3^2 THE FARM DOCTOR. 



to be kept up by frequent pinching of the quick between the 

 bone and horn, and demand careful shoeing to avoid pressure 

 on the heel. Some cases may be benefited by cutting out the 

 side bone. 



BRUISES OF THE SOLE. 



Whether resulting from badly applied shoes, stones, accumu- 

 lated gravel, or dried mud, these are to be recognised, Hke 

 corns, by pinching the hoof or tapping it with a hammer, and 

 are to be treated on precisely the same principles, relieving the 

 pressure when necessary, soothing the parts, opening when 

 matter has formed, followed up by poulticing and bar shoe with 

 leather sole and tar stuffing. 



Graveling is closely allied to the above, dirt having worked 

 up through the unnatural groove between the wall and sole, and 

 set up suppuration. Except in the careful removal of the 

 foreign elements, treatment does not differ from that of suppur- 

 ating bruise or corn. 



PRICKS AND BINDING WITH NAILS. 



These usually occur in thin weak feet or such as have been 

 reduced by over-cutting and rasping till there is little to hold 

 the nails ; in the case of nail stubs being left in the hoof from a 

 former shoeing so as to turn the new nails in a wrong direction, 

 and when the blacksmith is too stupid to recognise the diffei- 

 ence between the stroke of driving a nail into the soft spongy 

 horn and the hard firm outer horn of the wall. Simple binding 

 with the nails may cause intermittent or persistent lameness, and 

 there is flinching on striking the heads or the nails of the wall 

 with a hammer, or in compressing the margin of the hoof with 

 pincers. If matter forms there are all the local tenderness and 

 inabihty to use the foot spoken of in suppurating com. In sim- 

 ple pricks an examination of the nail clinches usually reveals 

 one higher than the rest, and if this is a posterior one it is all 



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