LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
363 
that, although treatment may prove successful in eradicating the 
disease, yet should it do this, and leave such deformit}' or disor- 
ganization of foot as proves the cause of unsoundness, still will 
the proprietor of the horse have reason to complain of the 
doctor’s work. Canker in any form is an intractable disease. In 
some forms, indeed, it has been pronounced incurable; though I 
cannot say, in my own sphere of practice, I ever found it so. But 
we read in White’s work of its being “difficult of cure,” and 
not “ unfrequently incurable;” and French writers of the same 
date speak of it as “ l’opprobre de notre art.” 
The first Thing to be done, supposing this to be the 
primary treatment of the case, is to take off any shoe the 
cankered foot may have on at the time, and, after paring down 
all exuberant growth of horn, by well lowering the heels and 
shortening the toe of the crust — anormal growths to which such 
a disease as canker is certain to give rise — to subject the foot to 
a close and thorough examination, while the drawing-knife is 
kept at work, removing every portion of dead, loose, or partly 
detached horn, as well as any living horn which may be in 
immediate contact with the cankerous parts, in such manner as 
not only to completely lay open the diseased surfaces, sinuses, 
and crevices, but at the same time as much as is possible to 
isolate them. All contact and communication between sound 
and unsound parts must be cut off; and then, but not until this 
be completely effected, are we to think about dressings. The 
less hemorrhage we produce in accomplishing this indispensably 
necessary preparation the better; bleeding not only being un- 
called for, but tending to interfere with our operations, besides 
being unfavourable for the application of dressing : we must not, 
however, suffer hemorrhage to thwart us in our object, one so 
important towards cure which, if not carried out the first time of 
paring and dressing, certainly ought, on the second occasion of 
dressing, to be put completely and effectually into execution. 
The next Thing to be DONE, after the diseased foot has 
been thoroughly searched and exposed by the drawing-knife, is 
to fit a shoe, as a covering and defence to it, of a description 
which, while it admits of being nailed to the foot, affords every 
facility of applying and removing dressings, and at the same 
time — supposing the foot to be in a state to admit of it — enables 
the horse to perform more or less work : for canker- footed 
horses, especially of the heavy or agricultural class, are much 
better kept at labour than remaining at rest : they maintain better 
health, and from this cause, as well as from the motion and 
pressure given to the foot, bv exercise, it is found that the cure 
proceeds with more rapidity and certainty ; added to which, the 
shoe enables the practitioner to confine his dressings to the foot, 
