DISEASES OF THE FEVLOCK, ANKLE, AND FOOT. 429 
should be introduced to the bottom of the wound and the foot dressed 
as directed above. . 
The other complications are to be treated as directed under their 
proper headings. 
After healing of the wounds has been effected, lameness, with more 
or less swelling of the coronary region, may remain. In such cases 
the coronet should be blistered or even fired with the actual cautery, 
and the patient turned to pasture. If the lameness still persists, and 
ts not due to a stiff joint, unnerving may be resorted to in many 
cases with very good results. If the joint is anchylosed, no treatment 
can relieve it, and the patient must either be put to very slow work or 
kept for breeding purposes only. 
“ Prich in shoeing” is an injury which should be considered under 
the head of punctured wounds of the foot. The nails by which the 
shoe is fastened to the hoof may produce an injury followed by 
inflammation and suppuration in two days, by penetrating the soft 
tissues directly or by being driven so deep that the inner layers of the 
horn of the wall are pressed against the soft tissues with such force 
as to crush them. In either case, unless the injury is at the toe, the 
animal generally goes lame soon after shoeing, when the first evi- 
dence of the trouble may be the discharge of pus at the coronet. If 
lameness follows close upon the setting of the shoes, without other 
appreciable cause, each nail should be lightly struck with a hammer, 
when the one at fault will be detected by the flinching of the animal. 
Treatment consists in drawing the nail, and if the soft tissues have 
been penetrated or suppuration has commenced, the horn must be 
pared away until the diseased parts are exposed. The foot is now to 
be poulticed for a day or two, or until the lameness and suppuration 
have ceased. If the discharge of pus from the coronet is the first 
evidence of the disease, the offending nail must be found and re- 
moved, the horn pared out, and a weak solution of carbolic acid or 
compound cresol injected at the coronet until the fistulous tract has 
healed. 
CONTRACTED HEELS, OR HOOFBOUND. 
Contracted heels, or hoofbound, is a common disease among horses 
kept on hard floor in dry stables, and in such as are subject to much 
saddle work. It consists in an atrophy, or shrinking, of the tissues of 
the foot, whereby the lateral diameter of the heels is diminished. It 
affects the fore feet principally ; but it is seen occasionally in the hind 
feet, where it is of less importance, for the reason that the hind foot 
first strikes the ground with the toe, and consequently less expansion 
of the heels is necessary than in the fore feet, where the weight is 
first received on the heels. Any interference with the expansibility 
of this part of the foot interferes with locomotion and ultimately 
