CAPPED HOCK. THE LARGEST SPECIMEN OF CAPPED HOCK WHICH
THE AUTHOR HAS MET WITH.
The tumor, however, having been produced, may in time subside, should the injury which provoked it not be repeated. Too often, however, the cause springs from motives over which the animal has no control; and the violence being renewed again and again, the swelling enlarges, and that which was soft and pulpy at first becomes hard to the feel, while all sensation of fluid disappears. The provocative being repeated, the part first grows firm, then solid, while its bulk also enlarges to a fearful magnitude. There appears to be no limit to the size; but the largest the author has encountered was nineteen inches in its greatest circumference, and seriously interfered with progression. Above, on the right hand, is a portrait of the tumor.
These unsightly growths have two causes—the ignorance of the groom and the timidity of the animal. To speak of the last first: Dogs will dream; often, as they lie before the fire, they work their legs and utter suppressed noises, being at the time soundly asleep. Dogs also have imagination. Almost everybody must have remarked the dog slink away from some object which is to be indistinctly seen in the dusk of evening. Nobody, however, seems to have credited the horse with either of these faculties. Because it is of service to man, it is appropriated, and the attributes belonging to the creature are overlooked; the groom locks the stable door, and, having bedded the horses down, leaves them in the dark, "comfortable" for the night. One dreams—awakens in terror, similar to that which causes children to start out of their sleep with terrible crying. The hind legs are the means of defense with the horse; it has no other, for it seldom, and not habitually, employs its teeth. The animal, in alarm, begins kicking, for terror becomes powerful as the reason diminishes. Animals have passions; these man can, in himself, subdue with reason; but the poor horse has no reason to restrain its emotions. Fear, once awakened, unopposed, possesses it; it begins to kick before it knows why. Bodies of men are exposed to panics. Can we wonder, therefore, at a timid and unreasoning animal being subject to the same influences? The kicking commenced, terror spreads; and a whole stable full of horses, each chained to its stall, each alone, forbidden the consolation of society, and prevented from scampering from the unknown horror, takes up the action; thus thirty or forty horses may be heard, in the depth and darkness of a night, kicking at the same time. The hind legs, when forcibly projected, are apt to hit the point of the hock; the bursa there developed is injured by the blow, and a capped limb is the consequence.
Another cause is kicking while in harness. This habit is always attributed to vice: to speak of vice as associated with the ideas of a simple animal is purely ridiculous. Fear is a much more probable cause, if man would only expand his understanding to comprehend the motives likely to actuate an unreasoning creature; vice is far too heroic an impulse, far too human a failing, for the horse to embody. Fear is essentially an animal passion; that some mighty influence agitates the quadruped, when it begins to kick in harness, is proved by the serious accidents the horse encounters through this habit. No life can be careless of its own existence; all creatures are conservatives where their own being is concerned. Would mankind only admit this fact, and seek to gain the confidence of, as they now labor to establish authority over, the horse, gentle words, spoken when the impulse was awakened, might reassure the animal, and would thus frequently save the owner from impending danger.
A third cause is lazy drivers riding on cart-horses, when unhooked, as leaders of the wagon; the poles, called spreaders, which keep the chains asunder, frequently hang so low that, at every movement of the leg, they strike the point of the hock. The uneven paving of some stables is likewise said to produce the disease; in short, anything which may cause the point of the calcis to suffer violence will produce a capped hock.
The cure for capped hock has been differently directed. Some hobble the hind legs of the horse, to prevent its kicking in the night; some fasten a chain and a log to one hind limb, for the same purpose; others suspend a piece of loose cloth at the back of the horse; but the best plan is always to leave a lantern lighted in the stable. The power to see around reassures timidity, while darkness is an awful instigator of terror; horses often fly back in their stalls, but never kick, during daylight.
Then, as to the cure: Such a tumor, when recent, is hot and somewhat painful; at this time, keep it wet with cold water or with a lotion formed of spirits of wine and water in equal parts; when the tenderness has subsided, procure some men who want employment and have strong arms; set these fellows to rub the cap of the hock constantly, and the tumor, in three or four days, or in less time, will have disappeared.
