VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
357 
mous spavins without the slightest lameness; but he thought 
spavin generally commenced between these two bones. 
Mr. Henderson had seen horses with the largest spavins not at 
all lame. 
Mr. Goodwin .—The fact is, that there are many diseases de¬ 
scribed under the same denomination. Almost every disease of 
the hock is termed spavin. 
Mr. Henderson had seen a pony with large exostosis on the 
knee joint without the slightest lameness. 
Mr. Goodwin imagined, that, although the disease were between 
the cuneiform bones, the ulceration would occasionally extend to 
all the bones of the hock, and finally produce exostosis. It was 
precisely the same with the navicular disease. The exostosis on 
the smaller metatarsal is comparatively of no consequence, and 
will never produce lameness equal to this affection of the cunei¬ 
form bones. 
Mr. Henderson .—This proves the fallacy of a very prevalent 
opinion, that horses with enlarged hocks are necessarily unsound. 
He believed that eight out of ten were perfectly efficient. 
Mr. Lythe said, that there were not three horses out of ten in 
which an enlargement of the hock might not be discovered, which 
some would call spavin. 
Mr. BoutaL —Yet all men look with suspicion on ahorse with 
enlargement of the hock. 
Mr. Henderson .—The suspicion arises from the occasional but 
not uniform weakness or lameness connected with an enlarged hock. 
Mr. BoutaL —A horse with enlarged hock may be sound to-day, 
and useless to-morrow. 
Mr. Goodwin remarked, that, when he took up the subject of 
diseases of the joints, he did not intend to go regularly through 
them ; but he wished to express his opinion on the important sub¬ 
ject of navicular lameness, and to rectify some gross errors which, 
he thought, existed as to the nature of spavin. While at the Ve¬ 
terinary College, he learned that spavin was an exostosis of the 
bones of the hock, and some horses were lamed by it, and some 
were not. He had some horses in his stables with swellings as 
large as pigeons’ eggs, and which were not lame ; he had others 
dead lame behind, without any apparent change of structure. 
He had watched the disease while living, and he had examined 
the joint after death, and he had uniformly found the seat of 
disease to be where he had described it. This disease of the sy¬ 
novial membrane of the cuneiform bones had not been named by 
any one: it had been confounded with exostosis, because exos¬ 
tosis was an occasional consequence of it. His opinion was, that 
spavin did not commence with an enlargement of the hock, but 
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