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LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
Hip-joint (or Round Bone) Lameness. 
Eight years ago — in 1840 — Mr. T. W. Mayer, veterinary sur- 
geon, at Newcastle-under-Lyne, published a paper in The VETE- 
RINARIAN on this subject, which had the two-fold effect of rectify- 
ing the erroneous opinions formerly entertained respecting its pre- 
valence, and of warning veterinarians of falling into the opposite 
error of regarding it as an occurrence of extreme rarity ; at the 
same time it has put us in possession of a good amount of useful 
information, of which it is our intention to avail ourselves on the 
present occasion. 
“ So strong of late years,” says Mr. Mayer, “ has been the tide 
of prejudice against the possibility of any lameness occurring in 
this joint, that we occasionally overlook it, and attribute the 
grounds of the mischief as resident in the hock : nor can we wonder 
at this, when, in the slighter shades of lameness in a hinder ex- 
tremity, the effect upon progression is so very similar.” 
Our own observation would lead us to the belief that the hip- 
joint of the horse is rarely found in a state of derangement without 
there being some sprain, contusion, slip-up, fall, or other injury 
connected with the ailment; and then we, for our own part, think 
that it is a common seat of the lameness accruing from the injury, 
in consequence of its being a part very liable under falls, con- 
tusions, and certain kinds of sprains, to receive injury. At the 
same time, we must admit that too often, in cases of supposed hip- 
joint lameness, much of the medical opinion is founded in conjec- 
ture, there being, as Mr. Mayer has justly observed, at times a good 
deal of similarity in the halting produced by disease or injury of 
hip and hock, while in the case of the former no external sign shews 
itself whereby we can, either to our own satisfaction or that of our 
employer, demonstrate the nature of the case. At other times, 
however, and in the generality of the cases of external injury, 
where the attention of the practitioner comes to be directed to the 
hip, a perceptible difference in the halting action is observable. 
There is a hop and a catch in the movement of the lame hind limb 
which, to the practised eye, pretty clearly shews the lameness to 
be in the hip : the hock, it being remarked, flexing itself with its 
wonted freedom. 
Thus, the hip-joint, as Mr. Mayer has informed us, “ is not only 
subject, like other joints, to strains of its connecting and capsular 
ligaments, but likewise to synovial inflammation from accidental 
injuries, &c., consequent ulceration of its cartilaginous surface, and 
extensive formation of matter, which, ulcerating its way out, may 
lie a long time embedded under the mass of muscles surrounding 
the joint before it makes its way to the surface.” 
