ON DISEASE OF THE HOCK JOINT. 
377 
doubt, during life prevented him from manifesting particular 
lameness on either leg. It must be recollected that it is now 
several years since that I pointed out this disease in The Vete- 
rinarian; and I have since that time communicated several 
fresh cases. I cannot, therefore, but feel a little surprised that 
no other practitioner has taken up the subject, or thought it 
worthy of notice ; and I was still more astonished to find that, 
during the four discussions at the Association on the subject of 
Setons and Cauteries, although all the diseases for which these 
operations were practised were professedly alluded to, yet no 
one mentioned, or in fact seemed to be aware of, the existence 
of this very frequent disease. 
A question certainly was asked by Mr. Holmes, but by no 
means satisfactorily answered by Mr. Cheetliam. Mr. Holmes 
asks “ What part of the hock is diseased when there is no ex- 
ternal swelling, and we are only assured that the disease is in 
the hock by the manner of going,” &c. Mr. Cheetham replies : 
“ When there is no evident change of structure in the part, and 
nothing was to be felt but an increased degree of heat, the dis- 
ease was in the ligaments.” Now this, I take it, is blinking 
the question altogether; for it is not at all likely that there 
would be increased heat without some little thickening or en- 
largement. Mr. Holmes, I am quite sure, meant — Where is the 
disease situated when there is no heat, no enlargement, and no 
external appearance whatever? And as this question has not 
been answered, I beg leave to reply, that in such cases, or in 99 
out of 100, the disease consists in inflammation or ulceration (or 
probably both) on the articulating surfaces of the tibia and astra- 
galus — the parts that the humblest mechanic would point out as 
being most subject to friction — the parts that so frequently be- 
come the pivots on which the whole weight of the horse as well 
as the rider reposes in the common action of gallopping, and 
more particularly when the horse is topping a five-bar gate, or 
covering a brook twenty feet wide. The existence of this dis- 
ease ought to be either acknowledged or denied, for there are 
many sportsmen and amateurs who, turning their attention more 
particularly to the cui bono, are now become fully aware of the 
situation of the mischief in these obscure cases, and therefore it 
does not become veterinary surgeons to be ignorant, or to appear 
to be ignorant, of so important a disease. I am quite sure that, 
if they had examined only half the number of morbid specimens 
that have come under my notice, and had sufficiently attended to 
one-half the living cases that I have met with, all doubt on the 
matter would have been removed from their minds. I hesitate 
not to assert, that the lesion I have mentioned is the cause of 
