478 TOE SANDCRACK. 



ject, has had many cases of this description, one of which, of 

 extraordinary character, I shall relate here. One of his dray 

 horses had suffered long and severely from toe sandcrack in one 

 hind foot, but at length had recovered, and returned to work. 

 Some time afterwards, however, during the season of influenza, 

 he was attacked with a violent laryngitis, which increased to a 

 degree to call for the operation of tracheotomy, to save him 

 from suffocation. Notwithstanding this temporary salvation, 

 however, the patient in the end succumbed to the disease. 

 His post-mortem examination became doubly attractive, owing 

 to the circumstance of the long-standing and obstinate sandcrack 

 he had suffered from heretofore, and the result in this latter 

 respect proved extremely interesting. The coffin-bone, along 

 its front, occupying the line of surface between the coronal 

 process and the toe, exhibited a channel of loss of substance 

 half an inch in breadth and fully the same in depth, thereby 

 robbing it of a quarter of an inch of its solid thickness. This, of 

 course, left the bone considerably weakened, the result of which 

 subsequently was, transverse fracture in two places through its 

 body : the fractures commencing upon its articulatory surface, 

 whence they extended directly, crosswise, through the middle of 

 its body, so as to become apparent upon its concave surface under- 

 neath. In addition to this, growing from the laminated interior 

 of the wall of the hoof, opposite to the middle or deepest part 

 of the channel in the coffin-bone, is a projection of hard, horny, 

 callous substance, having a covering of imperfectly formed 

 horny laminae. The horse suffered in the greatest degree from 

 this extraordinary product of sandcrack; indeed, constitutional 

 irritation at one time ran so high as even to create alarm for 

 the animal's life. 



The Treatment of Sandcrack, whether it be in the 

 quarter or in the toe, will have to be conducted upon principles 

 applicable to both forms of the disease ; though one must be re- 

 garded as of much more consequence than the other. 



The Treatment of a Quarter Sandcrack, generally 

 speaking, is but, comparatively, a simple affair; indeed, so 

 lightly is it looked upon by horse persons in general that we 



