THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XIX, No. 222. JUNE 1846. New Series, No. 54. 
LAMENESS. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S. 
Pathology of Spavin. 
[Continued from p. 186.] 
HITHERTO I have regarded spavin as consisting in exostosis. 
An osseous tumour makes its appearance, either at the time of 
the manifestation of lameness or shortly afterwards, to which, and 
to which alone, the pain on motion of the hock, causing the lame- 
ness, used in times past to be ascribed by veterinarians. Pro- 
fessor Coleman taught that spavin was no more than a splent of 
the hind leg; and when once a doctrine is propounded formally 
ex cathedra , persons in general are apt to place implicit 
faith in it, few caring or troubling themselves to put it to 
the test of practice. In time, however, experience, unaided by 
any special or direct experiment, frequently detects error in received 
doctrines, and this has been the case in the instance before us. 
The Professor’s pathology of spavin has proved by observation to 
be both defective and erroneous. True or genuine spavin is now 
known to have its site above where splent is situated ; and, more- 
over, it is ascertained that what from the beginning is no more 
than a splent in the hind limb, rarely turns to a true spavin, but 
continues in the form of a “ knot” or knob, to which little or no 
importance is attached, from the circumstance of its rarely or never 
being known to be productive of lameness. This is an error. But 
the grand defect in the Professor’s theory of the pathology of 
spavin is its insufficiency to account for the extreme lameness so 
often present to explain the reason of the disease being so com- 
monly irremediable, all which has since been most satisfactorily 
accomplished. In the year 1830, Mr. Goodwin, the present 
Veterinary Surgeon to the Queen, read a paper to the Veterinary 
Medical Society* on the subjects of navicular disease and spavin, 
* Published afterwards in vol. iii of The Veterinarian. 
VOL. XIX. T t 
