377 
MEMOIRS OF A VETERINARY SURGEON. 
PHYSIOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO LAMINITIS. 
By T. Greaves, M.R.C.V.S., Manchester. 
( Continued from jo. 254.) 
In my former paper, “ Thoughts on Laminitis,” it will be 
observed that I view this disease as emanating from some 
igneous element, some undeveloped morbid condition of the 
system, which may have had its existence for an undefined 
period in a latent form, until some unusual or accidental cir- 
cumstance creates a preponderating tendency for it to con- 
centrate itself in those fibrous, but highly vascular tissues, 
the laminae. We find that the disease shows itself at times 
suddenly and with intensity ; and at other times it comes on 
progressively. We also find that it is developed under every 
possible variety of circumstance : sometimes after a severe 
run, and that in company, probably, with some scores of 
other horses, over a rough, hard country, but the subject of 
this malady is the only one affected ; and the animal may 
have endured not only as hard a run a few days before, but 
frequently before that time he had performed a task of 
equal severity without the slightest uneasiness even of his 
feet ensuing. I would here remark, that external or unna- 
tural causes — lacerating attrition — more frequently produce 
laminitis in well-bred horses, and that the internal or natural 
causes are more commonly in operation in heavy draught 
horses ; in which we often witness it to present itself after an 
ordinary day*s work, although the work was neither more 
nor less than that he had been accustomed to for months and 
years ; and thousands of other horses endure the same amount 
of labour daily, under equally harassing circumstances, 
without laminitis being the consequence. We see it again 
attack horses standing only three or four days in a stall, 
or even loose in a box ; although the same horse has stood 
double the length of time, on other occasions, without such 
disease occurring ; and hundreds of other horses stand the 
same period, and even longer, in consequence of illness or 
lameness, without laminitis supervening. It sometimes 
occurs just at the time “ physic is setting,” or whilst it is 
yet operating ; but this same horse has been physicked be- 
fore, given exactly the same dose of a purgative agent, and to 
him exactly the same attention has been paid, with other like 
circumstances, without this disease occurring as a sequence. 
