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—partlx inflammatory exudate, and partly a sanious 
fetid 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 
