DISEASES OF THE FEET. "^ t . 109 



This disease does not usually unfit the horse for moderate 

 service, but care must be taken to keep him out of the wet 

 while undergoing treatment. After a few weeks he may be 

 safely returned to full duty, and shod, if necessary. 



CORNS. 



These are the great bugbears of the stable. Lameness in 

 the feet forms such a common complaint among horses, that 

 the stable-keeper can not evade the demand upon his 

 fancied attainments in horse lore for the explanation of the 

 phenomena in some way. It is, therefore, customary with 

 many men, when any thing is the matter with the horse's 

 foot which they are unable distinctly to account for, to get 

 rid of the difficulty by pronouncing it to be corns. Some 

 practitioners, by no means backward in claiming scientific 

 proficiency, have made the same mistake, much to the detri- 

 ment of their professional reputation. 



An instance of this was afibrded in the spring of 1866, in 

 the case of a beautiful trotting-mare, belonging to a gentle- 

 man in Cincinnati. For a long time she had been under 

 professional treatment for corns; and yet, when the writer 

 was called to examine her, it was the task of but a few 

 minutes to demonstrate the fact that she was suftering 

 from nothing less than the dreadful disease of the navicu- 

 lar joint. 



We have never found any affection of the horse's foot 

 which could properly be termed corns, but have treated 

 scores of cases exhibiting the peculiar condition of heat and 

 soreness which is known as such. This is a redness and in- 

 flammation of the bottoms of the hoofs, generally having its 

 commencement in the quarters, on each side of the frog. It 

 occurs oftener in the inside than on the outside quarter, and 

 in the fore-feet than in the hinder ones. In all cases that we 

 have examined, it is an accompaniment of hoof rot. The 

 bottoms of the hoofs decay until the disease reaches the sen- 

 sible portions of the foot, and the blood settles down in 

 patches, ramifying in all directions in little lines, which give 



