OSSIFICATION OF THE LATERAL CARTILAGE. SIDE-BONF. 
631 
half of the foot suffers the greater shock during movement, explains why 
the outer cartilage more frequently becomes ossified than the inner. 
The prognosis depends on the horse’s work, weight, and breed, on 
the form of the hoof, and on the extent of ossification. Heavy horses 
with completely ossified lateral cartilages are of little use for rapid work 
on paved streets. When only one cartilage is affected, or when the 
animal is worked on soft ground, side-bones are comparatively unim¬ 
portant. While ossification is in active progress the animal goes tender, 
if not actually lame, but as soon as it becomes complete the lameness 
tends to disappear, though it readily returns in consequence of bruising 
or strain if the tread is not level. Lameness is usually temporary, but 
the diseased cartilage can never be restored to its primitive condition. 
After ossification is complete, lameness may be produced by bruising 
of the plantar cushion and of the sensitive wall, which are then enclosed 
between two hard, unyielding structures; the plantar cushion, being 
confined by the ossified cartilages, can expand neither towards the right 
nor left at the moment at which weight is placed on the foot and the 
sensitive wall being similarly placed between the horny wall and ossified 
cartilage. A partial improvement may occur when the plantar cushion 
diminishes in volume. If, in addition, the wall is contracted at the 
heels, the condition is even more serious. 
Treatment consists in- resting the horse, removing the shoes, and 
placing the animal on tan or other soft bed; thinning the wall over the 
affected cartilage, and applying cold poultices. When lameness disappears 
shoe as directed below. Should lameness persist, a smart mercurial 
blister may be applied, or the lateral cartilage fired in points, and the 
animal be given two or three months’ rest. 
Col. Fred Smith isolates the portion of the wall covering the side- 
bone by deep incisions through the wall and sole, and so relieves the 
inflamed parts of pressure, but the results are not invariably satisfactory. 
In shoeing animals with side-bone it is important to know whether the 
condition is uni- or hi- lateral. In side-bone of the outer heel the wall of 
that side is comparatively immobile, and the corresponding quarter and 
heel of the shoe is excessively worn. On removing the shoe the outer 
wall is found much higher than the inner. The external heel of the 
shoe is thin, the internal comparatively little worn. The hoof is either 
unchanged in form or the wall of the outer heel is contracted, and 
sometimes covered with rings. The outer portion of the coronet is more 
prominent, and the outer limb of the frog smaller than the inner. 
Bruises or strains in the wall not infrequently exist. 
The shoe should be flat, the outer limb broader than usual, the seating- 
out should terminate behind the last nail hole, so that the entire breadth 
of the heel surface may form a horizontal plane. The outer wall should 
