472 CONTRACTION. 



case when the horse stands constantly pointing with it, or by 

 going lame bears upon it as lightly as he can in trotting or 

 walking — will gradually grow contracted ; and this change in it 

 will be promoted by the foot being naturally of an oblong shape, 

 of strong fibre, of upright make, with high heels, and a frog 

 either actually diseased or so shrunk and shrivelled that it has 

 no chance even of touching the ground, much less of receiving 

 any pressure from the surface. 



The Treatment of mixed Contraction is altogether a 

 different affair from that of pure contraction. Here we have 

 lameness and inflammation to encounter, or we have lameness 

 with inflammation passing or passed away, dependent upon 

 some effects it has left behind it, which is a worse case to deal 

 with than the former one. In point of fact, we have a compli- 

 cation of navicularthritis, or some one or other of its conse- 

 quences, with the contraction ; and for want of this knowledge 

 about navicularthritis it was that Coleman erred in his views 

 and treatment of contraction. The navicularthritis, i. e., any 

 existing inflammation, must be dispersed ; and while we are 

 effecting this, the shoe being off the foot altogether, or, at a 

 proper period of the treatment, a tip being substituted for it, 

 the contraction of the hoof will by degrees give way to the 

 return of the natural powers restorative of original formation. 

 It is quite surprising how perpetually in operation these efforts 

 are, in spite of the manifold impediments continually opposed 

 to them, and how they, to the very latest period of time, return 

 to restore primitive form, though the reparation of structure be 

 impossible. 



My usual Treatment for a case of mixed contraction is 

 this: — I first bleed from the toe of the lame foot, repeating the 

 operation if requisite. I keep the foot, without shoe, immersed 

 in cold poultices, until by the bleeding and them together I have 

 brought about a manifest decline of the inflammatory action. I 

 then put a tip upon the lame foot, and blister the pastern, and 

 often the fetlock along with it. When the blister is worked off 

 the horse is turned into some situation — either a marshy pasture 

 or a mucky strawyard, or some shed where his foot or feet can 



