ACUTE FOUNDER. 523 



riding for many hours in succession ; and it is found still 

 more likely to occur in snowy weather, particularly where 

 the removal into a hot stable has immediately followed. 

 Another cause of primary inflammation may be regarded as 

 dependent on the unceasing strain of the laminse which the 

 erect position occasions ; particularly in sea voyages, where 

 it is united with very great stress alternately laid on one or 

 other of the feet in attempting to preserve the perpendicular 

 position during the rolling of the ship. Acute founder is 

 sometimes not a primary affection, but is too frequently the 

 effect of metastasis. We have seen the feet receive this 

 morbid state from a translation of inflammation from many 

 of the organs, but it is most frequent in pneumonia and 

 enteritis : there is no acute attack but what may be 

 translated to the feet. Founder may be confined to one 

 foot, to two, or it may attack the whole four ; but it is 

 most common to the fore feet. 



Symptoms of Acute Founder. — When a horse labours 

 under this complaint, the attendants are usually uncon- 

 scious of the real nature of the disease ; and it is not un- 

 frequent that even the medical practitioner, when called in, 

 does not immediately detect it, unless much used to these 

 cases : for he finds the horse heaving at his flanks, with a 

 quick, labouring pulse ; and, on inquiry, he hears that the 

 attack commenced with a rigor or shivering fit ; that the 

 suffering animal has been lying down and getting up fre- 

 quently ; gi'oaning with excess of pain, and occasionally 

 breaking out into cold and profuse sweats. In such a case, 

 unless he be informed that the horse has been ridden or 

 driven with violence, and afterwards exposed to cold ; or, 

 unless his eye catches the particular disinclination to remain 

 on the feet, or his hand detects their extreme heat, he is at 

 a loss, frequently, whether to consider it an attack on the 

 bowels, kidneys, or lungs, or an inflammatory or rheu- 

 matic fever. An experienced practitioner will, however, 

 even when called in at first, observe, that though the horse 

 appears to suffer much pain, and to lie down and rise fre- 

 quently, yet that he neither attempts to roll or paw with his 

 feet, nor look at his flanks, or kick his belly ; and that even 

 early in the complaint he betrays a peculiar manner of shifl- 

 ing and lifting up his legs, or of placing them so as to re- 



