132 Maiiagement and Treatment of the Horse. 



SEEDY TOE 



Is another disasrreeable and oft-times trouble- 

 some complaint. Seedy toe and its companion 

 canker are to all intents and purposes one disease, 

 only having different situations in the foot. This 

 complaint is met with in horses of all ages, and 

 mostly in well-bred horses. There is a wasting 

 or decay of the fibres of the hoof, between the 

 outside horn and the sensitive lamella of the foot, 

 often becoming hollow up to near the coronary 

 ring. Horses that have been lying in fields of 

 damp black vegetable soil are the most subject 

 to seedy toe, and others that are turned into 

 a dung-yard upon hot dung will become affected. 

 Many writers say that seedy toe is caused by 

 the shoeing smith putting the hot shoe upon the 

 horse's foot to burn it to a level bed, thereby 

 depriving the horn of its natural elasticity. I 

 have never seen a case of seedy toe that I could 

 trace to that cause, and am of opinion that we 

 must look to other sources for the true cause. 

 After numerous experiments, I have come to 

 the conclusion that seedy toe is, if I may use 

 the term, a vegetable disease, being caused by 

 moisture fostering the growth of a minute kind 

 of fungus, which lives upon the horn, just as 

 dry rot is caused by a fungus living upon the 

 wood. Having arrived at that conclusion, I have 

 always resorted to the following treatment, and 

 never had a case that did not succumb after twice 

 or thrice dressing. First take a small searching 

 knife and cut away all the rotten horn as far as 



