402 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



preventing the animal from giving to the leg that fixed 

 position which the member otherwise would assume. There 

 is little remedy for it but stipulation, or the constant appli- 

 cation of cool lotion with comparative rest, while the horse 

 enjoys the salutary and bracing, and not sufficiently appre- 

 ciated, influence of cold on weakness of the legs and feet. 



SPRAIN OF THE COFFIN-JOINT. 



The lameness is sudden, and the heat and tenderness just 

 about the coronet. Bleed at the toe, physic, and foment; 

 blister if obstinate. This accident is often confounded with 

 shoulder lameness, and consequently wrongly treated. It 

 is then the precursor and cause of ringbone. 



VI.-The Feet. 



LAMINITIS — FEVER IN THE FEET — ACUTE FOUNDER — 

 CHRONIC FOUNDER — PUMICED FEET — SAND-CRACK, 

 SEEDY-TOE — FALSE QUARTER — QUITTOR — TREAD — 

 PUNCTURED SOLE — NAVICULAR-JOINT DISEASE — CORNS 

 — THRUSH — CANKER. 



The sensible laminae, or fleshy plates on the front and 

 sides of the coffin-bone, are full of blood-vessels, and there- 

 fore, like other highly vascular parts, liable to inflammatory 

 action. 



When it is recollected what the laminae, which are inter- 

 posed between the hoof and the coffin-bone, have chiefly to 

 sustain, the violent concussion to which the feet are 

 exposed when in rapid action, it will not appear surprising 

 that intense inflammation of these parts sometimes ensues. 

 Besides this, there is no structure in the body of the horse 

 so exposed to other causes of inflammation as the foot. 

 After the animal has been ridden far and fast, while he is 

 reeking hot, he is occasionally plunged up to his belly in 

 pond or river. Almost every groom immediately washes 

 the feet of his horse, while very few of them take the pains 

 carefully to dry the dripping members. What is so likely 

 to follow as inflammation ? A horse may have been travel- 

 ling many a mile up to his coronets in snow, and when he 

 arrives at his journey's end, instead of having the warmth 

 gradually restored to his feet by half-an-bour's good hand- 



