LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
481 
morbid action. Jar or concussion would, as we have endeavoured 
to shew, be likely to affect this joint, and, in case such amounted 
to injury, would excite inflammatory action, and this would be 
followed by ossification. The same result, viz. ossification, would 
be likely to ensue even though weakness only was experienced in 
the joint ; Nature, as we have observed on another occasion, con- 
solidating the parts to increase their strength. And, as many of 
these specimens indicate, to such an extent is this ossification 
sometimes carried, that pastern, coronet, and foot, are involved in 
one deformed porous mass of ossification. 
Lameness is not an ordinary Consequence of Ring- 
bone. Whether the tumour be productive of lameness or not 
will depend, — First, upon the presence of inflammatory action in 
it ; Secondly, upon any tension it may create in the periosteum 
covering it ; Thirdly, upon its proximity to a joint and consequent 
impediment it may offer to the motions thereof. In general, in young 
horses, ringbone forms so gradually and imperceptibly, that it is 
accompanied neither by inflammation nor by tension. It may, 
however, and frequently does in the course of time, so increase 
and spread that the joint gets cramped and confined in its action, 
and ultimately becomes a fixture ; and the consequence is, lame- 
ness, or some approach thereto, such as is familiarly known under 
the appellation of “ stiffness.” 
The pastern and coronet bones — the two first phalanges of the 
foot — are, though of different magnitudes, so similar in form and 
use, that anybody looking casually at them might suppose that 
one continuous bone would have answered the purpose of the two; 
and so to a certain extent, perhaps, it might ; but not to the ex- 
tent to have afforded that flexibility and play which the pastern 
as it is possesses, and which is more particularly exhibited in 
oblique-pasterned horses at such times as they are observed can- 
tering, or galloping, or curvetting upon their haunches. Then it 
is especially that the pastern joint is brought into action, and that 
a horse without such a joint, or with one in a stiff state from ring- 
bone or other cause, would be found to fail. Not only, however, 
in such acts as these, but even in ordinary going, is the pastern 
joint of use, and will there be a difference in action when such is 
rendered immoveable ; though that difference may not be detecti- 
ble by the eye of the common observer, or may not, in his judg- 
ment, amount to any thing beyond “ stiffness.” 
It is said, that sometimes lameness from ringbone becomes 
observable antecedently to the appearance of the tumour. Mr. 
Spooner (of Southampton), in his work “ On the Foot and Leg 
of the Horse,” informs us — “ It often happens that a horse is 
