GG4 
OBSERVATION’S ON STRINGHALT. 
the bony tissue underneath, so that it must be indeed very 
rarely, if ever, that one can notice in strinf^halt, or any dis¬ 
ease aflfecting the hock-joint, a ragged ulcer with granular 
edges in the trochlea of the astragalus,'’^ though Dr. Gustccd 
declares he meets with such a lesion frequently. The en¬ 
crusting cartilage of joints sometimes, however, becomes 
thin in old age, and even disappears to such an extent as to 
leave the bone underneath quite exposed, and possibly the 
New York doctor may have met with something of this sort, 
and mistaken it for ulceration. 
One thing is certain, that ulceration cannot exist in any 
articulation of the extremities for even a brief space of time 
without causing changes which seriously modify locomotion, 
and induce symptoms and manifestations of pain which are not 
observable in, or at any rate are very dissimilar to those of, string- 
halt. I fear, therefore, that the cause of this affection, like that 
of some others of obscure nervous diseases, yet remains to be 
revealed ; for the local changes connected with the nerves sup¬ 
plying the muscles of the posterior extremities, and which 
have been assigned as the origin of stringhalt by some vete¬ 
rinary surgeons, are far from constant, and therefore not to be 
relied on. Even the case quoted by ProfessorVarnell, in which 
he found an alteration in the enveloping membrane of the 
nerve-fibres, only leads one to this conclusion; for, judging 
by analogy, we do not find that, during or after repeated at¬ 
tacks of sciatica in the human subject, there are any symptoms 
at all akin to those of stringhalt as we see it in the horse, though 
after death the neurilemma may be found considerably modi¬ 
fied, or some change have taken place in the surrounding 
textures, by which pressure or irritation has been given to 
the nerves supplying the parts where the pain had existed. 
I trust that, though I have added nothing to the scanty 
knowledge we possess of this malady, these remarks, following 
those given us by Professor Varnell, may aid in stimulating 
research, and in inducing those who have the precious oppor¬ 
tunity of making an after-death examination of horses known 
to have been affected by stringhalt, to give us the result of 
their investigations. 1 also hope that the worthy doctor 
who has been the means of surprising us by such an unwonted 
announcement, and the promulgation of such a bold, if rather 
unreliable opinion, will, in pardoning me for these random 
criticisms on his discoveiy, afford us another and a more 
satisfactory report than that furnished to the Dear Spirit^'’ 
of New York. 
