426 DISEASES OF THE HORSE, 
ragged opening is found in the frog, leading down to a mass of dead, 
sloughing tissues, which are pale green in color if gangrene of the 
plantar cushion has set in. In rare cases the coffin bone may be in- 
volved in the injury and a small portion of it may become carious. 
Treatment.—If the injury is seen at once, the foot should be placed 
in a bath of cold water to prevent suppuration. If suppuration has 
already set in, the horn of the frog, and of the bars and branches of 
the sole, if necessary, is to be pared thin so that all possible pressure 
may be removed, and the foot poulticed. When the pus has loosened 
the horn, all the detached portions are to be cut away. If the pus is 
discharging from an opening near the hair, the whole frog, or one- 
half of it, will generally be found separated from the plantar cush- 
ion, and is to be removed with the knife. After a few days the gan- 
grenous portion of the cushion will slough off from the effects of 
the poultice; under rare circumstances only should the dead parts be 
removed by surgical interference. When the slough is all detached, 
the remaining wound is to be treated with simple stimulating dress- 
ings, such as tincture of aloes or turpentine, oakum balls, and band- 
ages as directed in punctured wounds. When the lameness has sub- 
sided, and a thin layer of new horn has covered the exposed parts, the 
foot may be shod. Cover the frog with a thick pad of oakum, held 
in place by pieces of tin fitted to slide under the shoe, and return to 
slow work. Where caries of the coffin bone, etc., follow the injury 
the treatment recommended for these complications in punctured 
wounds of the foot must be resorted to. 
PUNCTURED WOUNDS OF THE FOOT. 
Of all the injuries to which the foot of the horse is liable, none are 
more common than punctured wounds, and none are more serious 
than these may be when involving the more important organs within 
the hoof. A nail is the most common instrument by which the in- 
jury is inflicted, yet wounds may happen from glass, wire, knives, 
sharp pieces of rock, etc. 
A wound of the foot is more serious when made by a blunt-pointed 
instrument than when the point is sharp, and the nearer the injury is 
to the center of the foot the more liable are disastrous results to fol- 
low. Wounds in the heel and in the posterior parts of the frog are 
attended with but little danger, unless they are so deep as to injure 
the lateral cartilages, when quittor may follow. Punctured wounds 
of the anterior parts of the sole are more dangerous, for the reason 
that the coffin bone may be injured, and the suppuration, even when 
the wound is not deep, tends to spread and always gives rise to in- 
tense suffering. The most serious of the punctured wounds are those 
which happen to the center of the foot, and which, in proportion to 
