298 VETERINARY HOMCEOPATHY. 



'experienced with the ordinary shoe will soon set up the diseased 

 condition once again. 



In well-established cases of navicular disease, where the horse 

 is in all other respects a useful animal and the owner is reluctant 

 to destroy it, a blister round the coronet might be tried, the best 

 agent being the Biniodide of mercury ointment, and that because 

 mercury has a specific action upon bony tissue; we have not much 

 faith in this procedure, at the same time it might be put to the 

 test; if this proves useless and the desire to retain the services of 

 the horse is very strong, we should recommend that a veterinary 

 surgeon be called in to perform the operation of neurotomy, as 

 by this means the horse would be rendered insensible to pain and 

 might, at all events, do slow work; before determining to have 

 the operation performed it is well to remember that occasionally 

 unfavorable results follow it, such as rupture of the tendon, 

 fracture of the navicular bone and sloughing of the hoof; if an 

 owner is prepared to run the slight risk of these possible untoward 

 results, the operation will certainly enable the horse to move with- 

 out pain, and so long as the bisected nerve remains disunited no 

 indications of lameness will be observable. 



lyAMiNiTiS is probably one of the most painful diseases, while 

 it lasts, to which a horse is subject; it is inflammation of the sensi- 

 tive structures of the foot; a large proportion of these sensitive 

 structures consist of laminae or leaves surrounding the pedal bone, 

 -which fit into corresponding horny laminae or leaves all round the 

 horny wall; among these layers of leaves or laminae an enormous 

 number of blood vessels are situated; this fact accounts in a great 

 measure for the agonizing pain experienced by a horse that is 

 the subject of this disease, as the blood vessels become engorged 

 with an excess of blood, which of necessity results in considerable 

 swelling of the sensitive structures, and these being enclosed 

 within the unyielding wall of horn, from which there is no 

 escape, great pressure is brought to bear upon them, the con- 

 gested vessels can obtain no relief, hence the extreme pain and 

 agony. All practical horsemen know that when a horse has been 

 the subject of a severe attack of inflammation of the foot it is no 

 unusual thing for the animal to have what is called "dropped 

 sole," and it may be interesting to know how this comes about; 

 whenever blood-vessels are congested with an undue quantity of 



