In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 95 



experience the best sedative, and stands pre-eminent as 

 a diuretic. Nitrate of potass, given repeatedly in water, 

 possesses the property of destroying or neutralising 

 certain morbid poisons existing in the blood, as well as 

 in a less marked manner of checking inflammation, 

 which result is attributed, at least in part, to its well- 

 known property of rendering the fibrine of the blood 

 more soluble. In laminitis cold water should be 

 poured with great force upon the feet, as they are hot 

 and dry ; it reduces the temperature, lowers the cir- 

 culation and soothes the nervous system, diminishes the 

 extreme sensibility, and restores the contractility of 

 the capillary vessels, thereby preventing any further 

 effusion, and allowing the absorbent vessels to remove 

 any fluid that may have been thrown out. In this 

 disease the functions of the stomach and digestive 

 organs are either primary or sympathetically impaired, 

 and the assimilation of nutriment consequently very 

 feeble ; it becomes a necessity to supply such con- 

 centrated forms of nutriment as will be most certain 

 and readily absorbed by the digestive organs. I have 

 often given two or three eggs in half a pint of cold 

 water every two hours night and day, until the fever 

 abates, then give mash, raw swede, mangold, carrot ; 

 if in summer green food in small quantities, and 

 change its food often. Horses once having laminitis 

 are always liable to a relapse upon any extra exertion. 

 "No foot, no horse "is a proverb staunch and true; 

 yet when we look to the numerous complaints and 

 diseases of the foot that the horse is subject to, and all 

 the evils that arise from the ignorance and prejudice 



