662 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
its endurance : sub-acute, on the contrary, will make its appear- 
ance in the stable after the horse has been for some time living in 
a state of idleness, or indeed absolute rest. 3dly. The former 
makes its attack directly and immediately, or shortly after, the 
application of the excitant; whereas the sub-acute disease ap- 
proaches so gradually and stealthily, that it is apt to be present 
some time before we discover its existence. 4thly. Acute la- 
minitis is marked by great suffering and accompanying fever ; in 
the sub-acute there is nothing of the kind, the lameness being the 
leading symptom. 5thly. The termination of sub-acute laminitis 
is — supposing we do not succeed in bringing about resolution — 
pretty uniformly in sunk or pumice sole ; the disease rarely, in 
this subdued or mitigated form, ending in suppuration of the foot, 
and never in mortification. 
SYMPTOMS. — Rarely does any complaint about this disease reach 
our ears until the lameness resulting from it is such as to render 
the further use of the horse either dangerous or impracticable ; by 
which time, as generally comes out in the subsequent history of 
the case, it has existed for some days, if not for some weeks. 
The first observation made concerning its presence is that the 
horse does not in his trot step with his accustomed freedom and 
boldness, and that he flinches now and then in his tread, and 
stumbles. This is ascribed to shoeing, perhaps ; in fact, to any 
cause but the true one. For some time his work is still persisted 
in, notwithstanding he goes so gingerly upon his fore feet — in the 
groom’s phrase, “ goes scramblingly ” — until at length he becomes 
unsafe either to ride or drive. This leads to his being brought to 
the veterinary surgeon. Examination into his fumbling gait shews 
that it is not the short pattering step upon the toe, with the conti- 
nual break into the canter, of navicularthritic disease ; but, on the 
contrary, the elongated projection of the limb and measured and 
cautious setting down of the foot upon the heel of laminitic disease. 
And this at once discloses the nature of the case. It is sub-acute 
inflammation of the laminae ; and in confirmation of this, there 
will be, on nice examination of the hoofs, heat detected around the 
walls and upon the coronet; not to the degree present in acute 
laminitis, but sufficient for the purpose of diagnosis. There will 
also probably at this stage of the disease be present some disposi- 
tion of the walls of the hoofs, which are observably shelvy or 
rimmy, to falling in ; and the consequence of such failure in the 
wall will, to a greater or less extent, be sinking of the sole. These 
latter symptoms in particular shew the advance the disease has 
already made ; at the same time that they throw no small dis- 
couragements in the way of the practitioner about to undertake the 
treatment of such a case. 
