488 CORN. 



in the latter instance, some continuance or relapse of it may 

 not be unexpected during the healing and horning-over process. 



The Treatment of Corn is as much an affair of the farrier 

 as of the veterinary surgeon ; indeed, in its unsuppurated con- 

 dition, and especially in its chronic stage, it may be said to be 

 especially within the province of the former. Supposing the corn 

 to be recent, and pressure from the shoe to be the occasion of 

 it — which may be reasonably inferred to be the case if the heel of 

 the shoe be found lying upon the corn-place — simply taking off 

 the shoe, and replacing it by another of suitable make, so ap- 

 plied that it will not only not take any bearing upon the corn- 

 place, but will protect it from future pressure and injury, will 

 be all that will be required to cure the ailment, or, in other 

 words, to restore the horse from a state of lameness to one of 

 soundness. 



Paring out the Corn, as farriers phrase it, becomes the 

 first requisite operation as soon as the shoe is removed from 

 the foot. The thumb of the smith, sometimes his pincers, is 

 applied upon the corn to ascertain its condition — hard and un- 

 impressible, soft and boggy, or springy and fluctuating, as the 

 case may happen to be; and if it be found in a state in which 

 no impression can be made upon it by the thumb — from the horn 

 over it being thick, or dry and hard — the paring, consisting in 

 skilfully shaving the horn away in as thin flakes as possible, 

 so as not to endanger cutting through the corn, commences : 

 the operation being ever and anon suspended for a moment to 

 admit of the re-application of the thumb, to ascertain what sub- 

 stance of horn may yet remain. In a corn in a strong narrow 

 foot, having a thick coating of horn, a good deal of paring will 

 be required before this effect is produced; on the contrary, 

 when the foot is a flat and weak one, with sparingness of wall 

 and sole, the utmost caution in paring, and frequent thumb- 

 feeling, will be demanded, lest the drawing-knife should slip 

 through the thin substance of horn. When extensive ecchy- 

 mosis is present, so that the flakes of horn come away deeply 

 stained red, we may expect, sometimes in recent corn even, 

 to find a soft or boggy condition of the bottom of the corn. 



