490 
IliebifU). 
Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non.—Hon. 
A Treatise on the Articulations of the Horse. Bi/ 
J. F. Rigot, Chief of the Anatomical Works at the Royal 
Veterinary School of A If art. Paris, Bechet, Jun. 1827. 
[Concluded from page 452.] 
In the last nuQiber we alluded to the opinions held by M. 
Rigot, relative to the little excavations so frequently met with 
between the condyles of the astragalus, and on the middle ridge 
of the inferior articulatory surface of the tibia. We also declined 
attempting to decide whether or not they were correct; fearing 
that we might possibly involve ourselves in a disputation which 
has lately taken place between two well-known veterinarians, 
one a public teacher, the other a private practitioner. The sub¬ 
ject, however, being one of no little pathological importance, we 
hope the reader will pardon us for altering our determination, 
and giving the result of our own observations, which, on this 
particular point, have not been very limited. 
In every case of decided hock lameness, where we have had an 
opportunity of anatomically examining the articulation, and this 
has happened some hundreds of times, we have invariably met 
with some alteration of structure sufficiently great, independent 
of the excavations in question, satisfactorily to account for the 
phenomena that presented themselves during the lifetime of the 
animal. 
It is true, that, in a few instances, these excavations, or, as some 
are pleased to call them, sulci, were in a decidedly diseased 
state: but, be it remembered, that whenever this was the case, 
there was invariably present inflammation of the synovial mem¬ 
brane and its appendices. We regard the inflammation of the 
membrane as the primitive disease, and the altered state of the sulci 
as a consequence. Lameness in the horse, arising from inflamma¬ 
tion of the synovial membrane, although some go so far as to deny 
even its existence, is not of such unfrequent occurrence as the 
generality of practitioners may imagine. We have met with 
some cases which, though few, put the matter beyond doubt. 
Where an absorption of the diarthrodial articulatory cartilage 
is the eflect of inflammatory action, the lesion has quite a dif¬ 
ferent appearance from the little sulci to which w^e so often allude. 
How unlike is their aspect to any change resulting from morbid 
