304 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
with tendinous ones. Some of these had, no doubt, given way in 
the sudden and severe extension to which they had been subjected 
in the fall ; but by no inspection or examination of other profes- 
sional men — to whom the case was shewn — could discovery of the 
seat of lesion be made. 
The treatment OF THE case, in addition to what had been 
already done, consisted simply in forbidding all exercise or even 
motion of the injured part. The horse was kept tied up in his 
stall until the Regiment of First Life Guards marched — which was 
on the 1st July — to Windsor; and subsequently was enforced the 
same standing, unmoved, in the stable ; he not being suffered to lie 
down or even to turn round in his stall. He was kept confined in 
this manner for four months, and then had not lost either his lame- 
ness or rolling gait of hock. Thinking that exercise might now prove 
beneficial, he was on the 2d of October turned out to strawyard, 
with his high-heeled shoe on. Five months from his being turned 
out he was taken up into the stable in consequence of his having 
become restored to a state of perfect soundness. There was no 
longer any slackness of tendon; nor was the roll the hock had in 
motion any longer perceptible. 
Solleysel has a chapter headed — “ Of the Relaxation and 
Straining of the Master-Smew*;” which in a strange and remark- 
able degree is illustrated by the case I have just narrated, as I 
think the following extract will prove beyond the smallest doubt. 
Explaining what he means by the “ master sinew,” Solleysel 
commences by saying — “ The hough is surrounded with a great 
sinew, which is divided from the bone by a hollow space where 
the vessignons (capped hocks) are usually situated. This is the 
biggest and most visible sinew in a horse’s body, which by reason 
of a strain occasioned by hard riding, evil shoeing, going down a 
steep place, a slip or fall, or too heavy burthen, may be relaxed, 
and sometimes disturbed with so much violence that it becomes 
moveable like an unbent bow-string. When a horse walks, the 
leg seems to hang at the hough, because its motion is not regulated 
by the master-sinew ; and you would even sometimes imagine that 
the bone was broken. When a horse stands with his foot fixt on 
the ground, the hough being extended in its natural posture, there 
is so little appearance of any grief in the leg, that it seems perfectly 
sound ; but if you handle the master-sinew, you will find it more 
moveable than that of the other leg; and if you make the horse 
move his hinder parts, you will immediately perceive the sinew to 
be as loose and infirm as if it were broken * * <• Some 
horses, contrary to expectation of all who saw them, have been 
Op. Cit., Part II, Chap, xcix, p. 273. 
