424 
A. ZUNDEL. 
tion which is the initial phenomenon of founder itself. But this 
assumption may be successfully contested. Bad shoeing may pro¬ 
duce many forms of lameness; never laminitis. It has been said 
that feet of defective conformation are more commonly affected 
with founder that those which are well formed. This, however, 
is not so, and feet with contracted heels are no more predisposed 
to it than flat feet, as claimed by Girard. Traumatic accidents, as 
blows, injuries and pressure, produced by stones, crushing of the 
feet under heavy weights or under the wheels of a truck, etc., 
may produce a violent congestion of the reticular tissue of the 
foot, and consequently laminitis. But this founder itself is of 
too active a character and more complex perhaps, with a natural 
tendency to suppuration, as we have already said. It must then 
be considered as varying from laminitis proper, or that form in 
which the congestion is of a more passive character, or at least 
internal and somewhat analagous to that which is sometimes ob¬ 
served in the lungs or in the intestines. It might be better 
described as an “ astonishment ” ( etonnement ) of the foot, as it is 
sometimes called. 
Laminitis proper is rarely due to a unique cause, but more 
properly to a number of circumstances or to an assemblage of 
various causes by which the horse is at first somewhat indisposed 
—sick in fact; and it is only after various general symptoms that 
the disease localizes itself in the feet, or, as the old phraseology 
has it, falls in tl le feet. 
The most effective cause is too abundant, and especially too 
substantial feeding, which produces plethora by rich blood. It 
is tiie use of other grains than oats, as wheat, barley or rye, 
which especially predisposes to the disease. Latin authors called 
it hordeatio (from hordeum, barley), and it is mentioned by Solly- 
sel, Garsault, Gaspard de Saunier, and various hippiatries. Bodet 
has observed its bad effects in Egypt and in Spain, where animals 
were fed not only with those grains, but when they received 
wheat in spike. Miltenberger had observed the same effects dur¬ 
ing the war of 1812, in Poland, where the horses were fed with 
rye. In our days even laminitis is seen breaking out in the years 
when feed is scarce and when oats have to be replaced by other 
grains, as is proved by the observations of Bouley, Verrier, Bey, 
