372 ACUTE LAMINITIS. 
On the following morning give a dose of ether and laudanum—two 
ounces of both in a pint of water. Let the horse take his own time in 
swallowing: do not care if half the drink should be lost. In fact, if 
the attempt to give the physic should call forth much opposition, abstain 
from administering it: quiet is of more importance than medicine. On 
that account, strict orders should be given to admit no visitors, and the 
strictest injunction concerning silence should be enforced. 
The pulse and breathing must be watched; and, as either appear to 
augment, the drugs before recommended must be introduced. Should 
the artery on either side of the pastern throb, that sign indicates the foot 
to be congested. This condition must be relieved. With a lancet open 
both pastern veins, which are sure to be in a swollen state, and plunge 
the foot up to the fetlock in warm water. A little blood abstracted by 
this method does more good than the ample venesections so generally 
advised, but which, from their tendency to lower the system, are apt to 
prepare the way for the worst terminations to acute laminitis. Our 
ohject should be to conquer the disease without reducing the strength ; 
had the horse ten times its natural vigor, such an affliction as acute lam- 
initis would more than exhaust it all. The failure of former practition- 
ers has been chiefly owing to their inattention to this fact. 
While the affection lasts, these measures must be pertinaciously 
adopted; the fect, the entire time, must be repeatedly put in warm water, 
not only to soften the horn, but because the chief pain is caused by the 
congested or swollen condition of the secretive portion of the foot; con- 
gestion, likewise, induces the terminations to be most feared; heat or 
warmth is perhaps the best means of relieving loaded vessels. Cover 
over the water or blind the horse’s eyes while in the slings, because acute 
disease is likely to disorder the vision, and a sick, imprisoned animal is 
too apt to be startled by the reflection of its own image. The author 
has had reason to lament the neglect of such necessary precaution. 
The termination to be feared is disorganization—either from the cast- 
ing of the hoof or the descent of the coffin-bone from its natural situa- 
tion. The first result is preceded by chronic suppuration. A. slight 
division is observed between hair and horn; and from the opening thus 
occasioned a small quantity of unhealthy pus issues, mingled with much 
bloody serum. Ultimately the entire hoof loosens and drops off, exposing 
the fleshy parts beneath. Now, all these fleshy parts must have been 
diseased before they could have separated from their secretion, and such 
fleshy parts are not the lamin only, but all those represented in the 
engravings on page 373. 
The sudden exposure of parts which, during health, are covered and 
protected, cannot otherwise than cause an extraordinary effect upon the 
