394 ACUTE LAMINITIS. 



transported from mild or cold climates into hot countries appear 

 disposed to breed the disease. D'Arboval informs us that such 

 occurrences are not uncommon in Spain. 



Three Kinds of Laminitis are recognised in practice, viz. 

 the acute, the sub-acute, and the metastatic ; the chronic being 

 the declining or convalescent stage of one of these three kinds 

 of disease rather than a distinct species or variety ; and the epide- 

 mic, only an occasional, and I believe but a rare, character assumed 

 by laminitis. 



Acute Laminitis. 



Were a veterinary surgeon asked the question from what dis- 

 ease a horse experienced the most suffering, he would, methinks, 

 require little reflection before he determined in favour, or rather in 

 disfavour, of the one I am about to describe. There may be, and 

 no doubt are, other morbid conditions from which the animal suf- 

 fers most acutely for the time ; but there is no one in which his 

 pain, while it is poignant in the extreme, is apt to be so protracted 

 as in laminitis. At this we have no reason to be surprised when 

 we come to remember that the impaired tissues are peculiar in their 

 nature, besides being placed under peculiar conditions, in being 

 situate between two hard bodies — the hoof without and the coffin- 

 bone within : so that, when the tumour of inflammation would 

 take place, the opposition of these unyielding bodies, and conse- 

 quent squeezing of the nervous filaments, morbidly sensitive as 

 they now are, produces pain in the extreme, probably some euch 

 in character as whitlow occasions in our own persons. And this 

 exquisite pain it is, combined with the situation in which it is felt, 

 that gives rise to a series of symptoms at once distressing and 

 singularly characteristic. 



The Approach of acute Laminitis is not, as has been repre- 

 sented, at all times sudden; more commonly some symptoms of 

 lameness or fumbling going will usher in the attack. A marked 

 difference will often be discovered in the animal's gait : he will step 

 shorter than usual, or, as grooms are apt to express it, " scramble," 

 treading more upon his heels than upon his toes. D'Arboval has 



