omplications are to be treated as directed under their proper
headings.
After healing of the wounds has been effected, lameness, with more or
less swelling of the coronary region, may remain. In such cases the
coronet should be blistered or even fired with the actual cautery, and
the patient turned to pasture. If the lameness still persists, and is
not due to a stiff joint, unnerving may be resorted to in many cases
with very good results. If the joint is anchylosed, no treatment can
relieve it, and the patient must either be put to very slow work or kept
for breeding purposes only.
"_Prick in shoeing_" is an injury which should be considered under the
head of punctured wounds of the foot. The nails by which the shoe is
fastened to the hoof may produce an injury followed by inflammation and
suppuration in two days, by penetrating the soft tissues directly or by
being driven so deep that the inner layers of the horn of the wall are
pressed against the soft tissues with such force as to crush them. In
either case, unless the injury is at the toe, the animal generally goes
lame soon after shoeing, when the first evidence of the trouble may be
the discharge of pus at the coronet. If lameness follows close upon the
setting of the shoes, without other appreciable cause, each nail should
be lightly struck with a hammer, when the one at fault will be detected
by the flinching of the animal.
Treatment consists in drawing the nail, and if the soft tissues have
been penetrated or suppuration has commenced, the horn must be pared
away until the diseased parts are exposed. The foot is now to be
poulticed for a day or two, or until the lameness and suppuration have
ceased. If the discharge of pus from the coronet is the first evidence
of the disease, the offending nail must be found and removed, the horn
pared out, and a weak solution of carbolic acid or compound cresol
injected at the coronet until the fistulous tract has healed.
CONTRACTED HEELS, OR HOOFBOUND.
Contracted heels, or hoofbound, is a common disease among horses kept on
hard floor in dry stables, and in such as are subject to much saddle
work. It consists in an atrophy, or shrinking, of the tissues of the
foot, whereby the lateral diameter of the heels is diminished. It
affects the fore feet principally; but it is seen occasionally in the
hind feet, where it is of less importance, for the reason that the hind
foot first strikes the ground with the toe, and c
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