ON WOUNDED AND DIVIDED TENDONS. 
103 
a range of hills very steep, soil chalk, gravel, or loose shingle, 
and the first hunting appointment after a long frost. The run 
commences most impetuously, the tall nag descends the first hill 
somewhat in a side direction, which is strewed here and there 
with broken flints of an angular shape, keenly sharp as a knife; 
one of these just under the ground’s surface, and when the fore 
leg of the blood horse is at its utmost extension, under the super- 
incumbent weight of the rider, at this unlucky moment comes in 
immediate contact with the centre of the heel (precisely below the 
tuft of hair which, as we all know in blood horses hardly amounts 
to a protection) in one instant completely severs the theca and 
flexor perforans tendon itself; the toe of the foot is raised in the 
air, and the animal walks for a second or two upon the posterior 
part of the fetlock joint instead of the hoof. The consternation of 
the rider at this critical moment is beyond my feeble pen to depict; 
but, as a matter of course, the veterinarian is in most anxious 
request. Upon examination, the unfortunate animal may prove 
ruined as for ever afterwards becoming a highly prized hunter ; 
yet the external wound' through the common integuments may 
occupy a space of only little more than half an inch in length ; but, 
as will be seen as I proceed further in my history, there is more 
mischief than appears on the surface. Most marked evidence of 
the probable unsuccessful issue of the case quickly supervenes — in 
less than half an hour from the receipt of the injury considerable 
swelling ensues up the leg, extending nearly to the back of the 
knee, and which to a practitioner unaccustomed to the like ca- 
sualty would be deemed the ordinary inflammatory tumefaction 
attendant upon an injury of such a nature, when in reality it is 
the retraction of the powerful flexor muscle appended to the di- 
vided perforans tendon, which has, during the very short period, 
been acting vigorously, and literally drawn up the divided per- 
forans from its opposite portion to the space, at least, of three 
inches; and, consequently, it is the relaxed sinew which is in- 
cluded in the general thickening or tumefied condition of limb, 
before there can have been time for inflammation*. 
It is quite fresh in my recollection of two parallel instances of 
the foregoing occurring in one day’s run with stag hounds, right 
and left of me, and at the same instant of time, descending a mo- 
derate hill at a very fast pace. Two remarkably fine well-bred 
horses, one ridden by a gentleman weighing fifteen stone, the 
other ridden by a gentleman of only nine stone ; both horses were 
* My brother and self have of late years encased the wounded limb in an 
iron cradle, for the better approximation of the divided sinew. 
