425 



kept for breeding piirjioses alone the foot will ever be useless for 

 work and death should relieve the suffering. When only the sole 

 sloughs recovery takes jilace with x?i"oper treatment. 



Peditis. — This is the term which "Williams applies to that serious 

 complication of laminitis where not only the laminse but the perios- 

 teum and the coffin bone are also the subjects of the inflammatory 

 process. Neither is this all, for in some of these cases of peditis 

 acute inflammation of the "coffin joint" is present, and occasionally 

 suppuration of the joint. A mild form of x^eriostitis, in which the 

 exudation is in the outer or looser layer of the lieriosteum only, is 

 a more common condition than is recognized by practitioners gener- 

 ally^, and the intimate contiguity of structures is the predisposing 

 cause, the disease either si)reading from the original seat, or the com- 

 plication occurs as one of the primary results of the exciting cause. 

 In the severer cases where the exudate separates the x)eriosteum from 

 the bone, supiDuration, gangrene, and superficial caries are common 

 results; where infiltration of the bone tissues is rapid the blood sup- 

 ply is cut off by the pressure uj^on the vessels and death of the coffin 

 bone ensues. Grave constitutional symptoms mark these changes 

 and soon prove fatal. 



In the mild cases of periostitis it is by no means easy to determine 

 its presence positively, for there are no special symptoms by which it 

 may be distinguished from jDuro laminitis. In the majority of the 

 acute cases, though, which show no signs of inix^rovement by the fifth 

 to seventh day, it is safe to suspect periostitis is present, particularly 

 if the coronets are very hot, the pulse remaining full and hard, and 

 the lameness acute. In the fortunately rare cases where the bone is 

 affected with inflammation and supijuration, the agony of the patient 

 is intense; he occupies the recumbent position almost continually, 

 never standing for more than a few minutes at a time, suffers from 

 the most careful handling of the affected feet; maintains a rapid pulse 

 and respiration, high temperature, loss of appetite, and great thirst. 

 It is in these cases the patient continually grows worse, and the 

 ai)i3earance of suppuration at the top of the hoof in about two weeks 

 after the incei^tion of the disease jiroves the inefficiency of any treat- 

 ment that may have been adopted and the hopelessness of the ease. 

 These patients die usually between the tenth and twentieth days, 

 either from exhaustion or pytemic infections. 



Gangrene occurs in the periosteum as the result of excessive detach- 

 ment from the bone, combined with compression from an overprofuse 

 exudate. Other parts of the sensitive tissues are subject to the same 

 fate occasionally, from this last-named cause, and at times large 

 territories will be found dead. 



Pumiced sole is that condition in which the horny sole in the neigh- 

 borhood of the toe readily crumbles away and leaves the sensitive 

 5001— HOR 14* 



