598 QUITTOR. 



practitioner should attempt to interfere in the complicated 

 state which the foot presents. 



The accepted definition of quittor, does not meet the case 

 according to our understanding of the matter ; in so far as 

 it is regarded and described as consisting of a discharge of 

 matter from the coronet which has been formed within the 

 cavity of the hoof, caused by some injury, and which so 

 pent up, and finding no means of exit below, burrows its 

 way to the top, sinuses being established for its passage. 

 The above, which gives the common acceptation of what a 

 quittor is supposed to be, is, to say the least, a vague 

 account ; but it is more than that it is incorrect. 



We may have any number of cases of matter escaping 

 from the coronet, without the semblance of quittor, accord- 

 ing to our views and experience on the subject. And we 

 think it important to be plain on the matter, because right 

 and wrong notions lead to widely different courses of prac- 

 tice, not only where the existence of quittor is agreed on, 

 but under other and less complicated disordered conditions 

 of the foot. 



In cases of temporary injury from the shoe, with exertion 

 in addition, to the extent that inflammation resolves into 

 suppuration, the course to which nature points for the 

 escape of the matter is towards the coronet, and not, as has 

 been supposed, to the bottom of the hoof, where, from its 

 non-vascular nature, it would be locked up. Were this 

 fact known, people would not be so ready to cut away 

 the sole of the hoof to the quick, in order to create a 

 depending opening ; they only find blood, and do incal- 

 culable injury, whilst the real tumefaction is shown by a 

 bulging swelling above the hoof, between which and the 

 skin pus, when formed, escapes. And if the horse be 

 properly taken care of by removal of the shoe, fomenting 



