560 FALSE QUARTER. 



some escharotic, milder or stronger, according to circum- 

 stances, may be considered requisite. But so soon as 

 the fungus is completely reduced, the discharge is lessened 

 in quantity, and improved in quality, accompanied with a 

 secretion of healthy horn ; then nothing more is necessa y 

 than to watch the parts, to dress dry, and not too often ; 

 still keeping up a moderate degree of pressure till the sore 

 be completely hoofed over. Horses are often turned out 

 during the cure of inveterate canker ; as the foot becomes 

 unavoidably exposed to moisture, it is an improper course 

 to pursue ; but mill-work under cover offers an excellent 

 method of combining pressure with benefit to the general 

 health ; observing, if the horse has been subjected to neu- 

 rotomy, that his insensibihty does not cause him to injure 

 his foot. 



FALSE QUARTER. 



This can hardly be considered as a distinct complaint, 

 but, more properly, as a consequence resulting from some 

 one of the former diseases; in W'hich, from the injury done 

 to the coronary vascular ligament, it can never afterwards 

 secrete horn ; but the break or interruption produced by 

 the interposition of a portion of non-secreting substance, 

 causes a part of the outer crust of the wall to be absent. 

 Such a blemish is called a false quarter ; and it is evident 

 that it must greatly tend to weaken the hoof. It likewise 

 sometimes produces the same unpleasant effects as a sand- 

 crack, by the separation of the under layer of the wall 

 admitting the vascular laminse between the opening. The 

 treatment can be only palliative. Keep the neighbouring 

 horn always thin : use a bar shoe, and ' lay off' (as a smith 

 calls it) the deficient quarter. This may be done either by 

 paring the crust, or by an indentation in the shoe ; the 

 choice of which is left to the prudence of the operator, with 

 this exception, that, in a weak thin foot, the alteration 

 should always be made in the shoe, and in a strong one 

 in the crust. 



