46 
moderate exercise while it lasts, relieves the pain in a measure, and that such symptoms 
are characteristic of chronic rheumatism. 
Thirdly from a similarity of symptoms between acute founder in the horse and an 
attack of acute rheumatism in man. 
In both instances there is the same terrible suffering from pain, particularly when 
forced to move, or change position. I think the term acute rheumatism might well 
apply to that miserable plight, in which we often find horses we call “foundered” and 
for which condition the same causes might be attributed as might and would under cer¬ 
tain conditions produce an attack of inflammatory or acute rheumatism in man. 
The tendency or desire to throw the weight on the posterior parts of the foot to my 
mind is not^an indication that “acute laminitis ” is the cause of the pain, for the 
laminae are found posterior to the body of the coffin-bone and on the inner surfaces 
of the bars of the foot. On the other hand, this peculiarity of position shows an effort 
to relieve the coffin-bone as much as possible from bearing weight, the flexor tendons 
and navicular bone doing a good portion of this work for the time being. 
1 find that an animal suffering from acute rheumatism of the feet, stands, when 
permitted to do so, comparatively free from violent pain, but if he is made to move, his 
suffering is such that he groans, like a human being and it has suggested itself to me 
many times that there was pain in the tendinous insertions of the muscles and in the 
sheaths of the tendons as well, and that the malady was not entirely confined to the 
feet. The comparative suddenness of attack, either in the hind or fore feet in the 
horse and the apparent lack of exciting cause in some instances, corresponds with its 
development in man. 
I believe it to be metastatic from the pleura, the peritoneum and other serious 
structures and I have seen it complicated in two or three instances with what appeared 
to be pericarditis, one of which cases was shown to Dr. Stickney, who diagnosed the 
case as it was presented at the time he saw it, as inflammation of the pericardium. 
If the sensitive laminae, a mucous tissue, was in that active stage of inflammation 
and the tendency to metastasis allowed to be as great as we believe it to be, I should 
not think it safe practice to excite the mucous membrane of the intestines with cathar¬ 
tics, as we do, as there would be serious danger of attracting the inflammation to that 
locality. 
In what may be called passive inflammation of the foot, we see frequently in colts 
that have never been shod or worked the evidences of such disorder, even in yearlings 
and two year olds, not only observing the stumbling and soreness consequent upon 
pain and imperfect development, but the deformed and diminished outward aspect of the 
hoofs and inaction and non-development of the limbs. In such cases the ordinary ex¬ 
citing causes which are said to produce such forms of disease are lacking, so far as injury 
from shoeing and driving are concerned, so that we must look for something beyond 
where we have looked, to account for such manifestations of disease. 
These are my reasons so far as I am able to give them for the rheumatic theory 
.and they are not so full and convincing as I wish they were, or as I hope to furnish at 
some future time. 
They satisfy me however as far as they go and I*hope they will lead some one 
better qualified than myself to pursue the inquiry still further. 
In this connection I believe examinations of the urine in cases of founder might de¬ 
velop something for or against my theory, and 1 believe the eburnation or porcellaneous 
change of the articular surface of the coffin joint may not be absent entirely in many 
cases of chronic lameness. 
