216 WEST OF ENGLAND VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
Curbs do not often produce permanent lameness. Patten shoes 
were formerly much used in the treatment of lameness. I very 
seldom have recourse to them for any lameness, excepting very 
severe sprains of the tendons, and then only for a few days, until 
the acute pain has passed off. 
Spavin .—Bone spavin may be defined to be an exostosis on the 
inner and lower part of the hock. When situated very low down 
it is the result of periostitis of the head of the metatarsal bone, and 
unconnected with the cuniform bones, and, as a rule, does not 
produce lameness ; but the ordinary situation of bone spavin is 
in connection with the metatarsal and cuniform bones, and is the 
result of periostitis and ostitis, and may have been the effects of 
such a low form of inflammation as not to have produced lame¬ 
ness. But the disease to which we are more often called upon to 
treat is of a much more formidable character, as it frequently 
happens that bones which were before slightly movable have 
already become more or less anchylosed. 
On the table before you are a large number of specimens in 
which there is no enlargement, yet the cuneiform bones are anchy¬ 
losed. These are the cases which have in times past given rise to 
differences of opinion in courts of law as to whether there was 
spavin or not. Articular disease of the hock most commonly com¬ 
mences between the cuneiform bones, and next to that between the 
metatarsal and lower cuneiform bone; the lower articulation of the 
astragalus and the upper of the cuneiform do not often become 
involved unless the disease is very extensive, yet I have known 
cases when this joint has become anchylosed and no lameness 
remaining, only a lessened power of a flexion of the hock. I 
have many times dissected the hocks of horses which have never 
been known to be lame or in any way enlarged at the seat of 
spavin, yet from the defective flexion I have suspected and 
found the cuneiform bones to be anchylosed, and am satisfied that 
ostitis of a low but persistent character is often produced and 
followed by anchylosis of the cuneiform bones; also periostitis 
resulting in an enlargement termed spavin without producing 
lameness or anything more than a lessening of the flexion of the 
hock. 
Among the causes of spavin is hereditary tendency, many 
animals having an ossific diathesis, as shown by the disposition 
to throw out splints, ringbones, spavins, &c., without having 
been overworked, and in some cases before they have done any 
work. It is not the badly shaped hock which most frequently 
becomes affected with spavin; on the contrary, it is often the one 
which is most perfect in shape and action, as horses with such 
hocks are generally good goers, and are often taxed to their 
utmost power, either for the purpose of showing what they can 
