398 DISEASES OF THE HORSE'S FOOT 



ridden, and after about seven or eight minutes she began 

 to go lame in a hind-limb. Her lameness got rapidly worse 

 as she was being ridden, and within a quarter of mile of 

 her first showing lameness, she dropped and carried the 

 lame foot in a way that suggested a badly fractured pastern. 

 There was no recognisable disease in the limb to account 

 for this lameness. 



' I divided the posterior tibial nerve, and she went back 

 to work moving sound, and continued to work sound up to 

 her death from one of the regularly fatal bowel lesions — 

 twist or rupture. 



' She worked nearly two years after unnerving, and 

 developed the usual thickening at the coronet.'* 



2. ' The subject of this note was a chestnut mare, nine 

 years old, and used for omnibus work. 



' History. — For about two months the mare was lame 

 on the off fore-leg, and in spite of treatment the con- 

 dition became steadily worse. The off fore-foot was' 

 rather long and narrow, and the fetlock-joint was inclined 

 to be bowed outwards, but the degree of lameness was out 

 of proportion to these defects, and the diagnosis was 

 obscure. 



■ Median neurectomy was performed on May 10, 1902, 

 and reduced the lameness to about half of what it was 

 before. On June 5 ulnar neurectomy was performed, with 

 the result that the mare became sound, and went to work 

 three weeks later. She continued to work soundly and 

 well, being inspected from time to time. 



' During February of 1903 the coronet began to enlarge 

 if front and slightly to the outer side, and gradually 

 a ridge of bone grew down from the coronet to the toe. 

 The case, in fact, became a typical one of so-called " but- 

 tress foot," which my friend Mr. Willis has described as 

 diagnostic of disease of the pyramidal process of the pedal 

 bone. Meanwhile the swelling of the coronet, which ap- 

 peared to be mainly composed of fibrous tissue, increased in 



* W. Willis, M.R.C.V.S., Journal of Comparative Pathology and 

 Therapeutics, vol. xv., p. 366. 



