ACUTE LAMINITIS. 403 



himself unable to refuse sympathy for his suffering patient. Day 

 and night, night and day, is but one continued scene of loud and 

 sad complaint : the patient being found either lying and groaning 

 and kicking about in torment, or else standing and breathing 

 hard and quick, and oppresively, looking most imploringly, and 

 pawing or shifting his feet without intermission. This distress- 

 ing scene holds as long as the third or fourth, or, may be, fifth 

 day ; and then, in the event of our treatment proving at all suc- 

 cessful, some abatement of the pain and fever may be looked 

 for, and we may venture to hope our patient so far has weathered 

 the storm favourably. But should no such propitious change be 

 apparent, no glimmering of amendment be perceptible, we may 

 augur badly of the result. Flesh and blood cannot for any great 

 while longer maintain their vital force against so furious and 

 unrelenting a foe. 



The " Terminations" of Laminitis, as they are called, may 

 be said to be four : — Resolution, effusion, suppuration, and mortifi' 

 cation. And these may be reckoned usually to occur in the order 

 in which they are here set down ; though they rarely can be said 

 to take place independently or singly. 



Resolution is commonly meant to imply, the disappearance of a 

 disease without leaving behind it any ill consequences. If a horse, 

 therefore, having had laminitis, recovers without experiencing any 

 material deformity of hoof and consequential lameness, his disease 

 is properly considered to have terminated in resolution. So that 

 resolution becomes the termination beyond all others to be sought 

 after; — the only termination, in fact, which leaves the foot free 

 from any such alteration of structure as amounts to disorganization, 

 and consequent impairment or destruction of its functions. About 

 the third or fourth or fifth day we hail with joy symptoms of the 

 disease giving way. The pain and fever is diminished. The horse 

 stands firmly, and without flinching, upon his feet, which have lost 

 their burning heat ; and even moves them with tolerable willing- 

 ness and ease ; and does so of his own accord, to change his posture 

 or walk round to his manger. For now his appetite begins to re- 

 turn, and his aspect altogether is changed from despondency to 

 comparative cheerfulness. Not, after all, that the feet return to 

 their normal condition, as, in a strict pathological sense, resolu- 



