een mentioned as pertaining to certain evidences of
periostitis, in the increase of the temperature of the part, with
swelling and probably pain on pressure. This last symptom is of no
little importance, since its presence or absence has in many cases
formed the determining point in deciding a question of difficult
diagnosis.

_Cause._--A splint being one of the results of periostitis, and the
latter one of the effects of external hurts, it naturally follows that
the parts which are most exposed to blows and collisions will be those
on which the splint will most commonly be found, and it may not be
improper, therefore, to refer to hurts from without as among the common
causes of the lesion. But other causes may also be productive of the
evil, and among these may be mentioned the over-straining of an immature
organism by the imposition of excessive labor upon a young animal at a
too early period of his life. The bones which enter into the formation
of the cannon are three in number, one large and two smaller, which,
during the youth of the animal, are more or less articulated, with a
limited amount of mobility, but which become in maturity firmly joined
by a rigid union and ossification of their interarticular surface. If
the immature animal is compelled, then, to perform exacting tasks beyond
his strength, the inevitable result will follow in the muscular
straining, and perhaps tearing asunder of the fibers which unite the
bones at their points of juncture, and it is difficult to understand how
inflammation or periostitis can fail to develop as the natural
consequence of such local irritation. If the result were deliberately
and intelligently designed, it could hardly be more effectually
accomplished.

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 est