480 TOE SANDCRACK. 



If there be any interval of sound horn between the hair and the 

 crack of sufficient breadth and substance to bear firing, a very 

 slight burn may do good. In all cases it is the practice to finish 

 the firing with running the sharp edge of the iron down the crack; 

 and this certainly proves beneficial in destroying any tendency 

 there may be — supposing the laminae to have become denuded — 

 to anormal action^ as well to stimulate any vascular parts ex- 

 posed to issue horny matter to cover in the bottom of the crack. 



Binding up the Crack is a good practice after firing. 

 With a wax-end of sufficient length — such as shoe-makers use — 

 bind round the wall of the hoof, so that any tar or pitch plaster 

 it may be deemed advisable to place in or upon the crack may be 

 maintained there ; at the same time that the hoof itself is, by 

 the tight binding, restricted in any tendency it may have to ex- 

 pand, and thereby open wider the crack. , 



A Bar-Shoe is the preferable one for a sand-cracked foot. By 

 it, the bearing being taken off that part of the wall which is oppo- 

 site to or has the crack, the pressure and jar — so continually split- 

 ting afresh the new-formed horn over the crack at the coronet — 

 is put a stop to : the formation of an undivided coronary horny 

 band being the commencement of the radical cure of the sand- 

 crack. As I said before, horn being an inorganic substance, no 

 union whatever can take place in the crack itself : permanent 

 cure can be effected only through obliteration by the growing out 

 or down of the crack. This, I repeat, is the reason why a sand- 

 crack occupies so long a time in its removal ; though, by way of 

 compensation, a horse is not kept out of work while cure is being 

 effected ; for, after the crack has been bound up, and the hoof 

 shod with a bar-shoe, it is quite surprising to find how soundly 

 and firmly the animal sometimes steps upon the foot of which 

 he had but now been so lame. 



The Treatment adopted by the late Mr. Read, V.S. of 

 Crediton, carries the same object into execution through a different 

 method of procedure. This, as detailed in the volume of THE 

 Veterinarian for 1848, consists in simply isolating the fissure 

 within the segment of a circle, by means of an ordinary firing- 

 iron. The plan Mr. R. recommends is to operate with the heel of 



