File:The Horse - its treatment in health and disease, with a complete guide to breeding, training and management (1905) (14577490549).jpg

Identifier: horseitstreatmen01axej (find matches)
Title: The Horse : its treatment in health and disease, with a complete guide to breeding, training and management
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Axe, J. Wortley
Subjects: Horses
Publisher: London : Gresham
Contributing Library: Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University

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e, since it denotes a thick skin and a super-abundance of connective tissue beneath it, as well as a low cast of breedingand a soft, lymphatic temperament. Viewed in profile the joint should be wide from front to back, and theprojecting angle seen at the outer and back part above should be largeand prominent, so as to give room for the play of the tendons which itpartly encloses, and to furnish ample space for the attachment of othersto it which assist in flexino- the knee. Eegarded from the front the joint should present a broad, flattenedsurface for the accommodation of the extensor tendons which pass over it. The further advantages of a large knee will be to provide large articularsurfaces and generally to increase the capacity for movement, and to breakand disperse the effects of concussion. The direction of the knee shouldcoincide with the vertical direction of the forearm and canon. Deviations from this course of one kind or another are frequently 74 CONFORMATION AND ITS DEFECTS
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observed, and present some of the worst and most objectionable defects ofconformation. When the knee is displaced forward in advance of the vertical lineit is said to be bowed, or the horse stands over, knee spruno-, &c. (fig. 52). This deformity may exist at birth and con-tinue through the life of the animal, when it issaid to be congenital, or, as more frequentlyoccurs, it arises out of hard work, injury, andcontraction of the weight-bearing structures ofthe limb, especially the back tendons and liga-ments. Other examples result from an enfeebledstate of the flexor and extensor muscles, whosetendons being relaxed fail to give support to thejoint. When of congenital origin bowed knees arenot a serious defect except in bad cases, but whenotherwise induced they impair tlie working powersof the animal andrender him dangerousboth in the shafts andunder saddle.When the knees incline backward (fig. 53)the horse is said to have calf knees . Thisis a condition most frequently met with am

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