434 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
wound of any sort will have the effect. We need, therefore, not 
express any surprise at encountering so many capped hocks in our 
daily perambulations. 
In answer to some inquiries I made, Mr. Braby, Veterinary 
Surgeon to Messrs. Barclay and Perkins’ Establishment, whose 
accuracy of observation and experience enables me to write confi¬ 
dently on the point, informs me that the spreaders, dangling 
about their horses’ hind limbs, being too high placed to strike the 
hock, are apt to produce (not capped hock, but) a thickening of the 
skin, with, sometimes, abrasion, of the part of the thigh immediately 
above the point of the hock; and he adds the instructive fact, that 
the hock of the cart-horse is nothing like so obnoxious to disease in 
general as that of the light horse. The cart-horse’s hock ailmenls 
principally arise from his being thrown upon his haunches in the 
act of backing loads: this occasions often contusion of the cap of 
the hock (as well as of other parts), which is followed by more or 
less inflammation ; and the usual result of this is, thickening of the 
integuments around the point of the hock, rendered permanent by 
subsequent induration and callosity of the parts. 
A capped Hock may have a constitutional Cause. It may 
arise in common with tumefaction of other parts, from “ humour.” 
What I have, in another place, called “ Diffuse Inflammation of the 
Cellular Tissue”—a disease very apt to fall foul of the hind limb— 
will produce it. There being such an abundance of cellular sub¬ 
stance around the cap of the hock, renders it an inviting part for 
infiltration in dropsical or oedematous affections, which readily ac¬ 
counts for the fulness or swelling of this part under circumstances 
of the kind. And nothing better than this explains the real nature 
of ordinary capped hock. In such a case, of course, the tumour 
here will increase and diminish, and disappear altogether, with the 
swelling in other parts of the limb. As another constitutional, 
though a much rarer, source of capped hock, may be mentioned 
rheumatic inflammation of the joint of the hock. 
Capped Hock does not produce Lameness; not, at least, 
in any ordinary form. There must be something unusual about the 
case for lameness to he present. And there is more likelihood of 
its appearing after treatment than before; shewing that the means 
employed, when they are violent or such as are uncalled for, are 
apt to prove worse than the disease. It is possible in a case of 
capped hock of unusual magnitude, attended with more than an 
ordinary degree of inflammation, that stiffness may be observed in 
the motions of the joint, though this hardly ever amounts to 
actual lameness. It is after bold and violent treatment, such as 
blisters and the operation of puncturing the distended cap, that 
