OBSERVATIONS ON WINDGALL. 
143 
while supporting weight, that it declinates 2 degrees, making it 33 ; 
and that this, the natural angle of the hoof, ought to be most care¬ 
fully preserved, by cutting away from toe or heel, or by the use of 
low or high-heeled shoes, according as is required to bring the hoof 
to this level; and that this is a point in shoeing that cannot be too 
strongly impressed upon the mind of the smith: parts being, from 
a normal position either strained or else put out of use; and all 
from lack of attention to this simple rule of adjustment. 
We must not conclude this brief notice of the clever application 
of geometric law to the structure of the hoof, without explicitly 
stating that Mr. Hodgson does not consider that such measure¬ 
ments are required by either the practical shoeing-smith or the 
veterinary surgeon; but intends them simply and solely as prac¬ 
tical guides, in matters of farriery, to the student, for whom he has 
specifically designed them. 
OBSERVATIONS ON WINDGALL. 
By A. Cherry, M.RC.V.S. London. 
As the disease termed “ windgall” has been the subject of illus¬ 
tration in the last Numbers of your Journal, I shall lay before 
your readers a few observations on a mode of treatment which I 
have adopted for many years; not that I presume to take credit to 
myself as the discoverer, or even as being very singular as to its 
employment. 
Wherever windgall may be situate, or however produced, there 
is always an imperative condition, namely, an enlargement of a 
soft fluctuating character situate beneath the skin, and proved by 
ulterior examination to consist of a centre cavity filled with viscid 
synovia, and lined with synovial membrane, the parietes of the 
cyst consisting of condensed and often indurated cellular tissue: 
in fact, this puffy enlargement may be considered to be a hernia of 
the synovial membrane connected either with a joint or a synovial 
sheath of a tendon. As an illustration, a windgall on the front of 
the knee-joint may be occasionally met with; and if this is care¬ 
fully examined, it will be found that on pressure the contents of 
the tumour disappear: remove the pressure, it again appears. 
Further examination will shew that the tumour evidently disap¬ 
pears through a well-defined opening with smooth round edges, and 
