634 
SOME OBSCURE LESIONS UNMASKED. 
located in some furthermost corner of the kingdom. He takes 
especial care to manipulate the legs prior to any walking exer- 
cise; and soon finds that the trainer’s description of the case was 
a graphic one, as not being within the sphere of vision of any non- 
professional ; the back sinews, suspensory ligaments, &c., being in 
their normal condition, and likewise the front sinews or extensors 
perfectly free from that complaint of the racing stable commonly 
called shin sore. The short stepping in the trot is now proved by 
the professional examiner to be palpable lameness. The vet. pro- 
nounces it a case of jar , not sprain. Where ? is most anxiously 
asked ; of legs or feet 1 
This proves a hidden leg lameness : the practised eye has dis- 
covered the smallest perceivable angular prominence — the circum- 
ference of which would be more than covered by a silver fourpenny 
piece — upon the inner or outer ankle, as the case may happen to be, 
but more frequently the inner. 
Now the cautious examiner, notwithstanding this striking indi- 
cation of leg mischief, seals his lips as with a pitch plaster, until 
he has taken time to remove the shoes, and not only search the feet 
for all external causes of injury, but likewise thoroughly tested the 
condition of the navicular joint and internal foot : — finding all right 
there, he returns to a most scrutinizing examination of the faint 
abnormal indication beforementioned upon the ankle-joint, and finds 
a throbbing action of the metacarpal artery, an unusual dilatation of 
the veins in the vicinity, but the angular point will be discernible 
both by the eye and touch : he is then duly fortified, and boldly 
pronounces the case to be a shock imparted to the delicate synovial 
membranes lining the sesamoideal joints, through undue exertion 
upon structures necessarily weak , because in the progress of de- 
velopment by growth*. 
I am not without my misgivings that so much confessed caution 
before pronouncing the precise seat of lameness might be attributed 
by the non-professional to a lack of knowledge on the part of the 
practitioner, or, what would be ten times more tantalizing, should 
the human surgeon thereby fane} 7 our science only in its infancy, and 
our system of diagnosis crude and insufficient as to tact. If so, I 
hereby predict, at the risk of my reputation, that, with the accumu- 
lation of the wisdom of another century in addition (provided our 
patients continue mute as hitherto), our successors will not be one 
jot in advance of us in pointing to the true seat of disease ; but I 
* This pathological reasoning applies equally to young growing horses 
brought prematurely into the hunting field. Have I not in my eye many a 
lusty son of a yeoman who has recklessly committed this havock on brave colts 
for the glory of the brush ? 
