The splint is an object of the commonest occurrence so common

The splint is an object of the commonest occurrence so common

The splint is an object of the commonest occurrence so common

The splint is an object of the commonest occurrence so common, indeed, that in large cities a horse which can not exhibit one or more specimens upon some portion of his extremities is one of the rarest of spectacles. Though it is in some instances a cause of lameness, and its discovery and cure are sometimes beyond the ability of the shrewdest and most experienced veterinarians, yet as a source of vital danger to the general equine organization, or even of functional disturbance, or of practical inconvenience, aside from the rare exceptional cases which exist as mere samples of possibility, it can not be considered to belong to the category of serious lesions. The worst stigma that attaches to it is that in general estimation it is ranked among eyesores and continues indefinitely to be that and nothing different. The inflammation in which they originated, acute at first, either subsides or assumes the chronic form, and the bony growth becomes a permanence more or less established, it is true, but doing no positive harm and not hindering the animal from continuing his daily routine of labor. All this, however, requires a proviso against the occurrence of a subsequent acute attack, when, as with other exostoses, a fresh access of acute symptoms may be followed by a new pathological activity, which shall again develop, as a natural result, a reappearance of the lameness.

Plate XXV.
Splint.