292 THE HORSE. 



have yielded to the weight. When the coffin-bone is thus thrown on the 

 sole, and renders it pumiced, the crust at the front of the hoof will ^' fall in,'' 

 leaving- a kind of liollow about the middle of it. 



Pumiced feet, especially in horses with large wide feet, are produced not 

 unfrequently without this acute inflammation. Undue work, and especially 

 much battering of the feet on the pavement, will extend and sprain these 

 little plates so much, that they will not have the power to contract, and thus 

 the coffin-bone will be thrown backward on the sole. A very important 

 law of nature will unfortunately soon be active here : when pressure is 

 applied to any part, the absorbents become busy in removing that part ; so, 

 when the coffin-bone begins to press upon the sole, the sole becomes thin 

 from the increased wear and tear to which it is subjected from contact 

 with the ground, and also because these absorbents are rapidly taking it 

 away. 



This is one of the diseases of the feet for which there is no cure. No 

 skill is competent to effect a re-union between the separated fleshy and 

 horny leaves, or to restore to them the strength and elasticity of which they 

 have been deprived, or to take up that hard horny substance which very 

 speedily fills the space between the crust and the receding coffin-bone. 

 Some efforts have been made to palliate the disease, but they liave been 

 only to a very slight extent successful. If horses, on the first appearance 

 of flat foot, were turned out in a dry place, or put into a box for two or 

 three months, sufficient stress would not be thrown on the leaves to increase 

 the evil, and time might be given for the growth of horn enough in the sole 

 to support the coffin-bone ; yet we much doubt whether these horses would 

 ever be useful even for ordinary purposes. The slowest work required of 

 them would drive the coffin-bone on the sole, and gradually the projection 

 would reappear, for no power and no length of time can again unite the 

 separated leaves of the coffin-bone and the hoof. All that can be done in 

 the way of palliation is by shoeing. Nothing must press on the projecting 

 and pumiced part. If the projection be not great, a thick bar shoe is the 

 best thing that can be applied, but should the sole have much descended, 

 a shoe with a very wide web, bevelled off so as not to press on the part, may 

 be used. These means of relief, however, are only temporary, the disease 

 will proceed ; and, at no great distance of time, the horse will be useless. 



CHRONIC FOUNDER. 



This is a name conveniently contrived to express those alterations of the 

 foot, and the gradual lameness which either shoeing or mismanagement 

 occasions. It is often a mere cloak for our ignorance of these subjects. 

 The diseases of the foot and their remedies are very imperfectly understood 

 even by the most skilful practitioners. 



We may, perhaps, most conveniently divide the slow and fatal progress 

 from soundness to incurable lameness into two classes — that which is accom- 

 panied by contraction, and that which exhibits little or no alteration in the 

 external appearance of the foot. 



CONTRACTION. 



Our cut, page 283, will give us a fair idea of the young healthy foot, 

 approaching nearly to a circle, and of which the quarters form the widest 

 part, and the inner quarter (this is the near foot) rather wider than the 

 outer. This shape is not long preserved in many horses, but the foot 

 increases in length, and narrows in the quarters, and particularly at the 



