KNBS, FBTI,OCK, ANKLE, AND FOOT. 207 



being called on to do double duty, soon becomes exhausted, and conges- 

 tion followed by inflammation, results as a matter of course. Where one 

 foot only becomes laminitic, it is customary to find the other or cor- 

 responding member participating at a later date, not always because of 

 sympathy, but because the transfer of all the functional performance to 

 the one foot proves within itself a sufficient exciting cause. 



4. Ingestion of various foods. Why it is that certain kinds of 

 grain will cause laminitis does not seem to be clearly understood. Cer- 

 tainly they possess no specific action upon the laminae, for all animals 

 are not alike affected, neither do they always produce these results in 

 the same animal. In the case of some of these ailments, where their in- 

 jestion causes a strong tendency to indigestion, the consequent irritation 

 of the alimentary canal may be so great as to warrant the belief that the 

 laminae are affected through sympathy. In other instances there is no ap- 

 parent interference with digestion, nor evidence of any irritation of the 

 mucous membrane, yet the disease is in some manner dependent upon 

 the food in question for its inception. Barley, wheat, and sometimes 

 corn are the grains most prolific in the production of this disease. With 

 some horses there appears to be a particular susceptibility to the influence 

 of corn. In such instances the feeding of this grain for a few days will be 

 followed by inflammation of the feet, lasting from a few days' to two 

 weeks' time. In these animals, to all appearances healthy, the corn 

 neither induces colic, indigestion, nor purging, and apparently no irrita- 

 tion whatever of the alimentary canal. 



5. Purgatives. Fortunately purgative medicines but rarely become 

 the exciting cause of inflammation of the laminae. That it is then the 

 result of a sympathetic action upon the part of the tissues affected is no 

 doubt more than hypothetical, for when there it no derangement of the 

 alimentary canal existing a dose of cathartic medicines will at times bring 

 on severe laminitis; and that, too, before purgation commences. 



6. Metastasis. Most if not all the older authorities were agreed 

 that metastatic laminitis is a reality. That such a condition ever does 

 exist outside the imagination certainly awaits the proving. That lam- 

 initis may and ofttimes does exist as a concurrent disease with numerous 

 others is unquestionably true, but to believe an inflammation can be 

 almost momentarily transferred from organ to another, no matter how 

 remote, is to destroy all belief in our knowledge of the pathology of this 

 complicated process. It is possible that the induction of laminitis, dur- 

 ing the course of some other disease, may serve to arrest the further in- 



