LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
435 
lameness is most apt to come on ; but, then, this arises from exten¬ 
sion as well as aggravation of disease, and, properly speaking, has 
little or nothing to do with a pure case of capped hock. 
The Treatment of Capped Hock, in the form in which it 
ordinarily presents itself, is really more a matter of choice than of 
necessity. So far as the animal’s utility is to be considered, he is 
quite as serviceable with a capped hock as without one. And yet, 
having it, he carries about with him a great disfigurement: at 
least, such it appears to my eyes, though there be those who are 
of opinion that some enlargement of the cap of the hock rather 
adds to than detracts from the fair proportions of the hind limb. 
Other persons there are—and I must confess myself to be among 
the number—who so dislike to behold a capped hock, that, as long 
as any chance of its reduction remains, they are monstrously de¬ 
sirous to get rid of the deformity. I say, so long as appearances 
hold out any prospect of reduction, because, when the enlargement 
has continued long enough to have become callous and changed in 
structure, medicine ceases to have any effect upon it. Let the 
case, however, be never so recent and favourable, we prescribe in 
vain so long as the excitant of the evil continues in force. This, 
consequently, becomes our first solicitude; a branch of our subject 
which may very well be described under the heading of 
Prophylactic Treatment. —In a recent case of distention of 
the cap, consisting as it does then simply of a collection of serous 
fluid, the abstraction of the cause will be sufficient to cure the 
disease. But let a horse who has given himself a capped hock 
through kicking in the stable continue his kicking practices night 
after night, and the contents of the pharmacy may be dispensed 
upon his ailment to no purpose. Once, however, removed into a 
situation where he will have no inducement to kick, or should he 
again kick where he can do himself no harm thereby, or else with¬ 
out removal be hindered from kicking, there will then be a pro¬ 
bability of the enlargements of his caps either subsiding of their 
own accord, or being readily made or assisted so to do. Cases of 
capped hocks are frequently occurring in large studs and horse 
establishments, where the labour the horses have to perform is 
not a counterbalance to their high feeding and grooming, and espe¬ 
cially where, as in our cavalry stables, bails, and iron ones, are 
made the economical (?) substitutes for stalled partitions. Under 
such circumstances as these, as every veterinary surgeon in the 
army can testify, capped hocks are not the least among the evils 
arising from the “ bangs and blows” continually befalling horses 
in such prison-like and comfortless habitations. 
When, therefore, a horse is brought for treatment having a capped 
hock, the first thing to be attended to is the removal of the excit- 
