INFLAMMATION IN THE FEET OF HORSES. 13 
should we, an abler man will soon start to fill up this lamentable 
and shameful chasm in the education of the veterinary student. 
INFLAMMATION IN THE FEET OF HORSES. 
By John Peecivall, Esq., Senior Veterinary Surgeon 
to the Ordnance . 
[Read at the Veterinary Medical Society, Nov. 12, 1828.] 
NO animal is so liable to disorder and deformity of the feet as the 
horse; and no part of the horse is more frequently brought under 
our notice, or in disease requires greater attention, judgment, and 
experience, than the foot. These considerations impress me fully 
with the importance and difficulties attendant on the subject I 
have chosen for this evening’s discussion ; and such considera¬ 
tions I must entreat the Society will not lose sight of in the course 
of the perusal of this paper, lest my observations should fall short 
of their expectations. 
Why the foot beyond every other organ or part should so often 
be the seat of disease, will probably appear in a sufficiently clear 
light when we come to reflect upon (if I may so express myself) 
its habits . In the first place, it is of all other parts or organs that 
which is the most likely to be called on to do more than nature 
designed it to do, or than is compatible with the maintenance of 
health, either in regard to force, celerity, or continuance of action. 
In the second place, the foot is made to act upon a surface unna¬ 
tural, and of itself, indirectly, even injurious to it; upon a surface 
hard and unyielding, directly opposing its own natural elasticity. 
In the third place, the foot (to use a remarkable expression of a 
remarkable veterinary writer) is “ confined within an iron prison 
in plainer language, is so constrained by the shoe in common use, 
that its powers of expansion are veiy limited. If either one of 
these causes may (and it would appear either fairly might) be 
brought forward as an excitant of inflammation, with how much 
more reason may we adduce the three acting in combination ; and, 
in truth, the three are in common all to be brought into the ac¬ 
count of causation. 
Heat of litter has been considered as a cause of inflammation in 
the feet. I am not, however, inclined to subscribe to this opinion, 
and principally for this plain reason, because I believe that the 
litter seldom or never grows so hot as the sensible and inflam¬ 
mable parts of the foot naturally are. I do not mean to say that 
a dung-heap would not acquire this and a much greater tempera- 
