A CASE OF SPRINGHALT. 
583 
There are several modifications of springhalt. This case 
presented features somewhat similar to what are sometimes 
seen in connection with bad forms of scratches, although 
when I first saw him and up to the time when the poultice 
strings hurt him, and he was placed in the narrow stall, there 
was no abrasion or evidence of soreness or inflammation of 
the skin. In other respects it showed all the symptoms of 
ordinary chronic springhalt. 
In previous articles on this subject I have pointed out 
that the successful treatment of this disease depends on 
whether it first presents itself in a very young animal, or in 
one that has reached maturity. The young animal, affected 
with it from early youth, if allowed to grow up without any 
effort to arrest or control the defect, will be found the most 
difficult to treat successfully after maturity, as inharmonies 
in the different parts of the leg are not easily regulated ; 
whereas springhalt occurring at maturity or after, if not the 
result of a permanent injury, is very often quite as amenable 
to treatment as other erratic or equivocal gaits, such as pad¬ 
dling, interfering, over-reaching, hitching, pacing, etc., defects 
attributable to a similar class of circumstances and surround- 
ings, and composing a family of diseases that have no rela¬ 
tionship whatever to chorea, or other diseases originating in 
the brain or spinal cord. 
Whatever part the hoof crowds in or interferes with will 
react on some part of the limb above, causing changes, it may 
be in one or more muscles or parts, so that they act out in 
harmony. It may disturb a nerve and destroy or modify 
its influence, changing the gait, or causing lameness. 
It may cause shortening of such parts as the flexor tendons 
and ligaments, and the animal walks on his toe, or on the side of 
the foot. It may induce shortening of the metatarsal flexor and 
cause it to do more than its share of work, when bone spavin will 
follow. It may cause shortening and atrophy of the muscle 
of the hip, and the tail will almost invariably be carried to the 
shrunken side, instead of the side on which the muscles are 
strongest. All those diseases of the limbs recognized as pe¬ 
culiar to the horse have their origin there. There we find 
