266 
ON STRINGHALT. 
taught to consider it a disease which originated without any as¬ 
signable cause ; and though this, probably, may be the case in 
many instances, yet cases have latterly come under my observation 
which tend to prove that local injuries will produce the disease.” 
Case I.— A gentleman had a grey horse which threw out two 
curbs after a heavy day’s hunting, and was lame on the near leg. 
Discutient applications were made use of in the first instance, and 
then a blister was applied. In a short time the lameness was 
removed, but he was found to be stringhalt on the leg that had 
been lame. The fact of the horse being perfectly free from string- 
halt before he threw out the curbs, and that affection remaining 
after he became upright, induced me to suppose that there was 
some connexion between the injury of the hock and the stringhalt, 
and the horse was again blistered Avith evident advantage ; and by 
keeping up a stimulating plan of treatment to the hock for some 
time, the stringhalt was removed, and the action of that limb be¬ 
came the same as the other. The horse remained well till the next 
season, was hunted, and continued his work through a good part of 
the season; but at last the curb and lameness returned, and after its 
removal he Avas again stringhalt, which was a second time cured by 
the same treatment as before. A third time the horse became lame 
in the hock, Avhich being got rid of, he a third time was stringhalt. 
The gentleman to whom he belonged now said he would take no 
further trouble with him; put him in harness, and drove him in 
his gig for several years. He remained free from lameness, but 
the stringhalt continued. 
Case II.—A fine bay horse was blistered by a country farrier 
for curb; and there being some corrosive substance in the blister, 
it produced great inflammation and sloughing, and Avhen the horse 
recovered from the injury he had thus sustained, his hock was 
greatly blemished, and he was stringhalt. No means Avere taken 
to endeavour to remedy this defect, and he continued stringhalt. 
Case III.— A grey mare, in leaping over a timber fence, struck 
the front part of her hock against it: a good deal of inflammation 
Avas the consequence, and the mare became lame. The usual 
means of subduing inflammation were resorted to, and afterwards 
a sweating blister was applied. The mare became perfectly free 
from lameness, but stringhalt was left behind. I Avished in this 
case to have tried the means which were successful in the first 
case; but the owner did not seem to trouble himself much about 
it, and the mare was stringhalt all the days of her life. 
In the above recited cases there can be little doubt but that the 
stringhalt Avas the result of some injury or inflammation of the 
nervous trunks supplying the hock ; and as they have their origin 
from the sciatic, it may naturally be inferred, that, probably in the 
