662 
ESSAY ON FOOT-ROT. 
rally falls a victim. Such are the consequences of foot-rot, when 
the disease is not interrupted in its progress; but the event is 
now seldom fatal, as every endeavour is made by the shepherd 
to detect the malady in its earlier stages, when it can be success¬ 
fully treated. 
On examining the foot, in the first stage of the disease, the 
coronary edge, though no external injury can be traced, is some¬ 
times found a little swollen and inflamed. At other times the 
hoof is eroded ; but whether it be shattered or entire, an intense 
heat is always perceptible in the foot, with a strong pulsation in 
the arteries, where they are inserted into the coronary edges of 
the hoof; and, however sound the hoof may appear externally, 
the connexion between it and the interior of the foot is always 
dissolved, though the separation is not evident till the hoof is 
pared away. A peculiar smell is perceptible, especially in the 
advanced stages, or when the ulcerous part is newly opened ; 
yet, even in the worst cases, a large quantity of ichor is never 
discharged, there being little more than will wet the finger, and 
that only when pressed among it. 
The way in which contagion is conveyed to the foot has never 
been clearly ascertained. Some are of opinion that it is intro¬ 
duced by the smell, or that the virus left upon the grass by the 
diseased animal affects the animal through the medium of its 
food. In either case, it must affect the juices of the body, and 
might naturally be supposed to affect the general health, before 
settling in the hoof. But no appearance of this kind has ever 
occurred to my observation, lameness in one of the feet being 
always the first symptom which I could notice. There are many 
eases in which the virus may be communicated directly to the 
foot, without previously passing through the system. The hoof 
grows out, or is renewed rather more than once a-year, and its 
growth pushes forward in the direction of the toe or tip. Hence 
the toe is often extended to an inconvenient length, and at every 
step gets entangled among heath and grass. This protrusion 
soon acquires the hardness and solidity of iron, and in time is 
accidentally torn away, sometimes carrying with it a considerable 
portion of the hoof, and then exposing the sensible incrustation 
which covers the hoof-bone. The virus left upon the herbage 
may thus come directly into contact with the absorbent surface 
of this exposed part of the foot. The scarf skin which covers 
the coronary border, and which is thin and tender, may also admit 
the virus through its pores. The disease, as has been said, may 
exist where the hoof is sound and firm, and in this case it must 
have been communicated through the cuticle, or by the smell, or 
