92 
SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
received more or less friction, which would set up a fever. 
Treatment ought to be according to the cause; if sloughing, 
poultice—poultice would be good, as it hastened it. 
Dr. Kemp thought that erythema was a wrong term to ap¬ 
ply, when the trouble was due to chafing. 
Dr. Coates said, if vitality is‘destroyed, sloughing must take 
place. Ice on {surface, was a cause of loss of vitality. It might 
even be due to frost bite, or even a burn. 
Dr. C. Burden admitted that it was generally thought to be 
due to cold, yet there have been more cases of late, although there 
had been no cold weather. 
Dr. S. K. Johnson thought there were other predisposing 
causes, and spoke of the practice of washing off the mud in some 
stables, and not in others, and of the different results. 
Dr. §L. McLean wanted to know where the line was to be 
drawn between frost bite and mud fever and scratches, and asked 
if scratches was to be excluded, and mud fever to be considered 
a frost bite. 
Dr. Kemp drew no line between the two. 
Dr. JR. McLean considered it erythema, having only a deeper 
effect; what the cause was it was hard to say. He referred to a 
stable of thirty-six horses, which, last year, had had the hair on 
the fetlocks cut close, and washed regularly, yet had been consid¬ 
erably troubled with mud fever and scratches; this year this had 
not been done, and there had been less trouble. 
Dr. Kemp contended that mud was of no benefit, and ought 
not to be allowed to remain on all night. 
Dr. JR. McLean said the mud was rubbed in. 
Dr. Kemp did not consider that rubbing the mud in was 
washing it off. 
Dr. Pendry contended, that where this trouble appeared to 
follow washing, it was not due to that act, but entirely due to the 
careless and improper way the washing was done, and more par¬ 
ticularly in not properly drying the parts after. He failed to see 
any virtue in mud, gathered by the horses from the dirty streets, 
and thought that the sooner the fetlocks were relieved from such 
mud the better. 
