86 
OBSERVATIONS ON SOUNDNESS. 
must give a few moments to thought , and endeavour if possible 
to ascertain with certainty whether the injury has left behind 
any impairment of action ; for very much of our reputation 
depends upon the kind of opinions we advance when an un¬ 
sound animal is recommended by us to be purchased. In these 
days, we shall be frequently called upon to scrutinise an 
unsound horse, and very often, no doubt, advise our clients 
to take the animal, although pronounced unsound. But we 
must exercise much discretion in making public our views, 
or we shall in a short space of time have war waged against us. 
The most serious of all the “break-downs” I have met 
with is when the lateral ligaments of the fetlock-joint partici¬ 
pate with that of the suspensory, being as it were “ off¬ 
shoots ” of this, as some term it, “ tendon,” and we may 
naturally seek for a participation of any great violence sus¬ 
tained by that ligament in the small appendages which are 
thrown off for the support of the sessamoids as well as of the 
extensor pedis, from the carpus to the joint below, made up 
as it is of the lower end of the metacarpal bone, the suf- 
fraginis and the two sessamoids. So much diversity of struc¬ 
ture is here met with, that we need never feel, as some do, 
astonished to find our hands and eyes at fault when lameness 
exists in the front leg, if we can neither see nor feel anything 
wrong upon a slight examination. If we will but take into 
consideration the fact of the suspensory ligament being 
unlike any other ligament or tendon, and that bursae are 
situated immediately underneath it, we can, I think, account 
in some measure for the difficulties we occasionally meet with 
in diagnosing lameness. I fear we do not sufficiently bear in 
mind the many peculiarities which exist in the various struc¬ 
tures present within a given space. 
I have before hinted that the fetlock-joint is not only an 
important one, but exceedingly complicated as a piece of 
mechanism; for example, let us look for a moment into its 
component parts, or in other language, the anatomy of the 
joint, taking into account the different textures which go to 
make up the whole ; then the situation of those parts as they 
are related one to another in a passive state, comparing them 
with each other during locomotion, and consider their uses, 
and, lastly, dwell a short time upon the pathology of the 
whole joint, which will, I have no doubt, give us some idea 
of the many difficulties met with, and account for some of the 
failures which are occasionally witnessed by those who are 
more sanguine than others are in their practice. There are 
several methods adopted for ascertaining the probable extent 
of injury in a break-down. The usual one I employ is that 
