CANKER. 30r> 



nigh, tliat all pressure on the frog is taken away, its functions are destroyed, 

 and it is rendered liable to disease. Canker, however, arises more from the 

 peculiar injury to which the feet of these horses are subject from the 

 enormous shoes with which they are covered, the bulk of the nails with 

 which these shoes are necessarily fastened to the foot, and the strain of the 

 foot, in the violent although short exertion in moving heavy weights; but 

 most of all from the neglect of the feet, and the filthiness of the stables in 

 these establishments. Although canker is a disease most difficult to remove, 

 it is easily prevented. Attention to the punctures to which these heavy 

 horses, with their clubbed feet and brittle hoofs, are more than any others 

 subject in shoeing, and to the bruises and treads on the coronet, to which 

 with their awkwardness and weight they are so liable, and the greasy heels 

 which a very slight degree of negligence will produce in them, and to the 

 stopping of the thrushes, which are so apt in them to run on to the separation 

 of the horn from the sensible-frog, will most materially lessen the number 

 of cankered feet. Where this disease often occurs, the owner of the team 

 may be well assured that there is gross mismanagement, either in himself, 

 or his horsekeeper, or smith, or surgeon, and it will rarely be a difficult 

 matter to detect the precise nature of that mismanagement. 



The cure of canker is the business of the veterinary surgeon, and a most 

 harassing and tedious business it is. The principles on which he proceeds 

 are, first of all, to remove the extraneous fungous growth, and here proba- 

 bly he will call in the aid both of the knife and the caustic, or the cauter} ; 

 he will cut away every portion of horn which is in the slightest degree 

 separated from the sensible parts beneath. He will next endeavour to dis- 

 courage the growth of fresh fungus, and to bring the foot into that state m 

 which it will again secrete healthy horn: here he will remember that he 

 has to do with the surface of the foot; that this is a disease of the surface 

 only, and that there will be no necessity for those deeply-corroding and tor- 

 turing caustics which eat to the very bone. A slight and daily application 

 of the chloride of antimony, and that not where the new horn is forming, 

 but only on the surface which continues to be diseased, and accompanied 

 by as firm but equal pressure as can be made ; and careful avoidance of 

 the slightest degree of moisture; the horse being exercised or worked in 

 the mill, or wherever the foot will not be exposed to wet, and that exercise 

 adopted as early as possible, and even from the beginning, if the disease is 

 confined to the sole and frog, these means will succeed, if the disease is 

 capable of cure. Humanity, perhaps, will dictate, that, considering the 

 long process of cure in a cankered foot, and the daily torture of the 

 caustic, and the suffering which would otherwise result from so large or 

 exposed a surface, the nerves of the leg should be divided, to take away the 

 sense of pain; but then especial care must be taken that the horse is placed 

 in such a situation, and exposed to such work, that, being insensible to pain, 

 he may not injuriously batter and bruise diseased parts. 



Medicine is not of much avail in the cure of canker. It is a mere local 

 disease; or the only cause of fear is, that so great a determination of blood 

 ta.the extremities having existed during the long progress of the cure, it 

 may in some degree continue, and produce injury in another form. Grease 

 has occasionally followed canker. They have, although rarely, been 

 known to alternate. When one has become better, the other has appeared, 

 and that for a considerable period. It may, therefore, be prudent, when the 

 cure of a cankered foot is nearly effected, to subject the horse to a course 

 of alteratives or diuretics. 



