In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 89 



course of physic before using it. Many gentlemen 

 turn their hunters out of condition through the 

 summer months with the idea of resting their legs. 

 This is a mistake for which the animal has to pay in 

 the autumn by extra work to get it into condition again, 

 and grooms are often put to their wits' end by the 

 animals becoming affected with lameness in the 

 foot as soon as they are put to work; whereas, 

 had they been kept up during the summer 

 months and gently exercised, their legs would 

 have been quite fresh and their feet in good 

 condition ; less work would have to be given to 

 get them into hunting condition, and the owner 

 would have sounder horses with which to commence the 

 season, and laminitis would be known only as an ugly 

 name. Of the former character or type of this disease 

 many cases have come under my observation, in some of 

 which the animals had not been out of their stables for 

 weeks or months, and others had had only their regular 

 work, yet all were attacked, with symptoms equally 

 violent, with the most virulent cases that have ever 

 come under my experience. This is one of the many 

 evidences of the justice of my distinction of natural 

 from unnatural or artificial phases of laminitis, and 

 which cannot be accounted for by the general and 

 popularly received theory that this disease is the off- 

 spring of violence and over-work. Surely, then, my 

 theory is not ill-founded; there must be some occult 

 or mysterious cause for this disease presenting itselt 

 under the peculiar circumstances I have now related. 

 What, I have frequently asked myself, is this hidden 



