378 PHYSIOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO LAMINITIS. 
We have likewise seen hundreds of other horses physicked, 
but no laminitis resulting in them. We notice a young horse 
brought up out of the country, perhaps out of the strawyard, 
and after a certain time he is put to work upon the paved 
streets, and in a few days or weeks he becomes affected 
with laminitis. Methinks I hear some of my readers say, 
“ that’s very likely ; you might have naturally expected 
that.” But here I would ask the reader, how do you recon- 
cile it with this fact, that to this very establishment scores of 
other young country horses are brought, and subjected to 
exactly the same kind of treatment, but no laminitis attacks 
them, at least not one in a hundred? 
We also see it supervene on new shoeing, and at other 
times at the end of the shoeing ; yet this same horse has been 
shod scores of times before, and always wore his shoes as 
long as he has done this time without such resulting. Thus 
we see this disease present itself under every possible variety 
of circumstance, but to affirm that it is created by these cir- 
cumstances is, I feel fully convinced, to say the least of it, 
fallacious reasoning. It is idle to contend and say, perhaps 
his feet were in a neglected condition ; or perhaps he had 
new thick strong shoes on, and had his soles pared too thin ; 
or perhaps he had old thin weak shoes on, and had his soles 
over thick. Or, possibly, he had been subjected to a cold wind 
when in a heated state, thus giving a sudden check to the 
perspiration ; or had his feet washed in cold water when he 
came in. It may be there had been some error in diet, or he 
had been driven or ridden a little out of his usual pace, or he 
had had the mucous membrane of his bowels irritated with 
physic, or it was for the want of it. Now all these assigned 
causes appear to me to carry with them their own refutation, 
and as I make no excuse in these papers, so I feel no remorse 
in throwing overboard the whole batch of these perftapses, 
Laminitis, then, as a consequence, is decidedly the excep- 
tion, and not the rule, in such cases as enumerated above. 
The truth is, it as often occurs, comparatively speaking, in the 
country as in the town ; it as often occurs in the middle or at 
the end of a shoeing, as it does in the horse but recently shod ; 
it as often occurs in the active, industrious, and energetic, as 
it does in the gross, indolent, and sluggish horse ; it as often 
occurs in the overfed, as it does in the underfed horse; it 
occurs, also, as often in the young, as it does in the aged 
animal ; neither is it confined to any particular form or kind 
of feet. 
I would here request to be distinctly understood that I am 
quite aware that there are cases of laminitis forcibly created 
