THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXII, 
No. 263. 
NOVEMBER 1849. 
Third Series, 
No. 23. 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S. and V.S. 
[Continued from p. 483.] 
Capped Knee. 
Name.—IF a comparison be made between the account about 
to be given of the nature of capped knee and the pathological 
descriptions already given of capped hock and capped elbow, I 
think I shall be fully borne out in the appropriateness of a similar 
appellation for the former. Similarity of structure entails simi¬ 
larity of disease; added to which, in the present case, there exists, 
as we shall hereafter find, similarity of causation. 
Definition. —A capped knee is an uniform swelling of the fore 
part of the knee, having a soft elastic feel, and evincing, so long 
as it be recent, more heat than the surrounding skin, though 
pressure fails to shew that it is any wise or any where painful or 
even tender. 
Pathology. —When we come to remove the skin from the fore 
part of the knee, we disclose a layer of dense cellular tissue, cover¬ 
ing the extensor tendons for the purpose of protection against the 
“ bangs and blows” to which in this exposed situation they are 
necessarily obnoxious. Cutting into this tissue, we discover in its 
middle a sort of spurious bursa, leading upwards into a similar 
cavity upon the extensor (metacarpi) tendons; in which intervals 
it is that effused fluid collects whenever the knee becomes the seat 
of serous abscess, or, in other words, becomes “ cappedand this 
explains the reason why the swelling, as it often is found to do, 
extends upwards upon the arm. The pathology of capped knee 
is, therefore, extremely simple. Contusion of the part gives rise to 
either simply increased vascular action in it or to actual inflamma¬ 
tion; its capillary vessels become surcharged with blood, and they 
relieve themselves by effusion of, commonly, serous fluid, which 
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