660 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
highly smooth, white, hard, and lenticular bodies, floating at large 
in synovial secretion. In inveterate windgalls which are fully 
developed, and whose parietes, formed into a multitude of little 
caverns as it were, have become cartilaginous or were osseous, 
the synovial membrane and articular cartilages are destroyed, and 
the surfaces of the bones worn as if from radiated motions. Such 
wear of the cartilages and bones is likewise to be observed in old 
horses in whom there is even no suspicion of joint disease. The 
synovial fluid is also altered : ordinarily, it is thinner and of a 
deeper hue than in its normal state. 
WINDGALL IS RARELY PRODUCTIVE OF LAMENESS; SO rarely, 
indeed, that horse persons in general look upon such swellings, 
frequent as they are in horses of all ages and all kinds, with that 
sort of complacence which denotes all absence of apprehension in 
their minds on account of such blemishes. The washerwoman’s 
arms yield strong evidence in favour of this view of the harmless- 
ness of windgalls, and pathological investigation into their history 
and nature fully bears out the same views. The bursae are parts 
in their normal state insensible. “ The bursae, when unavoidably 
cut in operations,” says Dr. Munro, “ have appeared to be insen- 
sible, and I have observed them swell without considerable pain. 
But sometimes, as in rheumatism, they swell with great pain*.” 
Now, in horses we know they commonly “ swell without pain” or 
lameness ; and this happens from the circumstance, we believe, of 
inflammation not being an accompaniment of such swelling or 
distention. In the young and growing horse, the joints, and bursae 
along with them, become “ dropsical,” as we may call it, from 
“ weakness,” after such manner as has already been explained ; in 
the adult and worked horse, from the excitation of an action aug- 
mented or hypertrophic, but not to be called inflammatory ; and in 
neither case, in the absence of inflammation, is pain or lameness a 
consequence. Years roll over such horses’ heads, and their wind- 
galls remain in statu quo ; save and except the internal changes 
tardily^ going on in them, which, being brought about without in- 
flammation, are still, most likely, unproductive of lameness. 
This immunity of windgall from pain or lameness, however, has 
its limits. We know there are states and times when the old and 
worked horse suffers from his windgalls ; and we likewise know 
that there are species of windgalls, connected more particularly 
with the synovial sheaths of tendons, in which lameness is a 
prominent symptom even from their very commencement. To 
these respective cases we shall have occasion to advert when we 
come to treat of particular windgalls 
The SITE of windgall will, of course, be confined lo such 
* Op. cit. 
