observations on soundness. 
17 
or, as grooms express it, they 6 wear away/ A splint placed 
at the lower end of the cannon bone is still more prejudicial 
than when situated higher up the leg.” 
^ouatt in his work on the horse writes thus: “Splints, 
then, do not necessarily cause unsoundness, and may not 
lessen in the slightest degree the action or value of the horse. 
All depends on their situation.” Coming down nearer to 
our own time we find a more extensive view is taken of the 
affection we are discussing. Percivall in his Hippopathology 
has half a score of pages upon the subject. He says “The 
name of splint or splent, derived from the Italian word spinella , 
a splint, would seem first to have been used to denote the 
bone in or upon which the disease so called is seated, and 
afterwards the disease itself. The eight small bones in our 
modern nomenclature called metacarpal and metatarsal , in their 
position along the sides of the cannon bones , or great meta¬ 
carpal and metatarsal bones, have so much the aspect of 
splints (the old name for which is splents) or splinters off’ the 
shaft of the large bones to which they cling, that we can 
readily imagine how they came to be called splint or splent 
bones, and as easily understand how the appellation of the 
bone came to be transferred to the disease. The definition 
of a splint is simply this,—that it is an exostosis, i. e., a 
callous or osseous tumour, growing upon one, or contiguous 
to one, of the splint bones. Were the tumour not of such a 
nature, or being of such nature not so situated, we should 
not call it a splint.” He has quoted from Solleysel, who gives 
five kinds of splint; videlicet, “ simple, the pegged or double 
splint, the third which ascendeth to the knee, the fourth 
Fusee, the last osselet.” “The ordinary site of splint is 
about the middle of the leg, rather nearer to the knee than 
to the fetlock. A splint upon or immediately under the 
knee-joint is an affair of complication and danger compared 
to one in the ordinary situation, and so far we could and 
ought to make distinctions between splints ; further than 
this, however, all specification appears groundless and use¬ 
less.” Blaine is of opinion the lower the splint the more 
serious it is to be considered. Here there is an evident 
clashing of opinions. 
The pathological history of splint* —“ How happens it that this 
useful fibro-cartilage becomes transubstantiated into useless 
bone? The immediate or proximate cause we believe to be 
increased action, amounting in some instances to inflamma¬ 
tion, set up in the vessels of the fibro-cartilage, whereby 
hypertrophy, or, in such an ossific diathesis as the horse 
species is known to possess, exostosis is produced. Any 
XXXVII. & 
