The Newtown bee., 1894-05-25
ey, Waterbury,; treasurer, Porter Wood, Waterbury.
The Horse.
WIND GALLIN THE HORSE.

We are asked many times in the course of the year, What can you do for wind gals; can they be cured?' Generally speaking. we should say, "Rather doubt full"
 Windgall, ,as it is commonly known and termed, is sac or bag containing fluid similar in it's aspect and properties to synovis or joint oil, and that the sheaths of tendons, ''the synovial sheaths," as they are called, are kindred structures to them. The bursa mucosa consists simply of membrane, of the same texture as synovial membrane, thrown into the form of a sac or bag. The synovial sheath nothing differs from it, save that membranous sac is commonly prolonged and enlarged, and is apt to run into div CTS complex and irregular shapes. Both bursa and sheath from circumscribed in- closures, and in this respect both bear considerable analogy, as well as in the texture of their membranous walls, to the shut cavities of the joints.
 The origin of wind gall will be more likely to be satisfactorily elicted through an inquiry into the functions the bursa in a state of health are intended to answer in the animal economy, and the mode ln which these functions are carried out ID the economy of the horse in particular, than by any other course we can pursue. The bursae are contrivances of nature to facilitate the sliding of tendons and mus cles, and even of the skin, over bones or other tendons, fragments or cartridges, or any projecting parts.
 By presenting too close approXima- tion and consequent friction, they not only protect the parts between which they are interposed againstan ritation 1 that friction might create, but by remov- l ing the slightest impeachment to it they | facilitate movement, and thus become aids to locomotion; and although but passive aids, still may the buras be re- garded as parts suffering abuse from any excess of action, whether such excess consists in intensity of force or of fre- quency. Such excess of locomotion as goes by the name of "work'' or ''sprain'' we find to be very commonly succeeded by the appearance of windgall, either in the form of what is usually so called, or in that of bog spavin, thoroughpin, etc. | So connected are the two, als cause and effect, that whenever a horse presents himself exhibiting wind gals we at once pronounce him to have done "work," or to have been ''sprained," and yet. by no
 means infrequently are brought before us young horses-horses that have never been broken or backed, even-having
 bursal swellings, not so much in their fetlocks as in their hooks, bog spavins
 being anything but rare occurrences among them, and these have manifestly arisen in the absence either of work or sprain.
 In the young horse bursal swellings frequently arise from ''weak,' 5 the inter- preIation of which appears to be that the joints with which the bursas are so generally connected, and with which in some parts they make common cavities, are in many growing animal really phys ically too 'sweak" even to support the weight of it's body, and the consequence 1 is they bulge, i. G., the capsular liga- ment becomes distended and stretched, and ultimately has it's cavity consider ably enlarged in consequence of such punching, or, as happens in some cases, l in consequence of communication with the bursas in it's immediate vicinity. This is the case in bog spavin, the form of wind gall to which young horses are subject. To this may be added, as another link in the causation, the mani fest disposition existing in the constitu. tion of the young subject to augmenta- tion of secretion as well as to effusion. His capillary system seems ever exuber- ant, ever ready on the slightest provoca- tion to relieve itself of the plethora nat aral to it at this season of life in the emission of either serous fluid or syno- vial secretion or c0aguabie lymph, de- pendent on the nature of the exciting cause and the part on which it is oper- ating.
 For instance. if there exists general plethora of the system, or disposition, from laxness or 'sweakness1 of the cap- iliaries generally, to effusion or secre- tion, the legs and sheath, being the low l nct ar 6onf e., and become enlarged. On the other hand, if the points of bursal or motion l are exercised beyond their powers to withstand, or which become the source of any increased arterial or orhypertrophic \ action in them, then will the synovial secretion become augmented, and bog I spavin or some other form of wind gall be the result.
 If weakness of fibre in the young animal be local cause of wind gall, overstretch or strain, from intensity of force or repetition of motion beyond the 4 powers of the parts, it may occasion the
 same thing in the adult or perfectly formed animal. Work tells upon no parts more than it does upon the joints l We witness this in the trembling knees and knuckling- lover hind fetlocks of aged horses and horses that have performed d .i good deal of hard work, as we'll as in the
 shambling, shuffiing, bone setting gait they in consequence get into. We also see what are generally received as unerr. ing signs of 1t in the wind gals upon . their fetlock joints, upon the fore less often than upon the hind legs, in conse. :. quence of the nature of the work they have been doing being more likely tf have called the fore rather than the other into excessive action.
 If with the predisposition of tht
 young are combined the causes whicI { produce wina gall in the old or worked