516 
PATHOLOGY OF LAMINITIS. 
more than half an hour or an hour? By introducing the 
tube you not only keep alive your patient, but you set at 
rest the membrane and tissues so intensely irritated, and by 
so doing you are enabled readily to reduce, by other treat- 
ment, the swelling and inflammation. Exactly, and upon 
the same principle, do I advocate the use of slings. Remove 
the great cause of the intense suffering, namety, the weight , 
and you have then a most favorable opportunity afforded you 
to restore your patient to health. Only suppose a case of 
inflamed lungs, and the animal compelled to remain in an 
impure and heated atmosphere ; or conceive him hurried to 
and fro in order to distress the breathing as much as possible, 
and this continued ! The analogy holds good with laminitis. 
So long as the weight is tearing away at the sensitive laminae, 
like the lungs, in the one case, so the laminae, in the other, are 
not allowed a moment’s quietude. What chance, I would ask, 
would such a case have of recovering? We have all seen a 
poor distressed patient, brought out of a close and heated 
stable, with his respiration highly laboured, allowed to inhale 
the cool refreshing air, and we have witnessed the almost 
magical effects it has produced. We have seen the relieved 
and grateful creature by his looks thank us for so doing ; and 
I have experienced a similar pleasing gratification in a 
case of protracted laminitis. In a valuable cart-horse, where 
the coffin-bones had commenced sinking, there was distressed 
breathing present, and continual perspiration from pain, which 
had existed for weeks, but when placed in the slings he be- 
came almost instantly relieved ; and then other ameliorating 
treatment being afterwards resorted to, such as standing with- 
out shoes upon a quantity of cow-dung and litter, his improve- 
ment was really wonderful. In a week’s time his shoes were 
tacked on, and when he was taken out of the slings, he could 
walk nearly sound and free from pain ; but in an hour or 
two the feet began to pain him again, he was therefore 
placed again in the slings for another week, with the shoes on, 
and standing on cow-dung and litter as before. Again he 
came out nearly sound, but in a few hours the laminal weak- 
ness and tenderness returned ; and although we continued 
this treatment for some time we found the laminae could not 
be restored to sufficient strength, nor the coffin-bone become 
reinstated, and the animal was in the end destroyed. Since 
then I have always used the slings at the very onset, and 
they have succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations. 
There seems to be no difficulty in subduing the constitu- 
tional or sympathetic fever, and preventing the sinking of 
the soles. The length of time the patient is slung (only 
