COKNS. 1 1 3 



them ; or very minute ones to the eye, yet be 

 seriously inconvenienced and lamed by them. 

 Hundreds of horses have corns without any one 

 suspecting it, and so long as he remained sound, 

 or nearly so, the fact might never be known. If 

 he becomes lame, and his feet are in consequence 

 of it minutely examined, the drawing knife or 

 searcher lets the owner or somebody into the 

 secret. That becoming known, the foot properly 

 put to rights, and w^ith a proper shoe put on, the 

 horse probably goes sounder than he has for 

 months past. If a horse has corns, the principal 

 thing to be looked at is not so much the soreness 

 of them, or how far he may even go lame on 

 them, but the kind of foot he has. If he has good 

 w4de, or, in more stable phrase, open heels, and 

 the wall or crust is strong, so as to afford good nail 

 hold, I have very little fear of corns, for such a 

 foot will allow the means of taking off pressure 

 from them. They will often, in such a case, hold 

 out prospect of cure, or, if not, of such palliative 

 as amounts to nearly as good an effect, that is, 

 feeling no inconvenience from them ; if, however, 

 the heels are narrow, it is almost impossible to 

 prevent the great aggravation of the disease, 

 namely, pressure. We may even in such a case 

 take away super pressure, that is, pressure from 

 the shoe on the affected parts; but then there will 

 remain what I will term lateral j)ressure, which 

 I 



