LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
479 
pasterns, is, we have observed, the ordinary subject of the disease ; 
and there exist satisfactory reasons why we should expect him to 
be so. The pastern and coffin bones constitute the nethermost 
parts — the pedestals — of the columns of bones composing the 
limbs; and, being so, they receive the entire weight and force 
transmitted from above. The pastern, when long and oblique in 
position, receives the superincumbent weight in such an indirect 
line, that, bending towards the ground with the fetlock, nothing 
like jar or concussion follows. The very reverse of this, how- 
ever, is likely to happen every time the foot of a limb, having a 
short and upright pastern, comes to the ground. In it, instead of 
the weight descending obliquely upon the sesamoids, and the 
fetlock bending therewith, it descends direct , or nearly so, upon 
the pastern, making this bone entirely dependent upon the bone 
beneath it — the coffin — for counteractive spring ; and should any 
thing occur to destroy or diminish this spring, or to throw more 
weight, or weight more suddenly upon it than it (the coffin 
bone) can counteract, jar of the whole apparatus ensues, and an 
effort of Nature to strengthen the parts, by investing them with 
callus and ossification, is likely to be the ultimate result. For, we 
would view ringbone, disease though it most assuredly must be 
called, as frequently in young horses a resource Nature seems 
invariably to fly to whenever their pastern bones and joints are 
found unequal to the exertions or efforts required of them. And 
the reason why ringbone occurs oftener in the hind than in the fore 
limb, will probably be found in the greater stress or strain the hind 
pasterns undergo in unbacked young horses, particularly in such 
acts as galloping, jumping, &c., exercises which they are likely 
to take of their own accord while running out at pasture. 
Peculiarities of breed and form may be looked upon as pre- 
disposing causes : we have yet to seek the exciting causes of 
ringbone. These may be said to consist in any acts or efforts of 
speed or strength productive of concussion to the bones of the pas- 
tern. Some have ascribed the presence of ringbone to “ blows.” 
Undoubtedly, a blow upon a bone would be very likely to pro- 
duce exostosis ; but the pastern, the hind pastern in particular, is 
rather an unlikely part to be struck. After inflammation from 
any cause, even after that produced by a common blister, very 
often, we know, an enlargement of the pastern will be left ; and 
though this is not called ringbone, it may be regarded as some- 
thing extremely analogous to it. 
In Nature, ringbone is but a species of exostosis. A bony 
tumour, which in one situation constitutes ringbone, in another 
constitutes splint, in another spavin. Yet the three differ, as well 
in their origin and in their effects. Ringbone has an external 
