15 
INFLAMMATION IN THE FEET OF HORSES. 
in both fore feet, after a day’s hunt with Lord Dei by s hounds, in 
which he had been pushed at a violent rate down several steep 
flinty hills. Towards the evening of the same day, the animal ex¬ 
perienced such pain in his feet, that he maintained the standing 
. - posture in evident agony; indeed, his remarkable position (which 
I need not describe) put me instantly in possession of the nature 
of his malady, in this instance, in spite of eveiy depletic mea¬ 
sure, inflammation continued into suppuration; the soles sunk ; 
and the horse, rendered useless, was sacrificed. 
Another origin of this disease is metastasis. I have, on several 
occasions, had & horses under my treatment for inflammation of the 
lum>s, abdomen, and brain, in which the inflammatory action nas 
left either of these organs, and sunk down into the feet; and this 
I have found to happen more particularly in lingering or protract¬ 
ed cases, the feet becoming affected at the time the disease is on 
the decline in the organ primarily attacked. I have at this time 
in mv infirmary a case in point. A brown gelding, admitted the 
17th of September for enteritis, from which he had no soonei reco¬ 
vered, than he became the subject of inflammation of all four feet. 
I may remark here, concerning cases of metastasis in general, that 
I look upon them as having the same pathological origin as when 
the disease is primary; for we know that sick horses are in the 
habit of retaining the standing posture for weeks and even months 
together; and are thereby imposing the same unremitting stretch 
on the elastic parts of the foot, as is cxpeiicnced by hoists on 
board of ship. . . 
The symptoms of inflammation in the feet are so characteristic, 
as scarcely, by any one in practice, to admit of being misunder¬ 
stood. Indeed, were we to limit our observations to the expres¬ 
sions of pain the animal manifests in his feet, we should scaicely 
ever find ourselves mistaken. The animal cannot beai to stand 
upon the affected feet for any length of time together: he will lift 
up the foot in pain, or alternately relieve the others, should they 
be attacked, by raising up one and then another; and, should 
pain in one predominate, he will mainly rest the toe of it upon the 
ground. Should both fore feet be in pain, and not the hind, he 
will advance the latter under the belly towards the centre of the 
body, so that he may make them sustain, by themselves, as much 
as possible of the superincumbent weight. If excited to move, 
to which he expresses the utmost disinclination, he still endea¬ 
vours to make the hind feet support his w'eight, and, in his ciloits 
so to do, displays a gait at once so. strikingly remarkable, that he 
who has once witnessed one case of this description can never 
mistake another. Sometimes the animal shews a constant incli¬ 
nation to lie down ; in which posture he removes all stress from 
