LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
613 
them. But I recommend that fresh poultices be applied every 
morning and evening. The pediluvium or warm bath, as recom- 
mended by D’Arboval and some others, is almost impracticable 
should the horse be lying, and often very troublesome when he is 
standing, and, after all, not so effectual as poultices. If warm water 
is to be applied, the spongio-piline would afford the best medium 
for it. 
Theorise and reason upon this mode of treatment as we will — 
and there is much in theory to be said for it, and something to be 
said against it — I am bound, by the results of my own trials of it, 
unhesitatingly to declare myself in its favour. In some cases it 
has seemed to work wonders ; but to this 1 feel myself constrained 
to add, in others it has as signally failed. Still, I have been vastly 
more successful practising Mr. Gabriel’s treatment than with any 
other plan I have been urged to adopt ; and therefore I have, quoad 
hoc, every reason to be pleased and satisfied with it. Not that we 
are to feel ourselves precluded by it from introducing portions of 
any other practices in the treatment to which authority or ex- 
perience has lent its recommendations, should we deem any such 
to be called for. 
In the cases in which disappointment has attended such treat- 
ment, I have often observed that the setons have failed to produce 
the suppurative action usually consequent on their employment. 
Instead of being soiled with purulent matter, emitting the offensive 
odour so strongly remarked on by Mr. Gabriel, they have remained 
dry and odourless. There seemed too high or too extensive in- 
flammation to permit the secretion of pus; and it became a ques- 
tion, under such circumstances, whether, instead of proving benefi- 
cial, our setons had not been productive of harm by creating fresh 
irritation and inducing more blood to the foot, and thereby adding 
to that — viz., the inflammation — of which there existed already too 
much ] In such a case as this, and especially when we have 
already drawn blood from the system to the extent that we dare 
do, we naturally look after some local abstraction of blood from the 
feet. And then the question arises, whether the punctures in- 
flicted on parts in a state of inflammation to draw blood, do not 
tend to irritate and aggravate more than the frog-setons; con- 
sidering that the one is run through parts away from the imme- 
diate seat of the inflammation, while the other penetrates the 
inflamed tissues themselves. Added to which, the wound we 
inflict at the toe of the foot is itself extremely likely to run into 
the suppurative action, and so may dispose the laminae to the same 
process ; an event, of all others, most to be guarded against. Mr. 
Castley, when he was serving in the peninsular campaign, found 
that, although he could relieve cases of laminitis, in the first 
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