DISEASKS OF THE FOOT. 201 



whence we may reasonably conclude that it 

 opposes the contracting causes, though in the 

 end it is not capable of preventing the con- 

 traction from taking place. Upon a horse 

 that has been lame from this disease a con- 

 siderable time, it is difficult, if not impossible, 

 to perform a radical cure ; in such cases 1 have 

 several times succeeded in removing the lame- 

 ness, but the internal parts had become so ir- 

 ritable, or their organisation had been so al- 

 tered, that very moderate work would cause 

 the lameness to retvu'n. When the lameness is 

 not so considerable as to render the horse 

 totally unht for work, it will be advisable to 

 apply a shoe that is thicker, wider, and linger 

 at the heels, than that recommeuded for a 

 -sound foot ; and if the frog be tender and rot- 

 ten, the bar shoe will be found serviceable. 

 (Plate 4, Fig. 2.) It will be useful also to keep 

 the hoof as moist as possible, by making the 

 horse stand in wet clay four or live hours du- 

 ring the day. 



In examining after death the feet of horses 

 that have been thus diseased, we tind g.;;e- 

 i^lly that the laminge have been destroyed, 

 the form of the coffin bone altered and its size 

 diminished, or the lateral cartilages oesified, 



K 3 



