LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
433 
not only on occasions creating a great deal of alarming inflamma¬ 
tion and swelling in the limb, but giving rise sometimes to consti¬ 
tutional irritation as well. I have known a pint and a half of pus 
to be collected within the morbidly enlarged cap, owing to abscess 
induced by the operation of setoning. This is what we call 
Abscess of the Cap, a case I have no recollection of having 
seen happen but under circumstances of treatment, and mostly after 
operation. In such a condition of hock and limb as abscess com¬ 
monly engenders, the features of the case become, as a matter of 
course, materially altered. Pain and lameness will now be the 
consequence of inflammation and swelling. Instead of having to 
treat the hock alone, we are called on to administer to the entire 
limb, and perhaps to the system of the body as well. And after we 
have been fortunate enough to allay all irritation, to reduce the 
swollen limb to its natural size, and to bring back the hock to statu 
quo , still is there likely to remain, and permanently so, a good 
deal of callous enlargement and deformity of the parts diseased, 
as well of other parts in their immediate vicinity. 
The internal, tendinous, synovial Cap of the Hock now 
and then participates in the disease, though never in itself the primary 
or principal seat. Knowing, as we do, what susceptible structures 
bursae are, it is not to be expected that any great amount of inflam¬ 
mation should exist in their immediate vicinity without some sym¬ 
pathy on their part; and therefore we have a right to suppose— 
indeed, to infer, as far as proof can through manual examination be 
afforded us—that no great deal of lesion befals the outer cap without 
the inner one becoming, sympathetically perhaps, affected. M. 
Rigot, however, doubts this. He imagines the tendinous cap is 
too closely bound down to admit of any accumulation of fluid*. 
The Cause OF Capped Hock is, in two words, external injury. 
The horse’s hind legs are used as weapons of attack and defence, 
as well as instruments of progression. When not fatigued by la¬ 
bour during the day, he will on occasions, particularly if he be 
viciously or playfully inclined, pass part of the night in kicking 
against the heel-post or partition of his stall, and in doing so 
can hardly fail to strike and bruise so prominent and vulnerable a 
part as the cap of his hock. Kicking in harness against the splinter- 
bar is likely to be attended by the same consequences. A horse 
may bruise his hocks by slipping down upon his haunches. Even 
lying down upon rough stone pavement without litter has been 
known to produce contusion of the caps. In fact, a contusion or 
* Les moyens d’affirmissemens sont si puissants, et en si grande nombre, 
queje doute fort qu’il puisse jamais presenter ce genre d’alteration.— Anato - 
mie des Animaux Domestiques. 
