THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXI, 
No. 252. 
DECEMBER 1848. 
Third Series, 
No. 12. 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S. and V.S. 
Diseases of the Bursae Mucosje and Synovial Sheaths. 
[Continued from page 602.] 
The Pathology of Windgall has already, from some observa- 
tions we have had occasion to make, received considerable eluci- 
dation. In its first formation, and simplest form, windgall consists 
in nothing more than distention of the bursa through an inordinate 
quantity of its natural secretion. The bursa itself retains its nor- 
mal structure; nor is the augmented secretion any thing more than 
the same straw-coloured synovial fluid found in the cavity in a 
state of health. That this inordinate secretion is due to inflam- 
mation of the bursa, as is usually asserted to be the case, is to us 
extremely doubtful. For our own parts, we should rather say that, 
generally speaking, inflammation, properly so called, has nothing 
to do with it. In our opinion, there is increased activity in the 
capillary svstepn of the bursa — that sort of hypertrophic action 
which produces inordinate nutrition and secretion; under the in- 
fluence of which fluid is emitted faster than it is absorbed, and 
distention of the sac is followed by increased growth and enlarge- 
ment of it. And we are further of opinion, that this dropsical 
state of bursa, as it may be called, is dependent upon some in- 
creased action — not amounting to inflammation — set up in the joint 
to which the bursa is auxiliary, in consequence of some irritation 
which it (the joint) has, from some cause or another, been the seat 
of. Hence it happens that windgall, in its first formation, in young 
horses in particular, is usually accompanied with fulness of the joint 
to which the bursa is proximate, or with which it is connected. 
This we consider to be the case in young horses especially : in old- 
and worked horses windgall, in another form, may be regarded as an 
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