ACUTE LAMINITIS. 367 
cartilages are ossified, or are approaching change. If the horse has 
recently gone lame, and the seat of cartilages feels of a mixed nature— 
partly soft and partly hard—apply a 
blister to the coronet, so as to convert 
that which is a subacute process into an 
acute action, and with the cessation of 
activity hope to stop the deposit. Re- 
peat the blister if absolutely necessary ; 
but there is no occasion to subject more 
than the coronet, and a couple of inches 
above that structure, to the operation of 
the vesicatory. Indeed, blisters act more 
effectually upon eonfined spaces. This 
is all that can be accomplished, save by good feeding and liberal usage: 
these are essential, because every abnormal change denotes a deranged 
system; and this is, in the animal, soonest mended by generous diet. 
Perfect rest and two pots of stout per day may even be allowed, should 
the pulse be at all feeble. 
THE CERTAIN TEST FOR OSSIFIED CARTILAGES. 
ACUTE LAMINITIS, OR FEVER IN THE FEET. 
This term implies that the disease is confined to the laminw; the 
word certainly warrants an inference that the other secreting surfaces 
within the hoof are not implicated; such a meaning is generally con- 
ceived to be intended. The name, by inducing erroneous opinion, does 
much injury; the old appellation of fever in the feet is, therefore, much 
more characteristic and altogether more correct. 
The entire of the fleshy portion of the foot is involved in this terrible 
affliction; any man, who has had an abscess beneath some part where 
the cuticle is strong, or who has endured a whitlow, may very distantly 
imagine the pain suffered by the horse during fever of the feet. Such 
an individual, if his creative powers be very brilliant, may vaguely con- 
jecture the torture sustained by the quadruped; but no power possibly 
can realize to the full the anguish sustained by the animal. Man does 
not, like the horse, rest upon his finger’s end, and, if he did, the pain he 
would then suffer could not be likened to the terrible affliction borne by 
the animal, for the following reasons: What is the weight of any man 
to that of a quadruped? What is the thickness of his skin or the sub- 
stance of his nail to the hardness and stoutness of the horse’s hoof? 
The human skin is elastic, and the end of the finger permits some swell- 
ing of its fleshy portion; but the secreting membrane of the horse’s foot 
lies between two materials almost equally unyielding. Bone is within, 
