320 DISEASES OF THE FOOT. 



common stopping, or using the felt pad, likewise covered with it. Turning oul, 

 would be prejudicial rather than of benefit to thrushy feet, except the dressing is con- 

 tinued, and the feet defended irom moisture. 



CANKER 



Is a separation of the horn from the sensible part of the foot, and the sprouting of 

 fungous matter instead of it, occupying a portion or even the whole of the sole and 

 frog. It is the occasional consequence of bruise, puncture, corn, quittor, and thrush, 

 and is exceedingly difficiilt to cure. It is more frequently the consequence of 

 neglected thrush than of any other disease of the foot, or rather it is thrush involving 

 the frog, the bars, and the sole, and making the foot in one mass of rank putre- 

 faction. 



It is oftenest found in, and is almost peculiar to, the heavy breed of cart horses, and 

 partly resulting from constitutional predisposition. Horses with white legs and thick 

 skins, and much hair upon their legs — the very character of many dray horses — are 

 subject to canker, especially if they have had an attack of grease, or their heels are 

 habitually thick and greasy. The disposition to canker is certainly hereditary. The 

 dray horse has likewise this advantage, that in order to give him foot-hold, it is some- 

 times necessary to raise the heels of the hinder feet so high, that all pressure on the 

 frog is taken away ; its functions are destroyed, and it is rendered liable to disease. 

 Canker, however, arises mostly from the peculiar injury to whii-h the feet of these 

 horses are subject from the enormous shoes with which they are covered — the bulk 

 of the nails with which these shoes are fastened to the foot, the strain of the foot in 

 the violent, although short exertion of moving heavy Aveights ; but, most of all, 

 neglect of the feet, and the filthiness of the stable in these establishments. 



Although canker is a disease most difficult to remove, it is easily prevented. 

 Attention to the punctures to which these heavy horses, with their clubbed feet and 

 brittle hoofs, are more than any others subject in shoeing, and to the bruises and 

 treads on the coronet, to which, from their awkwardness and weight, they are so 

 liable, and the greasy heels which a very slight degree of negligence will produce in 

 them, and the stopping of the thrushes, which are so apt in them to run on to the 

 separation of the horn from the sensible frog, will most materially lessen the number 

 of cankered feet. Where this disease often occurs, the owner of the team may be 

 well assured that there is gross mismanagement either in himself or his horse-keeper, 

 or the smith, or the surgeon, and it will rarely be a difficult matter to detect the pre- 

 cise nature of that mismanagement. 



The cure of canker is the business of the veterinary surgeon, and a most painful 

 and tedious business it is. The principles on which he proceeds are, first of all, to 

 remove the extraneous fungous growth ; and for tliis purpose he will need the aid of 

 the knife and the caustic, or the cautery, for he should cut away every portion of horn 

 which is in the slightest degree separated from the sensible parts beneath. He will 

 have to discourage the growth of fresh fungus, and to bring the foot into that state in 

 which it will again secrete healthy horn. Here he will remember that he has to do 

 with the surface of the foot; that this is a disease of the surface only, and that there 

 will be no necessity for those deeply-corroding and torturing caustics which penetrate 

 to the very bone. A slight and daily application of the chloride of antimony, and 

 that not where the new horn is forming, but on the surface which continues to be dis- 

 eased, and accompanied by as firm but equal pressure as can be made — the careful 

 avoidance of the slightest degree of moisture — the horse being exercised or worked 

 in the mill, or wherever the foot will not be exposed to wet, and that exercise adopti^ 

 as early as possible, and even from the neginning, if the malady is confined to the sole 

 and frog — tjiese means will succeed, if the disease is capable of cure. Humanity, 

 perhaps, will dictate that, considering the long process of cure in a cr.nkered UhA. and 

 the daily torture of the caustic, and the suffering which would otherwise result from 

 so large or exposed a surface, the nerves of the leg should be divided, in order to take 

 away the sense of j)ain; but then, especial care Inust be taken that the horse is placed 

 in such a situation, and exposed to such work, that, being insensible to pain, he may 

 not inj\irious]y batter and bruise the diseased parts. 



Medicine is not of much avail in the cure of canker. It is a mere local disease; 

 or the only cause of fear is, tliat so great a determination of blood to the extremities 

 having existed during the long progress of cure, it may in sonse degree continue, and 



