DISEASES OF THE HIP-JOINT. 333 
treat it by firing and blistering. But the horse must rest at least 
two months. If put sooner to work, the lameness returns. 
Sprain of the Tendo-Achillis. —In all the cases that I have seen 
of this injury, it has been produced suddenly and by hard work. 
The tendons have been thickened and tender from the os calcis up 
to the muscles of the thigh; most usually both are affected, but I 
have seen the injury in one only. So far as I have seen the horse 
is always lame. But Mr. Binning Horne, near Jowne, tells me, 
in a letter, of two cases in which there seemed to be no constant 
lameness. Speaking of one, he says, When I purchased the 
horse, the tendons above the hock seemed very large, which I fool¬ 
ishly imagined to betoken great strength. In ordinary road-work 
no weakness could be challenged. In leaping high he never cleared 
his hind legs, but that I attributed to awkwardness; and it was not 
till I hunted him that the lameness fully shewed itself. Consi¬ 
derable inflammation and great enlargement of the tendon ensued, 
causing total lameness in both hind legs. I had him blistered, and, 
when ready, he was sent to grass till he got sound, and had no 
more enlargement than when I bought him. He was afterwards 
exchanged, and the last time I heard of him I was told that he was 
the prettiest gig-horse in Liverpool, and going sound.” 
Splents in the Hind Leg are a rather common cause of lameness. 
They are generally just below the head of the metatarsals, and on 
dhe inside. The horse goes wide and lame, as he does with splents 
in the fore leg. The treatment is the same for both, but the horse 
often gets sound without any treatment. 
I have yet to speak of one or two unnamed lamenesses in the 
fore-leg, but must wait until a more convenient opportunity. 
DISEASES OF THE HIP-JOINT. 
By Mr. T. W. Mayer, V.S., Newcastle-under-Lyne. 
There are no local diseases more formidable in their conse¬ 
quences, whether as regards their ravages upon the parts affected 
or the consequent and often fatal effects upon the general consti¬ 
tution of the animal, than those of the principal joints of the body. 
It is fortunate that we meet so seldom with any extensive dis¬ 
eased action in the hip-joint—a joint which yields to none in its 
importance to animal progression. So strong, of late years, has 
been the tide of prejudice against the possibility of any lameness 
occurring in this joint, that we occasionally overlook it, and attri¬ 
bute the grounds of the mischief as resident in the hock; nor can 
we wonder at this, when, in the slighter shades of lameness in a 
hinder extremity, the effect upon progression is so very similar. 
