300 LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
importance to be observed in the performance of the operation, with 
a view to secure success; and if these points are very carefully and 
very attentively minded, all but invariable success will follow. In 
the first place, I premise it is altogether unnecessary to say a word 
about the nature of canker. You all of you know what canker is, 
and how exceedingly difficult it is to cure. Some few cases get 
better under the old method of employing innumerable inconceivable 
and unintelligible modes of treatment; many of them after having 
been under hand some six months, others twelve, eighteen, and 
twenty-four months, are at length condemned to go to the dogs. I 
believe canker to be a specific disease, differing altogether and entirely 
from cancer. It is a morbid fungoid growth upon the surface of the 
sensitive frog, or sensitive sole, or sensitive lamina; or it may be on 
any two of them, or on all three conjointly : it appears in all sorts of 
feet, even the best formed feet, and in animals which have also good 
clean flat firm legs; it is sometimes an accompaniment of greasy 
heels, but it is found as often where there is not the slightest 
tendency to greasy heels. 
Well, then, the point which we must first take into our consi¬ 
deration is the age and value of the horse; if he is, say under ten or 
twelve years old, and worth, say thirty pounds, it will be worth while 
taking him in hand. Be particular to examine all his feet; if the 
disease is only in one foot, or even in two feet, and confined to the frog 
and a portion of the sole, it matters little how long it has existed, it 
is to be cured easily and almost certainly. If it is in the lamina it is 
always more difficult to cure, still in several of my cases the whole 
sole, frog, and the lamina on both sides have been affected, some of 
them had been bad for years ; they, nevertheless, recovered, and 
that radically. I pay no attention to the general health, place 
no reliance whatever upon any internal remedial treatment. I 
have the shoe removed, and supposing the frog and sole only 
affected, get the smith to lower the crust all round, almost to 
the blood, but the sole is not to be touched, get a bar shoe 
fitted to be in readiness; then, with the point of your drawing- 
knife, cut a groove all round the sole at its junction with the 
wall, so deep that you can see the blood ; this done, cast the 
horse, have the twitch put on him, and supposing it is a hind 
foot which is affected, bring this foot forward, place it across the 
foreleg, and secure it there quite close and firmly with a flat rope, 
)hU on a tourniquet below the hock, then take a sharp scalpel and cut 
completely through the remaining horn of the sole at the bottom of 
the groove all round, always being particular to include all diseased 
parts, and even to reach beyond them, say one inch at least, whether 
it be sole or wall. If the laminee be afiected you must cut a groove 
from the coronet right down to the bottom, like to a sand- 
crack, one inch at least beyond the part affected, and include this 
in the horn to be removed. Now comes the most important point 
to be observed in the whole of the operation. Take great care to 
clean the surface of the affected part with bits of clean tow and 
throw them away, then get your small levers under the horny sole 
