480 



VETERINARY SURGICAL OPERATIONS 



injury is often so trivial, the infection so feebly virulent, and 

 the seat of invasion into the laminae so deep and sheltered, 

 and the lameness so slight at first that the cause of the 

 claudication may escape discovery for some days after the 

 accident has occurred. 



The accident is sometimes due to careless driving, but 

 more often the forge pricks encountered in practice are at- 

 tributable to attempts to nail shoes securely to feet having 

 thin, badly broken walls. In such feet the shoer always rec- 

 ognizes the necessity of driving the nails to a high level in 

 order to assure retention of the shoe and to prevent further 

 mutilation of the lower part of the wall. In these attempts 



Fig. 244 — Schematic View of Operation against Forge Pricks and Nail 



Treads. 



nails may parallel the laminae closely enough to cause inflam- 

 mation by pressure without penetrating, or the wound they 

 inflict to the laminae may be slight, or it may extend along 

 the whole or part of the course of the nail. Carelessly 

 driven nails may enter the velvety tissue, nick the border of 

 the os pedis, and then wound the laminae from the border of 

 the bone to the point of exit. 



Forge pricks, if treated promptly, are relatively less se- 

 rious than street-nail pricks and nail-treads, because every- 

 thing connected with the accident is more clean. The nail 

 is bright and clean, the hoof has been pared of all dirt-con- 

 taining recesses, and the shoe has just come from the fire, 



