ON CANKER IN THE HORSE. 
197 
respiration by volatile infected matters it contains, once intro¬ 
duced into the respiratory passages, becomes absorbed, and 
infects the blood by engendering a septic influence in it. And 
these two agents—unwholesome water and air—become the 
occasion, in the immense majority of cases, of the septic cha¬ 
racter assumed by disease, which increases with its gravity. 
Recueil de Med. Vet., Oct., 1851. 
CERTAIN CURE FOR CANKER IN THE HORSE. 
By M. L. E. Plasse, Veterinary Surgeon at Niort (Deux-Sevres). 
Armed with a great number of facts, I have much satisfac¬ 
tion in offering to notice a simple and ready method of radically 
removing canker in the foot of the horse, a disease for which 
veterinary medicine possesses no positive means of cure. By 
my method—which for many years I have put to severe tests—• 
we may for the future treat, at the same time , in the same 
animal, all feet that are diseased, and with full confidence of 
there being no return of the disease. I may congratulate 
myself on uniformly having obtained the same results. I can 
reckon 400 cures, and 1 dare promise the same success to those 
of the profession who are willing to make themselves ac¬ 
quainted with the directions I am about to give. 
First of all, I would remark that, whereas ulcers of the foot in 
general call, of necessity, for some protective to more or less 
completely compensate for the horn which has been removed, 
canker, as I shall have occasion to shew, is to be made an 
exception in this respect, it being my opinion that the foot 
ought to be exposed to the open air without any covering 
whatsoever, a condition on which all positive results depend. 
In my opinion, the fungous growths prove more obstinate in 
their growth in darkness than in light. Forcible compression, 
were it possible to maintain it up to the point of destruction, 
accomplishes its purpose through the entire absence of air 
and the suppression of the circulation. 
Having, then, abolished all covering in the treatment of canker, 
cauterization appeared to me the most rational way of arriving 
at a definite result. I therefore instituted several experiments 
on this head, having constantly in view the relation between 
canker, frush, warts, &c. When the fungous growths are 
attacked by the knife or the actual cautery, it proves inef¬ 
fectual, unless the knife or the actual cautery be carried deeper 
