LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
J25 
“ round.” This interstitial deposit is soft and compressible while 
recent; but, in the course of time, becomes of more solid and firm 
character; until, in the end, unless absorbed, it turns to consolida- 
tion of parts and thickening of the skin covering them, assuming 
after a time that hard callous nature that renders the enlargement 
irremoveable, or but very partially diminishable. But this may 
be regarded rather as a result of 
Severe Sprain, or “ Broken Down,” — as it is called — than 
of the slight form of injury. The phrase “broken down” would 
seem to imply there was something broken or ruptured. Patho- 
logical research, however, has failed to confirm any such popular 
notion. In his rapid course — in the race, in the hunt, or, as was 
mentioned before, in the charge — the horse fails all at once, i. e. 
breaks down : he comes to a stand, with the ailing leg held up or 
rested upon the toe, and can hardly manage to limp off the ground. 
Everybody around is impressed with the notion that the animal 
has “ broken his leg.” He is denounced as “ broke down,” and 
ruined, and fit for nothing but to be shot! All this has led to a 
good deal of delusive conception concerning 
The Nature of Broken Down. That distinguished sur- 
geon, the late Mr. Liston, writing in his “ Elements of Surgery ” 
on the subject of RUPTURE OF TENDON — which does now and 
then happen in human practice — says, “ such injury often happens 
to horses in what is called ‘ breaking down.’ In them the tendon 
is occasionally snapped actually through , and the ends widely 
separated.” Veterinary surgery, however, fails to confirm this. 
Coleman viewed “ broken down” as sprain or rupture of the sus- 
pensory ligament. Blaine says the same thing, admitting rupture 
of the flexor tendons to be “ very rare ” Spooner, in his edition 
of White, says, “This accident (breaking down) is supposed to 
depend upon a rupture of the great suspensory ligament of the 
leg ; though sometimes it is occasioned by a rupture of the liga- 
ments of the pastern.” And, further on — “ I have met with two 
cases of rupture of the ligaments by which the two pastern bones 
are held together. It happened to two nerved horses. Both came 
down upon the fetlock joints ; and were on that account shot.” 
And nothing short of actually “coming down (to the ground) upon 
the fetlock joints” ought, in my opinion, to be allowed to constitute 
break down. However severe the sprain, and however lame and 
helpless the horse in consequence of it, still, no break down can 
or ought to be pronounced to exist in the absence of complete rup- 
ture ; an accident of which we appear to have no instances on 
record as respects flexor tendon, and but few as respects liga- 
ments. Nor are we to feel surprise at this, seeing that the tendon 
oftenest broken in man (the gastrocnemius) has, in comparison to 
