use--a blow--is the starting
point in interfering, we may now consider the subject of the
predisposition which brings such serious results upon the suffering
animal, and the conditions which lead to and accompany it. These are
numerous, but the first in frequency and importance is peculiarity of
conformation in the animals addicted to it. The first class will include
horses, whose chests are narrow and whose legs do not stand straight and
upright, but are crooked and pigeon-toed in and out. The second class
includes those whose legs are weak, either from youth or hard labor, or
from severe attacks of sickness. Another class is made up of those
having abnormally developed feet, or which have been badly shod with
unnecessarily wide or heavy shoes. Another class consists of those that
are affected with swollen fetlocks or chronic, edematous swelling of the
leg. Another is formed of animals with a peculiar action, as those whose
knee action is very high, and it is these that furnish most of the cases
of speedy cut.

_Prognosis._--The prognosis of interfering is never a very serious one.
However violent the blow may be it is rarely that subsequent
complications of a troublesome nature occur. The principal evil
attending it is a liability to be followed by a thickened or callous
deposit which is not only an eyesore and a blemish, but constitutes a
new and increased predisposition. The remark that "an animal which has
interfered once is always liable to interfere," is often confirmed and
sanctioned by a recurrence of the trouble.

_Treatment._--Another point in which there is a resemblance between this
lesion and others which we have considered is in its responsiveness to
the same treatment with them. Indeed, the prescription of warm
fomentations, soothing applications, and astringent and resolvent
mixtures, in a majority of cases, is the first that occurs all through
the list. If the swelling assumes the character of a serous collection,
pressure, cold water, and bandages will contribute to its removal. If
suppuration seems to be established and the swelling assumes the
character of a developing abscess, hot poultices of flaxseed or of
boiled vegetables and the embrocations of sedative ointments, those of
basilicon, or vaseline, impregnated with preparations of opium or
belladonna--all these recommend themselves by their general adaptation
and the beneficial results which have followed their administration, not
less in one