CORN. 585 



such cases, for instance, as when two feet are very badly 

 affected; or, as we have seen, when all four feet of the 

 horse are equally diseased at the same time, and when it 

 has been impossible to induce him to stand upon the 

 opposite or parallel foot, whilst the one is lifted for the 

 necessary time to be dressed. Nor can casting the horse, 

 for the purpose of dressing the feet, often be made effectual, 

 since the process requires to be repeated every other day, 

 and, at best, will take a long time to produce any per- 

 manently good result. Moreover, we believe that there 

 is a constitutional taint in those cases, and experience has 

 taught us that few horses in such condition are likely to 

 pay the cost of their treatment. 



CORN. 



This is another of the diseases of the connecting struc- 

 tures of the foot in which the hoof participates in the effects. 



The prevailing and accepted definition of corn is an 

 erroneous one viz., that of its being a bruise between the 

 posterior extremity of the coffin-bone above and the hoof 

 below, by which, extravasation of blood is said to ensue. 

 It is nothing of the kind, bruising of the sole does happen 

 in cases of flat-footed horses, while their feet are made 

 still flatter by shoeing and bad management ; and in such 

 cases it is possible for the sole to bear on the shoe, fix it at 

 different parts, so as to produce injury to the bone and inter- 

 vening tissues, when pain and rapidly changing complica- 

 tions follow. In the case assumed above, however, we 

 have not the production of that which has received the 

 name of corn. Corns occur to horses with the best of feet, 

 the common cause being the worst of shoeing. The seat 

 of corn is in the laminated structures at the angles of in- 



