LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
215 
on during action to throw the slightest weight upon the columns of 
bones, which he no sooner had done than his body shrunk back 
upon the hind quarters : in fact, it was evidently the effort to 
throw the weight upon the muscles of the shoulder instead of upon 
the bony column that occasioned this peculiar crouching gait. 
And every now and then, while he was being compelled to walk, 
would he, at the moment the weight came upon his fore limbs, 
crouch down to that degree, that lookers-on cried out he would 
"fall;” on no occasion, however, did he fall, but always saved 
himself by shrugging his body back upon his haunches. Reduced 
as he was to a state of crippleness to disable him even from walk- 
ing about to get his own living at pasture, and evidently in exqui- 
site pain every time he put forward his fore limbs in action, still it 
was not without both reluctance and regret, that, in the month of 
March 1845, I came to the resolution to have an end put to suf- 
ferings which every means we had made trial of had signally 
failed either to arrest or relieve. 
Post-mortem Account. 
The Elbow Joints proved the seats of disease. The infe- 
rior or broader half of the articulatory surface of the ulna presented 
a patch of ulceration, of the shape of a square whose sides mea- 
sured about an inch each. The transverse portion of the articu- 
latory surface of the radius, which naturally is an eminence, had 
become a fissure of ulceration of about a quarter of an inch in 
breadth at its widest, which was its posterior part : this ulceration 
extended but little more than half way across the surface, the 
portion of surface in front of it being sound. There was likewise 
a patch of ulceration in the interval between the condyles of the 
humerus, of a triangular shape, but which, in that situation, 
would not be opposed, either in action or at rest, to the ulceration 
upon the ulna. There was a patch of discolouration upon the front 
of the outer condyle, a seeming precursory to ulceration. From 
the surface of the ulcer upon the olecranon there were granula- 
tions springing up, which, it is to be believed, would in the course 
of time have turned osseous, and formed the nucleus for an an- 
chylosis of the joint. In this instance, however, there existed no 
disease whatever of the periosteal or ligamentary tissues outside 
the joint, though I believe that would speedily have supervened 
upon the morbid condition afore described. 
At no period of the duration of time the case was under treat- 
ment — seven months — was any satisfactory opinion given of the 
lameness, or the seat to it. The lameness came on very gradually, 
