WOUNDS 231 
Although ordinarily inflicted at the gallop, the same 
injury may, nevertheless, be caused by allowing a fast 
trotter, and one with extreme freedom of action behind, to 
push forward at the utmost limit of his pace. The outside 
heel is the one most subject to the injury. 
While the common form of injury to the coronet is, as we 
have described, that occasioned by the animal’s own shoe, 
or that of a companion, it is evident that the foot is also 
open to similar injuries from quite outside sources. Falls 
of the shafts when unyoking animals from a heavy cart, 
blows or wounds from the stable fork, wounds resulting 
from the foot becoming fixed in a gate or a fence, either 
may equally well set up the mischief. 
Apart from severe injury, a particularly troublesome 
form of coronitis may arise from the coudition of the roads. 
We refer to the conditions attendant on a thaw after snow. 
The animal is called upon to labour in, or perhaps stand 
for long periods in, a mixture of snow and water, or snow 
and mud. That this must have a prejudicial effect upon 
the structure of the coronet is plain. The circulation of 
the part, already predisposed to sluggishness by reason of 
its distance from the heart, is further impeded by the action 
of the cold. Small abrasions of the skin, so small as to 
searce be noticeable, are in this case freely open to infection 
with the septic matter the mud contains. Necrosis and 
consequent sloughing of the skin is bound to follow, and an 
extensive ulcerous wound, or a spreading suppuration of 
the coronary cushion is the result. 
Symptoms.—We will take first the case in which no 
actual wound is observable. Here the first indication of 
the trouble is the appearance of an inflammatory swelling, 
confined usually to one side, but extending sometimes to 
the whole of the coronet. Always the part is hot and 
tender, aud with it the patient is lame—so much so, in 
many cases, as to be unable to put the foot to the ground, 
the toe alone being used. 
In a mild case, uncomplicated by septic infection, these 
symptoms rapidly subside, and resolution occurs. 
