49 8 
E. A. A. GRANGE. 
saturate the surface with water, which will cause the hair to lie 
close to the skin, and this will sometimes reveal enlargements 
which would otherwise pass unnoticed. It may be advisable to 
saturate the hair of both hocks. The saturation of the hair of 
the parts answers very nicely in examining the pasterns for ring¬ 
bone or other superficial diseases dependent upon a certain amount 
of enlargement in any part of the body if the hair is long. While 
the assistant is holding the fore foot from the ground, the front 
of the hock may be examined for that soft, puffy tumqr known 
as bog spavin , and the sides of the joint for thoronghpin; at the 
same time the outline of the ^ack of the joint may be scrutinized 
to see if any remarkable deviation from a straight line exists in 
one hock that is not in the other; if it does, the probability is 
that a curb is the cause of it. It must be remembered that sim¬ 
ilar diseases do sometimes exist in both hocks at the same time, 
in which case it may be necessary for us to be familiar with the 
anatomy of the parts in a manner that can only be obtained by 
dissection or careful examination of the dissected parts, before 
we can distinguish between the natural formation and disease— 
for instance, we have curby-hocked horses, a style of conformation 
that may cause a doubt as to the existence of disease in the 
minds of those who have not given this subject a good deal of 
careful attention. This suggests the commendation of the grow¬ 
ing tendency to have a veterinarian in the show ring to decide 
cases which properly come within the jurisdiction of an expert. 
The question as to why the hock joint is so often the seat of 
lameness or disease often claims our attention, but if we exam¬ 
ine it from the anatomist’s standpoint we will at once see that it 
is a very complicated joint, really made up a number of little 
joints, and like other complicated things is quite liable to go 
wrong; but this is not all, for if we watch a horse in motion,, 
fast or slow, backing or advancing, we will see that a more 
acute elbow is formed by this joint than at any other part of the 
leg, and in such a manner that it has to bear the strain of two 
levers, so much so that we might reasonably wonder why it is 
not oftener deranged; this, perhaps, may be explained by the 
