LAMINITIS, AND ITS TREATMENT. 
8i 
tating the circulation of the blood in the parts where it is 
most ready to stagnate^ and to diminish the intensity of the 
suffering resulting from the compression these parts are sub¬ 
jected to by the hoof in their abnormally swollen state.In 
speaking of the treatment of laminitis_, he recommends that 
animals suffering from this disease should be eondueted to 
running streams,, and rather kept moving than allowed to 
remain standing, so as to prevent their getting cold, and also 
to render the circulation more free at the extremities of the 
limbs. It is known that walking prevents capillary stag¬ 
nation, and consequently considerably diminishes the pain 
that arises from the compression of the living congested tissues 
by the inextensible horn enveloping them.'’'’t And he speaks 
of irritating frictions, made with spirits of turpentine, parti¬ 
cularly on the limbs and lumbar region, as being extremely 
useful in preventing horses with inflamed feet from remaining 
fixed in one place, in a state of almost eomplete immobility. 
They cause them to move about mueh better than any other 
exeitant, for the sensations they produce, although ephe¬ 
meral, are energetic enough to dominate for a certain time 
the pain in the feet, and cause the animal to forget it. And 
as this suffering is considerably diminished by walking, in 
consequence of the depletion in the keratogenous apparatus 
that the motion determines, it results even when the effects 
of the irritating frictions have passed away, that the animals 
do not the less continue to move about freely, their feet, for 
the moment clisengorged, being no longer the seat of any pain. 
It is good when such horses are exercised, to have them led 
on soft, damp ground, such as a meadow, newly tilled soil, or 
a muddy road, for then the astringent aetion of cold on the 
hoofs assists locomotion in disengorging the capillary system 
of the feet.'’^ 
Lafosse,J in his new ^ Treatise on Veterinary Pathology,^ 
in an almost inexhaustive, and eertainly unequalled descrip¬ 
tion of the maladies the horse^s foot is liable to, enters 
minutely into the subject of laminitis and its treatment. In 
doing so, he alludes to the effects of motion : It is always 
remarked, that no matter how extensive and serious the 
disease may be, walking is never more difficult than at start¬ 
ing ; as it is prolonged and the animal becomes heated, the 
suffering diminishes, doubtless because the exercise, in 
accelerating the venous circulation, relieves the congested 
capillaries.^^ 
With such hii^h authoritv to sanction this mode of treat- 
O V 
* Paf^e 323. f Page 329. 
X ‘ Trait,e de Pathologie Yeterinairef vol. ii. 
