U. S. VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
459 
DIAGNOSIS. 
The diagnosis of contraction is a simple matter in itself to an anatomist and 
veterinarian familiar with the horse’s foot, after a careful examination and com¬ 
parison of first one foot and then the other, and a general estimation of the breed 
and character of the animal. It is again not, as a usual thing, difficult to deter¬ 
mine just how much of the affected foot is involved; whether the whole foot is 
diminished in size as the result of long-continued trouble, or whether only a heel, 
a quarter, or some part of the wall is contracted, the result of one or two sets of 
bad shoes or closely driven nails. But it is frequently a most difficult thing to 
determine if the contraction alone is the cause of a lameness, or if it is not com¬ 
plicated by other disease ; in the latter case it again becomes of the greatest im¬ 
portance to diagnose which is the original trouble and which the sequela. After 
recognizing the contraction, the shoe must be removed and examined as to its 
bearings and the clinching of the nails; the foot must then be pared out, and 
thoroughly searched for pricks, bruises, corns and any staining of the yellow line 
which succeeds the podophyllous tissue and limits the sole from the walls and 
bars. Special attention must be paid to the bars, examining if they had been 
pared thin or bruised. The frog will be examined by direct pressure, compres¬ 
sion from the side, and the structure under it by counter pressure on the frog and 
the hollow of the pastern. The structures above will be examined for quittor, 
ringbone, synovitis, strains of the tendons and ligaments, and for bone troubles. 
Whether other troubles exist or do not exist, the shoe must be replaced in a proper 
manner, so as to remedy any defect of pressure or deformity as much as possible, 
and the animal must be re-examined cold, after warming up, and again cold. It 
is only in this way that the effects of the work, the presence of temporary local 
fever, and a proper diagnosis can be arrived at. In many cases treatment of a 
contraction, or of a complicating trouble, or of both, must be continued for some 
days before a definite diagnosis and prognosis can be given for either trouble. 
TREATMENT. 
The treatment of contraction is preventive and curative. 
Preventive treatment should start with the foal by the dam’s side. Winter 
foals and those in private hands are often forced to stand on dry floors, which 
bake out the moisture from the cushions of their feet before the wall and frog 
are fairly ready to perform their proper function, and the dried brittle mass 
wears off on one side and starts a contracted foot from the earliest days of the 
animal’s life ; others which have had the fortune to run in good pasture as foals, 
at the commencement of winter are housed so that they have no opportunity to 
wear down excessive growth, and they come out in the spring with deformed 
feet; others again, from some lameness, injury, or other cause, start a crooked 
foot, and the lateral pressure soon increases the contraction. From the time the 
animal is a weanling its feet should be looked after, and dressed with rasp and 
knife when defects in their conformation and level are found. Good, clean, dirt 
floors and plenty of exercise prevent dryness and brittleness of the feet ; where 
the latter exists, either from heredity or previous carelessness, the feet should 
be treated so as to bring them to their normal hygroscopicity. The same rule 
applies to the older horse, after it has been shod. Thrushy feet are especially 
