204 
PATHOLOGICAL FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
warm bath. With these I have been generally successful in sub¬ 
duing the most severe attacks of this sort in a very few days. 
But if the symptoms do not appear to moderate within a week, 
the prognosis will be bad. In a very short time we may expect 
that a change of structure will begin to take place; and after the 
vessels have got into a state of collapse, bleeding will no longer 
be of any use. Counter-irritation, as blisters, &c. may then be 
employed over the coronet with some advantage. 
Every body knows what is likely to happen when we have 
failed in our endeavours to cut short this disease. In such cases, 
the structural change commonly goes on to the total disorganiza¬ 
tion of the contents of the foot. There will be, first, elongation, 
then disunion of theTaminae, and consequent descent of the cof¬ 
fin bone from its relative position in the hoof; bilging or bearing 
dowm the sole, till it sinks below the level of the ground-surface 
of the crust; and then the animal is a cripple for life. To this 
state of the foot I have no objection that the term Founder 
should be applied. Here, indeed, I think it very expressive of 
the lost and sinking state of the animal machine. But we also 
know, that all this alteration of structure may take place from 
other causes besides acute inflammation of the laminae; and I 
therefore repeat, that, according to its common acceptation, the 
term founder is vague, loose, and indefinite; calculated to mis¬ 
lead, and unworthy of the nineteenth century. The explanation 
given in Johnson’s Dictionary of this term is, u to cause such a 
soreness and tenderness in a horse’s foot, that he is unable to 
set it to the ground.” And the non-veterinary world have always 
found it a convenient w r ord to designate lameness of any kind : 
we, how r ever, should discriminate. 
It is evidently in this general sense that Colonel Napier has 
made use of it in his excellent and elegantly written History of 
the Peninsular War, now publishing. Whilst narrating the 
events which took place at the end of the retreat to Corunna, and 
in speaking of the cavalry, he says, “ The horses still left alive 
w r ere generally foundered ;” by which he only means to convey, 
that they were generally lame, and in a bad state. It is true 
that our horses were in a very crippled condition on arriving at 
Corunna. Their feet were, indeed, sadly broken ; but this was 
principally owing to the want of shoeing : and we had been 
obliged to destroy a number on the road, from the same cause, 
being unable to get them on any further. It is also equally true, 
that they w^ere generally in a very weak and emaciated state, in 
consequence of the vast fatigue they had undergone, and the ex¬ 
treme scarcity of forage we had experienced. But the disease of 
which 1 have been speaking, which prevailed so extensively at 
