16 
OBSERVATIONS ON SOUNDNESS. 
you have dried away the blood, and that no more moisture 
cometh out; then take of pitch, of rozin, and mas tick, of 
each a like quantity, melt them well together, and being 
hot lay it over and all about the splent; then clap flock 
of the colour of the horse’s leg upon it, and so let it rest 
upon the splent until it fall away of itself; and, if when 
it is fallen away, you perceive any part of the splent remain 
behind, which hardly will be if it be orderly beaten; then 
you shall dress that remaining as you did the other before, 
and the splent will be perfectly cured.” Then he goes on 
to say, “The surest way is to use a sharp knife,” &c., &c. 
After giving special directions as to the mode of laying 
on bandages to stay the falling down of the humours, he 
lays great stress upon the age of the moon : “ And also you 
must know that all splents, spavins, or knobs, must either be 
taken away at the beginning or after the full of the moon.” I 
am afraid our present practice is so much at variance with that 
pursued in times gone by, that many of our failures must be 
attributed to a want of knowledge of the humours and the 
influence of the moon : that is, if our forefathers were more 
successful than ourselves. Bracken believed splint derived 
its name from the fact of its serving to strengthen the 
parts, as pieces of wood would strengthen a splice. 
It appears to me that splint has been disposed of in a 
manner somewhat too summarily by some of our English 
authors. The more I see and learn of splint, the more I 
am inclined to view it as a great evil, as it is to depositions 
of bony matter in the fore limbs that we may attribute much 
of the want of that elasticity and pleasant action we used to 
have formerly in hacks and roadsters. For my own part I 
seldom ride a pleasant-going horse, or one which can be said 
to constitute a good hack. There is an absence of fine loose 
free action, and in place of it is felt rigidity—a sort of stilty 
movement of the front limbs. Whether this is referable to 
a deterioration in the breed of horses, or the fact of their 
being trained too early, it is not my province to notice at 
present; suffice it to say what I have stated 1 believe to be a 
fact. 
Blaine says, " As the general nature of splint is that of a 
conversion of what was before ligament into bone, so it is 
evident, in this point of view, that a splint can seldom, if 
ever, be wholly removed ; but from the process of absorption 
in the machine in the latter periods of life being greater than 
the deposit, so it happens that the eoctxa deposit beyond the 
simple ossific deposit, and which extra deposit is that which 
constitutes the bulk of the splint, is removed in old horses, 
