ACUTE LAMINITIS. 189 



6. Undue weight being placed on one leg, on account of its 

 fellow fore or hind leg being in a painful condition from injury 

 or disease. Prefessor W. Williams describes an interesting case 

 of a horse which had hurt his near hind leg. The foot of this 

 leg was wrongly left unshod, but shoes were put on the other 

 three feet, with the result that the off hind became violently 

 affected with laminitis, by reason of the extra weight thrown on it. 



7. Undue weight of body as compared to the strength of the 

 feet predisposes an animal to this disease. It has been known to 

 occur to fat horses which have been at grass for months without 

 having been haltered. 



8. Improper shoeing which relieves the sole (by the use of a 

 seated shoe) and frog (by cutting away the frog, and refraining 

 from lowering the heels) from pressure, predisposes an animal to 

 laminitis, by putting almost all the weight on the wall of the foot. 

 The pernicious effect of this method of shoeing is naturally greater 

 on hard roads than on soft ground. 



9. Corn. On two voyages to South Africa with remounts, of 

 which I was in veterinary charge, and on several voyages to and 

 from India and to Russia with private animals, I had ample oppor- 

 tunity of seeing that corn has a strongly predisposing influence 

 on the production of laminitis in idle horses. Hay has no dele- 

 terious effect in this respect. Consequently, when horses are 

 taken long voyages by sea, they should have plenty of hay, but 

 little or no corn. In gout, the mineral matter of fruit and green 

 vegetables (among them hay, as it is dried grass), when taken into 

 the system as food, has a strong action in eliminating uric acid, the 

 retention of which in the body is the cause of gout (p. 508) ; but 

 the mineral matter of grain has no such influence. It is therefore 

 reasonable to infer that the so-called " heating " effect corn has on 

 idle horses, is due to the accumulation, in their systems, of waste 

 and harmful products which the mineral matter of hay or grass, 

 combined with exercise, would remove under healthy conditions. 



I am convinced that laminitis very rarely occurs from only one 

 cause, except in foaling cases. 



Attentive observation of facts demonstrates that laminitis 

 attacks equally all horses, whatever may be the shape of their 

 hoofs. At the same time the more upright the foot, whether 

 caused by shoeing, allowing the heels to grow too long, or by 

 conformation, the more liable will it be to suffer from laminitis 

 induced by concussion, and by long-oontinued standing; for the 

 more the weight is brought forward, the greater will be the strain 

 on the secreting membrane of the hoof. An upright form of 

 pastern will act in the same way. 



As the fore feet- are far more exposed to the effects of concussion 



