552 
iECT U tt K S ON H < )RS ttfc . 
successfully introduced for warding off concussion : still, the chances 
both of fracture and dislocation must have been great, whereas at 
present such accidents never happen*; and, besides, the knees so 
formed never could have undergone “ the wear and tear” with the 
impunity they are, such as they are, enabled to do. 
Nothing can exceed the complete aptitude of the joint of the 
knee for every purpose named and required of it. Though there 
be six bones actually entering into its composition, yet so braced 
and bound together are they, by ligaments, in their relative situa- 
tions, that, while they admit of every requisite motion in the joint, 
they support the superincumbent weight with all the stability of a 
solid structure, and are secured both against fracture and dislocation 
under any use or abuse to which the knee may be subjected. 
Moreover, the joint receives protection both in front and back by 
the tendons which pass across it, and has, in addition, a general 
enclosure of capsular ligament. 
Large knees constitute a good point in a horse ; they denote 
strength and stability ; in action, safety and endurance ; and, as I 
observed before, it is a great point to have a boldly projecting tra- 
pezium. The motion of the knee-joint consists in flexion backwards 
— none whatever in the forward direction ; and this flexion back- 
wards is capable of being carried to the utmost extent — so far as 
to bring the back of the leg in contact with the back of the arm. 
Nothing illustrates this better than the strapping of the leg and 
arm together ; an expedient not infrequently had recourse to when 
no assistant is at hand to take up the fore-leg, to make the horse 
stand firmly and immoveably upon the opposite one. 
While in a state of flexion, some degree of lateral motion is pos- 
sessed by the cannon ; though the same no longer exists when the 
leg is extended. Lateral motion, in the extended position of the 
limb, could only have tended to diminish the stability and firmness 
of the standing posture, without possessing any countervailing advan- 
tage ; but some degree of lateral mobility in the knee, in the flexed po- 
sition of the limb — while the leg is in the air — enables the animal to 
round and collect his action, and direct his foot while off the ground 
and place it upon the ground, according as circumstances shall re- 
quire of him. Some horses, we know, throw their feet outwards in 
going ; some, inwards : foreign horses, especially, have the former 
kind of action ; a good deal of which peculiarity in the flexion of 
the leg is effected through the lateral motion possessed by the 
knee-joint. 
[To be continued.] 
* Many years ago, when I was quartered at Chatham, and in the habit of 
hunting with the Wouldham harriers, a person assured me he “ put out his 
horse’s knee-joint” in galloping hard down the declivity of Wouldham hill. 
