290 THE HORSE. 



bruised in a hard day's journey, no one will wonder if inflammation of the 

 over-worked parts should ensue, and the occurrence of it may probably be 

 produced and the disease aggravated by the too prevalent absurd mode of 

 treating the animal. If a horse that has been ridden or driven hard be suffered 

 to stand in the cold, or if his feet be washed and not speedily dried, he is very 

 likely to have " fever in the feet." There is no more fruitful source of inflam- 

 mation in the human being, or the brute, than these sudden changes of tem- 

 perature. This has been explained as it regards grease, but it bears more 

 immediately on the point now under consideration. The danger is not 

 confined to change from heat to cold; a sudden transition from cold to heat 

 is as injurious, and therefore it is that so many horses, after having been 

 ridden far in the frost and snow, and placed immediately in a hot stable, 

 and littered up to the knees, are attacked by this complaint. The feet and 

 the lungs are the organs oftenest attacked, because they have previously 

 suffered most by our mismanagement, and are most disposed to take on 

 disease. Whatever would cause slight inflammation of other parts, or 

 trifling general derangement, will produce all its mischief on these organ^. 



Sometimes there is a sudden chanoe of inflammation from one organ to 

 another. A horse shall have laboured for several days under evident 

 inflammation of the lungs ; — all at once that will subside, and the inflam- 

 mation will appear in the feet, or inflammation of the feet may follow 

 similar affections in the bowels or the eyes. 



To the attentive observer the symptoms are clearly marked, and yet there 

 is no disease so often overlooked by the groom and the carter, and even by the 

 veterinary surgeon. The earliest symptoms of fever in the feet are fidgetiness, 

 frequent shifting of the fore-legs, but no pawing, much less any attempts to 

 reach the belly with the hind-feet. The pulse will soon be quickened, the flanks 

 heaving, the nostrils red, and the horse, by his anxious countenance, and 

 perhaps by moaning, indicating great pain. Presently, he will look about 

 his litter, as if preparing to lie down, but he does not doit immediately ; he 

 continues to shift from foot ; he is afraid to draw his feet sufficiently under 

 him for the purpose of lying .down : but at length he drops. The circum- 

 stance of his lying down at an early period of the disease will sufficiently 

 distinguish inflammation of the feet from that of the lungs, in which the 

 horse obstinately persists in standing until he drops from mere exhaustion; 

 and his quietness when down will distinguish it from cholic or inflammation 

 of the bowels, in both of which the horse is frequently up and down, and 

 rolling and kicking when down. When the grievance is in the feet, the horse 

 experiences so much relief, from getting rid of the weight painfully distending 

 the inflamed and highly sensible little plates, that he is glad to lie as long as he 

 can. He will likewise, as clearly as in inflammation of the lungs or bowels, 

 point out the seat of disease by looking at the part : his muzzle will some- 

 times rest on the feet or the affected foot. He must be inattentive wdio 

 is not aware what all this indicates 



If the feet be now examined, they will be evidently hot; the horse will 

 express pain if they are slightly rapped with a hammer, and the artery at 

 the pastern will throb violently. No great time will now pass, if the disease 

 be suffered to pursue its course, before he will be perfectly unable to rise ; 

 or, if he is forced to get up, and one foot be lifted, he will stand with 

 difficulty on the other, or perhaps drop at once from intensity of pain. 



The treatment will resemble that of other inffammations, with such 

 differences as the situation of the disease may suggest. Bleedingjs indispen- 

 sable ; and that to its fullest extent. If the disease be confined to the fore- 

 feet, four quarts of blood should be taken as soon as possible from the toe 

 of each, at the situation pointed out, fig. 2, p. 249, and in the manner 



