AN ESSAY ON CHRONIC PODOTROCHOLITIS. 
39 
the mode of proceeding pursued by Turner is partially based upon 
preconceived ideas and false principles. His second mode of treat- 
ment, comprising the depression of the coffin and navicular bones, 
is founded on the erroneous opinion that there exists some dislo- 
cation of these bones high up. The principles being inadmis- 
sible, the deductions arising from them are not less so, inas- 
much as they tend to aggravate the disease mechanically. The 
use of the bar-shoe is likewise an injudicious practice, for it tends 
to compress those parts where compression should be particularly 
avoided. Lastly, I cannot approve of the taking of such large 
quantities of blood : small bleedings often repeated would, in ,my 
opinion, be much more advantageous ; nor am 1 more satisfied with 
the cutting away of the inner quarter, as compression might be 
avoided by means of a less painful course of proceeding. 
Goodwin commences his treatment by a general bleeding and 
purging ; he then envelops the hoof in a linseed -meal poultice, 
and leaves the horse to perfect rest in a large stable. Where the 
disease is of recent date, he states that this mode of treatment 
cures nineteen horses out of twenty. Should it prove insufficient, 
he has recourse to bleeding from the toe, and keeps the hoof short 
and the horn soft by means of emollient poultices ; and where this 
course of treatment is found to fail, he has applied a blister round 
the coronet with great success. He objects, and with reason, to 
the great bleedings practised by Turner, to the cutting away of the 
inner quarter, and to the exercise ; but he is wrong in disapproving 
of the paring out of the sole, as I shall presently prove. 
Beside these two modes of treatment, which have been adopted 
by numerous veterinary surgeons, and variously modified by them, 
neurotomy, and the passing of a seton through the frog, have been 
prescribed. 
In general, the seton is applied at all and any of the stages of 
podotrocholitis : some persons make use of it at the commence- 
ment. of the disease ; others do not try it until they have found 
antiphlogistics and other means fail ; and there are some who rely 
upon the beneficial effects of a seton to produce a cure even when 
the disease has attained its highest degree of intensity. Nor is 
the seton without its opponents ; Turner, for instance, denounces it 
on account of the local pain which it occasions in the heels : the 
• horse endeavouring to spare these parts, the depression of the 
navicular bone becomes inevitable. If the seton be not altogether 
useless in the treatment of chronic podotrocholitis, if the reasons 
urged by Turner do plead somewhat in its favour, it is still certain 
that, applied to parts rather deficient in sensibility, and the reaction 
of which is weak, its revulsive effects must be very limited ; for the 
inflammation excited by the seton in the ligamentous apparatus 
