DR. LEGEAR'S STOCK BOOK. 245 



makes depends a great deal on the kind of work an animal has 

 to do. If used regularly on hard roads, they will as a general 

 thing get so lame they are useless in a few months; while for 

 farm work they may go on and work tolerably well for years. 

 When both front feet are affected about alike, an animal can't 

 limp, but will have a peculiar short step, called "groggy action/*' 



Treatment. The curative treatment of this disease, unless 

 taken in the early stages, is almost useless. There are certain 

 changes that take place in connection with the navicular bone 

 and flexor tendon that can not be rectified when once established. 

 So many horsemen and would-be horse doctors locate every ob- 

 scure lameness a horse has in front, in the shoulders, and put 

 the poor brute to unnecessary suffering by blistering, burning, 

 seatoning, etc., the shoulder, when invariably the lameness is 

 in the foot. In shoulder lameness the animal has difficulty in 

 picking up the foot and bringing it forward, but if the soreness 

 is below the knee he will have no trouble in this respect. A horse 

 affected in both feet does look, to an ordinary observer, as though 

 it might be in the shoulders, by the animal being so stiff, but this 

 is brought about by the animal trying to keep both feet on the 

 ground all the time; therefore he steps very short. When the 

 disease is first detected the animal should be laid off from all 

 work, the shoe removed, and the foot at the toe pared down, and 

 a shoe with slightly thickened heels put on to tip the foot slight- 

 ly forward. Then place the foot in a warm water bath. Provide 

 a tub or box, into which put about eight inches of water as warm 

 as the hand will stand, and keep it at about the same temperature 

 by adding hot water occasionally. Stand the horse in the water 

 for two hours at a time twice a day for one week or ten days. If 

 the fever and soreness seem to be pretty well gone by that time, 

 then apply a good blister, using our Spavin Cure (see Appendix) 

 well rubbed into the heels and quarters. This form of treatment 

 thoroughly carried out at the beginning of the disease may form 



