147 
ON LAMINITIS. 
By Thos. D. Broad, M.B.C.V.S., Bath. 
Feb . mk , L869. 
I BEG to ask the favour of being allowed to make a few 
comments on the paper on Laminitis in this month^s 
Veterinarian, by Mr. Fleming, who states that he would 
rather employ M. Bouley^s turpentine frictions to induce 
a horse to move than have recourse to flogging the unfortu¬ 
nate creature with a whip or other instrument of torture. 
In nineteen cases out of twenty, the irritation produced by 
the application of turpentine to the skin of a horse passes 
ofi* in about twenty minutes, so that the exercise obtained in 
that way would be very little indeed; and I must say that it 
appears to me to be a much more cruel and unscientiflc 
mode of procedure, than that of frightening a horse by 
showing him the whip, for that is all that is necessary in the 
majority of cases; I never found it necessary to use a whip 
sufficiently to amount to ^^torture^^ or even punishment. 
Mr. Fleming also objects to the application of special shoes 
to the feet during their acutely inflamed state, and says that 
a more rational mode of procedure would be to lower the 
crust and throw the weight on the sole and frog. Had Mr. 
Fleming not stated in his paper that he had not seen a case 
for more than eight years, I should have known that those 
remarks were not the result of practical experience but merely 
theorizing. To show the effects of pressure on the sole and 
fros:, I will cite two recent cases of Laminitis in all four 
feet, the result of over-exertion. Both cases had been four 
weeks under the treatment of a neighbouring M.R.C.V.S. 
who had carried out my plan of treatment in every respect 
excepting that he had the horses^ ordinary hunting shoes 
made thin at the heels and put on again without cutting the 
feet, instead of having special shoes put on. The result was 
a failure. The horses were brought a distance of fifteen 
miles to my place, and were excessively lame, all the soles 
of both horses being sunken, and blood oozing from the toes 
of the fore feet of one of the horses; so lame were they that 
it was difficult to get them to stand to have the special shoes 
fitted, for if left five minutes they would lie down on the 
bare stones from the excessive pain caused by standing. The 
fore shoe which was taken ofi* one horse weighed one pound 
and was replaced by a bar shoe weighing three pounds. 
