431 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S. and V.S. 
[Continued from p. 136.] 
Capped Hock. 
Such is the NAME given to any fulness or actual enlargement 
of the natural cap or point of the hock. French veterinarians call 
the swelling a capelet , whence our old writers on farriery have 
derived their word CAPULET, the appellation they have given to 
capped hock ; though why they have changed the e into an u is 
not very apparent. 
The Point of the Hock is a part notorious to every horse¬ 
man. It is constituted of the tuberosity of the os calcis or hock- 
bone, and serves as the powerful lever whereby the “ hamstrings” 
or tendons of the gastrocnemii muscles, are enabled to perform so 
important a part in progression. These two tendons, as they 
descend along the back of the thigh to the hock, twine round each 
other in such manner that the outer tendon belongs to the inner 
muscle, the inner tendon to the outer muscle. The latter is in¬ 
serted into the tuberosity, and there terminates; but the former 
(or outer tendon) as it approaches the tuberosity, expands and 
forms a cap for it, and so becomes a very complete bursal struc¬ 
ture ; whereby it is enabled, in its subsequent course to the foot, 
to play over the inserted tendon freely and without friction. This 
internal or tendinous cap is surmounted by an external, subcuta¬ 
neous, faschial cap, which, from its being formed in the midst of an 
abundant cellular tissue, is, together with the skin covering it, 
extremely loose and moveable upon the tuberosity. This, the 
outer cap, differs from the inner one not only in structure and com¬ 
pleteness of cavity, but also in its contents; it being, in fact, 
naturally, little else than the semblance of a cavity, having no more 
indications of fluid in it than would arise from the presence of 
halitus within the cells of its parietes during life. But, 
In a diseased Condition —for this is the usual seat of capped 
hock—its state is different. Augmented secretion is excited, and 
this condenses into serous fluid, collects, and becomes confined 
within the cavity now perfected by adhesions cementing together 
the cells of the surrounding porous tissue ; so that in a very short 
space of time distention becomes visible around and upon the point 
of the hock. In reality, therefore, capped hock is no more than a 
serous abscess, attracting particular attention from its situation, and 
