PUNCTURED WOUNDS OF THE FOOT. 
539 
You will agree with rue, no doubt, that the very nature of 
the construction of the horse’s foot, the delicate and vascular 
structure of the tissues entering into the formation of the 
soft parts thereof, confined as they are within the horny, box¬ 
like hoof, is a condition of things which renders wounds of 
this organ more or less troublesome, always calling for special 
treatment, differing somewhat, in its practical application at 
least, from that employed in the treatment of wounds of any 
other part of the body. Let a nail or any other sufficiently 
hard and pointed substance penetrate through the sole or frog, 
and though it may have only slightly punctured the sensitive 
parts, it has caused a wound of those structures which nature 
must go about repairing according to the same laws which 
operate in the healing of wounds in any other part of the body. 
The nail or other substance has, when it is withdrawn, affected 
the horn of the horse’s foot verv much in the same manner as a 
needle would if made to penetrate a cork, it has left little if 
any opening in the horn ; the wound in the sensitive tissues 
has caused the escape of more or less blood or serum from 
their proper channels, which now lies as so much foreign 
matter in the part, and for which there is no channel of 
escape. If the quantity of blood or serosity is too great to be 
absorbed, suppuration must inevitably follow. The foot not 
being opened from below, nature in her efforts to get rid of 
the little blood, together with the products of the inflamma¬ 
tion which these efforts have cost her, by her laws from 
which she cannot deviate, works the destruction ol more and 
more tissue until she finds a place above the horn where the 
diminished density of the structure will facilitate breaking 
through. Sometimes, owing no doubt to the location of the 
puncture, these efforts of nature have caused so much de¬ 
struction of tissue as to cause the hoof to drop off, to say 
nothing of septicaemia, etc., which sometimes results from 
mismanagement of the cases. By the use of the term misman¬ 
agement I do not mean to reflect on the treatment or man¬ 
agement of these cases by any member of this profession, 
especially any of the gentlemen present, for we find too often 
that all the mismanagement necessary to work the destruc 
