INFLAMMATORY AFFECTIONS 277 



dragged into irregular heaps, remains springy and elastic 

 with but little attention. Better than all, however, espe- 

 cially with good weather, is an open crewyard. Here the 

 animal has an abundance of fresh air, has a bed that is 

 always soft, and has plenty of room in which to get up and 

 down with some degree of ease. 



Leaving the dietetic and medicinal, we may consider 

 other treatments of laminitis that come more particularly 

 under the heading of operative. 



The first matter that here demands our attention is that 

 of allowing the exudate to escape at the sole. If after the 

 expiration of three or four days pain and other symptoms 

 of distress continue, then it may be judged that the in- 

 flammatory exudate has made its appearance. Operative 

 measures allowing of its escape, though not giving absolute 

 ease, do undoubtedly relieve the more marked expressions 

 of suffering, and should be at once determined on. To do 

 this completely it is necessary to cast the animal. The 

 sole is then thinned at the toe with the drawing-knife until 

 the sensitive structures are reached. A flow of yellow and 

 sometimes blood-stained discharge is immediately obtained, 

 and the sole itself found to be underrun to a consider- 

 able extent. An opening sufficiently large to admit of 

 free drainage (about the size of a half a crown-piece) is 

 made, the wounds antiseptically dressed, and the hobbles 

 removed. 



If showing an inclination to do so, the animal should 

 then be allowed to remain and rest. In one instance in 

 which we so operated (a case of laminitis in the hind-feet 

 alone), the relief given was at once manifested. For three 

 days previously the animal had remained standing in 

 agonizing pain. On the fourth he was cast, and the dis- 

 charge — partly inflammatory exudate, and partly a sanious 

 foetid pus— liberated. The hobbles were removed, and the 

 animal allowed to remain down while our attention was 

 drawn to another case. This attended to, we walked 

 back to the field where our first patient was lying. His 

 breathing, but a short time before distressedly short and 



