476 TOE SANDCRACK. 



Lameness is the usual Accompaniment of penetrant 

 sandcrack, but not the invariable one. In this case, the lameness 

 is said to arise from the sensitive laminae getting piiiched between 

 the sides of the crack. However this may be, inflammation 

 following the lesion has certainly its share in causing tenderness 

 or pain during action. In general the lameness does not amount 

 to much, nor is it of long duration, providing the sandcrack 

 receive proper and timely attention ; but if the crack is not 

 heeded, action of the foot will much aggravate the malady, and 

 end in lameness increased so much as to forbid further use being 

 made of the animal. 



Toe Sandcrack. 



Occurring in the hind foot — as this crack almost invariably 

 does — occupying a different situation in the hoof, and arising 

 altogether from a different cause, toe sandcrack may be regarded 

 as almost a distinct affection. 



The Subject of it is not the light horse, but the heavy 

 one. The cart and waggon horse, the dray horse, the latter 

 especially, and in particular, I believe, in paved towns such 

 as London, are the sufferers from this disease. I say " suf- 

 ferers," because it is only those veterinary surgeons whose 

 practice lies among horses of this description that have any con- 

 ception of the amount of pain and irritation to which toe sand- 

 crack, simple as it may seem to those who are in the habit of 

 meeting with quarter sandcrack only, on occasions is found to 

 give rise. 



The Cause of Toe Sandcrack is violence : shoeing, also, 

 may have something to do in its production. The horses 

 who are the subjects of it are those employed in laborious and 

 straining draft. The toe of the hind foot is the main fulcrum 

 through which the hind limbs, the propellers of the body, exert 

 their power ; and it is in some violent and forcible effort that the 

 hind hoof, strained at the time to its uttermost, and in particular 

 at the toe, splits; commonly first at the coronet, the same as in the 

 fore foot, where the horn, but newly formed, is thin and unresist- 

 ing : the crack subsequently extending gradually down the wall, 



