DISEASES OF HORSES 277 



few days the gangrenous portion of the cushion will slough off from 

 the effects of the poultice ; under rare circumstances only should the 

 dead parts be removed by surgical interference. When the slough is 

 all detached, the remaining wound is to be treated with simple 

 stimulating dressings, such as tincture of aloes or turpentine, oakum 

 balls, and bandages as directed in punctured wounds. When the 

 lameness has subsided, and a thin layer of new horn has covered the 

 exposed parts, the foot may be shod. Cover the frog with a thick 

 pad of oakum, held in place by pieces of tin fitted to slide under 

 the shoe, and return to slow work. W T here caries of the coffin bone, 

 etc., follow the injury, the treatment recommended for these com- 

 plications in punctured wounds of the foot must be resorted to. 



CONTRACTED HEELS, OR HOOF-BOUND. 



Contracted heels, or hoof-bound, is a common disease among 

 horses kept on hard floors in dry stables, and in such as are subject 

 to much saddle work. It consists in an atrophy, or shrinking, of 

 the tissues of the foot, whereby the lateral diameter of the heels is 

 diminished. It affects the fore feet principally ; but it is seen occa- 

 sionally in the hind feet, where it is of less importance for the rea- 

 son that the hind foot first strikes the ground with the toe, and, con- 

 sequently, less expansion of the heels is necessary than in the fore 

 feet, where the weight is first received on the heels. Any interfer- 

 ence with the expansibility of this part of the foot interferes with 

 locomotion and ultimately gives rise to lameness. Usually but one 

 foot is affected at a time ; but when both are diseased the change is 

 greater in one than in the other. Occasionally but one heel, and 

 that the inner one, is contracted ; in these cases there is less likely to 

 be lameness and permanent impairment of the animal's usefulness. 

 According to the opinion of some of the French veterinarians, hoof- 

 bound should be divided into two classes total contraction, where 

 the whole foot is shrunken in size; and contraction of the heels, 

 when the trouble extends only from the quarters backward. 



Causes. Animals raised in wet or marshy districts, when taken, 

 to towns and kept on dry floors, are liable to have contracted heels, 

 not alone because the horn becomes dry, but because fever of the 

 feet and wasting away of the soft tissues result from the change. 

 Another common cause of contracted heels is to be found in faulty 

 shoeing, such as rasping the wall, cutting away the frog, heels, and 

 bars; high calks and the use of nails too near the heels. Contracted 

 heels may happen as one of the results of other diseases of the foot; 

 for instance, it often accompanies thrush, sidebones, ringbones, can- 

 ker, navicular disease, corns, sprains of the flexor tendons, of the 

 sesamoid and suspensory ligaments, and from excessive knuckling of 

 the fetlock joints. 



Symptoms. In contraction of the heels the foot has lost its 

 circular shape, and the walls from the quarters backward approach to 

 a straight line. The ground surface of the foot is now smaller than 

 the coronary circumference ; the frog is pinched between the inclos- 

 ing heels, is much shrunken, and at times is affected with thrush. 

 The sole is more concave than natural, the heels are higher, and the 



