FRUSH. 433 



the frog be all the while subject to pressure — nay ! the horse 

 even be wearing tips at the time— will in many feet produce 

 frush. Horses returning from low and marshy pasture, or from 

 mucky strawyard, in the spring of the year, after having been 

 out all the winter, and particularly after a prevalence of wet 

 weather, are extremely likely to return to their stables with 

 frushes. In this case frush is caused by a softening and decay, 

 and partial solution, of the horn of the cleft, whereby the sensi- 

 tive structures become annoyed by the contact of wet and dirt, 

 and in consequence take on anormal action. It is possible for 

 frush to be engendered in the same manner within the stable, 

 not only, as has already been mentioned, from horses continually 

 standing for hours together with their hind feet in dung and 

 urine, but from their fore feet being injudiciously 'over-much 

 plastered with wet and irritating stopping, such as clay and cow- 

 dung, &c. 



But a Frush may have a Constitutional Cause.— 

 That which produces eruptive skins and swelled legs may pro- 

 duce frushes. Horses high fed, full of blood, and in fat, gross, 

 and plethoric condition, and particularly young horses, making 

 flesh fast, will now and then be so disposed. Indeed, idle or 

 laid-up horses in general may be said to have this propensity. 

 Nor are such cases to be set right again without attention to the 

 system— by giving physic, alteratives, &c., as well as to the feet. 



Symptoms. — Horse persons in general are so familiar with 

 the appearance of frush that any description of symptoms seems 

 almost supererogatory. The cleft of the frog either simply 

 exhibits a moisture, as though humidity exuded through the 

 substance of the horn, and this moisture emits a peculiar noisome 

 odour, especially recognised by the introduction of the finger 

 into the cleft; or perhaps fluid may be made apparent by 

 squeezing the frog and the heels together, to cause it to exude 

 from the cleft ; or else the cleft itself is found in an actual state of 

 raggedness and rottenness, issuing matter with stench, but too 

 palpable, amid the ruins. When this is the case, farriers deno- 

 minate it " a running frush." At other times when the disease 

 is farther advanced, and particularly when wet and dirt have 



VOL. IV. 3 K 



