298 LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
Laminitis. 
It is not my intention to occupy your time in discussing the 
anatomy and physiology of the foot, or the merits of the various 
methods of treatment advocated by different practitioners, further 
than to say that, having had the good fortune to be present when 
this subject was brought forward and discussed at five of the Pro¬ 
vincial Veterinary Medical Associations, I have heard the views, 
opinions, and mode of treatment of some of the wisest and most 
eminent practitioners of the day. I have endeavoured to profit by 
these advantages, and to bring the knowledge thus gained to bear 
upon my patients ; and although my success has been perhaps equal 
to that of any of my fellow veterinary surgeons, still the results have 
been upon the whole anything but satisfactory to me ; and I feel 
persuaded that if you, my hearers, will be candid with me, you will 
admit the same as regards your own experience, not only in the 
treatment of this disease, but also in the other disease which I am 
about bringing under your notice, viz., canker. 
The opinion I entertain on the nature of acute laminitis is, that 
it is protracted intense cramp in the dense fibrous tissues of the 
feet, forcibly drawing backwards and downwards the toe of the 
coffin bone. That this view of acute laminitis is the correct view 
is, I think, borne out by the organic changes produced, and the 
altered position of the coffin bone in the hoof. The first in order 
is the tearing away of the horny laminae from the body of the wall 
at the toe of the foot: as far as is yet ascertained, this is the first 
change in protracted acute laminitis. There is a space intervening 
between the back of the horny laminae and the wall at the toe; 
this is observed to exist prior to any indication of sinking of the 
sole in front of the point of the frog; this space that I have alluded 
to is filled up with an exudation, a sort of lymph, which in the 
process of time becomes horn, but only imperfect horn, as shown in 
the specimens before us. During the summer time the under sur¬ 
face of the coffin bone bulges out, and sinks downwards, producing 
pumiced feet. That it is not congestion of the vascular system in 
the foot, nor inflammation in the foot, that is, inflamm*ation proper, 
I am convinced, because it is not subject to the same conditions that 
inflammation is ; it is not regulated by the same laws nor subject to 
the terminations that inflammation is. The success attendant upon 
the following mode of treatment is a proof that it is not inflammation, 
neither is it controllable by, nor amenable to, the same treatment to 
which inflammation usually yields. Do you call to my notice the 
throbbing of the artery and the heat in the feet to prove to me that 
it is inflammation? I say this is by no means a proof. You may 
bleed to syncope, until your patient falls, as I have done, three days 
in succession, thus exhausting the arterial tubes of almost all their 
blood, but all the while they are throbbing still. I believe it is not 
dependent upon any impediment in the passage of the blood in 
the capillary vessels in the foot, but to a violent vibratory action in 
the coats of the artery itself. 
