720 
INVETERATE CASE OF STRINGIIALT. 
muscleSj fascia, periosteum, or nervous coverings, but I could 
find none. 3rd. Whether the substance of the nerves them¬ 
selves had undergone any alteration in their colour, or their 
size. The impression upon my mind has always been, that 
we have the sciatic nerve changed to a straw colour, it is 
shrunk and withered, but this was not the case. The crural 
and sciatic nerves were full, plump, ample, and healthy, look¬ 
ing white in colour during the whole of their course to their 
foramina; and their membranes, as far as I could judge, ap- 
])eared fine, delicate, and healthy. 4th. And last, but not 
least—the joints, the hip, stifle, hock, fetlock, and sessamoids, 
were most certainly and entirely free from the slightest 
degree of disease. There was an ample supply of synovia, 
which was perfectly pellucid, and the articulatory surfaces 
were exquisitely smooth and beautiful. In the hock joint 
there were the sulci, which are almost always met with either 
in the upper articulatory surface of the astragalus, or in the 
articulatory surface of the tibia. It appears to me that 
Dr. Busteed has fallen into the same opinion that Mr. W. C. 
Spooner, of Southampton, once held, viz.: that these sulci, or 
oil reservoirs, are lesions or idcerations, or decay of cartilage; 
and he contended for this theory in that memorable contro¬ 
versy in the Veterinarian for 1837 and 1838, with Professor 
Dick. Although these two eminent writers and physiologists 
bestowed very great attention to this subject, in fact one of 
them made it his special study for seven years, neither of them 
seemed to entertain the remotest idea that stringhalt was one 
of the products of this condition of the joint. The other da^^ 
being in the neighbourhood of our knackers^ yards, I called 
and inspected the hocks of a score of dead horses, and I found 
in every one of them these sulci more or less distinct. Now 
it cannot for one moment be supposed that every one of these 
animals was affected with stringhalt. The sulci were equally 
distinct, as in my case above alluded to. Professor Dick, at 
page 186, Veterinarian for year 1837, says, These sulci are 
found in one form or another in all true joints.’^ Again, at 
page 433, year 1837, "^They are found in the best formed 
hocks.” Professor Spooner says, page 378, year 1837, 
‘^The cases of disease of the articulation between the tibia 
and astragalus are few indeed.” No, we may depend upon 
it, if that joint was actively inflamed, the symptoms would be 
just the reverse of stringhalt. Mr. Pritchard, of Wolvcr- 
Jiampton, says, page 535, year 1837, ^‘When the lameness is 
in this jomt it is far from being obscure. It is the true hock 
joint, and far the most extensive of the seven articulations of 
the tarsus; it possesses the greatest surface of synovial mem- 
