388 CONTRACTION. 



In every recent case the contracted part will be hotter than the rest of the foot, 

 and the sole will, in the majority of cases, be unnaturally concave. 



Of the treatment of contraction attended with lameness little can be said that 

 will be satisfactory. Numberless have been the mechanical contrivances to 

 oppose the progress of contraction, or to force back the foot to its original shape, 

 and many of them have enjoyed considerable but short-lived reputation. A clip 

 was placed at the inside of each heel, which, resting on the bars, was intended 

 to afford an insurmountable obstacle to the farther wiring in of the foot, while 

 the heels of the shoe were bevelled outward in order to give the foot a tendency 

 to expand. The foot, however, continued to contract, until the clip was 

 imbedded in the horn, and worse lameness was produced. 



A shoe jointed at the toe, and with a screw adapted to the heels, was con- 

 trived, by which, when softened by poulticing, or immersion in warm water, 

 the quarters were to be irresistibly widened. They were widened by the daily 

 and cautious use of the screw until the foot seemed to assume its natural form, 

 and the inventor began to exult in having discovered a cure for contraction : 

 but, no sooner was the common shoe again applied, and the horse had returned 

 to his work, than the heels began to narrow, and the foot became as con- 

 tracted as ever. Common sense would have foretold that such must have 

 been the result of this expansive process ; for the heels could have been only 

 thus forced asunder at the expense of partial or total separation from the 

 interior portions of the foot with which they were in contact. 



The contracted heel can rarely or never permanently expand, for this plain 

 reason, that although we may have power over the crust, we cannot renew the 

 laminae, or restore the portion of the frog that has been absorbed. 



If the action of the horse is not materially impaired, it is better to let the 

 contraction alone, be it as great as it will. If the contraction has evidently 

 produced considerable lameness, the owner of the horse will have to calcu- 

 late between his value if cured, the expense of the cure, and the probability of 

 failure. 



The medical treatment should alone be undertaken by a skilful veterinary 

 surgeon, and it will principally consist in abating any inflammation that may 

 exist, by local bleeding and physic, paring the sole to the utmost extent that it 

 will bear ; rasping the quarters as deeply as can be, without their being too 

 much weakened, or the coronary ring (see 6, p. 346) injured ; rasping deeply 

 likewise at the toe, and perhaps scoring at the toe. The horse is afterwards 

 made to stand during the day in wet clay, placed in one of the stalls. He is 

 at night moved into another stall, and his feet bound up thickly in wet cloths ; 

 or he is turned out into wet pasturage, with tips, or, if possible, without them, 

 and his feet are frequently pared out, and the quarters lightly rasped. In five 

 or six months the horn will generally have grown down, when he may be taken 

 up, and shod with shoes unattached by nails on the inner side of the foot, arid 

 put to gentle work. The foot will be found very considerably enlarged, and 

 the owner will, perhaps, think that the cure is accomplished. The horse 

 may, possibly, for a time stand very gentle work, and the inner side of the foot 

 being left at liberty, its natural expansive process may be resumed : the inter- 

 nal part of the foot, however, has not been healthily filled up with the expansion 

 of the crust. If that expansion has been effected forward on the quarters, the 

 crust will no longer be in contact with the lengthened and narrowed heels of 

 the coffin-bone. There will not be the natural adhesion and strength, and a very 

 slight cause, or even the very habit of contraction, will, in spite of all care and 

 the freedom of the inner quarter in very many instances, cause the foot to wire 

 in again as badly as before. 



