A CURB.
These reflections are very painful to any body who appreciated the loving and devoted character of the quadruped. Among the least of its sufferings probably may be reckoned curb, although the mark of the affection nearly always remains for life, and the misfortune sometimes quite disables the horse which incurs it. It consists of an enlargement, or a gradual bulging out, at the posterior of the hock.
There is some dispute about the seat of curb. The author examined a hock which had chronic curb, and found the perforan tendon disorganized. The late Mr. W. Percival (the respected originator of the very best work upon the horse and its diseases which is extant in the English language) also inspected a hock, and found the sheath of the tendon more involved than the tendon itself. However, a slight acquaintance with the mystery of anatomy assures us that the tendon must have been stretched when the sheath was injured, since the first invests and is inserted into the last. It is well known that synovial membrane is far more sensitive than tendon. It is therefore probable that the membrane would exhibit disease before the tendon displayed the slightest symptom of being affected. The membrane is also capable of displaying the signs of injury long after every trace may have disappeared from the tendon itself.
The effect of the treatment at present adopted is to confirm the enlargement, or to change the swelling into a lump of callus, which will accompany the sufferer to its death. Curbs are said to be the inheritances of animals of a certain conformation. Horses born with what are termed curby hocks are asserted to be much exposed to this kind of accident. The author has, for many years, particularly inspected animals of this description; and he never recollects to have seen a curb upon a hock of that peculiar conformation. To be sure, no man is likely to select either a hunter or a racer from a tribe thus bearing upon their limbs the signs of weakness. The creatures are consequently exempted from the great provocatives of the accident. However, that the reader may fully comprehend what is meant by a curby hock, one is here represented, together with a sound or naturally-formed, clean joint.
A CLEAN HOCK. A CURBY HOCK, SLIGHTLY BULGING OUT BEHIND.
The custom of blistering a horse the instant a curb appears is most injurious. Harm is done, in every point of view, by such a habit. The animal should have a high-heeled shoe put on immediately, so as to ease the overstrained tendon. The part ought then to be kept constantly wet with cold water, so as to lower or disperse the inflammation. It should not be blistered, to heat and increase the vascularity of the structures. A cloth, doubled twice or thrice, is easily kept upon the hock by means of an India-rubber bandage, of the form delineated in the accompanying engraving. Such a cloth, so placed, is afterward to be made constantly cool and wet.
AN INDIA-RUBBER BANDAGE, FOR KEEPING WET CLOTHS UPON A CURB.