380 
A CASE OF SEVERE PUNCTURED WOUND OF 
THE FOOT. 
By Mr. W. C. Spooner, Southampton. 
On the 1st of June last, I was requested, by Mr. Bridger, of 
this town, to attend his bay horse, that was lame in the off hind 
leg, arising, he thought, from an injury of the foot. He was 
shod a few days previously, and, finding him lame, Mr. B. had 
the shoe removed on a journey, and the smith informed him that 
the nails had been driven too close. There was some degree of 
tenderness about the foot, but by no means sufficient to account 
for the severity of the lameness ; nor was there any heat or tender- 
ness about the leg; but on pressing the flexor tendons towards 
the bone, just below the fetlock, at the part where the perforatus 
is penetrated by the perforans, considerable pain was evinced, 
and some degree of enlargement perceived, thus clearly point- 
ing out the situation of the lesion. The owner added, that he 
found him a little lame on first going out, but on the journey he 
knuckled and dropped suddenly on this leg, and afterwards went 
much lamer, and the next day was brought home along distance. 
I thought the tenderness of the foot might have caused this knuck- 
ling, which produced, in all probability, a strain of the sinews 
at this rather unusual place. He w ? as bled freely from the me- 
tacarpal vein, and other antiphlogistic treatment was put in 
practice ; and in the course of a month, when the inflammation 
had subsided and the horse was getting better, though not ra- 
pidly, a blister was applied to the leg. A few days afterwards 
the groom found that the horse had hung back in the night, 
and torn down the rack and manger, and a nail had penetrated 
the off fore foot. 1 saw him soon afterwards, and found that a 
large nail had penetrated the lateral cartilage just above the 
coronary ligament, and had gone for the space of three inches 
inw r ards and downwards, towards the centre of the foot. At first 
it appeared as if the flexor tendon and navicular joint capsule 
must have been penetrated ; but more accurate examination gave 
me reason to hope that this was not the case, and that the course 
of the nail had been just posterior to the sinew. My first ob- 
ject was to guard against tetanus by poulticing, &c.; and this 
being effected, I tried injections of a solution of the sulphate of 
zinc; but it soon appeared to me that 1 should be only losing 
time by thus groping in the dark, and should, at best, have a 
deep-seated quittor to combat with : I therefore determined to 
get a depending orifice, at all risks. Accordingly, in the latter 
