40b SEEDY TOE. 



laminae have regained sufl6.cient strength to support the weight of tlie 

 horse, or to contract agaia by their elastic power when they have yielded 

 to the weight. When the coffin-bone is thus thro^vn on the sole, and 

 renders it pumiced, the crust at the front of the hoof will ''fall in,' 

 leaving a kind of hollow about the middle of it. 



Pumiced feet, especially in horses with large wide feet, are frequently 

 produced without this acute inflammation. Undue work, and especially 

 much battering of the feet on the pavement, will extend and spraiu these 

 laminas so much, that they will not have the power to contract, and thus 

 the coffin-bone will be thrown backward on the sole. A very important 

 law of nature will unfortunately soon be active here. When pressure is 

 applied to any part, the absorbents become busy in removing it ; so, when 

 the coffin-bone begins to press upon the sole, the sole becomes thin from 

 the increased wear and tear to which it is subjected by contact with the 

 ground, and also because these absorbents are rapidly taking it away. 



This is one of the diseases of the feet for which there is no cure, and 

 used to be the common result of fever in the feet ; it is therefore a point 

 of primary importance, to have all the available remedies apphed before 

 this irremediable mischief occurs, for then the result is inevitable. Ko 

 skill is competent to efiect a reunion between the separated sensitive and 

 horny laminae, or to restore to them the strength and elasticity of which 

 they have been deprived, or to take up that hard horny substance which 

 speedily fills the space between the crust and the receding coffin-bone. 

 Some efibrts have been made to palliate the disease, but they have been 

 only to a slight degree successful. If horses, on the first appearance of 

 flat feet, were turned out in a diy place, or put into a box for two or three 

 raonths, sufficient stress would not be tlu'own on the laminae to increase 

 the evil, and time might be given for the growth of horn enough in the 

 sole to support the coffin-bone ; yet it is much to be doubted whether 

 these horses would ever be useful, even for ordinary puriDoses. The slowest 

 work requii-ed of them would drive the coffin-bone on the sole, and tlie 

 projection would gradually reappear, for no power and no length of time 

 can again unite the separated leaves of the coffin-bone and the hoof. All 

 that can be done in the way of palliation is by shoeing. Nothing must 

 press on the projecting and pumiced part. If the projection is not con- 

 siderable, a thick bar shoe is the best thing that can be apphed ; but 

 should the sole have much descended, a shoe with a very wide web, be- 

 velled ofi" so as not to press on the part, may be used. These means of 

 relief, however, are only temporary, the disease will proceed ; and, at no 

 great distance of time, the horse ^vill be useless. 



The occasional removal of the shoe, and compelling the horse to stand 

 for a whUe on the crust and laminae, has been resorted to. The bar shoe 

 and the leathern sole, and occasional dressing vnth tar ointment, have had 

 their advocates, and it is sufficiently plain that the prmiced foot should 

 Iiave plenty of cover. 



SEEDY TOE. 



This consists in a separation between the fibres of the sensitive and 

 horny laminas, producing a hollow space between them. The sensitive 

 laminte, however, are not exposed, but covered by a plastic horny ma- 

 terial. It is sometimes met with in both the fore and hind-feet, but more 

 frequently in the former. It is a species of dry rot, and generally caused 

 by some violence to the upper part of the hoof by which it is rendered 

 unnaturally brittle. There is usually a bulging out of some part of the 

 Avail of the foot, which, on being rapped, sounds hollow, and on the 

 shoe being removed and the part examined, a space of greater or less 



