40 i INFLAMMATIOX OB^ THE FOOT, OR ACUTE EObWDEK. 



in a hard clay's journey, it will be no wonder tliat inflammation of the 

 overworked parts should sometimes ensue. It may also be caused by 

 keeping the animal in a fixed standing position for a length of time ; by 

 these means the laminae are kept constantly on the stretch ; hence its fre- 

 quency amongst horses as the result of a prolonged voyage on board a 

 ship. 



Sometimes there is a sudden metastasis — change of inflammation from 

 one organ to another. A horse may have laboured for several days under 

 evident inflammation of the lungs or pleura ; all at once that will subside, 

 and the disease will appear in the feet, or inflammation of the feet may 

 follow in cases also of superpurgation or excessive purging, whether from 

 physic or irritation of the mucous membrane of the bowels. To this 

 latter cause may perhaps be attributed the inflammation of the feet, which 

 frequently follows when animals have been allowed new corn, especially 

 wheat. 



To the attentive observer the symptoms are clearly marked, and yet 

 there is no disease so often overlooked by the groom and the carter, and 

 even by the veterinary surgeon. The disease may assume an acute or a 

 chronic form. The earliest symptoms of fever in the feet are fidgetiness, 

 frequent shifting of the fore-legs, but no pawing, much less any attempts 

 to reach the belly -wdth the hind-feet. If only the fore-feet be afiected, 

 he will throw them very forward, and rest on the heels. K it attack all 

 the feet, the hind-legs will be placed under the belly and the fore-feet 

 considerably advanced. The pulse is quickened, the flanks heaving, the 

 nostrils red, the body covered with perspiration, and the horse, by his 

 anxious countenance, indicating great pain. Presently he looks about his 

 litter, as if preparing to lie down, but he does not do so immediately ; he 

 continues to shift his weight from foot to foot ; he is afraid to draw his 

 feet sufficiently under him for the purpose of lying down ; but at length 

 he drops. The circumstance of his lying down at an early period of the 

 disease will sufliciently distinguish inflammation of the feet from that of 

 the lungs, in which the horse obstinately persists in standing until he 

 drops from mere exhaustion ; but the distinction is by no means so clear 

 when, as frequently happens, he obstinately stands until he drops. The 

 same fixedness of hmb, the same disinclination to move, as is perceptible 

 in severe cases of inflammation of the lungs, will be found to exist 

 occasionally in this disease, and it is the fact of the attention not ha%n.ng 

 been attracted to the feet, that has led to the fallacious opinion, that the 

 disease has dropped from the lungs to the feet, when in fact it has been in 

 the feet from the very commencement — the hurried and laboured respi- 

 ration being sympathetic with and dependent on the pain in the feet, not 

 on inflammation of the lungs themselves. His quietness when down will 

 distinguish it from colic or inflammation of the bowels, in both of which 

 the horse is up and down, and frequently rolling and kicking when down. 

 Wlien the grievance is in the feet, the horse experiences so much relief, 

 from getting rid of the weight painfully distending the inflamed and 

 highly sensitive laminae, that he is glad to lie as long as he can. 



If the feet are now examined, they -svill be found evidently hot. The 

 patient will express pain if they are shghtly rapped with a hammer, and 

 the artery at the pastern -wdll throb violently. No great time Avill now 

 pass, if the disease is sufiered to pursue its course, before he will be per- 

 fectly unable to rise ; or, if he is forced to get up, and one foot is lifted, 

 he will stand with difficulty on the other, or perhaps di'op at once from 

 intensity of pain. 



The treatment will resemble that of other inflammations, with such 

 differences as the situation of the disease may suggest. Bleeding is in- 



