CHRONIC LAMINITIS. PUMICED FEET. 405 



dispensable ; and that to its fullest extent. If the disease is confined to 

 the fore-feet, blood should be freely abstracted from the brachial veins, 

 but if all the feet be implicated, six or eight quarts of blood should be 

 taken as soon as possible from the jugular vein. The shoes should be at 

 once removed, and poultices of linseed meal or bran, made very soft with 

 warm water, should cover the whole of the foot and pastern, and be fre- 

 quently renewed, which will promote evaporation from the neighbouring 

 parts, and possibly through the pores of the hoof, and, by softening and 

 rendering supple the hoof, will reheve its painful pressure on the swelled 

 and tender parts beneath. There used to be occasional doubt as to the 

 administa-ation of physic, from fear of metastasis of inflammation, but 

 the fear is groundless ; a full dose of physic may be given immediately 

 after the bleeding. 



The horse should be kept on mash diet, unless green meat can be pro- 

 cured for him ; and even that should not be given too liberally, nor should 

 he, in the slightest degree, be coaxed to eat. "VYhen he appears to be re- 

 covering, his getting on his feet should not be hurried. It should be left 

 perfectly to Ms o^\~D. discretion ; nor should even walking exercise be per- 

 mitted until he stands firm on liis feet. When that is the case, a bhster 

 should be applied to the coronets, and when the season will permit, two 

 months' run at grass will be very serviceable. 



It is not always, however, or often, that inflammation of the feet is thus 

 easily subdued ; and, if it is subdued, it sometimes leaves after it some 

 fearful consequences. The loss of the hoof is not an unfi-equent one. 

 About six or seven days from the first attack, a shght separation will 

 begin to appear between the coronet and the hoof. This should be care- 

 fully attended to, for the separated horn will never again unite with the 

 parts beneath, but the disunion Avill extend, and the hoof will be lost. It 

 is true that a new hoof will be formed, but it ^vill be smaller in size and 

 weaker than the first, and will rarely stand hard work. When this sepa- 

 ration is observed, it will be a matter of calculation with the proprietor of 

 the horse whether he will suffer the medical treatment to proceed. 



In other cases, a separation will take place between the sensitive and 

 horny lamince, by which the cofiin-bone is let down, producing what is 

 called pumiced feet. 



CHRONIC LAMINITIS. 



This is a milder form of the preceding disease. There is lameness, 

 but it is not so severe as in the former case. The horse stands as usual. 

 The crust is warm, and that warmth is constant, but it is not often probably 

 greater than in a state of health. The surest symptom is the action of 

 the animal. It is diametrically opposite to that in the navicular disease. 

 The horse throws as much of his weight as he can on the posterior parts 

 of his feet. 



The treatment should be similar to that recommended for the acute 

 disease — blood-letting, cataplasms, fomentations, and blisters, and the last 

 much sooner and much more frequently than in the former disease. 



PUMICED FEET. 



The sensitive and horny laminse which were partially separated during 

 the intensity of the inflammation of founder, wiU never perfectly unite 

 again, or will have lost much of their elasticity, and the coflSn-bone no 

 longer fully supported by them, presses upon the sole, and the sole be- 

 comes flattened, or convex, from this unnatural weight, and the horse 

 acquii^es a pumiced foot. This will also happen when the animal is used 

 too soon after an attack of inflammation of the feet, and before the 



