484 CORN. 



bruise of sole from tread; the dry, the moist, and ih^ festered 

 corn. 



Predisposition to Corn exists in broad, flat, weak feet, 

 with heels so low, or curved in, as not at all or hardly to project 

 beyond the level of the sole. In such feet there is a great 

 tendency, from obliquity and weakness of foot in the wall, to 

 spread at bottom, and over-shoot, as it grows down, the heels of 

 the shoe : unless those parts of the shoe are — as they ought to be 

 in this kind of foot — made wider than the hoof, to allow for such 

 spreading. The result of this over-shooting, or, as it is called 

 by the smith, " eating of the shoe into the foot," of necessity 

 is, to bring the heels of the shoe opposite to and down upon 

 the sole, and this, especially when the horse is " shod short," 

 is likely to end in contusion of the part and corn. Indeed, 

 from the sparingness and thinness of the wall in such feet, and 

 from its growth hardly exceeding its wear and tear, consi- 

 derable pains in shoeing are frequently required to keep them 

 free from attacks of corn, and particularly when once they 

 have suffered from the disease, and are in the habit of expe- 

 riencing relapses. After a statement of this kind, we shall not 

 be prepared to find corns coming in feet of the very opposite 

 character, viz. contracted feet. Such, however, is the case; 

 though in them corns must certainly be ascribed to another class 

 of causes. 



The Cause of Corn is, any impediment to the yielding or 

 elasticity of the sole of the foot, whereby the sensitive tissue 

 becomes contused or bruised between the coffin-bone above it 

 and the horny hole below it. The shoe is usually the offending 

 body; though it is possible for a stone, or dirt, or gravel, or 

 any thing else, by lodging between the shoe and the sole, to 

 produce the same result. A shoe, from being of improper shape 

 or make, or from being improperly put on, in time " eats its 

 way into the foot," and gives rise to corn by lying against the 

 sole, and so proving an impediment to the yielding or "descent" 

 of the latter during action, under the weight or force applied upon 

 it. If the horny sole cannot yield, the organic tissue must suffer 

 compression, if not actual contusion, every time the coffin-bone is 

 forced down upon it ; and this is likely to occasion rupture of 



