224 INJURIES. 



which case lameness may not be manifest for three or four 

 days. 



" Punctures or pricks from nails in shoeing are commonly said to pro- 

 ceed from ignorance or blundering. This may sometimes be the case ; but 

 at the same time, it is an accident that may, and indeed does, happen to 

 the most expert artists; and it is surprising, considering the narrow space 

 there is in some hoofs for driving nails, that it does not happen more fre- 

 quently." (Clark's ' Observations on Shoeing.') 



When a direct stab in the foot is made by the nail in the 

 act of being driven, so that blood issues, lameness in some 

 degree will probably appear at the time ; though the lame- 

 ness is likely to become more intense on the superven- 

 tion of inflammation in the wounded part. Not unfre- 

 quently, it happens that a nail goes close enough to the quick 

 to produce inflammation and suppuration at some remote 

 period after shoeing, though it occasions no pain or incon- 

 venience at the time. Horses will go days, at times 

 weeks,' even, before they manifest lameness from this cause; 

 and when lameness does occur, and the fetlock or back sinews 

 becoming swollen also, the horse has not unfrequently 

 been pronounced ^' sprained,^^ when all the while the disease 

 was in the foot. Taking ofi" the shoe and examining the 

 nail-holes, which give vent to pent up matter, that becomes 

 black and fetid from confinement within its horny cavity, 

 at once relieves the horse of his chief pain. It hardly 

 suffers so long as free issue is given to the discharge, while 

 the wound, being converted by the drawing knife into an 

 open sore, takes on healthy action, and speedily heals suf- 

 ficiently for the hoof once more to receive the shoe. 



Picking up a Nail, or treading on a piece of any other 

 sharp-edged substance, is an event of frequent occurrence. It 

 is surprising how far a long '' tenpenny" nail can be forced 

 into the foot as though it had been driven in by a hammer. 



' Corporal-major Limbert's horse had been shod seventeen days before it 

 showed lameness. "When brought to me, it could hardly put the foot to the 

 ground, and this was strongly indicative of foot disease, though, from the 

 swollen sinews (in vesicles hke wind-galls), it was, at tirst, thought to be 

 sprained. 



