142 
LAMIN1TIS — ACUTE FOUNDER — FEVER IN 
THE FEET. 
By E. Gabriel, Esq., M.R.C.S. and V.S. 
Of all the diseases to which the horse is liable, I know of none 
that has been longer known, and yet of which so little is known ; 
that has been so generally recognised, and yet respecting which so 
many blunders have been made; of the history of which so much 
has been written, and of its treatment so much has been unskillful 
and empirical ; of the results of which so accurate accounts have been 
given, and yet the remedies been, ay, in very many cases worse 
than inert and useless, than the one we are now about to consider. 
Acute founder, a very significant term, though by no means a 
well-defined one — Fever in the Feet, which is a much better one, 
and will give the general reader at once a notion of the disease, 
— and Laminitis, which is by far the best, as indicating that the 
fever or inflammation is not only in the foot, but also that par- 
ticular part of the foot, called the sensible laminae. This, then, is the 
disease, and one of so severe and, usually, fatal a nature, as far as 
the organization of the parts affected goes, that the anticipations of 
a perfect cure, such as we should as a matter of course hold out in 
an equally severe inflammatory attack of any other organ not ter- 
minating fatally, appears never to have been indulged in : but the 
account of the symptoms is followed up by every author with the 
best mode of palliating, or inadequately compensating for, the 
imperfect resolution, effusion, or sloughing, in which it would seem 
this destructive disease so often terminates ; reducing the pride of 
the stable with his splendid figure, high courage, fast pace, and 
grand action, to an almost useless cripple, with an awkward gait, 
imperfect action, and jarvy pace ; — reduced in value from hundreds 
to tens, or perchance to units ; ejected from the splendid establish- 
ment, where every care, comfort, nay even luxury, surrounded 
him, to linger on the remainder of his existence in the last stages, 
so truly and graphically described as closing the career of the 
high-mettled racer. 
Somewhere about two hundred years ago, indeed, it would 
appear that the case was different, and the treatment then adopted 
was attended with such signal success, that, in from four days to a 
fortnight the cure was accomplished, and the animal as sound as 
ever; for Gervase Markham, in 1660, tells us that “by thinning 
the sole, bleeding in the toe, and then pouring in some boiling hot 
stopping, and repeating the same three times in one fortnight, that 
