6 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
the Regent’s Park to Wormwood Scrubs and back, and being the 
following morning brought to me for having “ thrown out a curb.” 
Another accident of the kind I recollect happening to another troop 
(aged) horse, who was only walked from the Regent’s Park to 
Shoreditch and back, on the occasion of the threatened Chartist 
disturbance. I do not mean to say that these horses did not frolic 
and jump about; the probability is that, coming fresh out of 
their stables, and full of corn, they did so, and that in some gambol 
the curb was sprung : I mean, however, to say for certain, that 
neither horse was galloped or leaped. I have been particular in 
mentioning these two cases, in order to shew that what is called 
violence or abuse is by no means absolutely necessary to the pro- 
duction of curb; and that, on the contrary, curb will sometimes 
arise, purely the result of accident. 
The Hock most disposed to curb is the one we designate 
the sickle hock. In proportion as the line drawn from the point 
of the hock down the back of the leg deviates from the straight 
line, or, in other words, in proportion as it inclines forwards under- 
neath the body of the animal, so is the hock, by the increase of the 
angle between the thigh and leg, rendered weak and predisposed 
to give way : this is especially the case when the thigh happens 
to be long and lank, as with such conformation of hock it is 
very apt to be. A horse with such hind-quarters as these is a 
curby subject, and as such objectionable for hunting or racing, or 
any kind of work calling for great strength of hock. Added to 
which, when once such a hock has failed, there exists a constant 
liability in it to repetition of failure. The best chance of its stand- 
ing is a reduction of the morbid parts down to that state of thick- 
ening and callosity described under the “ pathology of curb/’ This 
may enable them, when nothing else will, to withstand the force 
and shock of action. And this it is that accounts for old curbs, 
although large, not being attended with lameness. 
Lameness is a common, not a constant, Symptom of 
Curb. — At times, hardly any disease gives rise to more intense 
lameness than curb ; the horse absolutely walks lame — seems as 
though he were literally broken down behind; whereas at other 
times no lameness is observable ; and between these two extremes 
we may have present any degree of lameness. Usually, a curbed 
horse is too lame to work, or is kept from work by growing lamer 
every time he is made to perform it. Repose always benefits his 
lameness; exercise or exertion invariably does him harm. Many 
a horse — in particular, a young unbroke horse — shews for curb, who 
has never evinced lameness, nor seems likely to do so ; and more 
horses still shew curbs which have been treated — either blistered 
