nd bandages as
directed in punctured wounds. When the lameness has subsided, and a thin
layer of new horn has covered the exposed parts, the foot may be shod.
Cover the frog with a thick pad of oakum, held in place by pieces of tin
fitted to slide under the shoe, and return to slow work. Where caries of
the coffin bone, etc., follow the injury the treatment recommended for
these complications in punctured wounds of the foot must be resorted to.

PUNCTURED WOUNDS OF THE FOOT.

Of all the injuries to which the foot of the horse is liable, none are
more common than punctured wounds, and none are more serious than these
may be when involving the more important organs within the hoof. A nail
is the most common instrument by which the injury is inflicted, yet
wounds may happen from glass, wire, knives, sharp pieces of rock, etc.

A wound of the foot is more serious when made by a blunt-pointed
instrument than when the point is sharp, and the nearer the injury is to
the center of the foot the more liable are disastrous results to follow.
Wounds in the heel and in the posterior parts of the frog are attended
with but little danger, unless they are so deep as to injure the lateral
cartilages, when quittor may follow. Punctured wounds of the anterior
parts of the sole are more dangerous, for the reason that the coffin
bone may be injured, and the suppuration, even when the wound is not
deep, tends to spread and always gives rise to intense suffering. The
most serious of the punctured wounds are those which happen to the
center of the foot, and which, in proportion to their depth, involve
the plantar cushion, the plantar aponeurosis, the sesamoid sheath, the
navicular bone, or the coffin joint.

Punctured wounds are more liable to be deep in flat or convex feet than
in well-made feet, and as a rule, recovery is neither so rapid nor so
certain. These wounds are less serious in animals used for heavy draft
than in those required to do faster work; for the former may be useful,
even if complete recovery is not effected. Lastly, punctured wounds of
the fore feet are more serious than of the hind feet, for the reason
that in the former the instrument is liable to enter the foot in a
nearly perpendicular line, and, consequently, is more liable to injure
the deeper structures of the foot; in the hind foot, the injury is
generally near the heels and the wound oblique and less deep.

_Symptoms._--A nail or other sharp instrument may