MECHANICAL TREATMENT OF LAMENESS. 
25 
EXPLANATION OF FIGURES. 
a. Ovigerous female, ventral surface. 
b. Ovigerous female, showing ova, one of which shows a 
well-developed larva. 
c. Male, ventral surface. 
d. Six-legged larva, extruded by pressure from body of fe¬ 
male. 
e. Foot with ambulacrum withdrawn. 
f. Foot with ambulacrum extended and spur delineated. 
g. Rostrum seen from ventral surface. 
MECHANICAL TREATMENT OF LAMENESS. 
By Dr. G. C. Pritchard, Topuca, Kan. 
A Paper read before the Missouri Valley Veterinary Medical Association, Feb. 9, 1898. 
In the first place do not consider me egotistical if I should 
make some statements in this paper which would conflict 
sharply with the prescribed theories of most of our veterinary 
colleges as taught at the present day. Neither should you drop 
the subject before you have made a thorough investigation along 
this line, because after such an investigation, I am sure some of 
you, at least, will entertain ideas somewhat different from those 
you have learned at school. For instance, I remember well 
some ten years ago of reading in some horse paper a few re¬ 
marks made by Mr. Robert Bonner, of whom we have all heard 
so much. The remarks which seemed to me too preposterous 
for even a second thought were the following : “ I do not be¬ 
lieve a horse would ever have a bone spavin, ringbone or splint 
which had a perfectly balanced foot.” Now, at that time I con¬ 
sidered the statement so utterly absurd that I deemed it not 
worth while to entertain the idea for one moment and so ex¬ 
pressed myself ; and, like most other professional veterinarians, 
a little stuck on my judgment, and to emphasize the fact a little 
stronger added that I thought I knew about as much about the 
cause of bone spavin, etc., as Mr. Robert Bonner or any other 
man, and that I knew from personal knowledge that some 
spavins were hereditary—a fact that would (to me at least) for- 
