OBSERVATIONS ON CURB. 
15 
domen, the vertebral column was bent like the arch of a bridge in- 
verted. She had fed ill for a month — had taken no food for three 
days — pulse 90, weak — condition very bad — coat staring and 
musty. I stated to Mr. Gray that I could relieve her of the water 
and calf, but was of opinion that she was not at all likely to re- 
cover, as the abdominal muscles had given way. The cow being 
near the time of calving, 1 introduced my hand into the vagina, 
and finding the os uteri pretty open, ruptured the membranes. 
The water came away in prodigious quantity, as if pumped from 
a well. 1 remained all night; labour pains came on about twelve 
o’clock, and she was shortly delivered of a living calf, which, how- 
ever, died during the night. She then drank a little gruel, and 
commenced picking hay. When I left in the morning she was 
eating grass. She continued to improve for three days ; but fevered 
on the fourth, and died. I cannot report the post-mortem appear- 
ances, having had no opportunity of making an examination. It 
appears to me, that if the nature of this case had been detected at 
an earlier stage of its progress, and the membranes had been rup- 
tured before the abdominal muscles gave way, or if that had been 
impracticable, paracentesis had been performed, the cow w r ould have 
had a very fair chance of recovery. 
OBSERVATIONS ON CURB. 
By E. Mayhew, M.R.C.V.S. 
At the Veterinary School, St. Pancras, the students are taught, 
that capped hock is a serous abscess, and that curb is a sprain of 
the long ligament of the calcis, or the annular ligament, or the 
sheath of the flexor tendons, or strain of one of the flexor 
tendons, or rupture of the cellular tissue between the perforans 
and perforatus. Such opinions, proceeding from a mouth that 
speaks with authority and commands attention, are extraordinary. 
The first is curious for the grossness of its inaccuracy, and the 
second is remarkable for being, perhaps, the most indefinite de- 
finition upon record. A single application of the scalpel to the 
point of the calcis can at any time expose the bursa which, en- 
larged by injury, constitutes capped hock; and the pathological 
distinctions between serous abscess and inflamed bursm are so well 
marked, that it becomes difficult to imagine the degree of ignorance 
which could confound one with the other. The assertion, however, 
was positive. It had all the charms of originality ; and if wrong, 
still it made a pretension to superior accuracy. By the side of such 
a declaration, the ludicrous pretence at definition falls into mean- 
