CHAP. V.] FOUNDER. — CONTROVERSY. 535 



FOUNDER 



Is a disorder, or rather a complication of disorders, 

 of the fore feet. Some controversy has crept into 

 our books of farriery lately, as to what really is 

 founder : and whilst some would confine their con- 

 sideration of the subject to the foot only, others 

 follow the fashion of grooms, and ascribe the in- 

 curable lameness that has no visible specific cause, 

 to an affection of the chest. Hence the " chest 

 founder" of the stables, and the " body founder" 

 of White. " Shoulder-shook" is a provincialism of 

 the smithy, when the farrier can perceive " nothing 

 amiss" with the feet — so far as he can see, feel, or 

 understand. Surbating was another name given to 

 the symptom we now recognise as founder, at a 

 time when it was the practice to divide and sub- 

 divide every disorder under many useless and un- 

 meaning appellations. 



Cause. — Hard work, bad shoeing, age and ill- 

 usage, either of which produce so many other dis- 

 orders pertaining to the horse in his domesticated 

 state, precede founder ; for we never meet with it 

 unless the animal has been so treated or kept, and 

 we look upon it rather as a complication or effect 

 of several diseases of the foot. Some of these, 

 we have seen, are liable to be mistaken for others; 

 therefore do they get maltreated, imperfectly cured, 

 or retain the seeds of future diseases ; and founder 

 is the name given to that which is otherwise in- 

 scrutable, has no other origin, and is badly defined 



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