524 ACUTE FOUNDER. 



lieve the superincumbent pressure ; either drawing his hinder 

 much under him to ease the fore feet, or placing the front 

 under the chest to reheve the hind, according as one or 

 the other are the principal seat of inflammation ; or, by a 

 marked disinclination to remain long up, when the whole of 

 them are affected. When the inflammation exists in all 

 four of them, the horse usually lies almost wholly on the 

 ground ; this disposition is, however, not quite invariable. 

 We need hardly give any signs to prevent it from being 

 considered as an affection of the loins, rheumatic or acci- 

 dental ; for as soon as the complaint has fully seized on the 

 feet, they will become intensely hot, and the plantar arteries 

 will be found pulsating very strongly. There is sometimes 

 some little tumefaction around the fetlocks, and, when one 

 foot is held up for examination, it gives so much pain to 

 the other, that the horse is in danger of falling ; at which 

 times the slightest tap on the feet with any thing hard gives 

 evidently extreme pain, and is flinched from most sensitively. 

 If the horse be attempted to be taken out of the stable, his 

 disinclination for motion at once shows the feet to be 

 the seat of evil : in his taking each limb up and setting it 

 down, there is something so truly characteristic of the in- 

 tensity of the anguish felt in them as will not easily be for- 

 gotten. He appears to walk as it were upon his heels, and 

 to allow no other part of the foot to touch the ground. 

 The course of the disease is various : it may end in resolu- 

 tion, in which case the symptoms all relax, the remains of 

 the congestion become absorbed, and the parts reinstate 

 themselves perfectly. In other cases, the laminae, throwing 

 out an impure pus, the coffin-bone parts from its attach- 

 ments, and by the weight is forced down ; the pressure of 

 the fallen coffin-bone partly destroys the concavity of the 

 sole, which becomes partially convex ; or is forced outward, 

 and leaves a large space, between the coffin-bone and the 

 horny toe, filled with a semi-cartilaginous mass. When the 

 inflammation proceeds to copious sujipuration, the symptoms 

 having raged with much intensity for six or fewer days, a 

 slight separation of the hoof from the soft parts may be ob- 

 served commencing around the coronet : the purulent secre- 

 tion soon becomes established, and, totally dissolving the 

 union between the soft masses of the feet and the hoofs, 



