612 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
side to which the weight is inclined, which, commonly, is the inner 
one ] According to this view, their operation is, of course, single, 
and independent of each other : according to former accounts, it 
was combined and simultaneous. 
It is more than we dare assert, that the splint bone, from any 
pressure it receives in the bent condition of the joint, does not yield 
even to the extent of its elasticity, or to use the common phrase, 
though, as we think, an over-doing one, “descend but we cer- 
tainly must pause ere we can believe such a trifling movement as 
this so-called descent , after all, can amount to, can have any effect 
in aiding “ in throwing out the leg into the straight position, and 
assisting the extensor muscles of the knee too insignificant a 
cause, we conceive, to produce an effect so perceptible and so pow- 
erful. 
Be the operation and use of these elastic powers what it may, 
few horses retain them after the adult period : the ligamentous 
elastic material becomes converted into osseous inelastic substance, 
and thus the three bones, in point of fact, consolidated into one. 
Do we discover any difference or alteration in horses’ action on 
this account 1 Is there any person can say, after he has mounted 
and ridden a horse, whether that horse have ossified splint bones 
or elastic ones 1 I have ridden numbers of horses in my time ; 
and, as a general rule, certainly find that young horses possess 
more elasticity in their movements than old horses ; and this is 
readily enough accounted for when we come to consider the number 
of animal springs there are in the body, all or most of which 
become impaired, and some altogether lost, in the course of age 
and work : among them, however, I should say those of the splint 
bones were probably the smallest in importance, and therefore 
would be the least of all missed. 
In every horse that has splints this conversion of elastic into 
osseous union has necessarily taken place ; and, as I said before, 
this is also found to be the case in every horse of a certain age, 
whether he shew splints or not ; for the appearance of the splints 
is simply owing to increased or supplementary deposit of osseous 
matter, and is not the effect of mere ossification of the elastic sub- 
stance. And this shews that when lameness arises from splint — 
which it occasionally, by no means always, does — that it is not at- 
tributable to the mere circumstance of the conversion of the uniting 
substance of the metacarpal bones from elastic into osseous matter, 
but is ascribable to the tumour, and we believe is caused by the 
straining or overstretching of the periosteum, the membrane which 
covers the bone. Were horses who had lost these springs to go 
lame, or even perceptibly roughly or jarringly, the preservation of 
them, and the ascertainment whether horses really possessed them 
