized by manual examination: heat, except in very aggra- 
vated cases, will not shew itself, or so slightly as to escape 
ordinary observation. Pain, we know, is present, because of the 
lameness; so also the effect of this increased action is completely 
shut in from perception either of eye or hand. The symptom I 
am most disposed to believe in is that of the bent or bowed knee, 
a position which would be the most likely to give the greatest 
degree of repose to the suspensory ligament; and, farther, those 
bowed knees which we often see, — unless it is, as is sometimes the 
case, congenital formation, — are the result, first, of the disease, 
and, finally, the parts becoming adapted to this new position con- 
tinue in it. The gait in these horses, though not disposed to be 
so unsafe as from many other forms of lameness, yet is one of 
evident want of stability, and one in which I have noticed, that, 
though these horses so affected will go very usefully sound in 
harness, yet they become worse when greater weight is thrown on 
to the fore legs by the addition of a rider ; and when such horses 
have been lamed by being ridden, they will occasionally, by quiet 
harness work, gradually become less and less lame. By the bowed 
knee I mean that form which is unaccompanied by the throwing 
forward of the fetlock joint, or that form of bowed leg which is 
evidently dependent upon a contracted state of the flexor muscles. 
There is also another symptom which I am disposed to refer to 
this disease ; that is, a fulness, looking and feeling like a turgid 
vein, which is to be found proceeding down the inner side of the leg 
by the side of the sinews, but which is not connected with the 
sheath of the tendon. 
The gait must be very much like that arising from a strain of 
the flexor tendons, or body of the suspensory ligament itself : in 
fact, it is easier to arrive at the minute shades in the gait shewn 
by lameness situate at different parts of a limb by a little practice 
of the eye, than to describe them on paper ; therefore I must be 
