314 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
had ever seen him go before. Several of my veterinary friends 
had the kindness, at my request, to look at him and examine him, 
after hearing my account of his case. Two thought he was lame in 
the shoulder, another in the foot, a third in the spine ; all, however, 
agreeing that his case was a hopeless one, although, in considera- 
tion of his age and undisturbed good health, inclined to the opinion 
that he should not be given up without further experiment : since 
pure matter of experiment had his case now become. 
The time is now arrived for me to enter into a more particular 
account of the symptoms his lameness presented, and particularly 
for the three 'or four weeks antecedently to his being destroyed. 
During the early period there was nothing to strike notice in his 
manner of projecting or putting down his lame limb, save that he 
evidently did all he could in action to throw the weight of his body, 
as it appeared to us, upon the heel of the foot ; so that I more than 
once suspected chronic laminitis, and had on that supposition in- 
serted a seton through the frog*. When he had become lamer, and 
was consequently more unwilling still to impose weight upon the 
lame limb, he evinced a sort of dragging of the limb after him in 
his going; which symptom it was, combined with an increased 
manifestation of it in his side movements, that disposed us to think 
his case was one of shoulder lameness. By the time, however, that 
he shewed lameness in both fore legs, and particularly when he 
became, as he had latterly become, quite a cripple, he manifested 
a remarkable crouching sort of action, dreading almost to move his 
fore limbs forward, and manifesting such exquisite soreness and 
pain when compelled to move on, that, while he was making as 
short steps as he could, he was doing his utmost to keep his body 
back and advance his hind limbs to receive its weight, to prevent 
any of it, or as little as possible, falling upon his fore limbs. In 
short, his posture and gait altogether were very like that of acute 
founder ; so like indeed, that, perhaps, one might not be able to 
make a distinction between the two diseases, were it not that in 
founder the feet would shew the nature of the disease; and that in 
elbow-joint disease, although the animal manifested all this pain 
and dread of stepping, yet, when the whip was applied, and 
he found himself obliged to go, did he plainly shew that his fear 
arose purely from the pain of the moment, and not from any cause 
of absolute inability to tread ; and, further, that the pain was not 
evinced at the moment of putting down the foot, as in founder, but 
at the time when the body was required to be advanced by the 
hind upon the fore limbs ; at the moment, in fact, that he was called 
* In the performance of this operation he plunged and fell, and, as I after- 
wards thought, hurt himself; though, from the sequel, I am satisfied no hurt 
took place. 
