602 
REMOVAL OF THE COFFIN-RONE. 
On the 1st of May I was requested to attend on a mule, seven 
or eight ears old, and lame in the right fore leg. Two days be¬ 
fore, the owner had drawn a nail from the foot, that had pene¬ 
trated two inches near to the point of the frog, and, notwithstanding 
the consequent lameness, he had continued to work the animal. 
The lameness was now extreme, and a greyish foetid matter 
escaped from the wound, which had taken a direction upwards 
and backwards. A pledget dipped in oil of turpentine was the 
only thing that I at first applied. 
On my second visit, on the 4th, the wound was of a livid 
colour, with the same kind of foetid discharge as at first. A 
fistula had now reached the pastern, passing over the superior 
surface of the frog. I removed a portion of the sole and the 
frog, and brought to view the expansion of the perforans tendon, 
the colour of which was also livid. The wound was dressed with 
digestive ointment, rendered more stimulating by tincture of 
aloes. 
The swelling was considerably increased on the 7th of May, 
when my third visit was made ; it extended from the knee to the 
coronet, and a stinking serous fluid exuded from the coronet. 
The mule evidently suffered much, and could no longer rest her 
weight on the lame foot. To the former application I now 
added some Goulard lotion; pledgets of tow r bathed in it were 
wrapped round the coronet. 
M. Garcin goes on to describe the rapid separation of the 
hoof from its attachment to the coffin-bone—the appearance of 
tumour after tumour on the coronet, each of which in turn broke 
and discharged foetid pus, mixed at length with exfoliations of 
the anterior ligament of the articulation of the foot; and then 
the discharge of synovial fluid, evidently from the joint between 
the coffin-bone and the lower pastern, until the 2d of June, when 
he says, “ the whole laminated tissue of the os pedis was de¬ 
stroyed, and the bone itself no longer held in its horny box, but by 
a very small portion of ligament, so that, introducing my fingers 
into an opening that had been made in the anterior part of the 
horn, I was enabled to draw it out with scarcely any difficulty.” 
ic It is easy to imagine,” he goes on, “ how strange an appear¬ 
ance the foot presented, deprived of the bone which formed its 
base. The sole had, before this, been entirely taken away, and 
the anterior portion of the crust. A white fibrous substance, 
however, began to appear, by little and little, within the void ; it 
hardened, and it finished by covering itself with a species of horn 
which securely defended it. This new foot, if we may give it 
that name, was covered by the remains of the old hoof, from 
which it was separated by an interval of some lines.” 
