LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
003 
and rheumatic inflammation of the joints, we may frequently ob¬ 
serve the knees to be swollen in front to a considerable extent ; 
though, perhaps, we should not call such by the name of “ capped 
knees.” 
Lameness is not a Consequence of Capped Knee. No 
pain exists to produce it. The cap of the knee, however, may be 
swollen to that degree that inconvenience or impediment to the 
flexion of the knee-joint may arise, altering the gait by the pecu¬ 
liarity which it occasions in the lifting and projection of the limb, 
and so far causing “ stiffness,” or, if persons will have it so, 
“ lameness.” Indeed, it is possible for inflammation from extraor¬ 
dinary causes—such as violent injury, oppressive work, or mal¬ 
treatment—to be set up in the part, and then, as a matter of course, 
lameness would result. 
Treatment might be said to be hardly called for to so trifling 
an affair as a capped knee; and yet, so long as the enlargement con¬ 
tinues, scarcely any thing—unless it be a capped hock—disfigures 
a horse more. Supposing it be but a casual occurrence, a mere 
accident of the moment, and there be no probability of any re¬ 
currence of the cause which has given rise to it, all that need be 
said about treatment is—“ let the swelling alone, and in time it 
will subside.” As with capped hock so with capped knee, the 
grand consideration is, the removal of the exciting cause. Should 
it arise from pawing in the stall, let the horse’s fore legs be chained 
together with fetters of the same kind as were recommended in 
speaking of capped hock ; and should the injury take place in 
strawyard or paddock, or place of such description, it is most prudent 
to at once remove the animal. 
Severity or repetition of injury may, however, bring before us 
for treatment a case of tumour, so great an eyesore from its mag¬ 
nitude, that the proprietor is ashamed or unwilling to use the horse 
with it, notwithstanding the swelling may nowise interfere with 
action. Now, simple as this case may appear, I would advise the 
veterinarian not to undertake the treatment of it without warning 
his employer that capped knee, like capped hock, is apt to prove 
exceedingly obstinate, tardy and tedious of reduction, and to be the 
more tiresome in resisting remedy, the more remote its date of 
origin and chronic its nature. 
So long as any heat continued perceptible in the tumour, one 
would naturally feel disposed to commence with antiphlogistic re¬ 
medies—a brisk dose of cathartic medicine, combined with the 
use either of fomentations and poultices, or of evaporating lotions, 
according to the stage the inflammation was in—notwithstanding 
the experienced in these matters know but too well that but little 
benefit is to be expected from such remedies in any case save the 
