LAMENESS IN THE FORE LEG 179 



upou street nails. This does not include accidental nail pricks 

 occasioned in shoeing. In city practice, in some stables, these 

 cases are of frequent occurrence ; and, generally speaking, nail 

 punctures are observed more frequently in urban horses than 

 in animals that are kept in the country. 



Occurrence and Method of Examination. — This condition, 

 then, is a rather conniion cause of lameness and in no case, 

 where cause of the claudication is not obvious, is the practitioner 



Fig. 39 — Skiagraph of foot. The X-ray offers very limited possibilities in 

 the diagnosis of lameness. The location of a "gravel" or a nail that had 

 worked its way some distance from the surface, or of an abscess of some 

 proportion, deep in the tissues, might be facilitated under some circumstances 

 by the aid of the X-ray. Its use in the detention of fractures is very limited, 

 owing to the difficulty encountered in getting a view from the right position — 

 many trials being necessary in most cases. The case shown above was diag- 

 nosed clinically as incipient ringbone. The X-ray revealed no lesions. (Photo 

 by L. Griessmann.) 



warranted in concluding his examination without careful search 

 for the possible existence of nail punct'ire of the solar surface 

 of the foot. 



In occasional instances there co-exists an obvious cause for 

 supporting-leg-lameness and an occult cause — a nail puncture. 

 Where such complications ai'o met, the practitioner is not neces- 

 sarily guilty of neglect or carch^ssnoss when the nail puncture 



