LAMExNESS IN THE FORE LEG 167 



Tlie use of aliiiii in the treatment of laminitis is held to be with 

 out reason other than the empirical one that it is beneticial. If 

 laminitis is due chiefly to an autointoxication, good and sufficient 

 reason for the administration of alum can be shown based upon 

 its known physiological action. It is the 2nost powerful in- 

 testinal astringent that I know of and has the fewest disad- 

 vantages. I have not noted constipation following its use nor 

 diarrhea, nor a stopping of peristalsis, nor indigestion, and in 

 any case its action lasts at most only a. few hours, and if it did 

 all these, it could not much matter. Quitman says, that it con- 

 stricts the capillaries. If this is true, a thing of which I am not 

 certain, is it not reasonable to suppose that as with other vaso- 

 constrictors, e. g., digitalis, there is a selective action on the part 

 of the capillaries Cnot of the drug) and those that need it most, 

 i. e., those of the affected feet in laminitis, are constricted most? 

 All body cells exert this selective action in the assimilation of 

 food, the tissue needing most any particular kind of food cir- 

 culating in the blood, gets it. 



Our first consideration in laminitis should be to remove the 

 cause — to stop the absorption of the toxin in the intestinal tract 

 that is producing the condition. This we accomplish by partially 

 unloading it by the use of the active hypodermic cathartics and 

 stopping absorption by the surest and most harmless of intestinal 

 astringents. Whether the astonishingly prompt and certain 

 action of alum in this case is due wholly to its astringent action 

 or whether alum combines with the harmful bacterial products 

 chemically and forms an innocuous combination, I can only sur- 

 mise, and it is unimportant. At any rate, when alum is ad- 

 ministered, the onslaught of the disease is promptly stopped. Ir- 

 reparable damage may already have been done if the ease is a 

 neglected one, but whether administered early or late in acute 

 attacks, the progress of the disease is stopped immediately. 



The same authority may be profitably quoted in the matter 

 of handling all cases wherein the revulsive effect of agents which 

 diminish vascular tension are chiefly indicated or necessarj^ as 

 adjuvants. In this connection, Campbell says : 



The early and vigorous administration of aconitin in laminitis 

 to its full physiological effect, is more logical. Assuming that 

 laminitis is due to absorption of harmful products from the 

 intestinal tract permitted through the deranged functioning of 

 the organs of digestion, or assuming that it is due to an exten- 

 sion of the inflammation from the mucosa to the sensitive lamina, 

 or that it is a reflex from a sudden chilling of the skin, we have 

 in anv of these conditions a distui'bed <'irciilalioii. and aconitin 



